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THE STORY
OF THE
FAITH IN HUNGARY.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
"FROM DAWN TO DARK IN ITALY."
PHILADELPHIA:
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION,
No. 821 CHESTNUT STREET.




EsrCoTr &
s QG~OMSDN  / 
ITrEREOTYPERS  4 q
PIIILAD




CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE.......................................................    7
CHAPTER I.
HEATHEN   HUNGARY..........................................................
CHAPTER II.
THE  WALDENSES  IN  HUNGARY.......................................   15
CHAPTER III.
THE  GOLDEN  BULL.......................................17.................... 
CHAPTER IV.
HUSSITES  IN  HUNGARY......................................................    20
CHAPTER V.
THE  CRESCENT  AND  THE  CROSS.............................           24'
CHAPTER VI.
RISE  OF  THE  REFORMATION.................................................   28
CHAPTER VII.
cs...........................................................................   32
3




4                                  CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VIII.
PAGE
QUEEN MARY OF HUNGARY,........35.................. 35
CHAPTER IX.
RIVAL  ROYAL  PERSECUTORS.............................................. 3
CHAPTER X.
THE  HUNGARIAN  LUTHER............................................   45
CHAPTER XI.
FERDINAND  AND  THE  HERETIC..................5..........  53
CHAPTER XII.
PLAGUE  COLUBINS..............................................................  60
CHAPTER XIII.
THE  HUNGARIAN  BIBLE.....................................................  63
CHAPTER XIV.
MIELANCTHON'S  LETTERS......................................................  66
CHAPTER XV.
CONFERENCES AND  CONCESSIONS............................................   70
CHAPTER XVI.
THE  DIET  OF  EDENBERG.................................................. 76
CHAPTER XVII.
TIHE  FIRST  MAXIMILIAN.....................................................  81
CHAPTER XVIII.
FORMAL  SEPARATION  FROMI  ROOIE.........................................  86
CHAPTER XIX.
TROUBLOUS  TIIIES............................................................   89




CONTENTS.                                         5
CHAPTER XX.
PAGE
THE  FREE  CITIES..............................................,,....,  95
CHAPTER XXI.
"THE  TWENTY-SECOND  ARTICLE".............................,98
CHAPTER XXII.
MATTHIAS BOTSAY...........................................................  101
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE  PEACE  OF VIENNA...................................................... 104
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE  SYNOD OF SILLEIN.....................................................  108
CHAPTER XXV.
THE  SECOND FERDINAND..........................           112
CHAPTER XXVI.
PRINCE  BETHELEN  GABOR................................................ 115
CHAPTER XXVII.
RAKOTZY'S  REBELLION.,.........................,.....  120
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE  PALATINE  AND THE  ARCHBISHOP............................. 123
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE JESUITS' GOLDEN  AGE..............................................  126
CHAPTER XXX.
TRIAL OF THE PASTORS............................................... 134
CHAPTER XXXI.
PASTORS  TO TIHE  GALLEYS.................................................. 138




6                         CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXXII.
PAGE
DELIVERANCE BY THE DUTCH.............................................     142
CHAPTER XXXIII.
"IN DENS AND CAVES OF THE EARTH"................................ 146
CHAPTER XXXIV.
KARAFFA AND HIS BLUTSGERICHT............................         150
CHAPTER XXXV.
ANOTHER   R.XKOTZY.............................................................  154
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE PESTH COMMISSION AND PRAGIMATIC SANCTION................. 159
CHAPTER XXXVII.
MARIA THERES A.............................................................. 166
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
JOSEPH THE SECOND........................................................... 171
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE EDICT OF TOLERATION.................................................  174




PREFACE.
"A BRANCH of the great family of the gospel has been
forgotten by the rest," writes Merle d'Aubigne of the
Hungarian Reformed Church. The accusation is true.
Who knows anything of her creeds and her martyrs-of her
struggles for the truth, her trials and her triumphs? She
has dropped completely out of the reckoning of her sister
churches, yet not one of them  all (except perhaps the
Vaudois) made a longer or a braver fight for the faith once
delivered to the saints.
Few English Christians are aware how very nearly a
Protestant land Hungary had once become. Only three
families among all her magnates were Roman Catholics,
and the proportion of Reformed among her people was
thirty to one when our Queen Elizabeth ascended the
English throne.  But priest and potentate used all the
arts of evil to suppress the religion of the Bible with
too much success, for a time.
"The Story of the Faith in Hungary " was written before the startling events of the last war. Since the defeat
and humiliation of Austria, the position of Hungary is no
longer that of an oppressed province of the empire, at the
mercy of the Jesuits who influenced the counsels of its
rulers at Vienna.  The coronation of the emperor at
7




8                     PREFA CE.
Pesth as king of Hungary is an acknowledgment of the
aricient rights and privileges of the Mtagyar people. Let
us hope that the political changes of the last few years
will secure the religious as well as the civil liberties of'
the Hungarians, and that Protestant and evangelical truth
will flourish throughout the land.
But let us begin the chequered story.




THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.
CHAPTER I.
HEATHEN HUNGARY.
HE  Romans called  it Dacia when their
emperor Trajan conquered  it and sent
colonies thither. Remnants of his bridges,
aqueducts and military roads yet remain,
dating from a hundred years after the Christian
era.
Those colonies were not long-lived, for the blueeyed Goths swept them away about A.D. 270, and
were in their turn overrun by the irresistible
Tartar Huns, when every nascent civilization disappeared. Yet even among them did certain pious
missionaries in monks' cowls travel from the outlying southern Christianity, and tell them whatever
good thing they knew of the religion of our Lord
Jesus; but their teaching was so overlaid with
ceremony and superstition that it produced little
real effect. Another Asiatic tribe of nomad con9




10        THEY FAITH IN HUNGARY.
querors, the Magyars, came crowding from the teeming East, claiming their descent from the Huns, and
in virtue of their strong right hands seizing every
town and fastness.  The language of these Tartars
is that of Hungary at this day-a tongue so widely
different from our inflectionized English, and from
the German that hems it in and runs over the
upper strata of Hungarian society, that the width
of the globe might suitably separate between the
speakers of each-a living link of relationship with
races so remote as even the Mongols that subdued
China.
The names of two Christian teachers have come
down to us from the chaotic darkness of that age
(when deeds of arms were the sole material for
fame) as men whose labours were blessed of God.
These were Cyril of Illyria and his brother Methodius. They found the Magyars worshipping a
fierce war-god as their chief deity, whose symbol
was a sword-likewise worshipping the sun and
moon, likewise fire.  And whereas a family resemblance runs through the heathenish of all lands,
these idolaters were used to offer sacrifice on
heaped stones, as did the Druids, and amid
groves of trees, like the Canaanites and early
Greeks; also at lakes and springs of water.




THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.             11
They had soothsayers and augurs. Very slowly
spread the truth among them; its precepts of peace
and lowliness were most distasteful to the haughty
M[agyars.  It- was not as with the nation of
Moravia, which espoused the forms of Christiadnity
because their king, Swatopluek, did so at Cyril's
teaching.  The Magyar spirit had to be broken by
successive reverses before it would submit to the
new  faith.  Henry the bird-catcher (a German
emperor) slew thirty thousand of them at Merseberg; Otho broke their forces at Augsburg. Illn
the national humbling they forsook their idols.numerously.  We find in the royal family of this
date (950) some Christian names, proving that
baptism had penetrated into high places.
Women and captives were God's weak agencies
(as elsewhere) for spreading his gospel. Charlotte,
daughter of a Christianized Transylvanian prince,
was married to the Hungarian regent Geyza, and
used all her influence for the cause, until in 977
she had the pleasure of seeing her husband solemnly
baptized. Meanwhile, scattered among his subjects
were scores of prisoners from the German warssome of them priests, who published on all sides
their religion. Thus quietly was a reforming work
being done, until Geyza, with rash zeal, orders a




1.2       T THE FAITH IN HTUTiYAR Y.
national L)aptism in the Moravian style above mentioned.  IHis subjects rebel, and the well-nmeaning
king has strife for all his days-strife which is
transmitted with the crown to his son Stephen,
afterward surnamed the Saint; the pious son of
a pious mother, which is a connection frequent
enough to seem like a naming of effect and cause.
Even now, after a lapse of eight centuries and a
half, he is the blessed hero of Hungarian hearts.
No king will they acknowledge whose brow is not
circled with St. Stephen's crown, and on the day
of his coronation he must ascend the tumulus
outside Pres'burg with the sword of St. Stephen in
his hand, wherewith to cut a cross in the air, while
he repeats St. Stephen's vow, and on the f~te-day
of the latter (20th August) that national Hungarian
relic, his hand, is paraded solemnly through Buda
and Pesth, in a procession with much pomp of
priesthood and state officials.
What did Stephen to earn this protracted remembrance?  More than most monarchs on whom
fame attends: he encouraged the spread of the
Christian religion in his land by every means in
his power; he divided his realm into counties and
circuits, over which he placed palatines and judges;
he established schools and secured the rights of




T'E FAITI  IN HUN~GARY.          13
property. These were vast boons in that wild age,
when as yet Dane and Saxon disputed the English
sceptre. But Charlemagne had set a bad example
of the royal method of conversion by force, and
lesser princes were apt to imitate him. Stephen
of Hungary issued an edict commanding his people
to change their religion under heavy penalties.
This to the free and independent Magyars, with
the wild blood of the desert coursing among them
still! These dwellers of the "'heaths" and forest
villages (pagan-i) were yet " heathen" and pagan in
the deepest sense. Still they lad traditions of that
hurricane-rush along the nortlh shores of the Euxine into Pannonia, and of Arpad their leader, and
the sun-worship of the horde: they rose en masse
against Stephen and his edict.
The ruins of a Benedictine monastery yet stand
which he built and endowed in acknowledgmllent
of his victory over them. Thenceforward throughout Hungary the Sabbath-day was observed, so
that all cattle and implements found doing work
were confiscated. Pope Sylvester sent him the
aforesaid crown, calling it "holy and apostolic,"
and congratulating him on -the establishment of
Christianity.
But for fifty years thereafter the struggle with




14        THE FAITII IN HUNGARY.
paganism went on. Andrew the First was invited
to fill the throne, on condition that he would overthrow Christianity.
There is a huge rock at Budas, rising jagged from
the Danube's edge over that fine city, and named
by Germans the Blocksberg: an observatory now
stands on its summit.  But on the same site, long
ago, a holy hermit established himself, and went
about the neighbouring district teaching his religion; and during these wars in Andrew's time
he was flung from the brow of the Blocksberg into
the broad current beneath, by.some of the savage
Magyars whom  he sought to convert.  WThence
the peak is still called St. Gellert's Hill.
King Ladislaus, in 1080, was yet contending
with heathen Hungarians.  Such choice as Mohiammed offered in his conquests-" the Koran or
the sword"-was also the offer of Ladislaus to
those whom  he subdued —" baptism  or death."
The former alternative was largely preferred, and the
king was canonized for his wholesale conversions.
It was a good thing to supplant paganism by
any species of Christianity, so far as this world's
gear is concerned. The old sacrifices at stones and
streams, and to the war-god, became extinct before
the year 1100.




CHAPTER II.
THE WALDENSES IN HUNGARY.
S God has never left himself without witness
during even the darkest times, so while the
Christian Church was slowly corrupting
into the Greek and Rornish apostasies, a
band of believers called Paulicians had appeared
to uphold the purity of the gospel. From Asia
iMinor they penetrated into Thrace, Bulgaria, Croatia-lineal ancestors to the Albigenses, among
whom Peter Waldo was the most renowned teacher.
According to the testimony of those enemies who
burned and crucified them in hundreds, they denied
the orthodox faith, inasmuch as they would not
adore the mother of God nor believe the sacramental bread to be Christ's body. We find these
heretics abundant in Hungary about 1176; and
their numbers were recruited by refugees from
France and Italy, trying to escape the sword of
Pope Innocent III.  Dalmatia and Bosnia were
full of these unfortunates, who appealed for protec15




16        TUIEl FA'ITII IN HlUNGARY.
tion to the ban, and to his superior lord, Emerich,
king of FHungary.
The pope sent a bloodthirsty demand for them,
couched (according to his wont) in sweet language.
But the ban's own wife had joined them, the
bishop of Bosnia had joined them, ten thousand
Dalmatians had joined them-how was it possible
to obey?  Then the king of Hungary was ordered
to let loose his soldiers upon the heretics, and there
wanted but the sinful subservience of one man to
repeat such vast crimes as Simon de Montfort and
the  monk Dominiic  perpetrated in  Languedoc.
Emrerich refused  to shed  innocent blood, and
Bosnia was for some time a safe refuge for the
Waldenses, who travelled about in the neighbouring states with their "'good news," and made so
many converts among the peasantry and lesser
nobles that the Hungarian hierarchy at last called
out for the Inquisition.
Tides of crusaders passed through the country at
intervals during these years. One Hungarian king
joined them  with some thousands of Magyar
cavalry; he brought home a quantity of the most
approved relics, and the daughter of the Greek emperor to be the wife of his son and successor, Bela.




CHAPTER III.
THE GOLDEN BULL.
UST  what Magna Charta is in English,@f' "history, the "Golden Bull" is in Hungarian. The inferior nobles rose against the
tyranny of this crusading king (who, like
our John, while a slave to the pope, was a despot
to his subjects), and forced him to grant them
sundry  privileges, or rather to  confirm  their
liberties. It was only seven years after Runnymede that this similar transaction between prince
and people took place in distant Hungary, and on
it are based all the rights of the nobles, or freemen,
at the present hour.
The priesthood acquired by it freedom  from
taxation, and tithes of corn and wine payable in
kind for ever; and the last article of the charter
recognized the right of the nation to resist in case
the king should fail in his oath to observe it.
Speedily the nobles had occasion to put in practice
this provision; for the crusading king (carrying
2                                    17




18        THLE FAIThI IN IHUNGARY.
out his resemblance to John Lackland) seized
every opportunity of infringement. He gave the
farming of the revenues to Mohammedans and
pagans, who, copying their Christian neighbours,
oppressed the people to make them change their
religion. The pope exhorted the king about this
and much other misconduct, and at last the archbishop of Gran laid the country under interdict.
All squabbles were stopped by a crushing calamity. Half a million of wild Mongols crossed the
Carpathians and like a flood surged over Hungary.
They came flushed with conquest from  Moscow
and Moravia. A tremendous defeat was suffered
by the Magyar army, and for a year the Tartars
had the kingdom at their mercy. Devastation was
their delight. "'Some of the inhabitants fled to
the marshes and impenetrable forests; the rest
were butchered without exception.  When the
remnant began to return from their hiding-places,
they found the wild beasts so numerous that
wolves took infants out of the cradle! The plague
broke out, and swarms of locusts came devouring
every green thing; the people lived on carrionnay, even human flesh was publicly sold in the
market! A terrible judgment of God lay on the
land."




THIE FAITH IN HUNGARY.          19
Yet when it was thus miserably exhausted after
the retreat of the Tartars, did Pope Gregory IX.
command the Hungarian king to go on crusade
against the heretic king of Bulgaria. Bela declined: his hands were. quite full enough of homework, and to get his people bread and houses seemed
to him more important than killing Waldenses.
At Ofen (which is Buda, but so called from the
hot springs) these heretics had become so numerous,
that upon the papal legate's publishing a severe
edict against them, he found it prudent to leave
the city. The Inquisition had been introduced,
but failed to work well while so much popular
power remained. Each noble, by the Golden Bull,
was protected from all arbitrary imprisonment, and
only the king had power of life and death. These
circumstances deprived the Inquisition of its most
terrible prerogatives, and reduced it to a mere
court of inquiry; which, indeed, is the pretence of
its name.
A Hungarian martyr, named Simeon Scaliger,
was at this period burned in Vienna (just beyond
the frontier) for teaching the truth. It was as if
to show what the ecclesiastics would do within the
frontier if they dared.




CHAPTER IV.
HUSSITES IN HUNGARY.
HE freedom of the Hungarian constitution,
warranted by the Golden Bull, caused the
country to become a nest of refugees. The
persecuted Hussites of Bohemia fled thither,
and wherever they settled, fresh heretics sprang up
with doctrines intolerable to the clergy. No purgatory, no prayers for the dead, no images, no confessional, no worship of saints, no pope —these men
anticipated all the reforms of the Reformation.
They were compelled to defend themselves in Bohemia, and defeated the imperial troops eleven
times successively under Ziska, but finally he led
the remnants of his army into the heart of Hungary, and they formed whole colonies, with churches
and congregations of their own, under the shadow
of the Golden Bull.
Rome could not but be disquieted at their quiet.
She stirred up the famous and learned king Matthias Corvinus against them, who not only op20




TIHE FAIT.H IN lHUNGARY.           21
pressed these his harmless subjects at her bidding,
but also plunged into a war with his father-in-law,
Podiebrad of Bohemia, the protector of the Hussites. Yet he refused point-blank to give the
pope any rights within his realm other than those
already enjoyed; that right of bestowing bishoprics.
and abbacies, which was staunchly retained by
English kings, was likewise firmly grasped by
Matthias.  And he took delight in such satires
on the dominant Church as were written by the
bishop of Wardein, surnamed Pannonicus, who
sneered at pilgrimage thus:
"0 Spaniards, Gauls, Slavonians, Germans, Huns,
Ye seek the gates of him who bears the keys;
Why run so far, ye fools? To enrich the Latin gods?
Is no one saved, then, who remains at home?"
Corvinus founded a library at Ofen, and established a printing-press. For the latter its noblest
work might soon have been found in publication
of the sacred Scriptures. The Hungarian version
lay ready for type. An obscure monk, named
Ladislaus Btathory, had some time previously left
his brethren of the monastery of St. Paul and
retired to a small cavern in the mountain near by;
here he lived upon roots, wild fruits and the water




22        THE FAITHI IN HUNGARY.
of a spring gushing over the rock, while he devoted
hiimself to the translation of the Bible from Latin
into Hungarian. No person would he see or speak
to, lest it might delay his great performance,
whereat tradition declares that he was occupied for
the greater part of twenty silent years.
Portions of a translation are also stored in the
Imperial Library of Vienna, which were made by
two Franciscan monks who fled to Moldavia for
shelter because they were Hussites. Christians in
those dreary ages instinctively felt that the great
cure for the evils of the Church was the diffusion
of God's word, which " giveth light and understanding to the simple."  Many a monk in the
scriptorium oI his convent, weary of illuminating
missals, and having learning enough for the attempt,
tried his hand on rendering into the vulgar tongue
of his country the life-giving gospels which com —
forted himself. And until that word was widely
diffused in Hungary there could be nothing but
partial illumination; here a few, and there a few,
who were happy believers in Christ.
The mass of the nation lodged in such darkness
that one hundred and forty holy places possessed
images of the Virgin which worked miracles, and
which sometimes were carried about from village




THE FAITIT IN HUNGARY.           23
to village for greater profit. "Superstition was so
universal that escape from danger, victory gained,
any signal favour' whatever was not ascribed to
God or Christ, but to Mary, or Martin, or George,
or Ladislaus. Some set up public monuments to
the saints for their imaginary help, as Prince Baithory in 1489. The numbers of monks who seemed
born for nothing else than to eat, were, with their
begging habits, a terrible plague to the oppressed
country-people, and by their ignorance, superstition
and immorality tended to degrade the nation."
Such were the men who dared to persecute the
God-fearing Hussites. But in the beginning of the
sixteenth century there was a pause —a terrible
danger loomed imminent. The Turk had gathered
his armies and the shadow of the Crescent fell over
the land.




