The tone of Slechta's thoughts in his later years was grave and serious; as well it might be. The two kingdoms, then but loosely united, were torn with internal factions and racial jealousies; while in church towers and over city gates the bells hung ready to proclaim to the countryside the advent of that ever-present menace, the Turk. In the priesthood men could mark much that was amiss; and the seamless robe of Christ was rent with schism, the candle that Hus and Jerome had lighted a century before, still burning clearly among less sober heresies, which drew down on it, as upon themselves, spasmodic outbursts of retributive violence. Uneasy sat the crown on Ladislas' head; and when Death, coming as a friend, took it from him in 1516, it was only to thrust this sad office upon a ten-year-old boy, who after ten more years of childish government was miserably to perish at Mohacz. No wonder that Slechta and his friends looked anxiously upon the future. 'The times of Hus and Wycliffe which our grandfathers detested, seem golden beside our own' wrote Bohuslaus to Geiler of Kaisersberg—a member of that grave circle of Strasburg humanists, with which, it may be noted in passing, our Bohemians had much in common. The letters of Slechta contain two disquisitions, one on the frailties of a celibate clergy, the other on the duties of a parish priest; advocating reforms by which he hoped to check the continuous growth of 'those unutterable heretics, the Pyghards': by whom he meant the Bohemian Brethren.
What moved Slechta to correspond with Erasmus we do not know; possibly a slighting reference in one of the latter's printed letters to 'those schismatic Bohemians, who have infected most of Europe'. Slechta's letter is unhappily lost; but from Erasmus' reply, dated 23 April 1519 from Louvain, its general tenor may be gathered. It began, of course, with eulogies of Erasmus and his work; and then, after some account of the writer's life and fortunes, it proceeded to assure him that there were persons in Bohemia who were not merely interested in good learning but prepared to advance it. Finally it invited him to come to Prague. Erasmus' answer to his unknown correspondent was courteous, but firmly declined the invitation. 'What I can do at Prague I do not see. It is considerate of you to offer me an escort for my journey; but I confess I do not like regions where such company is necessary. In this country one can go about wherever one likes, alone. I am sure that, as you say, I should find among you plenty of learned and pious men, who are not contaminated with the errors of schism. But how is it that this division is suffered to remain? Better unity with some hardship than to hold one's own at the cost of discord. I fear it is money that stands in the way. Paul suffered the loss of all things that he might win Christ. The world is full of cardinals and princes and bishops; if only one of these would take up this matter in a truly Christian spirit! If Paul were on the Pope's throne, I am sure he would allow not only his revenues but his authority to be diminished, if his loss would purchase unity.' Erasmus concludes cordially: 'If we cannot meet, at any rate we can write. I will walk and talk with you sometimes beside your Elbe, you shall come and dwell with me in Brabant. Friendship can flourish without actual contact.'
This letter was handed to Slechta on 11 September, four and a half months after it was written. Nearly a year had elapsed since his letter had been dispatched and he had given up hopes of a reply: so that these amiable and encouraging words were the more welcome, and he at once proceeded to act upon them. Within a month he had composed a letter of some elegance, in which while subscribing to Erasmus' prayers for unity, he pointed out the difficulties of the task. To the remarks about coming to Prague he rejoined regretfully: 'I can quite see that there is nothing for you to do here. There are many of us who would have been glad of your coming; but I understand that we must hope to see you at another time and elsewhere. That travellers in our country need an escort you would not wonder if you could see how the roads run, among lofty mountains shrouded in impenetrable forests. These give cover to hordes of brigands, who prey upon travellers and merchants, robbing and killing indifferently. Almost every month there are punitive raids made from the towns, and brigands are captured and put to death. But the pest seems ineradicable.'
Slechta then proceeds to the religious troubles, and after expressing general agreement with Erasmus, describes the three main parties into which the life of Bohemia and Moravia was cloven. First the orthodox Romanists, loyal to the Church and in unity with Germany and the rest of Christendom; finding their adherents amongst the upper classes, together with some of the King's cities and the monasteries, many of which, though once rich, had now fallen into decay. Secondly, the Utraquists, otherwise orthodox but practising communion in both kinds, and at their services reading the Epistle and Gospel in the vernacular: with some supporters among the nobility, a good many gentry, and nearly thirty royal cities. After tracing their history from the Council of Basle and briefly stating their views, he adds that no one in the kingdom is able to propound a solution of the difficulties existing. Thirdly, the Bohemian Brethren, whom he styles Pyghards. This name, from the opprobrious sense in which it is generally used, is now thought to be derived from the Beghards, a mediaeval sect whose vagaries drew down upon it frequent persecution; but Slechta traces it to a foreign vagabond who came from Picardy in 1422 and infected with his pestilent doctrines the army of John Ziska, the Taborite, an army of those that were in distress, in debt, in discontent.
This sect, Slechta tells us, lasted continuously down to the times of the late King Ladislas († 1516), and indeed increased considerably under him; for his thoughts were much occupied with Hungary, and he was content if Bohemia could be maintained in an outward appearance of peace. Then follows a description of their opinions. 'The Pope and all his officials they regard as Antichrist. They choose their own bishops, rude unlettered laymen, with wives and families. They salute one another as Brother and Sister; and recognize no authority but the Bible. Their priests celebrate mass without vestments, use leavened bread and only the Lord's Prayer. Transubstantiation they deny, and the worship of the host they regard as idolatry. Vows to the saints, prayers for the dead, and confession to priests they ridicule; and they keep no holy days but Sundays, Christmas, Easter and Whitsun.' 'I will not waste your time with more of these pernicious views. My feeling is that if the two first-named parties could only be reconciled, this nefarious sect might, with the aid of the King, be exterminated or at any rate reduced to a better state of faith and religion.'
