The Moravian Churches have a slight admixture of Episcopacy, preferring ordination by bishops. These bishops are subject to the eldership; and ordination in the Reformed Church is held to be valid.

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"The geographical position of Bohemia is an irregular square, pointing to the north, south, east, and west, in the W E centre of Europe-bounded on the north-east by Prussian Silesia, on the north-west by Saxony, on the south-east by Moravia, on the south-west by Bavaria, while the southern point extends into Austria proper. It is a kingdom, but subject to the house of Austria; the Emperor of Austria being at the same time King of Bohemia. Present population, about 5,000,000, or 7,000,000 including Moravia, of whom 90,000 are Protestants.

'Bohemia was the last country in Europe to submit to the yoke of Rome, and the first to attempt to cast it off. It could boast of reformers before the Reformation, and took the lead in the printing and circulation of the Bible in the language of the common people; and, after being worsted in a long and gallant struggle for the maintenance of its civil and religious liberties, it became the noblest victim of the Thirty Years' War.'

The Rev. A. Moody Stuart says 'In the library of our Edinburgh University there is a singularly interesting Bohemian document. It is the protest of the Diet of Bohemia in Prague to the Council of Constance against the burning of Huss and the imprisonment of Jerome, with portraits of both. It is signed, or rather sealed, by a hundred Bohemian nobles, the original seals being still appended; and is such an object of interest for Bohemia, that at the request of the municipal authorities a photograph of it was sent to Prague last summer. It is a singularly vigorous and bold protest, and its high moral and religious tone is so striking in a document of state, that we translate its opening sentence :—

"Because truly, according to both natural and divine law and by the words of our Saviour, we are commanded, 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even the same unto them;' as also an elect vessel exclaims, 'Love is the fulfilling of the law,' and all the law is fulfilled in one word,

Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;' therefore, so far as in our power, by God's help, having respect unto this divine law. for our dearest neighbour of good memory, Master John Huss, whom lately in the Council of Constance (moved by we know not what spirit)—not confessing, not lawfully convicted, and by no proved errors and heresies-you have condemned, and delivered over unto a cruel and most shameful death."

'At a time when preaching was rare, Huss had preached fearlessly against the vices of the Bohemian nobles, and the priests applauded him; but when in turn he preached with equal faithfulness against their own vices, they dragged him to the stake. And now these nobles, turned from the error of their ways through his word, thus boldly and tenderly testify their affection to him as their most beloved friend.

'The north of Bohemia, toward the Saxon and Prussian boundaries, had an advantage over the south in recent times of persecution, in the forbidden yet most lawful circulation of Bibles and other religious books, and in the secret crossing of the borders by many who longed to hear the word of life, and to drink the cup of salvation. So great was their thirst for the word, that even a distance of nine hours could not keep them at home on the Lord's day. They set out in the dusk of the Saturday evening, separated into twos and threes to escape observation, travelled through the night till they passed the border, and found the Sabbath a delight as they assembled with beloved brethren in a Protestant church, where they worshipped one God through one High Priest, and partook of one bread and drank of one cup. The dawn of the following morning found them in their own homes again, after travelling eighteen hours for the word of grace and truth. Although these trials belong to a former age, the memory of them remains in this northern district of the land; the exiled Moravians at Herrnhut have not failed to feed the flame by scattering the Book of Life among the people; and the villagers of Zebus, although Roman Catholics, and without personal witnesses for Christ, had not quite been left without the abiding testimony of the Word.

'We saw the silver communion-cup which had been disinterred from the battle-field. On the rising slope on our right were

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large mounds of stones, the heaped-up diggings of a silver mine. In those mines thousands of the slaughtered saints of God sleep in their deep graves till the earth shall give up her dead. Banished, imprisoned, scourged, tortured, mutilated, beheaded, quartered, drowned, burned, slain in tens of thousands, were the witnesses of Christ in Bohemia. In the midst of many years of the relentless slaughter of the saints, the year 1421 is marked by a dark line of the blood of the followers of Huss, and specially of the Taborites, who held substantially all the doctrines of the Reformation, and strove to adorn the Word by their holy lives. In that single year this one town, dug about for its treasures of silver ore, witnessed the unparalleled spectacle of a whole army of martyrs' dragged as felons to the shafts of three old mines, to one 1700, to another 1308, and to the third 1321. Men of wealth and rank, together with men rich only in faith, and devout women not a few, maidens doubtless as well as mothers in Israel, convicted of no sin except touching the Book and the cup, of reading the Book of Life, and of drinking the cup of salvation, and numbering in all 4329, they were cast headlong into the yawning pits. For two hundred years, till the Reformation was finally quenched in 1621, those martyrs were remembered every 18th of April by a solemn meeting in a chapel erected on the spot to their memory.'

