of his last years. He continued, however, to the end of his life to pay frequent visits to other communities of the brethren. Brother Gregory died at Brandeis on August 12, 1474, and was buried, "like the prophets of the Old Testament, in a rock-grave near the bank of the Orlice, that is, opposite the castle." Gregory, the patriarch of the Unity, as he called himself in his later years, was certainly one of its greatest men. He combined the most fervent religious enthusiasm with the talents of a clear-headed and indefatigable organiser; and though changes took place in the institutions of the Unity after his death, yet on the whole the structure erected by Gregory continued to exist till the time when the battle of the White Mountain destroyed all communities that were opposed to Rome.
Dr. Goll, who has given a masterly sketch of the career of Gregory, thus describes him:[1] "Gregory had created for himself the ideal image of a true Christian, an abstemious, kindly, patient, gracious, merciful, economical, pure, humble-minded, peaceful, worthy, zealous, yielding, compliant man, qualified and ready to do all good works. But this model was not for Gregory a model only. He believed that Christians can come near to the model, nay, even attain it. 'We believe this,' he writes in the Fourth Letter to Rokycan, 'that he who has God's true and living faith has the power also to mortify the evil in himself and to act righteously; his faith by means of love will induce him to do what is pleasing to God, good actions and such as are useful to his fellow-creatures. . . . Though by nature hasty and irritable, a true Christian must be abstemious, meek, and silent. A model for this model is
- ↑ In the Journal of the Bohemian Museum (Časopis Musea Královstoí Českeho) for 1886.
