But Milic’s earthly career was now drawing to an end, and he was soon to enjoy that peace which he had so nobly earned. The privations and persecutions which he had endured had entirely exhausted him. He fell dangerously ill, and died at at Avignon, probably at the end of the year 1374. The author of the biography of Milic,[1] gives a touching account of his last hours. He left a letter addressed to the Cardinal of Albano, who burst into tears when he received it, saying that Milic deserved to be canonised. In Prague a reactionary movement had meanwhile broken out, and several of Milic's disciples were imprisoned. The “Jerusalem” foundation also was suppressed in the year of the death of its founder; but that the results of the labours of the saintly man should not entirely perish, the emperor decreed that the foundation of “the worthy Milic of good memory, our pious and beloved one”— to quote the words of Charles—should be given over to Cistercian monks. To satisfy the rancour of the enemies of Milic, it was, however, decreed that the foundation should in future bear the name of St. Bernard. These measures did not alienate from Milic the affection of the people of Prague, who continued to venerate him as a saint.
Before ending this brief account of the career of Milic, it is necessary to point out that he never incurred the reproach of expressing heretical views. His statement that Antichrist would shortly appear was an attack, not against the popes whom indeed Milic revered, but against the Emperor Charles who wisely overlooked this temporary aberration in consideration of the great merits of the saintly man. The question of frequent communion was, at the time of Milic, only just beginning to become a subject of controversy. The careers of Waldhauser and Milic, however, prove that at that period in Bohemia every priest who lauded poverty and denounced
- ↑ This biography is printed with the works of Balbinus, a learned Bohemian Jesuit of the seventeenth century, who, however, is not the author of the biography.