The roads in Bohemia might be dangerous, but the distance to Louvain was not so great as it had seemed at first; for Erasmus' reply is dated 1 Nov. 1519, only three weeks after Slechta's letter. He begins again with the roads. 'Prevention is better than punishment. It would be wiser if, instead of these avenging raids, the more frequented roads could be cleared of forest on either side, and held by block-houses and armed posts at intervals. Indeed it is somewhat discreditable that the great towns and princes of Germany cannot achieve what the Swiss do by co-operation and local action.' He then turns to the religious dissensions, and in his passion for concord exclaims that it would be better that a nation should be united in error than so numerously divided: experience shows that there is no opinion so wild but that some one will be found to embrace it. Of the orthodox party he has nothing to say beyond extolling the system by which the Pope might act as judge and father of all, and as supreme court of appeal. To the Utraquists he would counsel conformity to the practice of the majority; although unable to understand why the Church should have allowed a practice instituted by Christ to fall into disuse.
Then he comes to the Brethren, and after admitting that they have strayed further than the Utraquists from the rule of Christian life, he continues: 'If they go on still in their wickedness, they must be restrained; but this is not the duty of any one who likes, nor must violence be used, lest the innocent suffer with the guilty. Their practice of electing their own priests and bishops has authority in antiquity; but it certainly is unfortunate if their choice falls on men bad as well as unlearned. With the titles of Brother and Sister I see no fault to find: it is a pity they are not more widely used among Christians. To prefer God's word in the Bible to the judgements of Doctors is sound: though to reject the latter altogether is as uniform an error as to embrace them to the exclusion of everything else. To celebrate the mass in everyday dress is not contrary to the truth; but it is a pity to abandon customs sanctioned by use and authority: though perhaps the Pope might be persuaded to concede to them the use of their own rites, as he does to the Greeks and the Milanese. The Lord's Prayer is, of course, part of our own use; and though it seems narrow to confine themselves to this, I doubt whether they do worse than those who weave in long strings of intercession from any source. Their opinions about the sacraments are certainly impious; but at any rate they are under no temptation to exploit these holy mysteries for the sake of gain or futile glory or tyrannous imposition. I do not see why they should reject vigils and fasts in moderation; but these are matters for encouragement rather than positive command. About festivals they seem to follow the usage current in the days of Jerome: better, I think, than the modern calendar, full of saints-days which end in riot and carouse, and on which the honest journeyman is forbidden to work for his children's bread.' As Slechta read these words, he must surely have felt as did Balak, the son of Zippor, when he listened to the seer from Mesopotamia taking up his parable upon Israel in the plains of Moab. The man whose eyes were open, had blessed the Brethren instead of cursing them; and literary Europe might well follow his lead.
The history of the Bohemian Brethren is of exceptional interest, affording an example of a community professing a plain, simple faith and ruling their lives by modest conceptions of ordinary goodness, who, guided by leaders almost unknown to the world, through the trials of good and evil repute, through tribulation and prosperity, kept serenely upon the path they had marked out for themselves, living and growing into one of the most flourishing and devoted missionary bodies of the present day. As is natural under such conditions, their origin is not free from obscurity. Men connected them with the Waldensians of Southern France, or traced them, as we have seen, to a leader from Picardy. Through the fifteenth century they grew steadily in strength and unity, sheltered by the toleration which Rome unwillingly granted to the Utraquists as a result of the Compacts of Basle; and as compared with other dissentient bodies their name was singularly free from gross imputations. Throughout that age such imputations were freely made and believed against heretics. This was not unreasonable. In the low state of public and private morals faith was regarded as an indispensable bulwark to conduct, the faith which taught indeed that a man should love God and his neighbour, but stablished him into practising what he professed, by lurid pictures of the fate awaiting him if he did not. Without this bulwark it was not thought possible that a man could lead a godly, righteous and sober life; and so he was considered capable of every form of vice, if he ventured to doubt the truth of those opinions on which the Church had set its seal, in realms into which it now seems that human knowledge cannot penetrate.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century fresh attempts were being made to win back the Brethren to orthodoxy; and in this work the ardour of the Dominicans burned bright. In 1500 one of them, Henry Institor, a Doctor of Theology, procured from Alexander VI bulls which recognized him as 'Inquisitor into heresy throughout Germany and Bohemia', and empowered him to collect heretical books and send them to the Bishop of Olmutz, the chief see of Moravia, to be burned; also to join to himself two or three other Masters of Theology and preach against the heretics. These bulls are printed at the head of a great volume written by Institor, with the title 'A shield for the faith of the Holy Roman Church against the heresy of the Waldensians or Pickards, who on all sides are infecting with virulent contagion certain races in Germany and Bohemia, to hatred of the clergy and enervation of the ecclesiastical power'. In 1501 the volume appeared at Olmutz, with an enumeration of thirty-six erroneous articles in which the Pickards denied the authority of the Church; followed of course by a vigorous refutation. At the same time one of their own countrymen, Augustine Kasenbrot of Olmutz was writing a series of open letters on the Brethren and their views.
But the most succinct account of the position is contained in an attack made upon them by a learned and fair-minded Dominican, Jacobus Lilienstayn. His book, 'a Treatise against the erroneous Waldensian Brethren, commonly known as the Pickards, without rule, without law, and without obedience, of whom there are many in Moravia, more than in Bohemia', was composed in 1505 and is dedicated to the Dean of Prague. It begins by setting forth five general and twelve special errors of the Waldensians. The former are as follows: