cunning Jesuit, who tried his utmost to render the Unitas Fratrum—no longer an obscure community, but a powerful church—contemptible in the eyes of his countrymen by disparaging, amongst other things, its ministry. Consequently if this account of the origin of the Bohemian Waldensian episcopate had not been authenticated beyond all doubt, the Bishops would not have ventured to base upon it their refutation of Sturm’s charges, as he might at once have proven it false, which he never attempted to do.
2. Palacky, who in his “Geschichte von Bœhmen” (vol. vii p. 492) says, treating of the Bohemian Waldenses:
“The narrative given in an old manuscript is not improbable, namely, that in the autumn of 1433 Bishop Philibert, as Legate of the Council of Basle, ordained Waldensian priests in the Slavonian Convent of Prague, of whom several, it is said, were in the following year (1434) elevated, at Basle, even to the dignity of bishops. For it is possible that such an act, just at that time, was meant as an example and encouragement for the Bohemians, that they might be the more ready to agree to the Compactata of the Council.”
3. Gindely, who, in his “Geschichte der Bœhmischen Brueder” (vol. i, p. 37), describing the acts of the Synod of Lhota, says:
“It may on this occasion have become known to the Brethren that the (Bohemian) Waldenses of that day claimed a valid episcopate, and they certainly knew that their superintendents made use of the episcopal title. In particular did they hear of Stephen, the head of these Austrian Waldenses, who was said to have been consecrated by a Waldensian Bishop that had, in 1434, himself received consecration at the hands of a Roman Catholic prelate—a statement which the Calixtines of Bohemia pronounced correct.”
This direct testimony of an original document and of two modern Romish authors would be amply suficient even if it were all that we had. It is, however, not all. For the authorities which we shall bring forward to prove our next point will be found to offer such overwhelming collateral evidence as to leave no room even for a quibble.
Ere taking up this point, a few words more with regard to the Bohemian Waldenses. Admonished by the Brethren, who sent a second deputation to them and fraternally reproved them for their latitudinarian practices, they grew bolder in confessing the truth. Persecutions were the consequence. Their Calixtine friends, who had long since relapsed into indifference upon the question of reform, forsook them; Bishop Stephen, arrested while laboring among the Germans, was carried to Vienna and burned alive at the stake; his flock in Bohemia scattered and disappears from