CHAPTER V.
THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS.
(UNGARY  had been the border-land between Paganism and Christianity for many
a hundred years: now it was to be the
battle-field between the Crescent and the
Cross.
A name very well known to Englishmen within
the last ten years is that of Varna, which emerged
from obscurity with the Crimean War. Once before was it distinguished by the lurid light of
battle, when the Turks under Amurad II. conquered the Hungarians under the king Vladislaus.
He had shortly before concluded a treaty with the
court of Rome, in which he promised that the
Hussites in his kingdom  should be utterly destroyed, and then, stimulated by the legate-cardinal
Julian, under pretext that faith is not to be kept
with infidels, he broke his solemnly-sworn truce
with the Turks. The latter crime wrought out
punishment for the former.
24




. THE FAITH IN HUNGARPY.          25
And when the sultan, sitting on horseback in
the midst of his janissaries, saw the Hungarian
monarch marching down the height to battle, he
raised his hands to heaven: " God of the Christians!
punish the traitor who dishonoureth thy holy name
by breaking his oath!"  Vladislaus fell that day,
and with him the persecuting legate.
The Hussites had peace for a while amid these
storms of warfare. The battle of Belgrade was a
victory to the Hungarian king Hunyadi over two
hundred thousand M'Ioslems. But the numbers and
perseverance of the latter rendered them practically
unconquerable; they returned again and again, as
the Tartar hordes had done and as locusts march
onward despite fire and steel. To this day remain
in border counties the fortified churches, whither
an alarm-bell summoned the peasants and their
families when the first gleam of the dreaded turban
and horsetail standard was seen coming through
the passes of the Carpathians. A perpetual watchman stood on the little church-tower and the man
driving the plough wore a cutlass; and his next
act after the sound of the alarm was to gather his
cattle as well as his household within the churchyard wall, which was built with battlements and
port-holes, frequently with towers. The Moslem




26        THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.
cavalry found these humble fortifications often impregnable, because of the breastwork of daring and
determined hearts within.
The archbishop of Grin went to Rome, hoping
to persuade Leo X. to give help against the Turks.
Just then the great treasury of indulgences had
been discovered, and the pope made a munificent
present of what cost him nothing. Armed with an
immense mass of indulgences, the prelate returned
to Hungary. Who would go to battle with the infidel?-the commonest soldier might earn unlimited
forgiveness of sins by enlisting. And such is the
craving of men for the pardon which they know
their souls need that a hundred thousand were
easily brought together. Without pay, without
commissariat, they soon became more dangerous to
friends than foes. Their white flag embroidered
with the red cross became the standard of a servile
war, in which four hundred of the nobility and
fourteen bishops perished, with seventy thousand
of the peasantry. So the Turks did not receive
much harm from this attempt to revive the Crusades, and the least part of the barbarous punishmnent inflicted on Dorsa, the popular leader, was
his being seated on a red-hot throne and crowned
w7ith a red-hot crown.




THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.            27
Troops came from Germany to assist the Cross
against the Crescent. Among them were many
thinking men, who had learned of Luther's ninetyfive theses and read his minor works and imbibed
the spirit of the Reformation. They sang his
hymns as war-songs; they despised the clergy and
ridiculed miraculous images. The leaven of the
new doctrines spread rapidly, and coalesced with
the deep-buried Hussite predilections of the people.




CHAPTER VI.
RISE OF THE REFORMATION.
HERE  was perhaps scarcely  any  other.
land,  writes the historian,  in which so
~?~   many persons in so short a time openly
forsook the old Church.  The Reformation
appears at once, before us like a powerful stream,
and when we search carefully after its source we
find it losing itself amid wars and misery-like
those rivers of Africa whose springs lie hidden in
shifting sands."
The political constitution of Hungary, guaranteed by the Golden Bull, was so framned in the
interests of freedom as to render persecution a
difficult matter. Presently, Luther's writings were
read everywhere, and the priests could do nothing
but condemn them from the pulpit; and this very
condemnation acted favourably for their spread,
because the priests were detested and despised by
the nobility, which class comprises all the freeholders of 1Hungary.  There was a wonderful
28




THIE FAITH IN HUNGARY.           29
movement in the land. Simon Grynaus, professor
in the Royal College at Ofen (which is also Buda),
preached publicly "the doctrines which Luther
had discovered," as a tolerant Turkish pasha afterward called them.  His bishop flung him into
prison, but was obliged immediately to set him
free again.'" The living word, coming from hearts warmed
by conviction, produced a marvellous effect. In a
short time whole parishes, villages, towns-yea,
perhaps the half of Hungary-declared for the
Reformation."  In one parish the preaching of a
German pastor induced the entire mining population to become Lutherans, and they at once established communion in both kinds.  Count Mark
Pempflinger had a quarrel with the archbishop of
Gran, and to spite him encouraged the new teachers in his towns and protected the readers of Luther's books.. "ZNotwithstanding, every  way,
whether in pretence or in truth, Christ was
preached," and "much people was added unto
the Lord."
Two Silesian monks, who had been to Wittemberg and learned from  Luther's self, travelled
about the country with the word of God in their
hands, and converted the head-knowledge of many




30        THE FAITIS IN HUNGARY.
a citizen and peasant noble into the heart-knowledge of true Christians. The archbishop persuaded  these monks to visit Gran  under safe
conduct from the king; which royal promise availed them as much as it had availed John Huss, for
the Church had ways of disposing of her own disobedient underlings with which the Golden Bull
could not interfere. A third monk, protected by
the immediate presence of Count Pempflinger,
delivered a series of popular lectures on Luther's
theses in the Transylvanian capital itself.  His
zealous converts preached and catechised in the
open air, in streets and market-places.  When
Corpus Christi day arrived, and the superb ceremonies of the festival invited all comers, many
dissenting voices were heard.   " These priests
think God to be a child, whom they must carry
about in their arms," said one. Disrespectful observations were made about the noonday candlelight of the processions and the mumbled music.
The craft of the Church was in danger, by which
she had her wealth.
The wisest of men hath written, "Woe unto
thee, 0 land, when thy king is a child!" Louis of
Hungary was only sixteen when he became the
blind tool of the Roinish hierarchy.  A clever




THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.            31
legate was sent to be his ecclesiastical tutor, even
that Cardinal Caj6tan who tried his hand with
Luther and failed, but now he easily gained his
point of having a murderous edict issued: "All
Lutherans and those who favour them"-a sweeping clause, verily!-" shall have their property
confiscated and be themselves punished with death,
as heretics and foes of the most holy Virgin Mary."
How would that "blessed among women" be
grieved if she could know the crimes that have
been committed in her name! Not long afterward
the pastor Nicolai, of a certain mining town in the
mountains, being convicted of the above offences,
was stabbed and burned near the castle of Dobrony, as a heretic " who had refused the Virgin
Mary her due honour."
A worse edict was procured at the Diet of Bakosch next year:' All Lutherans shall be rooted
out of the land, and wherever they are found,
either by clergy or laymen, they may be seized and
burned."
Hitherto, the chief burnings had been of books,
but such fuel was too insensible to satisfy the enemies of the gospel. And again did God make the
wrath of men to praise him by using the scourge
of the Moslem sword to stay the persecutors.




CHAPTER VII.
MOHACS.
XHE  voyager up the Danube at this dlay
pauses in his course to gaze at the great
fortress of Peterwardein, which is the Gibraltar of Hungary.  He sees a mighty
rock fronted with bastions, long lines of curtain
and half-moon batteries just revealing the iron
lips of cannon, and wonders whether ever a foe
captured the seemingly impregnable fastness. Solynlan the Magnificent did capture the fortress in
the year 1526, and in the pride of his achievements dictated a letter to King Louis, demanding
tribute firom him.
A little farther on the voyager passes the insignificant village of Iohlacs, with which name Europe once rang as with unexampled disaster. Louis
of Hungary had gathered an army, helped by sixty
thousand ducats friom  the pope, and the silver
coffin of St. Gerhard melted down for the occasion, yet he could muster only twenty-seven thou32




1THItE FAITH IN HUNGARYI         33
sand men, and no better general than an archbishop. He and they were all slain, for the Turks
were fifteen to one. The ruby-hilted sword of the
unfortunate Louis is yet to be seen in the palace
of the Esterhazy princes.
The issue of the battle had been foretold by one
of the bishops present, who remarked, satirically,
" Here go twenty-six thousand Hungarians, under
the guidance of the Franciscan Tomory, as martyrs
for the faith; and it would be highly desirable if
at least the chancellor, who is acquainted with the
pope, could be spared to go to Rome and have
them all canonized!"
The triumphant Solyman marched to Ofen and
burned the town. Long did literature mourn the
destruction of the famous library gathered there
by King Matthias Corvinus, containing forty
thousand manuscript volumes; for he kept thirty
secretaries constantly copying books which he borrowed from the universities and princes of other
countries. The learned Brassican, who visited the
library in its palmy days, wrote thus enthusiastically about it: "I have seen all these books.
Do I call them books?  So many treasures did I
contemplate there! Who can believe what I felt
at such a spectacle!"  But now Solyman burned
3




34        THE FAITI IN HI UNGARY.
them all, and the glory of Corvinus and his kingdom was departed.
In the confusion consequent on this irruption of
the Turks heresy was let alone. Who should be
elected king-whether the native Hungarian, John
Zapolya, or the German Ferdinand, brother of the
emperor Charles V. and afterward king of the Romans-was a more interesting question than any
theological one, even to the Church of Rome.




CHAPTER VIII.
QUEEN MARY OF HUNGARY.
~    ERDINAND was also brother to the widow
of King Louis, and she supported his cause
(~) with all her power. This royal lady was
no4 only a patron of the Reformers, having
for her chaplain the devoted John Henkel, a friend
of Erasmus, but she seems to have received the
truth of God into her own heart. She always
carried about with her a Latin Testament, full of
annotations in her own writing; proving that she
not only read the word, but sought to meditate
upon and understand it. Luther wrote to her,
saying he had " with great pleasure seen that she
was a friend of the gospel;" and he sent her four
psalms he had translated, and a hymn he had
composed for her comfort ("Mag auf Ungliick
nicht wiederstehn").
Lying in. the broad Danube at Buda are some
beautiful islets, which have often been connected
with Hungarian history; hoary ruins still remain
35




36          TtIE FAITH IN HUNGARIY
to attest departed greatness. On one of these took
place the parting of the youthful Queen Mary and
her husband Louis, before he went to be slain at
MNohcics. They had been but, a short time married,
and they loved one another: more need not be said
of the bitterness of the blow to her heart.
She was hated  by the Romish party for her
adherence to the Reformed doctrines; and now, that
the protection of her husband was removed, the
prelates, always noted for persecution of the wealk,
made her sharply feel their enmity.  Her sorrowful spirit found utterance, amid all her state anxieties and personal trouble, in verses which have
been translated thus:
"This is my strength, that well I know,
In weal or woe,
God's love the world must leave me:
God is not far, though hidden now:
He soon shall rise, and make them bow
Who of his word bereave me.
"Judge as ye will my cause this hour,
Yours is the power;
God bids me strive no longer:
I know what mightiest seems to-day
Shall pass away:
Time than your rule is stronger.




THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.                 37
Th' Eternal Good I rather choose,
And fearless, all for this I lose:
God aid me thus to conquer!
"All hath its day, the proverb saith:
This is my faith,
Thou, Christ, wilt be beside me:
And look on all this pain of mine
As it were thine,
When sharpest woes betide me.
Must I then tread this path?-I yield;
World, as thou wilt! God is my shield,
And he will rightly guard me."
With this faith, as " an anchor of the soul, sure
and steadfast," the widowed queen left Hungary
and went to the court of her imperial brother, who
did her much honour, and would not suffer her to
be molested for religion's sake. She was present
at the celebrated Diet of Augsburg (1530), where
her heart must have echoed the Protestant Confession; and when Charles silenced all other Reformed
preachers in attendance, her aforesaid chaplain,
John  Henkel, continued  daily  to expound  the
the word of God before her. Subsequently she
was regent in the Low Countries, and showed her
unfitness for the pope's purposes so markedly that
his nuncio complained that "the queen did not
cease on all occasions to show favour to the




38        THE FAITH IIN HUNGARY.
Lutheran religion;" the special ground of which
accusation was, that she had tried to throw a shield
over the persecuted Protestants of France. And
so she passed away from the history of Hungary,
leaving that land of her' brief wifehood rent in
twain under rival kings and its capital possessed
by the infidel.




CHAPTER IX.
RIVAL ROYAL PERSECUTORS.
HE crown had been elective in Hungary
since 1301, when the line of the Magyar
chief Arpad ceased. Strangely wild were
the scenes that often took place at these
royal elections, where a kingdom  was the prize.
Matthias Corvinus, the monarch of whom Hungarian history is proudest, was proclaimed by forty
thousand soldiers standing on the frozen Danube
beneath the terraced heights of Buda. At other
times the Magyar nobility  assembled on  the
Rdkos Mez6, or field of Rdkos, the great sandy
plain outside Pesth, which is the modern suburb
(across the Danube) of the grand old capital, Buda.
Here they gathered, all armed and appointed for
war, from the proudest magnate to the petty
"sandalled" noble-a turbulent parliament, in
sooth!  Calmness in council, conjoined with a
liability to sudden outbursts of violent feeling, is a
characteristic of the Eastern races, to which belongs
39




40        THE FAITH INA HUNGARY.
the Magyar: the latter occurred with more frequency than the former. At such a diet was the
resolution carried by storms of acclamation in
1505 that for the future "no foreigner should be
chosen king: a native Hungarian must wear the
crown of Stephen," because the reigning monarch
was that indolent Ladislaus, surnamed "Dobre,"
or "Very well," for the reason that to every request of every nature he was wont to reply this
word, signifying that the petitioner might have it
as he pleased; the king could not take the trouble
of investigation or denial.  His incapacity produced so much mischief (among others, severe
persecutions of the Hussites, for Ladislaus could
not find in his heart to deny the desires of the
priests) that the diet, illogically tracing his moral
weakness to his foreign blood, declared that in
future a Hungarian only should rule over Hungary.
The person chiefly instrumental in obtaining this
decree had a distant design upon the crown himself.  He was voivode of Transylvania, John
Zapolya by name; and when Solynman had left the
country, recalled to Turkey by internal troubles,'he was chosen king by a gathering of nobles three
months after the battle of Mohaics.




TIHE FAITH IN HUNGARY.           41
But Ferdinand of Austria was also chosen king
by a Diet of Presburg; and in the very same
cathedral which was signalized by the crowning of
John in November, 1526, was Ferdinand crowned
November, 1527, by the same archbishop. And
now which of these rival monarchs would bid
highest for the all-powerful support of the Church?
He who persecuted best and most. John issued
an edict against the Lutherans, threatening confiscation of goods if they did not return to Romanism. Some burnings took place with his royal
sanction in the mining districts, where the shafts
of the underground workings did duty, as once did
the catacombs, in protecting the persecuted servants
of God.
And Ferdinand, not to be behindhand, issued a
much more elaborate proclamation  from Buda as
soon as he got possession, setting forth that "' whoever mischievously and perseveringly holds and
believes anything contrary to the twelve articles of,our holy Christian faith, or contrary to the seven
sacraments, shall be punished in his body and life.
He shall lose his honours, and can never again be
admitted to a place of trust. No one is bound to
keep any contract with him or pay any debt. He
has no right to buy or sell; no right to work at a




42        TIIE FAITH IN HUNGARY.
trade or profession; he cannot make a will. A
Roman Catholic father may disinherit a heretic
son, and an orthodox son may dispossess a heretic
father of his property."
Thus was "'the commandment of God set at
naught" by the evil counsellors of Ferdinandthe eternal commandments, written in nature as
well as in revelation, by which men honour their
parents; and another word of Christ was fulfilled
when he said that the foes of his followers should
be those of their own households. The decree put
a premium upon filial disloyalty, and introduced
the basest system of spying and informing into the
closest relationships of life. It is well to know
that an unchangeable Rome once approved such
conduct.
Furthermore, the heaviest penalties were denounced against whoever should "despise or dishonour the eternal, pure, elect queen, the Virgin
Mary, by saying, holding, writing, or preaching,
that she was only a woman like other women on
earth; that she is not the mother of God; that she
did not ascend into heaven."  Partaking of both
bread and wine in the Lord's Supper was a crime
to be also visited on the house in which such a
deed took place: it was, "according to the royal




TIUE FAITH IN HUNGARY.            43
pleasure, to be torn down, for an eternal testimony.
Whoever mischievously holds that the mass has no
merits for souls in purgatory shall be banished
from  the kingdom."  All who received heretics
into  their houses  were  declared  " ipso facto
infamous," and deprived of the rights of citizens;
any magistrates or judges who neglected to carry
out the edict subjected their town to the loss of all
its privileges.  The informer respecting any of
these offences should have the third of the confiscated property. And lest good Catholics should
not be aware of their opportunities of enriching
themselves at the expense of any Protestant friend
or neighbour, the edict was directed to be solemnly
read from every pulpit in Hungary at the festivals
of Easter and Christmas.
Nevertheless, the truth spread and prospered.
A great many of the magnates declared for the
Reformation.  In Transylvania the municipal authorities of the capital, Hermannstadt, ordered all
monks and nuns to leave the city and take with
them  their possessions, or else to "give up their
mummeries and live according to the gospel."
This produced a great change, for monasteries are
the pope's fortresses sprinkled through a land.
Except for the threatening yet protecting shadow




44        THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.
of Sultan Solyman, the  Transylvanians scarce
dared thus defy the Romish hierarchy; but he
came back to Hungary in that year, 1529, to help
his ally John Zapolya, and held a divan at Buda,
where he bound himself never to forsake that king,
even to the cost of his own empire.  Ferdinand
had retired into Austria and was presiding at the
German Diet of Spires, and so the rival persecutions were stayed for the present.




CHAPTER  X.
THE HUNGARIAN LUTHER.
-T Buda, among all the palaces, were many
prisons, which in those ages were too often
/ even the basement story of palaces.  The
most celebrated was the Czonka-Torony, or
Mutilated Tower, so called because never finished.
It was mined with subterranean passages and dungeons, and here the kings of Hungary cast any
unfortunates that had incurred their displeasure.
A poor blacksmith was shut up in one of these
prisons while John Zapolya held the town-his
offence, having lamed the king's favourite horse
whiile putting on a shoe; and John, who was no
cruel tyrant, but merely a passionate Hungarian
magnate, vowed he should die for the deed, as he
was merely a serf without civil rights. And while
tlhe unhappy artisan lay thus in terror of his life,
expecting every day the headsman's summons, another man was thrown into the same prison, who
also had committed an action deemed worthy of
45




46        TIHE FAITH IV HUNGAR Y.
death. But whereas the blacksmith was in fear
and sorrow, the other prisoner seemed contented
and happy. He had holy words of praise on his
lips oftentimes, and he laboured to impart to his
fellow-prisoner somewhat of the same divine consolation that filled his own soul.
So it came to pass that when the king forgot his
anger and sent to release the blacksmith, he would
not go, because, he said, he believed as Matthew
Devay believed, and whatever was to be the Lutheran pastor's fate he would share.  John Zapolya was moved. This strange contagion of faith
-what could-it mean? IHe obeyed a benevolent
impulse and ordered the freedom of both.
What! set free the man who had lived so long
at WVittemberg with the pestilent arch-heretic
Martiin Luther, even dwelling in his family and
eating at his table, till he was as much imbued
with heresy as his master?-the man who had
preached in Transylvania under protection of the
powerful heretic noble Caspar Dragfij, and had
drawn away many other nobles to embrace his
opinions —nay, who had even taught certain villages so effectually that they separated from the
holy mother Church?  But John Zapolya would
have his own way this time, and Matthew Devay




Hill/~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~-..i,~  l~ ~
MTiw DEVAY!IN PRISON.
~?~;i,~i~'~~~~~~~~~ ~'...,  ~.~ J.;/IATHE IEAYI NPISON.








