the Council of Constance; and against Perun, who, disguised, smiled from
every church in Prague, and with a smile ruled over the souls in Bohemia
under the name of Christ.




THE POLISH REVOLUTION.


Mickiewicz, Sienkiewicz! Two great milestones in the history of the Polish
soul; two great milestones in Christian history also! Both Roman Catholics
and both revolutionists in religion. The religious revolution they made can
be characterised only by the words "noble catholicity." Both of them were
attracted by Primitive Christianity much more than by the official Church
of their own time. Sienkiewicz's work "Quo Vadis?" is by far better known
than Mickiewicz's lectures on "The Official Church and Messianism." Yet the
same religious ideal has been pictured in both these works. Mickiewicz put
on record as the true Christian _men of suffering, of intuition and of
action_ ("_hommes de douleur, d'intuition, d'action"_). Sienkiewicz
described the first Christians as being such men. He revived the first days
of Christianity in Rome. What striking contrasts between paganism and
Christianity! Two quite different worlds in conflict--one world consisting
of men of pleasure, and the other of men of suffering. On one side: Nero,
Petronius, Vinicius, Seneca himself, and a mass harassed only about _panem
et circenses_. On the other side: Paul of Tarsus, Petrus, Lygie, Ursus and
many others willing to suffer and to die, and singing in suffering and in
dying: _pro Christo! pro Christo!_ On the one side, the proud Roman
citizens, who adored force and who gave sacrifices to good and to evil
spirits equally in order to save or procure their miserable, fleeting