The Missionary by Stephen N. Haskell

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 26, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 33.

The Missionary.

By Stephen N. Haskell

Ziska's Blindness and Death.

COULD God's people realize how his providence has been over his cause and work in every age of the world, unbelief would not have that prominent place in their hearts that it now has. A power has ever gone with, and been manifested in behalf of faithful devotion. God has raised up men at the right time with the necessary qualifications for the advancement of his cause. Ziska was a man of God's providence, raised up for the struggle through which the church was then passing. He had but one object before him and that was to do what he believed was God's will. God gave him especial wisdom and most remarkable success. In boyhood he had lost the sight of one eye and at the siege of Raby he lost the other eye; from which time he was totally blind. But his marvelous genius for arranging the army and directing its movements did not leave him. When it became known that his eyes were both gone his enemies rejoiced, thinking that then he and his people would be an easy prey; but unlike Samson, his hands were not bound, and he smote his enemies with swift, terrible, and unerring blows; and having overwhelmed them in ruin, himself retired from the field victorious.

His modes of warfare were as novel as they were successful. His wagons were linked together by strong chains, and arranged in lines. This formed a fortification through which the enemy must always come before they could reach his forces. This was called a wagenburg, and sometimes it was made to surround the whole army. Behind this rampart arose another, formed of the long wooden shields of the soldiers, stuck in the ground. These were formidable obstructions to the German cavalry, which was armed with pikes and battle axes. While they were hewing away at the wagons, in order to force their way through them, the Bohemian archers were plying them with their arrows. Thus their leading men were picked off, and their ranks greatly thinned before they could fight at all. This brought confusion into their ranks and greatly weakened them, while to the Bohemians it was mere sport. After the Germans had with great effort forced their way through this double fortification, they still found themselves working at great disadvantage. The Bohemians were armed with long iron flails, which they swung with prodigious force. Whenever they struck an enemy with one of these flails, and they never missed their aim, it would break through his helmet and crush his head. They also carried long spears which had hooks. With these they would bring the German horsemen speedily to the ground, and then dispatch them with their iron flails. Ziska fought in all, sixteen pitched battles, and from all of them he retired a conqueror.

The career of this remarkable man did not end on the battle-field. He did not fall by the sword. While occupied in the siege of Pryshislav, he was attacked by the plague, and died Oct. 11, 1424. It is said that on his death-bed he gave directions to have a drum made of his skin, believing that its sound would terrify the enemy, and years afterward a drum, said to be the one, was shown in a museum at Prague. Some historians, however, say that this is false, and no doubt it is. It would seem that the providence of God raised up this man to vindicate a people who were determined to protect God's word.

Before his death Ziska nominated as his successor, one Procopius. With his death came a feeling of depression among the Bohemians. They could not believe that any other man could do as well. But it was as it has ever been in God's cause, when his providence removes one man, it supplies another equally fitted to perform the work that he designs shall be done.

Notwithstanding Procopius was looked upon with suspicion for a time, he proved to have a knowledge in conducting the armies of the Bohemians which was not inferior to that of Ziska. He was the son of a noble of small fortune; a man of excellent education, which his maternal uncle, who had adopted him, had taken great care that he should receive. Not only this, but he had given him the advantages of traveling in many countries, the Holy Land among others, and his taste had been refined, and his understanding enlarged, by what he had seen and heard abroad. He had entered this warfare under Ziska with all his heart. His devotion to the cause was as ardent as Ziska's. If his spirit was less fiery, it was not because he was less brave. Ziska was a soldier, and a general; Procopius was a statesman in addition; and for that time, proved a better man than Ziska.

The remarkable feature in all the Bohemian wars was the religious sentiment that prevailed among the people and nerved them to action. Although different from the Waldenses as we have before explained, they adhered to the principles which they had adopted. They believed without a doubt that the time had come when the word of God should be preached in the Bohemian language, when there should be liberty of conscience, and when a reform should take place. They thought that they should defend themselves from their enemies for the sake of God's cause. It was this spirit that inspired them in every battle. It may be a question whether all their moves were right, but one thing is certain, God's providence was over them, and his blessing attended their efforts for many years, while they strictly adhered to principle.

At the death of Ziska their enemies took courage. The emperor was beginning to disrelish battles with them; although his army was much superior to theirs; but the pope continued to use all of his influence and power to keep up the crusade until all the heretics, as he called them, should be put out of existence. He urged Sigismund on, by repeatedly declaring to him that it was a more meritorious work to bring about the extirpation of the Bohemian adversaries than it was to overthrow the Turk, who was continually making inroads upon his territory. At intervals he would issue bulls ordaining new crusades against the Hussites. He wrote to the king of Poland exhorting him to extirpate the Bohemian heresy, and he sent legates to see to the execution of his wishes. All through Europe, wherever his influence was felt, he endeavored to raise means with which to subdue the Bohemians, and to inspire a spirit of warfare against them. It was his determination to rid Bohemia of his terrible adversaries. S. N. H.