Brandeis—the lords of Postupic, and afterwards the lords of Zerotin—had always been well disposed towards the Bohemian brethren; the Zerotins, indeed, belonged to the Unity. It was, therefore, natural that Brandeis should have been frequently chosen as meeting-place for the synods of the community of which it had become the centre.
When Komensky arrived at Brandeis, about the end of the year 1622, he was overwhelmed with misery to a degree, that only his true Christian faith and his thorough reliance on the doctrine of his community enabled him to overcome. As already mentioned, all his worldly possessions—including his beloved books and MSS.—had perished. Perished also had all prospects of a successful career as a clergyman and pedagogue, at least in his beloved native country, for Komensky well knew that of all "acatholics,"[1] the members of the Unity would be the first to be expelled from Bohemia. During the lengthy and dangerous journey from Fulneck to Brandeis, undertaken at a time of pestilence and in the midst of the horrors of the Thirty Years' War, Komensky lost his wife and one of his children; the other died shortly after his arrival at Brandeis. It was not, therefore, as one influenced by temporary irritation or disappointment, but as one who "bears the whole heaviness of the wronged
- ↑ This, up to comparatively recent times, was the official designation in Austria of all who did not belong to the Church of Rome.
