clerical tendency that has been so harmful to many princes of his line. He proved this by issuing in 1781, the first year in which he became sole ruler, the famed "decree of tolerance" (Toleranz Patent). This decree granted full freedom to the "Helvetic and Augsburg Confessions," a description which included Lutherans and Calvinists. All other Christian creeds, even the unity of the Bohemian Brethren, which had in the last years before the battle of the White Mountain almost become the national Church, were excluded. Fearing that this unexpected amount of liberty, granted so suddenly, might lead to disorders, very draconic laws were issued against other "sectarians."[1] Still the "Toleranz Patent" was an enlightened measure for which the people of Bohemia—many of whom had secretly remained Protestants—were very grateful to their otherwise unpopular ruler.
It was also in accordance with the traditional policy of the enlightened despots of the eighteenth century that Joseph II relaxed to a certain extent the extreme coercive regulations which had hitherto rendered impossible in the Habsburg dominions the appearance of any newspaper or book that was not published—directly or indirectly—by order of the Government. Thus Joseph allowed the publication in Prague of a paper in the national language, though such a permission has, since his time, frequently been refused by the Austrian ministers. It was only a consequence of this comparative freedom that new editions of ancient Bohemian works, and translations from foreign languages into the national one now began to appear. It was also during the reign of Joseph II that the Bohemian Society of Sciences was founded, and professorships of the Bohemian language were established at the university of Vienna, and somewhat later at that of Prague. As the existence of Bohemia as an autonomous country may be said to stand and fall with that of the national language, the policy of Joseph II—certainly very much against the wishes of its
- ↑ We read that a sect sprang up in Bohemia calling itself "deists," who appear to have been connected with free-masonry. Dr. Svátek, in his Cultur Historische Bilder, quotes a curious decree published against these people. It states: "Should any man or woman declare themselves to be 'deists,' they shall immediately and without previous cross-examination receive twenty-four strokes with a stick or birchrod, as a warning, and then be sent back to their homes."
