A History of Bohemian LiteratureLützow, Francis, hrabe
History
A History of Bohemian Literature
Lützow, Francis, hrabe
Czech literature -- History and criticism
smiled, and remarked that the Emperor indeed received messages from
Rome, Constantinople, and Madrid, but that he had received one from
heaven.
Christina returned to Branna, and as her father had died meanwhile,
she decided to join Komenský and his wife--he had remarried very
shortly after the death of his first wife--and a party of other exiles,
who were on the point of leaving Bohemia. They set out in January
1628; and on crossing the frontier of their country in the direction
of Silesia, "they all knelt down and prayed to God with cries and
many tears, entreating Him that He would not finally avert His mercy
from their beloved country nor allow the seed of His word to perish
within it." In February Komenský arrived at Lissa, a small town in that
part of Poland that is now known as the Prussian province of Posen.
Ponatovská for some time continued a member of Komenský's household,
and the controversy concerning the true inspiration of her prophecies
raged for a considerable time. A joint meeting of doctors and ministers
of the Unity did not settle the question, as the opinion of the
doctors was in direct opposition to that of the ecclesiastics, of whom
Komenský was one. The latter never wavered in his belief in Christina's
prophecies.[102] He maintained that it could nowhere be proved that the
Church had been deprived of the gift of prophecy. Before dismissing
Christina Ponatovská it should be stated that some time after these
events she married a young man employed at the printing-work of the
Unity at Lissa, had two sons and three daughters, and in later years
"disliked all reference to her prophecies."
It would, however, be doing Komenský bitter wrong if we supposed that
he was, while at Lissa, exclusively occupied with the prophecies of
Kotter and Ponatovská.
The period of his first residence at Lissa was, on the contrary, one
of incessant and fruitful hard work. His duties as a preacher and
schoolmaster were fulfilled with equally great conscientiousness,
and, from the few sermons that have been preserved, it appears that
in this respect also his ability was exceptional. It was also at this
time that most of Komenský's educational works were written, though
many were re-modelled later. It is therefore very difficult to fix the
chronological order of Komenský's works, and even to decide whether the
Bohemian or the Latin version of some of them is the original one. The
beginning of the "pansophic" studies also dates from this time, and the
_Physica_, Komenský's first philosophical work, was completed as early
as in 1632.
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