'THE FAITH' IN HUNGARY.         47
escaped the  fangs of the ecclesiastical courts
through a royal whim of good-nature.
He then tried the dominions of the other Hungarian king, Ferdinand, and settled as pastor at a
town in Upper Hungary. Not the danger he had
escaped nor any sharper lesson could make him hold
his peace when the truth or God was in question.
He exposed the abuses of the Romish Church with
such powerful eloquence that the monks of that
district felt " all hope of their gains was gone."
The local authorities were all in his favour, for
Lutheranism prevailed immensely among the middle classes and even among the nobility-we shall
find in a few years hence only three families of
importance among the magnates or peers of Hungary that were not Protestant-so that a complaint
to the magistrates would be useless. They carried
their accusation to the royal ear itself, and Ferdinand was the brother of that emperor who spent
all his life trying to force men by fire and sword
into uniformity of religion-an effort which the
discordant time-pieces at the convent of Yuste
taught him in his old age was utterly vain. Ferdinand proved his pious zeal to please the Church
by at once ordering Devay in custody to Vienna.
The Austrian capital was an ominous place of




.48       THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.
trial for a Reformer.  Caspar Tauber had been
burned there only a few years since, and a bitter
enemy to the gospel was Dr. John Faber, royal
councillor, to whose examination the Hungarian
pastor was referred.  He had been the most active
member of  an  inquisitorial  commission  sent
through Austria, Styria and Carinthia to see how
far the decrees against the Lutherans had been
carried out and to enforce greater stringency.
Two years was the Hungarian pastor kept in
prison, uncertain of the issue of his case: by such
discipline God educates his soldiers of the cross.
Think what it must be to have the fiery death before one's eyes as a probably approaching fate for
twenty-four long months! Then King Ferdinand
interfered-unaccountably, as men would say-and
Matthew Devay was again liberated.
Ferdinand's character has much puzzled some
historians.  At times he seemed to favour the
Reformation, but at others he seemed afraid to
offend Rome.  Of a naturally good disposition,
without any fixed principles and without personal
religion, he allowed himself to be carried away by
impulses, and had neither power nor wish to form
a decided judgment on some of the most important points. A double-minded man, saith the word




THE FAITH IN HUIVGIARY.           49'
of God, is unstable in all his ways. Some represent liim as a friend of the Reformers-others as
their bitterest foe, who spared the Protestants only
from  political motives.  The truth seems to be
that his own character was changeable and undecided.
It is not strange to find him, after this experience of Austrian rule, going back into the dominions of John Zapolya, Ferdinand's rival. Protestantism could not be so systematically crushed
here. Many nobles and princes received him joyfully into their houses and castles as he travelled
from place to place, an itinerant preacher with the
good news of God upon his lips and in his heart.
He lived after the manner of an apostle; and was
blessed with an apostle's joys in seeing many souls
turned from darkness to light, and whole districts
casting off the yoke of Rome. He was anxious for
the translation of the Scriptures and their wide
diffusion, which he knew could alone build up the
new  converts in their most holy faith; and he
worked at rendering the epistles of Paul into the
MIagyar tongue, which was accomplished and the
book printed in 1533. It was dedicated to a noble
lady, mother of one of the greatest Hungarian magnates, Per6nyi, who with his three sons had er-.
4




50        THE FAITH IN IUNGARY.
braced the truth, having first learned it at the
court of Queen Mary. Certainly God has honoured
women to do much in the Reformation cause.
The four Gospels were published at Pesth in
1536, and the same year we find Matthew Devay
going to Wittemberg again.  He desired to refresh
his soul at the fountain-head of the Reformation;
and what must have been the mutual commrunings
of those devoted men who risked all things for the
love of Jesus Christ! Kindred faith and kindred
sufferilg on its account form the closest of spiritbonds. Again he lived in Luther's'house and imbibed the wisdom that fell from the lips of that
very clear-sighted man; and so much of his energetic and' fearless spirit seemed to descend upon
Devay that he has been called the Hungarian
Luther.
He wrote an account of his Viennese imprison-,nent and examinations before the councillor Faber,
which was printed at Nuremberg, and had large
circulation in an age that abounded with such literature, because abounding in the tyranny that
caused it. We can imagine the Wittemberg doctors eagerly gaining all the news about Hungary
from the Magyar pastor, and hearing of the persecution that still raged in certain districts, and




THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.            51
would have raged far worse had King Ferdinand's
decrees been properly obeyed. But, thanks to the
bulwark of the nobility's privileges, both royal
and ecclesiastical tyranny had bounds they dared
not pass.
Another magnate protected Devay when he went
back to his own country. There is a long lake,.called the Balaton or Platten See, communicating
with the Danube in Lower Hungary, on the margin of which the magnate Nadasdy had his great
estates, and here he sheltered various gospel preachers in open defiance of king and clergy. He even
sheltered them from each other when they had
differences which ripened into the Lutheran and
Zwinglian divisions, among'which Devay sided
with Zwingle, and became a believer in the purely
memorial nature of the Lord's Supper. The largest
part of the Hungarian Protestant Church ultimately agreed with him. The Swiss Confession
was laid before a synod of pastors, at Debrkcsin, in
1557, and signed by all.
In the county of Presburg stands a free city,
called Tyrnau, where Devay laboured for a long
time. Once it had been called Little Rome, so
zealous were its people for the old Church, but,their zeal was soon transferred to the opposite side,




52        THE FAITH IN  I HUNGA R Y.
under the earnest preaching of the Hungarian Luther. Travellers still visit with interest its round
Byzantine Dom-Kirche, or cathedral, six hundred
years old, crowned with zinc-covered domes and
lined with statues of brave knights who fought the
Turks, and bishops who waxed decrepit in enjoyment of the see. There is also a sumptuous chapel
of the Virgin, with altar of beaten silver and trappings to match about the chief idol itself. Yet was
this cathedral for some time in possession of the
Protestants, and used solely for their worship, because nearly all the citizens had been converted
under the preaching of Devay and his colleagues.
The Jesuits had to build another church for themselves.




CHAPTER XI.
FERDINAND AND THE HERETIC.
I  FTER Devay had been sent prisoner from
his pastorate in Upper Hungary to Vienna,
/ another man was raised up to feed the
sheep of Christ in that place. His name
was Stephen Szantai: he was noted for learning
and for courage. The monks found they had not
gained much by the removal of Devay. His successor was not a bit frightened, and declared
against their superstitions as boldly as Devay had
done. The stop of the strong hand must be put to
him and his sermons.
Three bishops complained of him to Ferdinand.
The humour for a public discussion seized the
royal mind. He had not sol much need of the
Church's aid in political matters just now, because
he had concluded a peace with his rival, John
Zapolya, by which each was to hold what he had
during life, and at the death of John the kingdom
was to pass to Ferdinand; so he did not mind
5.3




54        THE FAITH IIN HUNGARY.
vexing the hierarchy a little. He appointed that a
public. disputation should be held between the
accusing monks and Stephen Szantai, the accused
pastor.
The king chose two umpires of unimpeachable
quality, who were to take notes and present their
decision for the royal approval. The bishop of
Grosswardein sent his ablest theologian to aid the
monks. A vast crowd of people came to listen,
some from. great distances, day after day. They
heard much noise on the part of the monks, who
seemed to think that speaking all at once would
crush the solitary heretic under a weight of words,
if not of arguments. To his help came a Lutheran
physician, a man not trained to debate, but nevertheless able to handle the sword of the Spirit with
effect, and showed how inefficient were their attempts to put down truth  by clamour.  The
umpires, being men really void of partisanship, reported to the king in favour of Stephen Szantai,
who had grounded all his statements upon the
word of God itself, while the monks had brought
forward only traditions and the reasonings of
schoolmen. But, being men of prudence likewise,
the umpires added that if they dared state this
publicly they were undone, "while if we condemn




THE FAITtH IN HUNGARY.           55
Szantai, we act contrary to truth and justice, and
cannot escape God's righteous retribution."
Ferdinand was much struck by their decision,
but he saw the wisdom of' temporizing as fully as
they did, because neither felt the influence of
divine truth upon their hearts. He received the
bishops and monks very blandly when they waited
on him that same afternoon to demand the burning
of Stephen Szantai.  Justly they believed  the
fagot a more powerful argument than the old
wives' fables of their traditions.
"Your majesty has acted contrary to our wish
in granting this despicable heretic a public hearing,
that others might suck in his poison. Our holy
father the pope will be under little obligation to
your majesty for this: there is no need of discullssing what the Church has already condemned.
One should not even remain in the presence of
such a miserable apostate. We demand that he be
brought here and burned, as a warning to others."
The bishop of Grosswardein had spoken rather
too strongly for royal ears, and Ferdinand
answered with dignity that he would allow no
mlan to be put to death until proved guilty of a
capital crime. "Bring forward your charge and
he shall be judged according to law."




56        TITE FAIITH IN HUNGARY.
"Is it not enough," cried Statilius, bishop of
Stuhlweissenberg-" is it not enough that he declares the mass to be an invention of the devilthat he demands both bread and wine at the
Eucharist for all, while Christ appointed the full
sacrament only for the priests?"
Whereupon the king turned upon the prelate
and demanded whether he -recognized the Greek
Church as a true Church.
" Yea, your majesty," was the answer, as he expected.
"' And yet the Greeks take communion in both
kinds as taught by their holy patriarchs, Chrysostom
and Cyril. If they do it without sin, why may
not we? They never had the mass, and do well
without it: why could not we also?"
Royal logic need not be very cogent to be convincing, but there was such common sense here
that the bishops looked at one another, attempting
no answer. Rage filled their hearts notwithstanding. "If your majesty do not grant our wish, we
shall find other means to dispose of this vulture,"
exclaimed the bishop of Grosswardein in a passion.
Ferdinand replied, temperately: "The facts of
the case shall be investigated, for it does not




THiE FAITH IN HUNGARY.           57
become my royal dignity to punish innocence.
God would not hold me guiltless."
Late at night he sent for the persecuted preacher
to a private audience. " What, then, is really the
doctrine you teach?" he asked.
"Most gracious prince, it is no new invention,.
but divine grace has taught it to me," replied
Szantai.  " It is the doctrine of the prophets and
apostles, and of our Lord Jesus Christ himself."
And he told in the ears of Ferdinand and the
princes present the blessed truth of the gospel.
The king was moved by his earnestness. Perhaps, like Felix, he thought that at a more convenient season he would turn his attention to these
things. Such seasons come seldomer to kings than
to common men! At all events, Ferdinand resolved
to save him.
"My dear brother Stephen," thus the king of
the Romans addressed  the obscure Protestant
pastor, "you and I are both ruined if we adhere
to these doctrines. We commit the cause to Godl,
who knows the right, but you must leave my land
or the bishops will have your life. Go and put
ydurself under the protection of the voivode of
Transylvania, where you may freely profess your
opinions."   He gave Szantai some  handsome




58        THE FAITH IN IHUNGARY.
presents, and sent him  away by night under a
guard  into the dominions of his rival, John
Zapolya.   And thus was it proved that "the
king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the
rivers of water: he turneth it whitl-ersoever he
will."
For it was directly contrary to the usual course
of Ferdinand's conduct that he should befriend a
heretic. He was commonly a ready tool in priestly
hands for state reasons. Not long afterward he
issued an edict from Nuremberg, giving the clergy
fullest powers of persecution.  Also he wrote from
Prague to the Hungarian vice-palatine (Francis von
Reva, himself in correspondence with Luther),
threatening him with that terror of courtiers, loss
of royal favour, if he did not stringently execute
the laws against heretics.  The magnate Perenyi
was cast into prison, ostensibly because he was
suspected of treasonable designs, but really because
he upheld the Lutherans with all his power.
When these facts are remembered, the interference of King Ferdinand to save Stephen Szantai's
life appears more like a miraculous interposition of
that Lord whose " eyes run to and fro in the earth,
to show himself strong in behalf" of his people,
than an event of his ordinary providence.  Did




THE FAITH IN HUNVGARY.           59
Ferdinand recollect a deathbed of which he had
been witness not long previously, when the dying
man (his own chaplain and a Spaniard) assured
hinm that Luther taught the truth, against which
he had bitterly opposed?  Conscience spoke with
the voice of conviction in that dread hour, and
told Ferdinand that this confessor had all his life
been leading his soul astray.




CHAPTER XII.
PLAGUE COLUMNS.
HE most tolerant people inl Europe at that
I)t9  age were the Turks.  While Ferdinand
and John Zapolya persecuted the Protests  ants by turns to please the Church, Solyman and his pashas treated both religious parties
with a lofty indifference; so that when the recorder
of a certain Hungarian city brought a large present
to the Moslem  general, requesting that lie would
be good enough-in virtue of the bribe-to banish
all Iutherans and Calvinists, the turbaned infidel
made close inquiry into the matter, pocketed the
present, threatened to slay the recorder, and published a decree that Luther's doctrines should
everywhere be freely preached.
Traces of lengthened Turkish rule abound
throughout Hungary to this day. Sometimes they
are the ruins of a useful erection, as the baths over
the sulphur springs at Buda, or the aqueduct conveying the medicated waters of Mehadia to the
60




TIIE FAITH INV HUNIRGARY.         61
frontier town of Orsova, where a pasha dwelt; but
more often they are mere remnants of ravage.
Travellers describe the strange underground villages to be met with in some districts most exposed
to incursion-human burrows roofed with straw
and devoid of light, except what enters by door
and chimney. These could not be so utterly destroyed by the Moslem cavalry as more pretentious
villages, neither were they so observable from a
distance.  But what a vivid idea they present of
the hunted condition of the people!
The Turks brought into Hungary, and left there
behind them, one fearful visitant-the plague. In
most towns of note are found those curious pillars
called plague columns, being obelisks or spires
built as praying places for priests an(l people when
the scourge was apprehended. Presburg, the city
of the diet, has two of these pillars situated very
prominently, and profusely decorated with images
of the Virgin and saints, gilded at the summit,
and used now as stations for the pause of religious
processions. They might indeed serve as remembrancers for the gratitude of the present generation, favoured by the total absence of both rapacious Turk and the ravaging plague which has
ever followed his conquering step like a black




62        THE FAITH IN HUGNUARY.
shadow.  An artist of that period erecting a
plague column at Kremnitz, carved on his sandstone pedestal the appropriate bas-relief of Aaron
standing with his flaming censer between the dead
and  the living- "making  atonement for the
people."
Buda was held by the Turks all through Ferdinand's reign, and for more than a century afterward.  They were not then "the sick man" of
Europe, but a mighty power continually looming
from the East like a thunder-cloud, especially to
papal apprehensions. All beyond the river Theiss
and through Transylvania and Wallachia, heretic
preachers and people abounded, on whom the pope
himself dared not set a finger. A run across the
frontier into the countries of the Crescent gave
liberty of conscience; and the fruit of Turkish
tolerance is visible even now in the widespread'
Protestantism of those outlying provinces.  Few
of the gentry or lower nobles are Roman Catholics.
The mass profess the faith of the A.ugsburg Confession, and are as strongly attached to their creed
as are Englishmen.




CHAPTER XIII.
THE HUNGARIAN BIBLE.
HE year 1541 was signalized by the publication of a complete Hungarian Testament,
translated mainly by the pastor, John Sylvester, and dedicated in Latin to the sons
of the king, Maximilian and Ferdinand. They
patronized it as a literary effort more than as an
engine of Reformation, for statesmen thought to be
politic in encouraging the Magyar language.
XWAe have before intimated that this is one of the
strangest tongues spoken on European soil. It is
an importation from the steppes of Tartary-east
of the Volga live tribes who would understand its
llhrases.  Modern philologists call it one of the
Turaniaa (from tura, swiftness of a horseman, to
express nomadic nature) or agglutinative languages,
whereas our English is inflectional. A mark of
difference striking every ear is, that a man's Christian name is set after his surname —thus, Szantai
Stephen. While other European languages were
63




64        THE FAITI IN HUNGAR Y.
cultivated and had some species of literature, Hungarian, from its total want of affinity with the
Latin or any of the dialects formed from Latin,
was considered barbarous, and no man wrote in it.
But for popular purposes the use of the Magyar
tongue was indispensable-the people's heart was to
be reached through it. Therefore a Hungarian
version of the Scriptures had been more than once
attempted by those who believed that "the entranlce of God's word gives light and understanding
to the simple." We have named the obscure monk
who laboured at it for nearly twenty years of seclusion in a mountain hermitage, yet grew not weary
of the task.
The Servians, lying south of Hungary, had got
a Bible in 1493. The Hungarians had not theirs,
completed by the pastor Caroli, for near a century
afterward; it bears date 1589.
Both clergy and laity had zealously cultivated a
sort of bad Latin for a long period: ever since the
time of Stephen, the canonized king, it was supremely vulgar to use Hungarian.  But a living
idiom is not so easily killed by a dead one, though
even now travellers are sometimes surprised to find
even the waiters at remote inns able to converse
in the language of the Vulgate. And when the




TIL'E FAITH IN HUNGARY.           65
earliest Reformers wrote so much in Latin, their
productions found the wider and readier audience
throughout Hungary, among the educated classes,
who accordingly proved the staunchest advocates
of the Protestant religion.
The translator of the New Testament, John Sylvester, had been recommended to the protection of
the Palatine BNadasdy by a letter from Melancthon.
Such credentials were a necessary part of the equipment of evangelists in that age; and in most of them
it could be said, as by the council of apostles at
Jerusalem, that the bearers were I"men who had
hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ."




CHAPTER XIV.
MELANCTHON'S LETTERS.
fHIS gentlest of the German Reformers
seems to have been regarded by Hungarian
Christians as a sort of metropolitan. Naturally they looked to Wiittemberg and the
German Church for encouragement and example;
upon Luther and his friends fell, as of yore upon
Paul, "the care of all the churches."  Crowds of
young men went to study divinity under the greatest master of that heavenly science then on earth;
among them  many native Hungarians, who, after
a course of theological instruction, were ordained
and sent back to preach the gospel in their own
land.
Melanethon never set foot in Hungary. Bunt
from his student's cell in Wittemberg he was able
largely to influence the religious movements of its
people by means of his letters. Not only to the
Protestant pastors did he write, but to the magnates and lesser nobles who favoured the Reforma66




THIE FAITH IN HUNGARY.            67
tion. The persecuted Prince Per6nyi was comforted in his prison by such apostolic epistles,
exhorting him to bear all for the sake of Christ,
who was able so richly to reward him.
In 1549, Ferdinand sent two royal commissioners to inquire into the religious state of Upper
Hungary; in other words, to discover how far
Protestantism  had displaced Romlanism, and to
organize a more effectual crushing system. When
the first fright was over, the pastors took courage
and shrank not from the enemy's investigation,
but presented the famous Pentapolitan or FiveCities' Confession, containing twenty articles of
faith. "It was nothing else than an extract from
the Augsburg Confession, drawn up in Melancthon's soothing style;" and such was the effect of
the soft but firm answer, that the king allowed
those five towns still to enjoy their privileges, and
committed no act of tyranny at that time.
Again, we find Melancthon acting as metropolitan in the case of the pastor Lauterwaldt, who
was guilty of preaching error. A synod of the
neighbouring clergy forwarded an appeal to Melanethon, asking whether it were right that Lauterwaldt should affirm that a sinner is saved jointly
by his own works and the blood of Jesus Christ;




68        THE FAITH  IN HUNGARY.
and the Reformer wrote that the man teaching
such falsehood should be deposed. The very
essence of the gospel, that for which they had come
out from Rome and braved all her terrors, lay involved in the question, Is salvation of God's free
grace alone?
One of the last public acts of MIelanethon was
to ordain a Hungarian pastor whom he had been
educating in the faith. This Reformer had that
strange, attractive power, divinely bestowed upon
some men, by which they draw hearts to them and
retain love always. His pupils never forgot his
affectionate care, nor the gentleness that had borne
with faults and magnified excellences; they gave
him far more than the common regard of scholars
for a teacher, and when he died the mourning was
widespread. Hearts ached for him in the Black
Forest and by the Swedish seas, in crowded French
towns and upon the steppes of Hungary. One
Leonard StSckel, rector of the high school in the
Protestant town of Bartfield, was lying sick when
he received a letter from Melancthon, and-the messenger who brought it had also the sad news of
Melancthon's death. The Hungarian pastor never
recovered that blow; and whereas there were some
questions in the letter respecting the state of the




THE FAITH IN HUN GARY.            69 
Church and such-like matters, " I shall answer
him in heaven " quoth the pastor, "for soon I
shall follow my beloved teacher." And so he
also died.




