Brethren's Church.

While Gregory lay in his swoon, his old teacher, his uncle, his
sometime friend, John Rockycana, hearing that he was dying, came to
see him. His conscience was stricken, his heart bled, and, wringing
his hands in agony, he moaned: "Oh, my Gregory, my Gregory, would I
were where thou art." When Gregory recovered, Rockycana pleaded for
him, and the King allowed the good old Patriarch to return in peace
to Kunwald.

Meanwhile, the first persecution of the Brethren had begun in deadly
earnest {1461.}. King George Podiebrad was furious. He issued an
order that all his subjects were to join either the Utraquist or the
Roman Catholic Church. He issued another order that all priests who
conducted the Communion in the blasphemous manner of the Brethren
should forthwith be put to death. The priest, old Michael, was cast
into a dungeon; four leading Brethren were burned alive; the
peaceful home in Kunwald was broken; and the Brethren fled to the
woods and mountains. For two full years they lived the life of
hunted deer in the forest. As they durst not light a fire by day,
they cooked their meals by night; and then, while the enemy dreamed
and slept, they read their Bibles by the watch-fires' glare, and
prayed till the blood was dripping from their knees. If provisions
ran short, they formed a procession, and marched in single file to
the nearest village; and when the snow lay on the ground they
trailed behind them a pine-tree branch, so that folk would think a
wild beast had been prowling around. We can see them gathering in
those Bohemian glades. As the sentinel stars set their watch in the
sky, and the night wind kissed the pine trees, they read to each
other the golden promise that where two or three were gathered