supreme pontiff, because the Latin tongue
was employed in the celebration of divine worship, and celibacy was
enjoined upon the clergy. The adoption of a Latin ritual was, however,
forced upon Duke Wratislaus, by Gregory VII., who declared that there
was a prohibition in Holy Writ, against the use of any other language
in addresses made to the Deity. This was in the year 1070. But though
the Bohemians yielded so far to an authority which they knew not how to
controvert, their firmness, in reference to the celibacy of the clergy,
was not so easily overcome. The legate who brought to Prague a bull to
this effect in 1197, was set upon by the populace, and stoned to death.

Republican and imperial Rome were not more persevering in their
encroachments on the civil rights and liberties of the barbarians, than
was religious Rome in her endeavour to establish an universal dominion
over the consciences of mankind. One step gained in advance, proved, in
every case, but the prelude to another; and the establishment of a
Latin ritual and an unmarried clergy, was soon followed by the refusal
of the cup in the administration of the Lord's Supper to the laity. In
1350, the cup was withdrawn. Then rose John Milicius, a canon of
Prague, and Conrad Stiekna, his friend, to protest by speech and
writing, against the measures pursued by the Pope, and to denounce him
as Antichrist in the hearing of a multitude, who listened to their
teaching very eagerly. By-and-by, that is, in 1370, Matthias Janovius,
the confessor of Charles IV., came to their support in the battle; and
in several treatises, which displayed great skill as well as vigour,
the Pope was by him denounced. But Charles, though far in advance of
his age, was not sufficiently enlightened to adopt the opinions of his
confessor. He refused to call a general council on the plea, that the
right of so doing was vested in the Pope; and the Pope finally
prevailed upon him to send Matthias into banishment. From the period of
Matthias' death, which happened in 1394, the Reformers, now a numerous
and influential body, began to suffer persecution; and the strong arm
of power endeavoured, for a while, to accomplish what fair and open
controversy had failed to bring about.

Such was the condition of affairs, when a wealthy and pious citizen of
Prague, a German, however, by descent, laid the foundations of a church
in the Alt Stadt, which he called the Temple of Bethlehem; to it, now
the Tyne