hecy of the unutterable woes which were even at the door. Some
watchword by which his followers could know and be known--this
watchword, if possible, a spell of power like that which Luther had
found in the doctrine of justification by faith--was still wanting.
One, however, was soon found; which indeed had this drawback, that it
concerned a matter disciplinary rather than doctrinal, yet having a real
value as a visible witness for the rights of the laity in the Church of
Christ. So far as we know, Huss had not himself laid any special stress
on communion under both kinds; but in 1414--he was then already at
Constance--the subject had come to the forefront at Prague; and, being
consulted, Huss had entirely approved of such communion as most
conformable to the original institution and to the practice of the
primitive Church. On the other hand, the council, learning the agitation
of men's spirits in this direction, had declared what is called the
"Concomitance"--that is, that wherever one kind was present, there was
also the other, which being so, nothing was, indeed, withholden from the
communicant through the withholding of the cup. At the same time the
council had solemnly condemned as a heretic everyone who refused to
submit himself to the decision of the Church in this matter, June 15,
1415.

But there was no temper of submission in Bohemia--least of all when the
University of Prague gave its voice in favor of this demand. Wenceslaus,
the well-intentioned but poor-spirited King, was quite unable to keep
peace between the rival factions, and could only slip out of his
difficulties by dying, August 16, 1419. Sigismund, his brother, was also
his successor; but of one thing the Bohemians were at this time
resolved; namely, that the royal betrayer of his word should not reign
over them. And thus a condition of miserable anarchy followed, and, in
the end, of open war; which, lasting for eleven years, could be matched
by few wars in the cruelties and atrocities by which on both sides it
was disgraced. In Ziska, their blind chief, the Hussites had a leader
with a born genius for war. It was he who invented the movable
wagon-fortress whereof we hear so much, against which the German
chivalry would break as idle waves upon a rock. Three times crusading
armies--for this name they bore, thinking with no serious opposition to
enforce the decrees of the council--invaded Bohemia, to be thrice driven
back with utter defeat, disgrace