Another writes-'The work commenced in Bohemia was continued, and prospered greatly. Nearly the whole of the population accepted the doctrines of the gospel, and enjoyed at the same time the greatest national prosperity. In 1618 only a fortieth part of the people was connected with the Church of Rome. But in 1620 the battle of the White Hill put an end to their time of prosperity.

Unrelenting persecution was commenced in 1621 by the Emperor Ferdinand II., with the help of the Jesuits. It is supposed that no nation ever suffered so much as did the people of Bohemia from the terrors of Rome. Thirty-six thousand families left the country, and it really seemed that the whole of Protestantism had been crushed in the land. But the faithful remnant continued to meet in the hills, in caves, and in the forests; and there they also hid their Bibles and psalm-books.

So, when in 1781 the edict of toleration was proclaimed by the Emperor Joseph II., numbers of Protestants came forward in every direction, and congregations were formed again in many places. They were not suffered, however, to constitute themselves as 'Hussites,' nor yet as 'Bohemian Brethren,' under which appellation they had existed before; but they were allowed to choose between the Augsburg and the Helvetic Confession that is, to become either Lutherans or Calvinists (Reformed). By far the greater number adopted the latter, the smaller portion conformed to the former. Other Protestant denominations were not allowed to exist in the country.

'At this present time these two Churches enjoy nearly perfect liberty, so far as the Government and the constitution are concerned. But the power and influence of the Romish Church being still very great in the land, the Protestants are under many disadvantages, and have frequently to experience secret opposition and oppression, which is being brought to bear upon them in numberless ways.'

The Book of Order of the Bohemians declares that bishops and presbyters are identical, and other documents state that jurisdiction is not given to the pastor alone, but to their assistants, who are chiefly engaged in watching over the flock. Bohemian and Hungarian young men are at this moment studying theology in Edinburgh. The Protestant Churches in these provinces are placed under the same Council of State.

3. Hungary.

Matthias Devay was the Luther of Hungary. He began to preach in 1531. Five free cities declared for Protestantism, and presented their Confession to the King. To these were added twelve market-towns of Ziff, with others in Lower Hungary, and several noblemen. Every congregation had originally (a) a pastor and a lay inspector, (b) elected by the people. They had also a gradation of courts, (c) senorial meetings, (d) provincial conventions, (e) and a general assembly. These synodical proceedings were in operation from 1564, and were suppressed, because the Hungarians sought deliverance from the Austrian

yoke, though still consistorially the affairs of the Church are administered by nominees of the civil government.

'Hungary has nothing in common with Austria and Bohemia, except political constitution and laws. The persecution of the Protestants, who were very numerous in Hungary, began with the reign of the Emperor Rudolph in 1576. The Hungarians, however, the liberties of whose kingdom were invaded as well as their religious freedom, opposed force to force, and extorted the Treaty of Vienna in 1606. Synods were then held, and the Protestant Church was organized. After another attempt to deprive them of their liberties, the Treaty of Vienna was renewed at Linz in 1645. But the fact that the nobles of Hungary alone had political rights, and that the Roman Catholic clergy formed, until 1848, the first estate in the kingdom, rendered abortive even the good intentions of their sovereigns. Persecution followed persecution, until the Protestants, sorely diminished in numbers, were at last promised the enjoyment of religious freedom at the Peace of Szathmar in 1711. This may be considered the epoch of the ecclesiastical constitution of the Hungarian Church, although, at the instigation of the Jesuits, the promised liberties were withheld from them until a special edict of toleration was issued for Hungary by the Emperor Joseph II. in 1781, which was afterwards enlarged by decrees of the Diet in 1843-4, and 1847-8, and these are confirmed by the patent of 1852.

'The constitution of the Protestant Church of Hungary is far more free than that which exists in the Austrian provinces already mentioned. It is not placed under the Council of State, which in the other Churches is the supreme governing power. The Lutheran and the Reformed are much alike in their organization. They are governed by the congregational meeting, where every member has a seat; by the senorial meeting, composed either of deputies or of all the pastors and laymen who choose to attend ; by the superintendential meeting, composed of all the seniors, and a lay and clerical deputy from each seniorate; and finally, by a general assembly, which meets annually at Pesth.'