tional
work soon raised it to great influence in Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland,
friendly intercourse being established with Luther, Calvin, and other
Reformers as they became prominent.

Then came destruction, when the religious liberty of Bohemia and Moravia
was extinguished in blood, by the Church of Rome. The great Comenius
went forth, a wanderer on the face of the earth, welcomed and honored
in courts and universities, introducing new educational principles that
revolutionized methods of teaching, but ever longing and praying for the
restoration of his Church; and by his publication of its Doctrine and
Rules of Discipline, and by his careful transmission of the Episcopate
which had been bestowed upon him and his associate Bishops, he did
contribute largely to that renewal which he was not destined to see.

In the home lands there were many who held secretly, tenaciously,
desperately, to the doctrines they loved, "in hope against hope" that
the great oppression would be lifted. But the passing of a hundred years
brought no relief, concessions granted to others were still denied
to the children of those who had been the first "protestants" against
religious slavery and corruption, and in 1722 a small company of
descendants of the ancient Unitas Fratrum slipped over the borders of
Moravia, and went to Saxony, Nicholas Lewis, Count Zinzendorf, having
given them permission to sojourn on his estates until they could find
suitable homes elsewhere.

Hearing that they had reached a place of safety, other Moravians took
their lives in their hands and followed, risking the imprisonment and
torture which were sure to follow an unsuccessful attempt to leave a
province, the Government of which would neither allow them to be happy
at home nor to sacrifice everything and go away. Among these emigrants
were five young men, who went in May, 1724, with the avowed intention
of trying to resuscitate the Unitas Fratrum. They intended to go into
Poland, where the organization of the Unitas Fratrum had lasted for a
considerable time after its ruin in Bohemia, but, almost by accident,
they decided to first visit Christian David, who had led the first
company to Herrnhut, Saxony, and while there they became convinced
that God meant them to throw in their lot with these refugees, and so
remained, coming to be strong leaders in the renewed Unity.

Several years, however, elapsed before the church was re-established.
One hundred years of per