CHAPTER XV.
CONFERENCES AND CONCESSIONS.
T  seems strange to us Protestants of the
nineteenth century how much was hoped
from  a general council in the sixteenth.
The eyes of all Europe were on the longpromised gathering of ecclesiastics, who should by
their wisdom heal the vast breach in that Church
which ought to be the seamless robe of Christ.
Ferdinand, king of Hungary and of the Romans,
heir-apparent to the imperial crown of Germany,
was one of the most ardent believers in the Council
of Trent and all that it should accomplish. He
desired his deputies, two Hungarian bishops, to
demand reformation of morals and of faith as the
first object of the council's efforts.  He wanted to
have fewer cardinals, fewer indulgences, no "'religion of money," and that hitherto unknown
anomaly, a humble-minded pope. As concessions
to the Lutheran party, he asked for the abolition
of fast-days and the granting of the cup to the
70




THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.            71
laity. But these alterations would not touch "the
weightier matters of the law"-" the word of God
only, the work of Christ only."
Ferdinand sent a bishop to Venice to see how
the priests of the Greek Church managed their religious services, and especially the Lord's Supper.
He was most anxious that some compromise
should be authorized by the council-some comprehensive scheme which might draw into uniformity of system all the dissenters of his dominions. But his Hungarian deputies at Trent soon
discovered that all attempts at reformation would
be vain. Bishop Dudith wrote thus to his royal
master:
" As the votes are estimated by number and not
by weight"-of character or influence —" the pope
can send hundreds or even thousands to vote
against the well-disposed party.  We see every
clay hangers-on at the Roman court, and beardless
bishops, young men who have lost their property
and their character, coming to Trent in order to
vote as pleases the pope. What these men want
in learning or intelligence is fully compensated by
their impudence.  The affairs of the Church are
here regulated by puppets which are moved by
foreign hands, like the fabled images of Deedalus.




72        THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.
The Holy Spirit has nothing to do with the council. Here are simply human schemes to aggrandize Rome.  The spirit which is represented as
guiding the meetings comes in the postman's bag
from Rome, and must wait at every swollen river
in the road till the waters abate!"
This was tolerably sharp satire from an episcopal pen.  WVe are not amazed to learn that the
writer subsequently became a Lutheran, resigned
his see of Funfkirchen and his office as an imperial ambassador, and took refuge in Poland, only
three years after his experiences at the infallible
council.
How that council ended all the world knows.
Its unscriptuiral decisions were defended with
anathema-its last utterance was curses.  More
than ever was the breach in the seamless robe
widened. Pius the Fourth's foundationless creed
was Trent's legacy to the Church.
Ferdinand, king of Hungary, remonstrated. To
please him, the pope consented to revise the decisions of infallibility and render harmless in Hungary what would anywhere else ruin a soul-viz.,
communion in both kinds. His Holiness addressed
a papal bull to the archbishop of Gran, princeprimate of the kingdom, authorizing him and his




TIE FAITH IN  HUNGARY.           73
priests to give the cup to the laity. The first communicant in this form was Ferdinand himself.
He was so charmed with the concession that he
struck a medal, as if he had gained a victory,
which truly he had in some sort. On the obverse
his own bust, with the encircling motto in German,
"Giebt dem Kaiser was des Kaiser's ist," signifyi ng, " Render unto Coesar what is Cesar's;" on the
reverse a cup above the word " Oratio"-" prayer,"
and with the encircling motto, "Giebt Gott was
Gottes ist" -" Give God what is God's."
The expression of triumph was premature, so
far as regarded the effect of this notable concession.
Such crumbs could not satisfy men who had sat at
the full table of God's free grace and been nourished on the sincere milk and strong meat of the
word.  It is to be doubted if granting the cup
brought back a score of the recusants.
The covenant, as a device for affording stability
to a religious body, was not an invention peculiar
ito Scottish Reformers.  We find it in Hungary,
1561, when the troops, nobles and citizens of the
town of Erlau bound themselves by an oath to
uphold the truth taught them from the word of
God; and all who could write signed a confession
of faith corresponding chiefly with that of the




74        THE FAITH IN H UNGARY.
Helvetic Church. This time-honoured document
is still preserved in a library at Presburg. And
when the leaders of the movement were charged
with high treason, and arraigned before a court of
justices by the artifices and misrepresentations of
the hierarchy, they declared that obedience to their
king ceased with civil affairs and that their souls
were to obey none but God-that Ezra and Nehemiah had made the same sort of league for the
preservation of the truth and the glory of God.
Their undaunted demeanour and the weight of
their words influenced their judges to an acquittal
of the charge.
On the whole, the hand of the persecutor in
Hungary was very much stayed during this century, while Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and for
a time England, were actually reeking with the
blood of the martyrs of Jesus. Oppression there
was in abundance, but judicial murders at stake
or scaffold were fewer than in most other lands
where the struggle between light and darkness was
progressing.
So much freedom was exercised by Reformed
pastors that they held conferences about the constitution of their Church, and gradually. built up
its system according to their experience of its




THE FAITHI IN IHUNGAR Y.         75
working.  They abolished the confessional, arranged for the support of the clergy in poor parishes-for all existing ecclesiastical endowments
were grasped firmly by the Romish party; they
tried to produce uniformity of opinion about the
Lord's Supper, where the Lutheran saw the body
of Christ and bread, but the Zwinglian saw only
bread; they decided that in places where altars
existed they should be allowed to remain, though
no fresh one should be erected or rebuilt-a resolve
savouring of the moderation of men who were in
no danger.  Again, we read of a conference at
Hermannstadt, the capital of Transylvania, where
Paul'Viener was chosen first superintendent of the
Reformed Church, and a number of evangelical
ministers were ordained by imposition of hands.




CHAPTER XVI.
THE DIET OF EDENBERG.
( HIIS free city of Edenberg was one of the
Pa||| earliest where the Reformation struck root.
In the ancient accounts of the municipal
treasurer, date 1525, is found the following
entry: "Monday after New Year's day, to the
hangman for burning Lutheran books, 1 d, d."
This was before the battle of' Mohacs and the
irruption of the Turks had cooled the ardour of the
persecuting Romish clergy, and prevented their
following up fires of books with fires consuming
human beings.
Young men went into Germany to learn at the
feet of the fathers of the Reformation, and came
back, after the soundest theologic education, imbued
with knowledge as well as with zeal of the first
order. Rapidly the doctrines of the Bible won
the hearts of the people, and spread through the
district to the neighbouring fortress of Guns.
Here the inhabitants declared in a body for the
76




TIHE FAITH IN 1HUNGARY.             77
Reformers, and Zwingle's views in particular; and
considering the churches as built for popular use
by their forefathers, and not to be shrines of an
extinct idolatry, they adapted them  to the new
worship.  In 1554 the last Roman Catholic priest
left the city, because the last Ronianist hlad been
converted to Protestantism.  Fairly beaten out of
the field was the infallible Church.
The greatest pride of the Hungarian freeman is
his national Diet, which he can point to as the
bulwark of liberty for seven centuries past.  Only
five years later than the first real Parliament in
England, was the first real representative Diet of
-Hungary held  on the field of Rl;kos, outside
Pesth.  Since then, the rulers of Hungary have
been obliged to seek the sanction of Diets for every
action of importance.  Ferdinand summoned one
to meet at Edenberg in 1553, with a view to settling religious differences.  And while the earliest
Parliament of Mary Tudor was allowing her to
burn heretics at will, this Hungarian parliament
upheld the Reformation and freedom of conscience
gallantly against all the weight of the court and
Austrian faction.   A  law was proposed to forbid
the printing and distribution of Protestant books;
the hereditary and elected legislators of Hungary




78       T'I-E FAITH IN HUNGARY.
declared for freedom of the press, and would have
none of the shackles of bigotry.
Even in " Cesar's household " were Protestants
found at this Diet.  The palatine, who is vicegerent of the king, the master of the ceremonies at
court, the colonel of the life-guards, were all men
who had cast off allegiance to the pope. Likewise
a large majority of the magnates or peers of Htungary, and all the magistrates of the city.
The burgomaster having given himself to the
cause of the truth, thought it a less thing to give
of his possessions; and he allotted even his garden
for the building of an evangelical high school
wherein to educate young Protestants. The whole
town council united in an invitation to Simon
Gerengel, who had been a priest in Lower Austria,
to become pastor in Edenberg. He was a miserably
poor exile at the time he received their letter,
which was to him a veritable message from God.
He had been led by Melanethon's " Common
Places " to the Bibles, and thence had learned to
distinguish what he calls " the horribly souldestroying errors of Popery;" in consequence of
which discernrment he was thrown into prison at
Salzburg for above three years; where so close was
his confinement that though his aged mother came




THE FAITH IN tIUNGARY.            79
afoot more than two hundred miles for the purpose
of seeing him, she was not allowed to do so.
" Here I lie," he wrote-" here I lie day after day,
month after month, year after year, till it please
the Lord Jesus to set me free."
Simon Gerengel had further work to do for his
Master on earth, and so he escaped a martyr's
death at that time; in obscure and wretched
poverty and opprobrium  he and his family lived
for some years, until the call to Edenberg reached
him. Here he did such good service to the growing Church that multitudes were added "of such
as should be saved;" and the crowning accession
was the chief Romanist priest of the town.
Edenberg was a stronghold of Protestantism
during that century.  The school built in the good
burgomaster's garden became a centre of light and
its professors ardent Reformers. Five Hungarian
preachers filled the pulpits of the town. Gradually
the popish observances which clung round the
youth  of Protestantism  dropped  off.  German
hymns were sung at the services instead of Latin;
funeral processions lit with  huge tapers were
abolished. As this improvement aimed a blow at
the sacerdotal pocket, we find  that a wavrmtempered priest retaliated by publicly boxing the




80        TIHE FAII'H IN 1HUNGARY.
ears of the rector of the college who had originated
it.  Only conscious and enraged weakness would
have taken such petty revenge; nothing of the
kind occurred as long as fagot or headsman's sword
could be used by priestly hands.
Narnes which have survived that period in
Edenberg are those of the ministers Stephen
Beytha and Michael Starinus.  The former filled
a greater space in the world while he lived, being
preacher forty-five years in a prominent position,
but he left no such enduring work as the latter to
follow himll, and by which Michael Starinus, "being
dead, yet speaketh."   This pastor translated the
Psalms of David  into  Hungarian  verse, and
thereby furnished the Church with her songs of
praise even to this day.  There could scarce be
loftier usefulness than that which has made the
hearts of generations flow forth in praise to the
Most High.




CHAPTER XVII.
THE FIRST MAXIMILIAN,
(M~E  was a gentle prince, considering the race
from which he sprang and the school in
which he had been trained. Two of the
cruelest persecutors of the age were his
uncle and cousin. Yet even before the death of
his father Ferdinand he had showed some Protestant tendencies and kept a Lutheran for his chaplain. State-craft stepped in and compelled him to
conceal his tolerance; the Jesuits got round his
wife and made her a bigot who embittered his
home.  Obliged  to send  away his Protestant
chaplain-for princes are anything but the freest
agents-he addressed him  in these words: "Be
of good courage, dear Pfauser; the service of
God must not yield to the commandments of
men."  The chaplain had refused compliance with
Rome.
It was in 1564 that Ferdinand, who had worn
*the crown of Hungary for thirty-eight years, was
6                                   81




82        TIHE FAITH IN ItU1NGARY.
succeeded by his son Maximilian. Almost at once
he interfered to protect the Protestants from the
prince-primate, who had sent an order to Presburg
that all heretical books should be collected and
destroyed, likewise that all Reformed preachers
should be banished. The citizens appealed to the
king. At the same time came another appeal fromn
the people of Schemnnitz, chief of the ulining towns
in Northern Hungary. On them the prince-primate
had thought to force the Jesuits as religious teachers, and threatened the severest punishment to the
magistrates, because they reminded him that they
adhered to the Augsburg Confession of Faith.
Freedom of conscience he could not brook, and
they were not willing to listen to the voice of any
of Rome's charmers, and especially of those Jesuits,
whose principal was a divine that had earned for
himself the title of the Austrian hound (Canis Austriacus), by reason of his keen scent after heretics.
It was a dismal play upon his name, Peter Canisius. The king heard the appeal of his mining
towns, and wrote to the primate that he should
C' cease from disturbing the evangelical clergy-that
he should consider the times and take heed he did
not destroy more than he built up."  And here,
among the slag and silver of the mines, Hungarian




THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.             83
Protestantism has still a stronghold, thanks to the
wise toleration of the First Maximilian.
He was anxious for compromise, like his father;
lie did his best to compass abolition of clerical
celibacy, which he saw to be the root of many evils.
And even if the Reformed and Roman churches
could never be fused into one mass of uniformity
again, why might they not exist side by side?
True, there was a section of the Protestants that
scarcely his liberality could endure-those called by
the Romanists the Sacramentarian party, otherwise
Zwinglians.  I-e would not permit the ministers
who adhered to the Swiss confession of faith to
hold a synod at Edenberg; whence it will be seen
that his royal toleration only went a certain length;
he was resolved his subjects should still believe in
the real presence, or in that slightly altered edition
of the dogma set forth by the Lutherans.
War with the Turks was a necessary condition
of the reign of every Hungarian king, and Maximilian had his share. The general of his army,
Lazarus Schwend, was a Lutheran, and brought
evangelical preachers in his train wherever he
went. His ideas of toleration were as limited as
his master's, for when a certain pastor was convicted of holding Socinian views, he threw him




84        THE FAITII IN HUNGARY.
into prison and set him free only on recantation.
Lazarus Schwend's successor was also a zealous
Protestant.
Under such patronage the churches prospered.
Stephen Szegedinus was a distinguished pastor of
the time; one hundred and twenty congregations
were under his superintendence in a single narrow
district of Hungary, on the banks of the rapid
Save. When sixty years old, he held a public discussion with a learned monk in Pesth, and came
off victorious because authority was not permitted
to crush truth.
Pope Gregory, who had lately sung Te Deum for
the vast crime of St. Bartholomew's day, could not
persuade the king of Hungary to persecute his
Protestant subjects. The legate and bishops were
weary of remonstrating against the latitude allowed
the Reformed preachers, and of Maximilian's quiet
reply that he would inquire into any case where
their liberty of speech was abused.
The Jesuit AMitterdorfer says, " Maximilian gave
full evidence of being a Roman Catholic prince."
The very assertion shows there was some doubt on
the subject. History relates that he dismissed a
chaplain (once a Lutheran) who had sought to signalize his apostasy by a bitter attack on Protest



THE FAITH IN HUlNGARY.           85
antism, and so grave were the doubts of the Sorbonne respecting his orthodoxy that the honours
customarily paid to deceased emperors and kings
by that body were refused him. In 1576 he left
the Hungarian crown to his son Rudolph, who was
in character almost his exact opposite.
M~~~




CHAPTER XVIII.
FORMAL SEPARATION FROM ROME.
ITIES, congregations, pastors, even private
persons, had for years back been putting
-  forth confessions of faith, agreeing in the
main with that of Augsburg or of the Swiss
Reformers. We read how Jehoiakim  Brandenburg, chaplain of the German cavalry at Raab,
thought it necessary to print and publish the articles of his belief, owing to the aspersions of his
enemies. He announced also that he would preach
in the open air at eight different stations upon
these truths of his creed, as the use of a consecrated
building was denied him.
One reason of the frequency of these confessions
of faith was the spread of heterodox doctrines
through Hungary. Unitarians and Socinians became very numerous, and true believers wished to
have the world know that they had no sympathy
with such as denied the divinity of our Lord Jesus
Christ. For Rome was very ready to make this
86




THE FAITH IT N HUNGARY.          87
heresy of individuals a cause for persecuting the
whlole Church.
Notwithstanding all the confessions, Rome pretended to consider the Lutherans only a sect within
her fold and still amenable to her discipline. This
was the assumption necessary for persecution, that
they were children — disobedient children —who
needed chastisement. The bishop of Csanad wrote
to the recusant twenty-four towns of Zip's country,
saying he would soon visit them as their spiritual
father, "armed with power to restore wanderers."
Everybody knew what this meant. He summoned
all the Protestant clergy to attend his synod, as
well as the Romanists, and ominously added that
he would purge his diocese.
Regular payment of church dues was also demanded, and in many Protestant communities
yielded as an unjust tax, for peace' sake; until, in
the year 1573, the aforesaid bishop of Csanad, who
seems to have been especially unfortunate in the
assertions of his authority, demanding his episcopal
fees from the Reformed in his diocese, received instead a confession of faith, wherein their renunciation of his spiritual government was conveyed as
follows:
" The Church is the visible body of those who




88        THE FAITH IN HUNVGARY.
hear and believe the gospel, and among whom the
sacraments are administered according to Christ's
appointment. The Spirit of God works in these
to renew their minds by his appointed means, but
there are many in the visible Church whose minds
are not yet renewed. Those pastors who falsify
the Word, administer the sacraments according to
Christ's intention and kill the saints-such are
not the Church of God; but, as the Lord says,'they are of their father the devil.'"
Whether the bishop recognized the likeness of
his order in the last sentence cannot be known, but
under the mild Maximilian he was obliged to simulate meekness before the affront. It was the beginning of the formal separation from Rome.




