Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/97

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THE YOUTH OF HUS
75

rightly, that his association with a powerful and influential noble would enable him to overcome the resistance which, during the period of reaction that followed the death of Milic, an enterprise founded on the lines of that church-reformer would necessarily encounter. The document drawn up by Millheim which established the Bethlehem foundation (dated May 24, 1391) indeed breathes entirely the spirit of Milic.[1] He states that, according to the teaching of the holy fathers, the word of God should not be fettered, but should be preached with the greatest freedom and in the manner most useful to the church and its members. Regret is then expressed that there was not as yet at Prague a place specially destined for preaching, and in particular none where sermons could be preached in the national language. Bohemian preachers were therefore generally obliged to seek shelter in houses or hiding-places. To obviate such evils in future Millheim decreed that the rector of the new foundation should be a secular priest whose duty it was to be to preach in Bohemian twice a day — in the morning and in the afternoon—on all Sundays and feast days, except during Advent and Lent, when he was only expected to preach in the morning. Relying on the support of his influential ally, the pious Kriz began building the Bethlehem chapel even before he had received the royal sanction of the foundation. Near the chapel Kriz built, also on the present Bethlehem Square, a modest dwelling for the priest who was to officiate in the chapel. The door of this modest house, sanctified to Bohemians by the fact that it was for a time inhabited by Hus, has been preserved, and is now indicated by an appropriate inscription. The Bethlehem chapel itself was entirely demolished by the Emperor Joseph II. of Austria in 1786.[2] It appears to have been a somewhat extensive building,

  1. Tomek, History of the Town of Prague, vol. iii. pp. 426–427.
  2. Not by the Jesuits as has been frequently stated; they had been expelled from the Austrian states several years previously.