On the 6th of July, 1415, the Bohemian Reformer, John Hus, was burned at the stake. But those who had silenced him could not unsay his message, and at last there drew together a little body of earnest men, who agreed to accept the Bible as their only standard of faith and practice, and established a strict discipline which should keep their lives in the simplicity, purity, and brotherly love of the early Apostolic Church. This was in 1457, and the movement quickly interested the thoughtful people in all classes of society, many of whom joined their ranks. The formal organization of the Unitas Fratrum (the Unity of Brethren) followed, and its preaching, theological publications, and educational work soon raised it to great influence in Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland, friendly intercourse being established with Luther, Calvin, and other Reformers as they became prominent. Then came destruction, when the religious liberty of Bohemia and Moravia was extinguished in blood, by the Church of Rome. The great Comenius went forth, a wanderer on the face of the earth, welcomed and honored in courts and universities, introducing new educational principles that revolutionized methods of teaching, but ever longing and praying for the restoration of his Church; and by his publication of its Doctrine and Rules of Discipline, and by his careful transmission of the Episcopate which had been bestowed upon him and his associate Bishops, he did contribute largely to that renewal which he was not destined to see. In the home lands there were many who held secretly, tenaciously, desperately, to the doctrines they loved, “in hope against hope” that the great oppression would be lifted. But the passing of a hundred years brought no relief, concessions granted to others were still denied to the children of those who had been the first “protestants” against religious slavery and corruption, and in 1722 a small company of descendants of the ancient Unitas Fratrum slipped over the borders of Moravia, and went to Saxony, Nicholas Lewis, Count Zinzendorf, having given them permission to sojourn on his estates until they could find suitable homes elsewhere.