The Missionary by Stephen Nelson Haskell

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 21, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 40.

The Missionary.

By Stephen Nelson Haskell

The Pope and the Bohemians Have a Council at Basel.

BASEL, Switzerland, during the time of the Reformation, was the center of much light. From time to time God honored this city with men and women of integrity of character, and to a greater or less extent they have left their stamp upon the people. The Spirit of God ever seems to linger around those spots, where his truth has been revered. His word is the only lamp that lights up this dark world of sin and pollution.

The invasion of Germany by the Bohemians, and the ignominious defeat of the several crusades that were sent against them, combined to bring about the results desired by Procopius. The papal party was now anxious to make peace, and a grand council was called at Basel. This council presented quite a contrast to the one held at Constance, where the leaders of the reform were condemned to be burned at the stake. Bohemia had been condemned as a heretic nation, and every one favoring the doctrine of Wickliffe, Huss, and Jerome, had been anathematized. Europe had risen up en masse against the little Bohemian nation, comprising only about nineteen thousand square miles. The Bohemians had been denounced by the Papacy, and every step had been taken to obliterate them as a nation, and as individuals. But God had defended them; and now the same power that had condemned them, and issued decrees for their extermination, appoints a council for the purpose of negotiating with them for peace. It was to the city of Basel that the Pope invited the despised Hussites for this purpose. It is no marvel that in the nineteenth century it should be a center from which light emanates to the dark portions of the Old World. It was carrying the war into the enemies' country that drove the Austrian soldiers out of Moravia, which afterward became the location for one of the greatest missionary schools that ever existed.

In the year 1432, letters were sent to the Bohemians, couched in the most friendly terms, and designed to open the way for peace, and to give the emperor quiet possession of the kingdom in which, as he said, he was born, and over which his father, brother, and uncle had reigned; but a nation of which he could not gain possession by force of arms. In order to induce the Bohemians to come to Basel to confer on the matters of difference between them, the Pope offered them a safe-conduct to and from the council, and a guarantee for the free celebration of their worship during their stay. He added a farther assurance that the council “would lovingly and gently hear their reasons.” The Hussites were not at all sanguine as to the results of the conference, and they felt doubts as to their personal safety. For some time the question was considered by them whether, under the circumstances, it was proper to have their nation represented at this conference, but finally some three hundred men decided to attend it, and do what they could to make peace. When they reached the city the inhabitants turned out en masse to see the men whose tenets were so abominable, and whose arms were so terrible. The streets were lined with spectators as they entered the city. Every

window and roof had its share of eager and anxious sight-seers. The Bohemians had been represented to them as having “teeth of iron, and eyes of demons,” and they expected to see some terrible looking objects in human form, in the men of Bohemia, who should appear in the council; but the tall figures and gallant bearing of the Bohemians, their faces scarred with battle, their eyes beaming with courage, were the subject of general comment. All eyes were drawn toward Procopius, and they said one to another: “This is the man who has so often put to flight the armies of the faithful,—who has destroyed so many cities, who has massacred so many thousands; the invincible, the valiant.”

After the opening of the council they were requested to present conditions of peace, which they did, claiming first, “The free preaching of the word; second, the right of the laity to the cup, and the use of the vernacular tongue in all parts of divine worship; third, the ineligibility of the clergy to secular office and rule; fourth, the execution of laws without respect to persons.” These four articles were generally understood to be the four principal points in the doctrines taught by Huss and Jerome, and they may be said to have formed the new constitution of the kingdom of Bohemia. They struck at the very foundation of the hierarchy of Rome, and implied a large measure of reform. The supreme authority of the Scriptures, which the Hussites maintained, implied the emancipation of the conscience, the beginning of all liberty. In their principles of reform they fell short of Wickliffe, who preceded them, as well as of Luther, who came after. But in Bohemia, the spiritual and intellectual were less powerfully developed; and the patriotic and military were in the ascendancy. Still the Bohemians acknowledged the great principle that the Bible is the only infallible authority, and when this was practically carried out, the fabric of Romanism was undermined.

S. N. H.