heir influence. From
that time, until the latter part of the fourteenth century, they
contrived to keep a footing in the country, although subjected to much
persecution by successive Popes and the Kings of Hungary, and oftentimes
reduced to the greatest straits. Occasional glimpses of sunshine buoyed
up their hopes, and the following anecdote, quoted by Sir Gardner
Wilkinson, is illustrative of the sanguine view which they were
accustomed to take of the ways of Providence. 'Many of the Patarenes had
taken refuge, during the various persecutions, in the mountains of
Bosnia; and on the eve of St. Catherine (November 24) in 1367, a fire
was seen raging over the whole of the country they occupied, destroying
everything there, and leaving the mountains entirely denuded of wood.
The Roman Catholics considered this event to be a manifest judgement of
heaven against the wicked heretics; but the Patarenes looked on it as a
proof of divine favour, the land being thereby cleared for them and
adapted for cultivation.' In 1392 the sect flourished under Tuartko
(then King of Bosnia), and, further, made great progress during the
first half of the following century. Their cause was openly espoused by
Cosaccia, Duke of Santo Saba, or Herzegovina, and by John Paulovich
Voivode of Montenegro. So far all went well; but Stephen, King of
Bosnia, having in 1459 ordered all Patarenes to leave his kingdom or
abjure their doctrines, their cause received a severe shock, and 40,000
were obliged to take refuge in the Herzegovina, where they were welcomed
by Stephen Cosaccia. From that time no farther direct trace remains of
this important and widely-spreading sect; though Krasinski speaks of the
existence of a sect in Russia called 'Dookhoboitzi,' or combatants in
spirit, whose doctrines have great affinity to those professed by the
Patarenes, and whom he believes to have been transplanted from Bosnia to
Russia, their present country.

But this triumph of Papal oppression was not destined to be of long
duration. Already was the tide of Mussulman conquest threatening to
overrun Germany; and Bosnia, after suffering severely from the wars
between Hungary and the Turks, was conquered, and annexed by the latter
in 1465. The religious constancy of the Bosnian nobles was now sorely
tried, for they found themselves compelled to choose between their
religion and poverty, or recantation and wealth. Their decision was soon
made, and the greater portion renoun