CHAPTER XIX.
TROUBLOUS TIMES.:1HILIP THE SECOND of Spain was no
"/~~ amiable character, and formed upon his: model was his cousin Rudolph of Hungary.
Only circumstances kept the latter from
being as cruel a persecutor as the former, but he
had just as implicit submission to the Roman
Church, and was a tyrant of the same suspicious
stamp, with his tyranny at the beck of the pope.
And so days of peace for the Hungarian Reformers
were ended.
Not that any sweeping persecution could be attempted: the ever-watchful Diet, wherein the upper
chamber of magnates were nearly all Protestants,
guarded well the liberties of the land. Congregations and pastors must be attacked in detail and
under various pretexts harassed. A grand pretext
was given by the introduction of the Gregorian
calendar.  The mass of Protestants could not
possibly see the improvement in their reckoning
89




90.       TI-IE FAITH IN HIUNGARY.
of time, but regarded it simply as a Romish device, covering some underhand injury to their
faith, and at all events involving some submission
to the Papal court which had promulgated the
change. In Edenberg the calendar was preached
against vehemently. This was construed into sedition, for which the city was heavily fined and
deprived of several of its privileges. The pastors
were banished, and stringent orders issued by the
Archduke Ernest-the regent-that no preacher
should be admitted into Edenberg unless with consent of the bishop, nor any religious ceremonies
performed by any but regular Romnish priests.
" As this letter was read in the magistrates'
council, it cast the town into indescribable sorrow
and consternation. Thousands should live without
the comforts of the gospel, children should be unbaptized, the sick should die without the voice of
a spiritual comforter, and the dead should be
buried  according to the rites of the Romish
Church.  Yet one thing remained. At the distance of about five English miles were two villages
where the gospel was preached still, for these villages did not belong to Edenberg. Faith gave the
citizens strength, and they streamed out to these
villages to hear the word of God; and though




TIHE FAITH IN HUNGARY.           91
many of them were taken prisoners and carried
off to the bishop's residence, still the enemy did
not succeed in destroying the Protestant Church in
that city."
Even at the Diet, the Gregorian calendar was
only adopted by the states "from respect to our
king, but not as an acknowledgment of Roman
supremacy."
Nine hundred Protestant congregations are reported to have existed in Hungary during the
first years of the Emperor Rudolph, besides seventy
among the Slavack population. Zwinglians were
chiefly found in those provinces where the Turk
gave them a toleration which even their own Lutlheran brethren would not give. The approach
of Mohammed the Third, with a hundred anti
fifty thousand Moslem soldiers, was looked upon
as a blessing rather than a misfortune by this
large minority of Hungarians. He would divert
the force of their persecutors, and wherever fb!l
the shadow of his standard was toleration. Waves
of war swept over the country. Do we ever thank
God for our peaceful churches, where we worship Sabbath  after Sabbath, no man  making
us afraid?  These Hungarian  Protestants dare
worship in no other fashion than harnessed for




92        THE FAITH IN HUiYGARY.
battle-the sword in one hand, the dearly-bought
Bible in the other.
Monks yet show, at the richly-endowed convent
of Radna, that picture of the Virgin which was
flung into the fire by the infidels, but would not
burn. Only a certain blackening with smoke is
offered as proof of the miracle and reason why
the daub —of a female encircled with a large gilt
crown-should perform sundry other miracles,
bringing large revenues to its owners. By its side
is preserved a stone, to which the Virgin of the
picture affixed the horse's hoofs of a scoffing Turk,
who doubtless did not believe in the canvas idol.
Ten thousand Roman troops came to help Rudolph against the Turks. They were just as bitter
enemies to the Protestant as to the Moslem. An
imperial general named Basta desolated Transylvania, and made himself a proverb to succeeding
generations by his cruelty to the Reformed population.  The language of the country to this day
embodies a characteristic trace of him. Travellers
see a large wheelbarrow in ordinary use, and are
told that these are " Basta szek6r"-' Basta's carriages"-to which he harnessed men instead of
beasts, and thus made them draw the forage and
camp equipage of his army.




xi~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~l~~~~'q
XI~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
_ _- _ _  _ _   _ _.Y-.' —;i~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0
I'~s~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~s
~~~~i ~il/l' l<li~# 
BASTA'SMCARRIAGES.
BASTA'S CARRIAG;ES.








THE FAITH IN HIUINGARY.            93
Far worse than this was done by his orders.
]More than once a pile of Protestant books was
made the fuel for burning a Protestant pastor.
Others of these unfortunate men were flayed alive,
while gentle Mother Church stayed not the tyrant's
hand, but aided and abetted through her episcopal
agents.  He seems, indeed, to have meditated a
destruction after the pattern of the far-famed St.
Bartholomew, for the Roman commander who
acted in concert with him declared that their plan
was to put to the sword every grown person in
Hungary and Transylvania who should not become a Roman Catholic.
A fearful famine followed the ravages which
these defenders of the faith committed, so fearful
that the crowning crime and curse denounced in
Deut. xxviii. 56, was fulfilled in a Christian country. "The tender and delicate woman" cast evil
eyes upon the children she had borne and slew
them secretly for food, owing to "the want of all
things in the straitness" of the famine. A shocking cannibalism  was practiced  by the starving
people.  Even the bodies of the dead were not
safe from outrage.
And where was the king of Hungary, who had.
solemnly sworn at his coronation to govern this




94         TIIE FAITH IIN HUNGARY.
nation with justice and mercy?  Was he aware of
the barbarities practiced by his generals in his
name and the name of religion?  Rudolph lived
in the recesses of his palace at Prague, surrounded
by artists, alchemists and astrologers, lapping himself in a life of slothful ease and debauchery. IHis
existence was wasted in the veriest trifles, while no
single duty of his high station was fulfilled.  In
perniitting persecution of the Protestants he was
obeying his ghostly advisers, who from childhood
had trained him to be their tool. A German historian says of him that "for the gratification of
his covetousness he transgressed all law and all
morality in order to bury his treasures by the
million."  Consequently his unpaid troops forced
subsistence and  plunder from  every land into
which they camle, and in Hungary they found it
most -profitable and least dangerous to pillage the
Protestants.




CHAPTER XX.
THE FREE CITIES.
LL over Europe these have proved the nurseries of liberty, both civil and religious.
In Hungary they made a strong stand
against the tyranny of the bishops, and
only where main force was exercised to override
their privileges did popery prevail.
Thus in Kashaw  the bishops, bringing with
them the Roman general Barbiano and his soldiers,
succeeded in suppressing all outward signs of Protestantism. The pastors were banished, the church
handed over to a priest, and lest the people should
imitate those of Edenberg and go to neighbouring
villages to hear the gospel, heavy fines were denounced as the penalty for doing so.
The five mining cities knew that this example
was levelled at them, and determined to stand
staunchly by their faith.  Presently a demand
came from the bishop of Raab-who also wielded
civil force, as being deputy governor of Hungary
95




96        THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.
-that the magistrates of Lentshaw should give
up to him all their churches, schools, hospitals,
ministers' houses-in fact, every tittle of ecclesiastical property, to be used as he should think fit.
The burgomaster would give no precipitate answer to such a proposal. He summoned a meeting
of the citizens for consultation, where every man
might speak his mind on the momentous subject.
According to the custom of the times-when early
rising seems to have been easier than now-this
meeting of the masses took place at seven in the
morning.  They heard the bishop's letter read,
and then the principal pastor spoke to them.
(' He did give," state the town records, " a beautiful warning to hold fast by the word of God. He
would risk his body, honour, property and life to
abide with us. Upon which the judges and the
town council, together with the citizens and their
reverend ministers, did bind themselves with an
oath to risk their liberty, honour, property and life
for the word of God and the Augsburg Confession,
and never to perjure themselves, so help thlem
God andl his holy word."
Such answer received the bishop of Raab to hLis
demand. He came in person, but not having rmilitary force enough to crush the citizens, his attempt




TIHE FAITH IN HUNGARY.            97
at despotism  raised a tumult, whence he escaped
by flight. Cajolings and threatenings alike failed.
On one occasion the reply to his messenger, who
had promised in his name many favours if the city
would only yield, was so terse as this: "We will
rather have God for our friend than the devil and
all his followers."
7
I ~




CHAPTER XXI.
"THE TWENTY-SECOND ARTICLE."
HE laws passed by the Diet of Presburg in
1604 consisted of twenty-one articles or
acts; yet when these were promulgated,
Hungarians found that a twenty-second article had been added, to which no hereditary magnate or chosen deputy had affixed his assent. It
contained matter quite opposed to the spirit of the
Hungarian parliament, which had shown a strong
disapprobation of religious persecution.  It decreed that all the old laws against heresy-even
that which prescribed burning alive as a forr of
cure —should be rigidly observed; it set fortli as a
royal duity the maintenance of the Romish superstition by every means, and the utter extirpation of
Protestants.
And who had dared thus forge a decree which
had never passed the Diet, and to add it to those
which were genuine? Priests had persuaded King
Rudolph to do so. The monarch, who never stir



TEE FAITII IN HUNGARY,.           99
red out of his Prague palace-at one time he; whs=
so many months without appearing beyond its
bounds that the citizens became convinced he was
dead, and a formidable riot was only quelled by
his showing himself at a window-did in his luxurious retreat among his artists, alchemists and
astrologers, deliberately authorize a despotic decree,
which, in violation of his oath to the Hungarian
constitution, placed the liberties and lives of his
worthiest subjects at complete disposal of the
Romnish clergy; and he did so simply because he
was irritated by the presentation of two petitions
from the Protestants in his dominions, humbly re-'questing that they might be allowed to live and to
worship God as their consciences dictated.
The " twenty-second article" made it penal for
them to remonstrate in future, no matter how severe the treatment they received. Like dumb animals, they must submit to the spoiler, and even die
in silence.
All the free blood in Hungarian hearts was excited against this aggression.  If the king were
allowed to add what laws he pleased to those sanctioned by the Diet, their free constitution was not
worth more than the parchment on which it was
written: Rudolph would speedily become in prac



100       THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.
tice what he was by nature-a thorough despot.
The states protested against "the twenty-second
article," and the prince-palatine, viceroy of Hungary, affixed his seal to the protest.
But the bishops and the generals had now what
they wanted, a royal authorization for their persecution of Protestants, anid cared very little that
the states which they oppressed disapproved of the
oppression.
C.M~c~~b




CHAPTER XXII.
MATTHIAS BOTSKAY.
HEN the sufferings of the children of Israel
under heathen tyrants were at their worst,
then would God raise up from their number some -man to be a judge and a deliverer.
Such a one was Matthias Botskay to the Hungarians at this time. A prince of the best blood,
he had long since revolted against the barbarities
inflicted on his fellow-countrymen by foreign soldiers. He had first made a journey to Prague for
an audience of the lazy king, and been refused admittance with every mark of disrespect. Returning home with heart chafed and angered, he found
that the Protestants under his protection and living
on his estates had been cruelly treated by the Roman general Barbiano, who had also attacked and
plundered two of Botskay's castles. He levied his
vassals and marched after the invader. Barbiano
was defeated and fled. "Give nme shelter within
your walls," he cried to the inhabitants of IKashaw,
101




102       THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.
whom he had lately deprived of their pastors and
churches, but they would not. "You are a destroyer of those who believe on God," they assigned
as a reason; and the baffled persecutor had to flee
farther, while they opened their gates to Botskay.
And it was the prompt measures of the latter, ending in another victory, which prevented the accomplishment of Basta's bloody intention to slay every
grown-up Protestant throughout Hungary.
The insurrection spread so widely among the
outraged subjects of Rudolph that in a short space
of time only a few border towns in Upper Hungary remained faithful to him. The free city of
Edenberg was one of these, notwithstanding the
injuries that had been inflicted on its inhabitants
in his name. Botskay besieged it. The Austrian
commander threatened to throw all the children
into the fosse of the castle, if they and their
mothers were not sent out of the town as useless
mouths. Happily, a truce was concluded between
the contending parties in time to prevent any
measure so dreadful;- and  the bishop, taking
advantage of the pause in conflict, seized all the
church treasures in Edenberg, plate and money,
and made his escape. Not very far, however: the
burgomaster had warned him that the country was




THE FAITH IN H UNGAR Y.        103
overrun with bands of plundering Turks: he and
his train of clergy were pillaged at Steinanger, and
barely saved their lives.
The Turks were in alliance with Botskay.
M[ohammed the Third sent him a crown, but the
Protestant champion laid it aside, remarking that
there was already a legally-crowned king of Hungary, whose rights he had no desire to invade. He
wished simply to friee his brethren from wrong,
and would sheathe his sword when their liberties
were guaranteed.
A certain evangelical nobleman, named Count
Stephen Illyeshazy, had been deprived of his
estates and banished to Holland by the fanatical
zeal of the Romish party. With deep sadness he
viewed the rent and miserable condition of his
native land, and offered his mediation, exile as he
was, to conclude peace if possible. That alliance
with the Turks had made Botskay of such consequence that King Rudolph (who was also
emperor) was glad to receive the overture; and the
exile's exertions ended in the Peace of Vienna,
1606.




CHAPTER XXIII.
THE PEACE OF VIENNA.
c OW   was  the  notorious  "'twenty-second
article" formally declared an illegal addition to the statutes of Hungary, no longer
binding on any subject of the emperor.
Further triumph had the Protestants in the abolition of all decrees that had been enacted against
them. The treaty declared that every Hungarian
should have perfect liberty of conscience, which
even the king had no power to limit or disturb in
any manner.
So far was wrung from Rudolph and his fanatical advisers, but a clause was added by which
they hoped to nullify the force of the concession:
"It was not to be interpreted in any way detrimental to the Roman Catholic religion." A great
deal might be made of these few words in clever
and unscrupulous hands, and undoubtedly they
served their purpose of sowing discord in the very
heart of peace.
104




THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.           105
Matthias Botskay would not for a long time
accept of the clause, until the greatest persuasion
had been used and the most solemn assurances
been given by the archduke-regent that nothing
damaging to Protestant interests was intended.
The approaching Diet could settle all. At last the
treaty was signed by the leading magnates of Hungary, and guaranteed by the states of Bohemia,
Silesia and Moravia.
Other of its articles bear the stamp of the time
and the occasion as regards religion. The Jesuits,
who had behaved so badly in Transylvania that
the Diet had declared their academy at Klausenberg to be a fortress erected against the liberties
of the country, were prohibited from ever possessing landed or house property.  "They had sent
their fanatical students into the houses of Calvinists
searching for books, which they brought out and
burned; this illegal conduct often ended in bloodshed and pillage."  King Rudolph reserved a
right to make them presents, which was some salve
to this wound.  Two prelates, who had been
particularly active against the Reformed party,
were forbidden to return to Hungary till they
should be legally purged of certain charges.
Public offices and military appointments were to




106       TIlE FAITH IN HUNGAR Y.
be open to all Hungarian subjects, without distinction of creed. Ecclesiastical abuses generally
were referred to the forthcoming Diet.
Great was the joy among the oppressed Protestants at the full recognition of their claims, so
stringently guaranteed. A cloud, small as a man's
hand appeared on the horizon, in the shape of a
protest from the pope. He would have none of
the peace which was adverse to the interests of
bigotry; sooner civil war and all its woes than
that Bible-readers should  go free.  Sacerdotal
cabals were set to work to nullify the Treaty of
Vienna.
Botskay's death was the first calamity that befel
the Reformed. Somebody poisoned him the year
after the peace; his body-guards believed it to be
done by the chancellor of Transylvania, and hewed
him to pieces in the public streets accordingly.
The murdered man was "a generous and noble
prince," says the chronicler. Well he kept watch
and ward over the liberties of his brethren of the
faith; and the enemy knew that after his death
they were in a manner defenceless. "Once more
began the oppression-once more was it forbidden
to the Protestants to bring their complaints before
the Diet-once more were successful attempts made




THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.           107
to deprive them  of their churches"-though the
Peace of Vienna had distinctly stipulated that each
party should be left in tranquil possession of their
own.
But truly the peace was no peace until its
jesuitical clauses were removed and the unworthy
Rudolph was dethroned. His brother, the archduke-regent, had summoned a Diet to confirm the
treaty; and against the very first sentence, which
guaranteed perfect liberty to Hungarian Protestants, the bishops and clergy entered a warm
remonstrance. The king, upholding them, declared
all the decisions of the Diet null and void; whereupon the country revolted and the archduke was
offered the crown, on condition that he signed
articles confirming the Protestant claims.
Afterward was calm for a while; and the Reformed churches had leisure to attend to their
internal organization and set the house in order,
now that it was no longer in a state of siege.




CHAPTER XXIV.
THE SYNOD OF SILLEIN,
HIfIS obscure village became famous in Hungarian ecclesiastical history for a gathering
of clergy convened by the magnate and
palatine, George Thurzo, with a view of
arranging church government. They did so after
the manner of a republic. A system of deacons,
seniors, inspectors and superintendents was settled.
Three circles, with as many superintendents, comprised the ten counties represented at the synod.
All these officers of the Church were appointed
by election. A particular duty of the superintendent in his yearly visits to a congregation was
to inquire into the matter and the manner of its
minister's preaching.  Might not our modern
churches take a hint here?   For surely "the
matter and the manner of preaching" includes
much of a minister's efficiency, since it has pleased
God by such "foolishness to save those who believe."
108




THE FAITH IN HUNGAR Y.          109
Eighteen days after the meeting of the synod,
the worshippers at the Church of St. Martin, in
Presburg, might have been seen to gather in
groups about the principal door, reading some
document which was fastened to it by a nail.
And the faithful crossed themselves as they perceived how heavily weighted with curses was this
publication of their cardinal-primate, wherein he
called the Reformed clergy by no gentler name
than wolves, denounced their impiety in daring
to elect superintendents, and demanded that they
should forthwith revoke all the acts of the synod
as illegal.
The paper which the Reformed put forth as
answer was headed with the suitable motto, " Stand
fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath
made us free, and be not entangled again in the
yoke of bondage." They would give up no whit
of their rights, and appealed to the king. The
first nobleman in Hungary, the palatine or viceroy
Thurzo, was warmly on their side. We find that
to his wife was dedicated the Magyar translation
of Luther's admirable Shorter Catechism, used in
teaching Protestant children. The family name
appears henceforth very frequently among the upholders of the truth, which proves that the noble




110       TItE FAITH IN HUNGARY.
lady taught her own children that religion which
she patronized.
An opposition synod was held by the cardinal,
in which the chief business-besides denouncing
that of Sillein-was the prohibition of priests'
marriage and of the cup at the sacrament. And
the new king, Matthias, to whom the Protestants
had appealed,'disowned their right to appoint
superintendents or to organize any ecclesiastical
system.
A book written by a renegade, the Cardinal
Pazmany, at this time did the Reformed cause
much injury. He was born of a Protestant
family, but in his youth joined the Jesuits, among
whom he soon rose to eminence, and was specially
intrusted with the Hungarian mission. His book
was "The Guide to Truth," in which he whitewashed his chosen Church with remarkable ability
and success, directing particular energy to that
black spot on her practice which keeps no faith
with heretics. Full of sophistry, and dressed in
a style popular and attractive, the volume was
widely read, and in consequence ("many persons
left the Reformed communion altogether; but
the loss was to the Protestant Church only
like the stucco falling from a building while




THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.          111
the structure remained still secure." Nobody
answered the book, though Count Esterhazy wrote
a dialogue exposing the errors of the Romish
Church.




CHAPTER XXV.
THE SECOND FERDINAND.
ING  MATTHIAS had no children, and
the Papal party, who dreaded a really free
popular election to the realm of Hungary,
persuaded him  to resign that crown in
favour of their devoted ally, the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. And so in 1618 a Diet was summoned at Presburg for the nominal choice of the
new monarch.
Among the sixteen articles proposed in the Diet
as conditions for the king, the sixth bound him
" to grant a universal, unlimited, unrestrained liberty of public worship in every place and in every
way, as had been guaranteed by the Peace of
Vienna."  After considerable squabbling, Ferdinand accepted of the terms, which went sorely
against the grain of his character. He was one
of the most bigoted and superstitious men alive,
but he had just now to please the Protestants,
and when he promised them full protection by this
112




TIHE.FAITII IN IHUNGARY.        113
sixth stipulation, he added in lofty language that
he would soner lose his life than break his word.
The antecedents of his history, might indeed
have given cause for fear. Before the Virgin's
image at Loretto he had made a vow "to banish
all Protestants out of his estates, should it cost him
his heart's blood," and he had knelt to receive the
pope's blessing on the resolve.  He was an enthusiast and a fanatic as to her worship. He believed
that she had spoken to him-that he had heard her
voice in words of comfort as he lay praying opposite a crucifix during a storm. She was his goddess; he named her generalissimo of all the forces
of the Austrian empire, and he believed that it
pleased her to persecute the Reformed.
How could he, then, have taken a solemn oath
"to grant unlimited, unrestrained liberty of worship in every place?" The explanation, in his own
royal words, is worth remembering as a specimen
of jesuitical reserve: "With my mouth did I indeed swear to the Protestants, but with my heart
to the Roman Catholics."
The renegade, Cardinal Pazmhny, having all the
bitter spirit of a renegade, injured his former coreligionists in every way he could, secure that the
royal oath would olpose no obstacle. He was pri8




114       THE FAIT-I IN HUNGARY.
mate now, and influential in the Diet, and declared
that " he would rather see his villages forsaken of
all their inhabitants and lying waste than that
on his estates a single church should exist for the
benefit of Protestant subjects."  Count Stephen
Palify, a magnate, went the length of erecting a
gallows on which to hang any Reformed ministers
who should enter his territories without leave.
This was hardly " unrestrained liberty of worship!"
In order to swamp the Protestant votes at the
Diet, Ferdinand the Second created, in one year,
twenty-two princes with sixty counts and barons.
Such an overwhelming majority of court creatures
enabled the promnise-breaking king to do much as
he chose with the religious liberties of his people.
I' I would rather have a wasted than an accursed
kingdom," was his remark when the evil tidings
of rebellion and civil war reached his council-chainber; and history records that his bigotry contrived
"to depopulate his monarchy of one million of
human beings."




CHAPTER XXVI.
PRINCE BETHLEN GABOR.'E has been called the Cromwell of Transylvania, for his untiring energy and resolution in the cause of religious liberty. A
prince by birth, he devoted his life to the
oppressed Protestants of Hungary, not hesitating
to oppose the imperial might of Ferdinand with
the force of his small province. Again were the
Turks good allies to the good cause, and by their
help he conquered even the capital, Presburg, and
got possession of the Hungarian crown of St.
Stephen, the national palladium.
Then he stretched out his hand of help to the
Bohemian Protestants, who were struggling for
the commonest rights of toleration, the want of
which would now rouse the sympathies of enlightened Europe.  WVe have all heard of the
Thirty Years' WVar, which made a desert of the
fairest parts of Germany, owing to the bigotry of
Ferdinand  and  his Jesuit advisers.   B6thl6n
115




116       TI~E FAITHt IN HUNGA Y.
Gabor was one of the earliest actors on the field.
At the Diet of Nusohl, 1620, imperial commissioners were ready to guarantee what had been so
often royally guaranteed and so often broken-the
old arrangement for religious freedom in Hungary
-but they would say nothing about Bohemia.
B6thlen (this was his family surname; for we have
seen  how  the Magyar language requires the
baptismal name in the second place, and German
historians accordingly call him  Gabriel B6thl1n)
would lnot relinquish his suffering friends, even to
his own advantage, but made a tighter treaty with
them than ever. Ferdinand's representatives withdrew, and Count Ernerich Thurzo, the chiefest
Protestant magnate, who also was palatine, proposed and carried a resolution that Prince Bethlen
should be proclaimed king of Hungary.
Like the Englishman whom -he resembles, he
refused the dignity.  He was satisfied with his
princedom of Transylvania, and his noblest ambition was to deliver his brethren in the faith from
persecution. Personal aggrandizement would be
set down as the motive of his movements if he
accepted the crown; and he was a God-fearing
man; piety was the prevailing current of his life.
Some of his psalms are still sung in the Reformed




THE FAITHITl IN HUNGAR Y.        117
churches; and  Rornish chroniclers record with
wonder that he had read the Bible, from cover
to cover, twenty times. Not all the entreaties of
the Diet, nor the representations of his less wise
Protestant friends and pastors, could prevail on
him to step upon the glittering eminence of the
throne. Four days after the offer he dissolved the
Diet, having first confirmed its fifty-two laws,
among which were several which bore on the state
of religion in the country.
Perfect equality was decreed to the members of
"the three confessions-Lutheran, Reformed or
Zwinglian and  Arian;" but "attacks on each
other in writings and sermons were forbidden."
The Synod of Sillein was confirmed. The Jesuits
were banished; also the renegade Cardinal Pazmany as a "seditious man and an enemy of Hungary."  Tithes and church dues were to fall to the
clergy of all confessions alike; but three Romish
bishops were declared sufficient for the needs of
that persuasion in the country.  "Such church
property as had hitherto tended to encourage
luxury among the clergy, and such as had been
abused to the persecution of members of other
confessions, and thus to disturbance of the peace,
should be confiscated to the crown."




118       TIHE FATIT IN HIUNGARY.
These laws were made with the assent of many
distinguished Catholic magnates, who recognized
the righteous claims of their Protestant fellowsubjects; but Iing Ferdinand would have none of
them; and as to Bohernia, he went on persecuting
there to his heart's content.  Twelve thousand
worthy Christians (almong whom were one hundred and eighty-five nobles) were driven into exile
in England, Flanders, Switzerland; which exile
often meant starvation. B6thl6n remonstrated, and
backed  his remonstrance  in  the only manner
effectual with Ferdinand's priestly councillors —he
crossed Hungary with a great army.  Passing
through Tyrnau, he endowed an evangelical school
with a maintenance for twenty-four free scholars.
Wherever he went freedom  followed  and true
Christianity raised her head.  George of Brandenburg came to help him with troops. Peace was
made and broken several times. Never were the
terms of the Treaty of Vienna observed, except at
the edge of the sword.  WVhat sacred sanctions
could be invoked to-make those fulfil their compact whose priests enjoined no faith with heretics?
B6thlen's struggle against injustice was nearly
ended, when the peace of Presburg added another
to the broken guarantees of religious liberty.  He




THE FAITH  I-T HUNGARY.         119
died in the following year, 1629, and forthwith the
oppressor began again to violate all promises.
Ferdinand the Second continued to act thus
systematically until his own death  in 1637.
1"Scarce can the eye. find a single point in his
reign of eighteen years on which to rest with
satisfaction.  In  Germany  his ianaticism  had
driven the religious war to the worst pitch.
Magdeburg contained twenty-six thousand corpses
of men, women and children who had perished by
the hand of his general Tilly. Bohemia, Moravia
and a great part of Hungary were miserably
oppressed. What had he gained?  A few stone
churches and schools, stolen from the Lutherans
and Calvinists; a hundred thousand converts
brought over to Rome by sword, prison or
bribery," and the perishing of one million of his
subjects by war and famine. For all these benefits
rendered to the popish cause the Cardinal Pazmnany and Bishop Matthew of Reustadt asserted
that Ferdinand passed immediately into heaven,
without experiencing the pains of purgatory!




CHAPTER XXVII.
RAKOTZY'S REBELLION,'OR years after the death of B36thlln Gabor
the records of the Church in Hungary
present one monotonous picture of suffer~   ing.  Not violent persecution, but every
annoyance that could be inflicted —wrong and robbery in particular —was the experience of the Protestants in the realms of Ferdinand the Third.
Again they looked toward Transylvania for help,
and Prince George Rakotzy raised the standard of
revolt as their only earthly hope.
The king at once issued a proclamation full of
beautiful promises, but few could be deceived by
them  now. Were not his generals —in safe and
undisturbed countries-threatening to hang ally
worshippers in Protestant churches upon gallows
erected before the doors?  Moravian exiles who
had lived peacefully in Skalitz for twenty years
were banished on the world as paupers. But rapid
justice followed this piece of tyranny.  Count
120




TIlE FAITHI IN ItUNTGARY.        121
Robert Douglas, a Scottish captain under Rakotzy,
hastened to that city and reinstated them.
From  the far frozen North did aid also come.
Rakotzy made alliance with Protestant Sweden as
well as with Mohammedan Turkey.  The best
soldier against him  was Prince Esterhazy, who
had once professed the faith which now he sought
to destroy.  On certain estates of his, where the
people were nearly all Protestants, he took possession of their churches, schools, ministers' houses,
and banished the pastors and schoolmasters. And
still he found few to follow his own faithless example for either gain or dread.
France offered to aid Rakotzy with money-not
that her most Christian king cared for the patriots'
cause, but that he wished to damage the House of
Hapsburg and weaken Austria.  These alliances
made the prince of Transylvania so formidable
that a very favourable peace was concluded at
Linz, which has been called " the second pillar of
the rights of the Protestant Church in Hungary."
Ninety churches were to be restored, but then
three hundred had  been lost.  The Reformed
might build new ones, with the probable chance
that they were building them in reality for the
papal party. A needful and far-sighted paragraph




122       THE FAITH IN HU NGARY.
was inserted  that "at every Diet his majesty
shouldl inquire into the complaints of the Protestants and have them redressed."  So certain was it
that there must be causes of complaint!
This first Rakotzy died in 1648, but his son and
successor was just as staunch a Reformer as himself.  When the Jesuits worked their way into the
country again, in spite of the laws for keeping
them out, he quietly got a list made of them and
their disguises, and suddenly required them all to
remove beyond the frontier.




CHAPTER XVIIII.
THE PALATINE AND THE ARCHBISHOP.
IHE greatest layman in Hungary was the
palatine or viceroy.  Chosen by the king
as his representative, he was nevertheless
C    elected also by the Diet.  Generally the
names of two Catholic and two Protestant magnates were proposed by the king, among which lay
the Diet's right of choice.
The greatest church man in Hungary was the
primate-archbishop of Griln. Vast was the influence of this line of prelates. They had the right
of conferring a sort of nobility, which was hereditary. Their revenues were little below those of
royalty.  They wielded the pope's power with
local knowledge of how to apply it. The present
wearer of this mitre was George Lippay, a very
earnest persecutor.  Wherever he had sufficient
authority he banished the Reformed pastors and
placed Jesuits in their stead, in spite of the wishes
of the people or the statute-book of the land. So
123




124.      TItE FAITHI IN HUNGARY.
bitterly did he oppose everything like toleration at
the Diet which confirmed the peace of Linz that
he had to be threatened with the deprivation of his
lay offices by the wiser statesmen about the king.
Sometimes these chief powers, lay and clerical,
had a collision, especially if the palatine happened
to be a liberal-minded man. Count Paul Pallfy,
a Catholic Hungarian of the highest rank, held
the office-at a Presburg Diet, 1649.  The Magnate Chamber was assembled, presided ovei' by the
palatine. The archbishop was not in his place,
and the whisper went that he was paying a morning visit to the king. As religious matters were
to be discussed, the magnates waited for him deferentially, until at last, when  much time had.
elapsed, the palatine rose to open the subject by
saying that the king had assured hini it was his
earnest desire that all quarrels about religion
should be amicably arranged; but when the archbishop entered, without having heard what had
gone before, he rose to assure the assembly that
the king had just said to him the very opposite.
Which was true?  After a pause of astonishment at the conflicting statements, a magnate suggested that a mixed deputation should wait on his
majesty, consisting of an equal number of Catholic




THE FAITH IN HIUNGARY.    125
and Protestant nobles, to ascertain what he really
had said. They returned with a confirmation of
the palatine's words, whereupon he turned indig-'nantly to the archbishop and demanded how lihe
had dared thus to misrepresent the king and disturb the peace of the Diet?  " If it; were not for
your cloth, Sir Churchman, I should know how to
treat you as you deserve!"
But Lippay had spoken in the same spirit as
that of a declaration he had made shortly before,
that the king could tolerate Protestants only as
thieves and robbers are borne with-just so long
as it is impossible to eradicate them.  And his
great power as prince-primate-" beyond all example," says one writer*-enabled him  to be a
very effectual oppressor.  One of his last actions
was to eject all the Protestants from a certain village and fill their place with Roman Catholics.
The king, Ferdinand the Third, tried hard to be
a just man.  He had chosen for his motto, "The
fear of God and justice." He desired to hold the
balance evenly between contending parties, and
was able to succeed so far as that his Protestant
subjects had a little breathing-time toward the
close of his life.
* Grin is still the richest see in Europe.




CHAPTER XXIX.
THE JESUITS' GOLDEN AGE.
P)HIS reign, which lasted half a century
(1657-1705) has been called "the golden
age of the Jesuits," whence may be gathered how injurious it was to Protestantism.
The young emperor had been educated for a priest,
and his blind adherence to'Rome through all his
days proved that he would have made a useful
ecclesiastic.
~The first Diet opened with fair promises, because
the grand vizier of Turkey was approaching with
great force; his second Diet (the danger over)
opened with a memorial from the Protestant deputies, containing the bitterest charges against "' those
who have by violence, for many years, habitually
transgressed the laws of the land and prevented
the exercise of that toleration secured by statute."
Forty churches had been forcibly taken away from
their Protestant builders and owners during the
last three years. A sort of dragonnade had taken
126




THE FAITH IN HIUNGARY.            127
place in some parishes, and soldiers been billeted
on the people till they became Romanists.  Count
Nadasdy sent an armed force to, one church, had
the bells rung as if for worship, and when the congregation assembled the doors were shut, mass
celebrated, and a priest administered the wafer all
round in spite of every resistance; which act made
them all Roman Catholics, according to papal law.
In another parish, the same count ordered that the
Protestants passing through one of his forests to
church, should be stripped of their clothes and sent
home naked. Another nobleman made up a list
of the Protestants on his estates, and gave each an
intimation that if he (lid not become a Catholic he
should be banished, retaining of all his worldly
goods only fonr florins for the journey.  On such
as were not influenced by this threat he billeted
his Wallack soldiery-" the European Indians;"
and the few who withstood both arguments he convinced by imprisonment in his castle (lungeons.
Those who have visited Hungarian dungeons are
not surprised to hear that this method of conversion too often proved effectual.
Hundreds of such stories could be told. But
the repetition of such facts would be wearisome. A general crushing of the Reformed faith




128       TIIE FAITI IN HUIYGARY.
went on througlhout Hungary, in spite of the written and sworn laws.  We read of one nobleman
who caused a great fire to be kindled in the hall
of his castle, and threw therein all the books of the
Protestant pastor.  The holy Bible itself was fixed
on a spit and turned round in a process of gradual
singeing and roasting, while the count and his
friends stood by enjoying the spectacle. By some
sudden blast several leaves of the Bible were blown
about, and one was driven directly toward the
count's breast. Baron Ladislaus Revay caught at
it, but it was seized out of his hand by the count,
who began to read. It happened to be a portion
of the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, and the first words
he read were, "'The grass withereth, the flowers
fideth, but the word of our God slall stand for
ever."
This Jehoiakim conduct had a like punishment.
The count was afterward mixed up in some treason
which caused his death on the scaffold, and when
lie stepped upon it to meet the headsman's sword,
he said, " The Lord is just in all his ways!" and
his burial was that of a malefactor.
Those magnates who were less severe against
their heretic serfs were threatened with punishment
by the bishops. All over the country pastors were




THE FAITH IN~ HUNGARY.            129
lingering in prison, for no other offence than doing
as the law authorized them-n-preaching the gospel
to their own Protestant people. Scores of acts of
oppression were established by overwhelming evidence in their memorial to the emperor-king, Leop)old, and in five subsequent memorials, delivered
at intervals; but his answer (after long delays) was
that the Protestant deputies "' should not annoy his
majesty with such complaints at the Diet, when
something more important had to be done.  For
all these religious grievances the law had already
made ffull provision.".An equivocation worthy of a Jesuit's pupil!
Truly the law was well enough, but never were its
enactments carried out. It was mockery to point
for redress to statutes which were systematically
disregarded by persons in power. So thought the
Romanist palatine Vesselelyi, as he handed the
king's sealed answer to "the faithful members of
the Evangelical Confessions assembled at the
Diet," according to superscription.  " I had rather
the funeral bell tolled over me than live to see this
day," were the high-spirited magnate's words to
them.  "lMay this hour be covered with eternal
darkness!"
After another fruitless appeal for justice, asking
9




130       TItE FAITI't IN HUNVGARY.
it " for the sake of the mercy of God, and for the
sake of' the blood of Jesus shed on the cross," the
Reformed deputies came to the resolution of leaving the Diet, where their most important affairs
were treated with scorn; and no persuasion could
induce them to return.
Then began a long struggle with the court, ending in ruin to the Reformed party. The sword
has seldom  been God's weapon to ensure the
victory of his cause.  Multitudes were banished or
put to death.  One incident we select from  the
painful catalogue.
Nicholas Drabik was a Moravian by birth and
by religion, and had fled to Hungary from  the
persecutions in his own country carried on by the
same rulers of the house of Hapsburg. An humble
and poor man, whose livelihood was "dealing in a
small way in woollen wares," already he was
eighty-four years old, and might have seemed
scarce worthy prey for the ecclesiastical courts.'But he had written a little book of prophecies,
named "Light out of Darkness," in which he
called King Leopold and his predecessors covenant-breakers, and compared the house of Austria
to the house of Ahab-unpleasant and uncourtly
truths.  So he was brought on a cart to Presburg




THE FAITTI IN HUNGARY.           131
for trial, and sat on the ground before his judges,
because from the weakness of age he could not
stand.
When his belief was inquired for, he repeated
the whole Athanasian  Creed.  "I believe all
that," said the archbishop, " l)ut also a great deal
more which is necessary."  The old man rejoined,
sharply (having not the reposeful manners of high
life, but being, in truth, in desperate circumstances),
"You don't believe any such thing. You believe
in your riches and estates."
He acknowledged the authorship of the little
book, which, indeed, had not done much harm in
Hungary, as it was composed in Bohemian, the
only language known to the old peddler. Death
was the sentence pronounced upon him; and such
death! First his right hand was to be amputated;
his tongue to be cut out and nailed to a post; his
head to be cut off; his body burned in the marketplace, together with his writings.
Remanded to prison till all this could be suitably
done, the Jesuit fathers came to him. "Your life
if you recant," said they, as the old man brooded
over his fate, " and we will send you back to your
own country, Moravia, there to die in peace."
Was it any wonder that he yielded?  He said




132       TIIE FAITH IN HUNGARY.
that he would become a Romanist for his life's sake.
Those of us who feel free fiom such weakness may
cast the first stone at the aged prisoner.  But the
promise was all a lie; and, like our own Cranmer,
the old man at execution declared that he would
die in the faith which had sustained his life, and
which he had only for a moment forsaken. To the
letter was his sentence fulfilled.
The persecutions of the Church by Leopold would
fill a volume. In the capital, Presburg, because
the Protestant citizens refused to give up their
churches and schools to the Romish clergy, they
were declared guilty of treason, and their lives and
property confiscated wholesale. After that sweepin)g sentence there was little difficulty in breaking
open the doors, painting red crosses on the pillars
and celebrating mass.  The intercession of the
elector of Saxony prevented any further violence,
except that the ministers were shut up in prison,
and finally banished.
This was in 1673. The same year an attempt
was made on a grand scale to deprive the Protestant Church of its principal pastors, as knowing
that sheep without a shepherd are easily misled.
The archbishop of Gran, a distinguished persecutor,
who had been going through his diocese with a




THtE FAITII IN tHU.NGARY.        133
retinue of Jesuits and dragoons, converting Protestants everywhere by a short and simlple process,
summoned thirty-three pastors from  Lower HEungLary to appear before the viceregal court at Pres)urg.  Four prelates and  some most bigoted
magnates were to ba their judges.
~~




CHAPTER XXX.
TRIAL OF THE PASTORS.
( QERY strange were some of the charges made
against these  thirty-three  representative
pastors.  Not only were they accused of
rebellion, correspondence with the Turks
(who were indeed, far more friendly to them than
so-called Christian powers), but of having stolen
consecrated vessels and made banners of priests'
vestments; of having called the Catholics worshippers of false gods; of having given the consecrated
host to infidels.  A  long indictment, containing
such articles, was read to the accused, but they
were refilsed a copy of it. Mutual consultation for
the purposes of defence was not allowed; and
when once the superintendent was about to say
something to exonerate hinlmself. " Mr. Kalinka,"
said the archbishop of Gran, "there is no leave to
speak here."
The thirty-three seemed to have been called
together merely to be accused and sentenced.  By
134




THIE FAITH IN HUVNGARY.          1f35
their advocate they offered to c(lear themselves by
oath from the more serious charges.  At the close
of the court the archbishop addressed to them  a
few superfluous sentences about his own merciful
disposition.  " My friends," said he, "I find no
pleasure in killing, for I love peace. I could not
look even on the death of a fowl. But I sit here
as judge, and am  compelled to obey the king's
commands.  Nevertheless, I shall do all I can for
you." This was no obscure hint of the treatment
they were to expect.
Next day, as they awaited their sentence, Count
George Illyeshazy came to them  privately.  "I
sympathize deeply with you my poor friends," he
began, "for you are to have a terrible sentence.
Four of you will be put to the torture, have your
hands struck off, and then suffer beheading.  All
the rest are to be exiled. I advise you to apply to
the king for mercy.  Cast yourselves on  his
gracious consideration."  He also offered to act as
mediator. Once he had been a Lutheran himself,
and he understood their case.
"We are guiltless,' said the pastors, "but we
will obey our king in everything save matters of
conscience."
Count George withdrew, and presently returned




136       THE FAITH IN IIUNGAR Y.
with the names of those who Mrere respectively to
be tortured, beheaded and banished. They made
the appeal for mercy which he advised. Banishment from  home and country was the highest
favour which these Protestant preachers could
expect.  What though their position had been
established by the laws of Hungary as distinctly
as the privileges of the nobles?  These priestly
despots cared not for the statute-book so long as
they had the sword.
Finally an arrangement was made by which the
lives of all these guiltless men were graciously
spared, on condition that they signed a document
stating that, "having been found guilty of rebellion,
they, of their own free will, went into exile;" and
it certainly was a fact that their free will chose
banishment rather than torture and beheading.
Some were allowed to stay in Hungary under safeconducts, provided they also signed a declaration
that, "having abused their office, they would, in
future, abstain from every ministerial act."  They
were to live as private persons, if they had any way
of earning their bread.
But dearer to the archbishop's heart, and more
damaging to the Protestant cause than the crushing
of the thirty, would have been the gaining two or




THE FAITH IN HUNLGARY.         137
three proselytes.  He spoke privately to them,
promising money and promotion to any who would
join his Church. The royal treasury should be
the bankers of such; they should have happy and
prosperous lives, so far as filthy lucre can secure
happiness. One man was found among the thirty
to accept the degrading propositions; and from his
surname, " Suhajda," was quickly formed by Hungarian wit the scathing anagram, "Ah, Judas!"




CHAPTER XXXI.
PASTORS TO THE GALLEYS.
HIS banishment of thirty-three pastors was
n merely an instalment of' the work.  The
archbishop's next citation summoned three
hundred and seven of them  to appear b)efore the same court at Presburg.  Again did the
Turks prove protectors, for the pasha-governor of
countries on the frontier would not allow the ministers near him to attend.
Two letters, alleged to have been written b)y a
deceased pastor, formed the foundation of a charge
of rebellion against this multitude of ministers.
Pretext for getting rid of them was all their enemies wanted; and when, after a month of "superficial investigation and debating, before men who
were at the same time accusers, witnesses and
judges," sentence of " beheading, confiscation, infamy, outlawry," was pronounced on the mass,
"no one pretended that it had even the slightest
appearance of justice.  Tihe design was to annihi138




THE FAITH IN HUNGARE.             139
late heretics, and fanaticism considered every means
allowable."
Two hundred and thirty-six signed their resignation of the ministerial office and their own sentecee of perpetual banishment, with the headsman's sword before their eyes. The rest held out.
Five were chained together and thrown into a
dungeon as encouragement to their brethren.
Then twenty were brought in common country
carts to Eberhard, the archbishop's palace-castle,
and thrust into dark and filthy cells.  Eighteen
were sent to Leopoldstadt, having the hangman in
the wagon for companion, who illustrated his religious zeal by beating their heads with his stick
because they were heretics.  A  new amusement
was also found for the archiepiscopal dessert.
After dinner the prelate was wont to send for Protestant pastors from the dark and filthy cells aforesaid, and "' after the bitterest insults and mockery,
he sometimes descended to personal violence because they still steadily refused to sign the deed
of' demission. On one ~occasion he struck Stephen
Nemethy with a hammer so violently that his arm
was rendered almost useless."
WVhen these were the actions of the head of the
Hungarian hierarchy, what could be expected from




140       THE FAITH IN IHU.NGARY.
its inferior members? The pressure of slow suffering began to produce the effect calculated on.
Seventeen Lutherans renounced their faith at IKomorn, and received each fifty florins reward, with
liberty. And so elsewhere.  But at Leopoldstadt,
where the sufferers were staunchest, the Jesuit
IKellio made them endure most. Coarse bread and
water was their food.  Each bore heavy chains
day and night.  They worked in these-dug away
ice and snow and cleaned the sewers of the fortress.
And some of the most honoured men in Hungary
were thus treated. No assistance of money or food
might be given them.  A compassionate woman
discovered in the act was put in a movable pillory
and driven about the streets.  One pastor, who refused to kneel as the consecrated wafer was carried
by, was beaten till he bled. Two others, who were
bleing taken by force to hear mass, tried to turn
back at the church door, on which the enraged
Kellio caused them to be stretched on the ground
and belaboured with the ramrods of the soldiers'
guls in such a manner that they died soon after.
Thirty-six pastors were taken firom the fortress
of Komorn on 11th March, 1675, and committed
to a guard of cavalry for conveyance to Italy.
They had been told that King Leopold was gra



TIlE FAITH IN HUNGARY.           141
ciously pleased to spare their lives, "that they
might learn to pray in the galleys."  Chained in
pairs, "under the mockery of the soldiers, they
travelled on foot from Vienna to Trieste.  Here
the buttons were cut off their coats, their beards
and heads shaved quite close so that they could
distinguish each other only by the voice."  Many
died on the way, at which we do not wonder when
we read that their daily provision was a quarter
of a pound of biscuit and a glass of water, to
which was sometimes added a bit of cheese. But
fiurther than Trieste was their journey, for the galleys lay at Naples, and they had to traverse so
much of the peninsula wearily on foot.  One exhausted man Who fell on the road was left there
unburied.  Thirty were sold in Naples for fifty
Spanish piastres each, and chained to the benches
among thieves and murderers, their only crime
preaching the truth of God's holy word.




CHAPTER XXXII.
DELIVERANCE BY THE DUTCH.
K( IND Christian lived in Naples, by name
/  George Weltz, and God put it into his heart
X/  to visit these poor Hungarian slaves and
relieve their numerous wants.  He was
wise in his generation, and paved his way by
making presents to the inspector and being complaisant to the general in charge, so that at last
this officer promised to set them free for the price
of one hundred ducats apiece.
The gleam  of hope was delusive; much more
had to be done.  Princes and peoples had interceded for them in vain. The elector of Saxony's
spirited remonstrance with Leopold fell flat. Even
our good-for-nothing Charles the Second issued a
royal letter to the principal cities, the universities
and prelates of England, desiring that a collection
slhoulld be made for the release of these sufferers.
The  English  ambassador at Naples supported
George Weltz in his application to the Spanish
142




TIE FAITTI IN HUNGARZY.          143
regent Alvarez, wherein he stated that not for rebellion, but for their religion's sake alone, were
these good men condemned to the most horrible
slavery.  Again Weltz offered to buy their fieedom.  "They are not Catholics," replied the regent, and because of this they could not even be
ransomed.
But one day a Dutch squadron sailed into the
Bay of Naples and took the case into its charge.
The regent's scruples melted away, for De Ruyter
was cruising not far off, and his name was a name
of' terror to oppressors. Presently he sailed into
the harbour himself, and whereas to the commodore release of the prisoners had been promised
within a given time, to the admiral, backed by all
the power of the States-General, release was actually
granted.  The Neapolitan Supreme Court, under
stimulus of his presence; declared "that the pastors
and professors confined on board the galleys are
not guilty of the charges laid against them, and
shall without delay be set free."
The chaplain and principal officers of the Dutch
fleet brought them  the joyful news, and straightway the twenty-six Hungarian pastors-for to this
number were they now reduced-were unchained
amid tears of gladness, and with one acclamation




144        T'E FAITH IN HUNGARY.
they broke forth into the triumphant words of the
hundred and twenty-fifth Psalm:
"They that trust in the Lord shall be even as Mount Zion;
WVhich cannot be removed, but abideth for ever!
As the mountains are round about Jerusalem,
So the Lord is round about his people from henceforth, even
for ever."
And again:
"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help. in
trouble....
Come, behold the works of the Lord...
He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth:
He breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear in sunder: He
burneth the chariot in the fire.
Be still, and know that I am God:
I will be exalted among the heathen."
Thus singing, in voices broken with emotion,
they were brought over the waters of the beautiful
bay to the ships of the comnmodore who had first
made efforts for their deliverance.  " He received
and embraced them  with unspeakable joy."  Down
upon the deck of the war-ship they all kneeled
together, again to thank God even with weeping;
and then arising, their full hearts found further
utterance in singing another psalm!
"I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my
supplications.




THE FAITH 1-N HUNGARY.               145
Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I
call upon him as long as I live.
The sorrows of death compassed me, the pains of hell got
hold upon me:
I found trouble and sorrow.
Then called I upon the name of the Lord: O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul."
Next morning they  were brought before the
venerable De Ruyter himself.  "It has given me
more joy than all my victories," said this conqueror, "to have delivered you, the servants of
Christ, from  your intolerable  slavery."   When
they would have essayed to thank him, " Give all
the glory to God," he interposed; "' I am  only his
instrument." And so the Dutch fleet sailed away
from  the bay of Naples, bearing with  it these
persecuted men, who finally found refuge in HIolland and England.
10
K o.




CHAPTER XXXIII.
"IN DENS AND CAVES OF THE EARTH."
-HE mountains have often been nurseries of
God's truth and refuge for his servants, as
C    were the Carpathians now. So effectually
had the bigoted Leopold and his priests
purged Hungary of heresy that, except in a few
free cities or under the protection of one or two
powerful magnates, his Protestant subjects dared
not openly  worship  God. Unrepealed  in  the
statute-book lay the laws of the land guaranteeing
them equality of rights with their Catholic neighbours, but every day they were cast into prison,
robbed and banished, for no other reason than that
the strong hand of injustice was in the place of
power.
Out in the heaths of Hungary, peopled with
wild cattle and earless marmots-those vast steppes
or "pusztas" that stretch five thousand square
miles from Pesth to Transylvania-in lonely glens
of the hills and glades of the forests, in ruined
146




TIlE FAITH IN HUNGARY.            147
castles and deep morasses, among the frogs and
leeches, lived the hunted Protestant pastors, having
no certain dwelling-place.  "From  the dark cavern, scantily lighted, arose the psalm of praise to
those wild melodies which to this day thrill the
heart of the worshipper.  From  lips pale and
trembling with disease, arising from a life spent
in constant fear and danger, the consolations of
the' gospel were proclaimed."
Every effort was used by the enemy to discover
such secret meeting-places.  So base an action was
commrnitted as that a Jesuit assumed the garb of a
pastor, borrowed his forms of speech, counterfeited
his habits, and went about among the unsuspecting
people to find out the secrets of their faith and the
manner in which it was kept alive amid the storms
of persecution. Betrayal followed; the peasant
found that his guest had been a spy and informer.
In some places the smouldering fire broke ou.t
into actual-rebellion.. It is a meekness not to be
expected in thuman nature that men can be plundered of all they hold dear in life and never raise
an arm of resistance.  Count Emerich Tokely, an
ar(lent youth of twenty, gathered the insurgents
into a force of many thousand men and carried oi




148' uIE FAITI IN HUNGARY.
a guerrilla warfare for years. He said he would
gladly lay down his arms as soon as Protestant
rights were re-established. At last, because he was
too successful, an armistice was concluded, pending
the holding of a Diet in Edenberg.
There the Protestant States of Hungary ap)roached their monarch with a memorial whi ch
ought to have covered his royal cheek with the
crimson of shame.  They complained of systenmatic
and unceasing oppression, in spite of numberless
laws to which his majesty had solemnly sworn.
They had such cruelties to tell as that "some pastors have been stretched on the ground and nailed
to wood in the form of a cross; others have been'bastinadoed.  After three attempts to hang a certain minister, he was at last buried alive! Even
noblemen have been led in chains to attend on the
Romish service. When psalms are sung or prayers
offered in private houses the parties have been
marched to prison as felons. Our brethren are not
permitted to learn or practise a trade till they have
renounced their faith."  These were a few of the
grievances endured by a large section of the EHungarian people.  Four memorials to the king, an(d
one to the queen, declaring such crying evils, remained unanswered.  Until the deputies of thir



THlE FAITH IN IHUNGARY.          149
teen Catholic counties joined in their prayer it
obtained no heed.
Leopold then sent a message declaring that
"a1ll states in the whole land-magnates, nobles,
free cities and royal boroughs-should remain
by their religion.  Not only should there be full
liberty of faith, but also full and complete liberty
of religious exercise in every form."
This seemed very fair, but the king had neither
signed it nor sealed it with the imperial seal.
Some days of further contest followed before this
reasonable security could be obtained, and nothing
was said of restitution.  What about the nine
hundred churches and school-houses that had been
forcibly taken possession of by the Catholics?
One scarcely wonders to find such an aphorism as this current among the Protestant masses
of Hungary: "Ne hidj neki mest Papista"Don't believe him, he is a Papist."  It was the
popular translation of that "Punic faith" which
so often sported with their hopes only to deceive
them.
Things went on just as usual after the Diet.
Pastors were hunted and people oppressed, as if
there were no such thing as an imperial promise
ever uttered.




CHAPTER XXX IV.
KARAFFA AND HIS BLUTSGERICHT.
UIdNGARIAN  Protestants lost a very im]  portant bulwark of protection when Buda
was taken from the Turks in 1685. They
b had held it fobr a hundred and forty-six
years, and all shades of faith were tolerated under
the Crescent.
Leopold's general in Upper Hungary was Anton
Karaffa, a name that has become falmous for tyrannic cruelty. Nearly all the nobles of his district
were Protestants, and he laid a plan for their ruin
that amounted to a universal prescription.  He
accused them of rebellious tendencies en masse, and
demanded full powers from Vienna to act as lie
thought proper.
"C To punish the guilty according to the laws of
Hungary," was the license given. It was scarcely
probable that the assigned limit would be regarded
by a savage soldier, who had declared that if a
single nerve in his body was inclined to favour
150




TIIE FAITH IN HIUNGARY.         151
the Hungarians, he would cut it out and cast it
on the fire.  KIaraffa forthwith established that
court of judicature which quickly acquired the
title of "'Blood Council."  Spies of the lowest
grade rapidly filled his prisons with innocent victims. Thirty hangmen were in constant pay. Six
hundred florins were paid for the invention of new
tortures and modes of death. Perhaps it was then
that an anguish was invented which has not been
practiced in any other land but JHungary —the
upper and lower jaws of a prisoner fastened together by a padlock passed through flesh and
bone, and he left to die in a dark dungeon. The
skeletons of such victims have been found even
in our own day, mute victims of a fiendish barbarity.
Among ordinary executions, Sigismund Zimmerman, a distinguished senator and inspector of
the evangelical Church, was beheaded after four
hours on the wheel. Do we, comfortable Protestants of the nineteenth century, know what is
meant by those awfully significant words-" on the
wheel?" They mean that the principal bones in
the body are broken, one after the other, by violent blows from a heavy iron bar.  Other men
were brought to the scaffold half-roasted by pre



152       TIHE FAITH IN -HUNGARY.
vious exposure to the fire. A son, whose father
had been just executed, ascended it singing:
"Lord Jesus Christ, my only light,
The rock on which I build."
He was a young man of thirty years old, with wife
and children to make life sweet to him.
All this went on without hindrance for months,
and then a certain nobleman from Neusold, being
put to the torture till he was nearly dead, was ransomed by a friend for ten thousand dollars.  After
a long nursing he recovered, and going to, the Diet
at Presburg, told his acquaintances what he had
suffered.  "Human  nature  could not bear so
much," they said; whereupon he took them aside
and showed them  the scars on his limbs.  This
proof might not be gainsaid.  Two of the deputies
went to Vienna, and demanded of the emperor
that I(araffa should be recalled and the " Blood
Council" dissolved. The palatine Esterhaizy added
his influence, and their request was granted, but
Karaffa was received at court with all honour, and
granted a medal as a mark of imperial approbation.
In the same Diet, Leopold proclaimed that his.
Protestant subjects had, by their dissatisfaction




THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.          153
with their condition, forfeited all their privileges;
nevertheless he would, of his royal favour, continue to them the liberties granted in 1681. It
was not pleasant to hear-in the very year when
William of Orange was freeing England from
James the Second's tyranny-that the lives and
property of the Protestant community in HIungary
had no securer shelter than the favour of a bigot.
r2AM01



CHAPTER XXXV.
ANOTHER RAKOTZY.
EOPOLD'S promise of toleration gave little
security.  A  royal commission  for the
settlement of religious affairs made matters
worse than  before.  In  Trentschin respectable citizens were publicly flogged on marketdays for no other crime than that of being Protestants. They were compelled to attend  all the
processions, carrying flags or tapers. At Giins the
Romish abbot aided the commissioner and put the
pastor in chains.  When a burger inquired on
whose authority it was done, this military ecclesiastic pulled out a pistol and showed it as sufficient answer.
The land longed for a deliverer. The palatineprince Esterhazy received from Rome a dispensation permitting him to marry his brother's daughter,
on the express condition that he should use his
utmost endeavours to root out heresy. He faithfully fulfilled the compact, compelling whole vil154




TIIE FAITH IN HUNGARY.           155
]ages on his estates to become Romanist. Numerous families were banished from house and home,
sent forth as paupers on the wide world, because
they would not comply. He commanded, under
his seal as viceroy of Hungary, that all lieutenants
of counties should be diligent to extirpate "these
vermin."  So efficacious were these measures that
the Jesuits boasted they had gained eighteen thousand Hungarian converts in one year, and that the
number of churches taken from the Protestants was
past counting.
Ralkotzy, prince of Transylvania, would not join
these oppressors.  On some pretext he was cast
into prison, and would have been beheaded only
for the immense bribe paid by his wife to the
guards, who allowed him  to escape to Poland.
There he brooded over the wrongs of his country,
and finally drew the sword in 1703. At first lihe
was eminently successful.  His armies swarmed
round the very walls of Vienna.  Half Hungary
owned him as master. All the traditions of his
race combined to urge him forward in his path of
liberator.  He could not be blinded by the old
faithless promises. " Who can believe," he wrote
to a mediating bishop, "that the court of Vienna
intends to keep its word, when the Turks are in



156       THE FAITII IN HUNGARY.
vited to assist in crushing the Protestants, and
the Jews promised a great reward for assassinating
myself? The king acknowledges that the laws of
the land have been transgressed by his officers, yet
he does nothing to cause their injustice to cease.
He refers only to some future Diet; but after what
we have seen we may rather expect injustice to
increase with the meeting of a Diet." Ralkotzy
refused to enter into any treaty the righteous performance of which should not be guaranteed by
foreign powers.
The English ambassador, George Stepney, came
forward to aid his fellow-Protestants in procuring
favourable terms.  Charles the Twelfth of Sweden
did likewise.  He also rendered material help to
the Hungarian Church by ordering that four of
his divinity students should be maintained at his
expense in a German university.  He gave twenty
thousand dollars to an evangelical school, whose
funds had been appropriated by the Jesuits.
It was unfortunate that Rllkotzy's movement
assumed a revolutionary aspect after the Diet of
Onod, at which the I-ungarian throne was declared
vacant and the malcontent nobles attempted to set
up a republic. Also the four creeds, Catholic,
Lutheran, Calvinistic and  Unitarian, were an



THIE FZITHI IN HUNGARY.           157
nounced to have equal rights and privileges.  One
body only would not be tolerated: the Jesuits
must  be expelled.  In  a  lengthened  speech,
Ridkotzy  recapitulated  their evil deeds, their
double-dealing: " Persecutions, confusions, endless
mischief had they caused in all lands, especially in
Hungary."
Though he was a Roman Catholic prince, the
pope (Clement the Eleventh) excommunicated himi.
for espousing the cause of heretics.  Thenceforth
his supporters began to fall off.  The emperor
Joseph gave some concessions which tempted away
Protestants. That celebrated convention known as
the Peace of Sznthmar was concluded in 1711;
it was guaranteed by England through the earl
of Sutherland, and by Holland through Baron
Rechtan.  A few words from a state paper which
these ambassadors presented to the emperor are
worth quoting as illustrative of the oppression
against which Ratkotzy revolted and struggled for
nine years:
"The conduct of the (Hungarian) landed proprietors in compelling those resident on their estates
to adopt the landowners' religion, differs in no way
from the awful French persecutions. The souls of
men cannot be brought nearer to God by such treat



158       TIlE FAITH IN IHUNGARY.
ment.  If dragoons and hussars are proper persons
to do the work of' apostles of Jesus Christ, he would
never have sail,' Behold, I send you forth as sheep
among wolves.' "
The central stipulation of this Peace of Szathmar
was, "perfect freedom  to the Protestants."  But
the time was not yet.




CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE PESTH COMMISSION AND PRAGMATIC SANCTION.
~~GQHARLES THE SIXTH, successor of Jo%WJI seph (who died while the Peace of Szathmar
was in the hands of plenipotentiaries) was
the archduke for whom England had fought
so strenuously that he might be set on the throne
of Spain in opposition to the grandson of Louis the
Fourteenth.  "One of his first royal acts was to
surrender the ancient crown of' Hungary to depu-ties of the Hungarian nation;" it had long been
shlut up in the treasury at Vienna, and its absence
from native soil was regarded with a perpetual
discontent.
This conciliatory spirit was shown through the
early part of his reign. He published so many
petty decrees in favour of his Protestant subjects
that the inference is irresistible that they were continually being oppressed by the bishops and other
Romish powers. In one of these he commands
159




160       TItE FAITH IN  UIVNGAR Y.
that Protestant tradesmen shall not be punished
for absenting themselves from  the Catholic processions on Corpus Christi Day.  Because he expressed his "royal will and pleasure" on such
matters, it was argued by their enemies that Protestants had no legal rights, but were dependent
on the passing caprice of the monarch. A  new
oath was invented to exclude all but Romanists
from any office, containing the formula-" I swear
by the Holy Virgin and all the saints;" and this
was the cause of innumerable quarrels and heartburnings, for no Protestant could take it.
The territory over which the Turks had ruled
was the scene of hottest persecution now; for
the Jesuits discovered a quibble which put the
lives and property of the heretics there into their
tender hands; this notable device was, that all
edicts of toleration had been meant for that part
of Hungary under Austrian sway, and  therefore the newly-acquired countries had no claim
whatever to freedom  of conscience.  And they
acted accordingly.
Charles summoned a number of commissioners
to meet at Pesth, and investigate the complaints
which poured in from  his Protestant subjects.
They showed their bias at once by taking as the




THE FAIT'It IN HUNGARY.         161
ground of their transactions a decree of 1707, in
which it was declared that religious toleration
must cease in those towns formerly on the borders,
because they were now integral parts of the kingdom, and that in the newly-conquered territories
no person  must profess any religion  but the
Romish. The Evangelical Confessions protested;
they demanded as the very first and most essential
rule for the guidance of the commissioners, that
they should "recognize religious liberty as the
right of every one, in every station throughout
the land of Hungary."  So far from this point
being yielded, even the Protestant commissioners
themselves were forbidden by the Catholic majority to hold any public worship in Pesth.
Finally the king was obliged to adjourn the commission in despair of its members doing anything
but fight..
Not till 1730 was the result of its labours, and
its folio volumes filled with conflicting evidence,
made known to the empire in what are called
" The Resolutions of Charles." They were drawn
up by a council headed by the famous Prince
Eugene of Savoy, and set forth that public worship could be permitted to Protestants only in the
towns mentioned in a decree of Leopold's pub11




162       THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.
lished fifty years before; that in other places
family worship might be tolerated, provided only
the members of each family were present, and such
must employ the Romish priest for all baptisms,
marriages and  burials.  All apostates shall be
severely punished at the pleasure of the civil magistrate after due report to the king. Catholic
holidays were to be observed by all Protestants,
who were also to take part in every procession for
the honour of the Virgin and saints, and must
whenever required swear according to the "decretal oath," with the express clause, "By the
Mother of God and all the Saints."  In fact, all
the injustice practised of late years was legalized.
After this came an imperial decree ordering that
all churches in possession of Protestants, which
had not been secured to them by express enactment, should be immediately confiscated. Says the
chronicler: " It was midwinter, and a Hungarian
winter!" when the Danube is blocked shore to
shore with masses of ice, like the St. Lawrence,
and forty degrees below the freezing point is nothing rare; "one may picture the distress of the
people, but much more of the clergy and their
families, who were all turned out on the world."
In Lower Hungary all this oppression was not




THIE FAITtI IN HUNGARY.            163
patiently borne. The whole congregation of a
chlurch sometimes consisted of the lesser orders
of noblemen, who by the Golden Bull had many
rights and privileges, and also had a mind to
maintain them.  Sometimes they assembled their
vassals and fortified the Church as had been done'of old against the Turks. For whenever a priest
contrived by force or fraud to celebrate mass or
perform any other ceremony of his religion in a
church, it was considered by law to belong to him
thenceforth, and to his creed. Here was a premium
upon trickery and violence.
All this was in defiance of the renewed pledges
entered into when Hungary yielded adhesion to
Charles the Sixth's Pragmatic Sanction,* regulating the succession in his family.  He wanted to
transmit his kingdoms to his daughter Maria Theresa, and -much diplomacy was necessary to secure
the consent of States to whomr  a femnale ruler was
unknown.  At every Diet the Protestants made a
battle for their rights, and if they apparently gained
* Pragmatic Sanction is a term that has been used in reference to various imperial or royal ordinances in history.
Another equally celebrated Pragmatic Sanction was that of
Charles the Seventh of France, in 1438, restricting the authority of the pope over the Gallican Church.




164       THE FAITH- IN HUlNGAR Y.
anything by the pressure of tile moment, it was
afterward undone by the bigots. This very Diet
of Presburg, which recognized the baby Maria Tlleresa (three years old) as future queen of Hungary,
was also memorable for a solemn protest from the
clergy, headed by the cardinal prince of Saxony,
against " any proposed toleration whatever toward
those who are not Catholics."  Does it not faithfully reflect the spirit of IRome in all ages?
One specimen of subsequent hardships may l)e
given. A poor Slavack at Miawa had been much
distressed in his soul on account of his sins, and
finding no relief from the ceremonies and penances
of the Romish Church, he went to the Protestant
pastor, Daniel KIirmann.  Hearing of that blessed
Saviour who taketh away the sin of the world, and
hath a special welcome for the weary and heavyladen, he found peace and joy in simple believing.
But as soon as the priest learned that he had joined
the Protestant congregation, he brought a company
of soldiers to seize and punish him. The citizens
rang the alarm-bells, a mob collected; the pastor
would not give up his convert, and was upheld in
his resolve by the people. This scene was made
the pretext for an order that they should surrender
their church and school to the Catholics; the un



I,                                                   i
DANIEL KIRMAN.








THE FAITH IN BHUiNGARY.          165
fortunate convert was imprisoned at Presburg, and
four years afterward disappeared altogether and
was never more heard of. The pastor was sentenced to imprisonment for life; and though the
powerful Frederick William of Prussia interceded
for him, he died in jail after nine years' close confinement.
Frederick William also appealed to his imperial
brother on behalf of the whole Protestant Church
in Hungary. The appeal was supported by the
ambassadors of England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden. But hardly anything was gained; even the
oath, " by the Holy Virgin and Saints," was only
suspended for a time.
_~~~K




CHAPTER  XXXVII.
MARIA THERESA,
7 KVERYTITING  was hoped from the kind
heart of a woman when she began her reign.
[ Nobly did Hungary stand by her in her
S  sore distress, when Prussia, France, Spain,
and Bavaria tried to overthrow her throne, established by her father on the Pragmatic Sanction. A
Diet was assembled at Presburg, and one of the
most striking scenes in history is that of the young
queen standing in the midst of the magnates with
her baby son in her arms, and addressing them in
Latin so eloquently that five hundred  swords
flashed from their scabbards, and the cry rang to
the roof, "VWe will die for our king Maria!"
Of course she would take any oath required at
such a juncture; and accordingly swore "to preserve inviolate all the rights and privileges of the
nation in all points, clauses and articles, as have
been settled  between the  king and the representatives of the country."  This certainly in166




THE FAITH IN HUNG AR Y.         167
eluded the toleration so often granted in theory to
her Protestant subjects, and so invariably broken
in practice. But very soon we find the old system
of petitioning begun again; for the oath above
mentioned shut out Protestants from every public
employment and municipal office; and they were
allowed no schools nor books, and their pastors
were not permitted to visit the sick and dying.
They wanted an oath with the Virgin's name
omitted; that those who came to worship should
not be robbed or stripped; that converts should not
be publicly scourged; that forcible seizure of
Protestant property should be discountenanced;
that complaints should not be investigated by the
very parties who caused the injustice.
Maria Theresa's answer was a confirmation of
her father's celebrated Resolutions, and especially
of the objectionable oath "by the Virgin and
saints." No act of her life shows any tenderness to
that large section of her subjects who adhered to the
Augsburg and Helvetic Confessions.
There was a Reformed preacher named Mathias
Bohil, whose story is aptly illustrative of the
times under Maria Theresa. He lived in one of
the most sorely-tried evangelical cities, Eperges;
that is, he was allowed to live in the suburbs,




168       THE FAITH IN HUNVGABY.
and if any sick member of his flock within the
walls wanted his services, the sick man must be
carried outside those walls in order to receive
them.  But this pastor was a dauntless person,
and made himself so troublesome by maintaining his few rights that the ecclesiastics resolved
to get rid of him.  He had  lately helped a
Protestant child to escape from the hands of the
Jesuits to a place where he could be educated in
the faith his father wished him  to learn. But
because he had been forced into popery, and said
he would sooner die ten deaths than have his child
trained in the same, the Jesuits seized the child —
six years old-and by administering the consecrated
wafer made him a Catholic.  Then the pastor
helped the parents to send away their child; for
which the father was thrown into a dungeon with
a chain round his neck, while the mother (a Protestant) was forced to escape to the mountains.
_Mathias Bohil could expect nothing but to be a
marked man. One evening, as he was sitting at
supper with his wife and children, two policeofficers entered  and arrested him.  Before departure he contrived to secrete a line on which
clothes were dried, and which afterward stood him
in good service.  Before the magistrates he was




THE FAITtH IN HUNGARY.           169
examined respecting a book which had appeared
in Bohemian, called "The Rise -and Progress of
Popery," and which contained an address from the
Wittemberg Church encouraging their persecuted
brethren to be steadfast.  His books and papers
were searched, and his enemies pretended that
therein were found treasonable letters to Frederick
William of Prussia, the great antagonist of Maria
Theresa.
WThen the prisoner noticed that his confinement
was made more stringent and his guards doubled,
watching and sleeping alternately during the
twenty-four hours, he began to think that KIirmann's fate of perpetual imprisonment might be
awaiting him. He resolved to attemp)t an escape,
and having committed his case to God in prayer,
"he felt such joy and inward peace as if he were
already in a place of safety."
Now, it was the duty of the sentinels to relieve
each other in watch, one sleeping while the other
nmarched to and fro, but this night both seemed
overcome with drowsiness.  The pastor prayed
that their sleep might be solid as that of Saul and
Abner when David passed unobserved through the
camp of his foes. Then he rose up silently and
stole to the door, having with him the rope he




170       TlE F1FAITH IN HiUNGARY.
brought from home. The key was inside, and he
opened the door easily.  With little trouble he
reached the courtyard. The fierce dogs kept there
were silent and quiet. He reached the city wall
and let himself down by his rope.  His hands
were cut, and he had fallen some distance because
the cord was short, but he was safe for the present.
Bohil lay in the woods for some days, though it
was the season of melting snows. At last he was
able to get across the frontier.  His wife was
threatened with the heaviest punishment if she
dared to go after him, yet she contrived ere long
to join him at Breslau with their three children.
There he wrote and printed an account of the
miserable state of the Evangelical Church of Hungary, in hope of attracting the sympathies of Protestant princes.
Shortly afterward a Hungarian bishop published
a pamphlet dedicated to Maria Theresa, demanding the extirpation or banishment of all Protestants in the realm, and remarked in a witty manner
that as the Church of Rome was never bloodthirsty, she would be quite satisfied with the burning of these heretics!




CHAPTER XXXVIII.
JOSEPH THE SECOND.
HE infant son who had been held in Maria
I  Theresa's arms at the Diet of Presburg had
since been growing into a man, and slowly
strengthening with his strength was a deeprooted hate of the priestcraft by which he saw his
mother surrounded and her kingdoms imperilled.
He was aware of the spirited remonstrance of
Frederick of Prussia, wherein he states that " one
might almost suppose the design of the government
was to drive the Protestants of Hungary to despair, and induce them to try such illegal means
of redress as should place them entirely at the
mercy of their rulers."  Often had they been
driven so far in preceding generations. The marvel was that any one in Hungary had courage to
be anything but a Roman Catholic, or that a vestige of the incessantly-persecuted Church  survived.
Frederick's remonstrance bore fruit in an unex171




172       THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.
pected quarter.  Pope Benedict the Fourteenth
wrote to the cardinal of Breslau that he did not
approve of the exertions of the hierarchy in Hungary.  At the same time a letter from  the archbishop of Canterbury stated that King George of
England had  given directions to his Viennese
ambassador to help the Protestants in Hungary.
But the succeeding pope, Clement the Thirteenth, showed different ideas from Benedict in his
fanatical Bull of 1759, wherein he calls on General Count Daun utterly to eradicate all satanic
heresy.  At his side would fight the destroying
angel to help in annihilating the accursed seed of
Luther and Calvin. Only one hundred and six
years ago since the infallible head of the infallible
Chlurch used this language!
Joseph became king of Hungary shortly after.
Although the jealousy of his mother left him little
real power during her lifetime, yet it was now that
lie gathered  that knowledge and  formed those
plans which afterward came to fruition in the
great Edict of Toleration which has made his
name so justly famous.  He travelled throughout
his kingdom  and saw for himself the state of
parties. He attributed much of the miseries he'beheld to Jesuit interference.  He proved to his




TIHE FAITI- IN tiIUESARY.         173
mother how these Jesuits used even the secrets
of the confessional foi political purposes, by obtaining friom. Madrid a copy of the sins which she
had at Easter confessed to her Jesuit priest. IHe
rejoiced loudly when Pope Clement the Fourteenth
decreed the suspension of the order.
As the empress left affairs more and more in the
hands of her vigorous and clear-sighlted son, the
authority of the Roman Church became more limited and the liberty of the Protestants greater,
Joseph was no sooner emperor than his Protestant subjects addressed him, as usual on an accession, asking for their long-claimed rights as men
and citizens.- He at once ordered that religious
opinions should exclude from no civil office, and
that fitness should be the only qualification.
" I have a heavy work before me," he wrote to
the archbishop of Salzburg; "I must reduce the
army of monks and try to transform  these fakirs
into human beings.  lfy task is to lessen the
power of those men before whose shorn heads the
rabble bows with reverence." Again, to the legate
at Rome, he said, "It is necessary to remove out
of the category of religion some things which never
belonged to it..   I shall give my people, instead
of a legendary romance, a preached gospel."




CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE EDICT OF TOLERATION.
T appeared on the twenty-fourth of October,
1781-a white day in the annals of the
Hungarian Church.  "Perfect freedom for'    the Protestants "-that dream of nigh three
hundred years-was at last granuted and guaranteed
irrevocably.
No need to examine the provisions of the edict
in detail. The long and weary strife of the Evangelical Church was at last over. Gradually, by
supplementary decrees, the emperor drew off any
chains that remained on her shackled limbs.
Joseph the Second had need of all his strong
character to stand the ensuing storm  of priestly
disapprobation.  His confessor declared that he
could promise him no suc cess against his enemies
if he did not cut off the heretics, root and branch.
But the emperor only wrote to his bishops, comman(ling them to fulfil the law of Christ: " Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye
174




THE FAITH IN HUNGARY.              175
even so to them."   Any prelate who was dissatisfied with  his measures of toleration could
resign his office and leave the country.
The pope (Pius the Sixth) thought he would try
the effect of a personal visit to his imperial son.
He was received with the utmost honour. Crowds
of the highest rank pressed to kiss his jewelled
slipper; and his Holiness was so considerately
courteous as to order the said slipper to be carried
round to the house of many distinguished families
in Vienna.  When the pope's throne was raised a
step higher than that of the emperor in the cathedral, Joseph stayed at home indisposed and cogitating new plans of religious reform.  " He was no
theologian; he could not argue," was his answer to
every attempt at conversation on the subject.  He
would be glad to have the approbation of his Holiness for the Toleration Edict; but, if not convenient, it could be dispensed with! Joseph was
imperturbable to smiles or frowns.  When Pius
went away, he accompanied him affectionately as
far as the monastery of St. Ilary's Well, outside
the city four miles, and after he had gone quietly
ordered the suppression of the monastery.
All attempts at persecution for the rest of that
reign were, to use the Hungarian historian's com



176        THE FIAITIT IN HUNVGARY.
^parison, " like isolated clouds trying to darken
the bright heavens."  The illustrious Joseph took
care that while he lived his edict was no dead
letter.  "In the sweat of his brow he eat kingly
bread, attempting to sweep away the arrears of
ages."
Here our skietcles of the Reformation in }Hungary colne to an end. We know that in after years
there have been renewed oppressions upon the
Church which battled so gallantly and so long in
the cause of the truth; and also that false teachers,
creeping in with false doctrines, have exposedl her
to the worse danger of the two.  But the dawn of
better days has begun. Shall we end with Luther's
prayer for Hungary —an echo over three centuries
appllicable still?"0  Lord God, have mercy on this poor land.
Confound the devil according to thy great power.
Protect thy Church against thlly foes.  Glorify thy
Son!"
THE END.