howling Dervishes, muttering their Hebrew prayers, and singing in a wild chant the same victorious psalms which their fathers sung on the shores of the Red Sea when the Lord brought them out of the house of bondage.

Hard by the synagogue is the Jewish burying-ground -another place of pilgrimage for the people of the Lord. Here, under humble stones, covered with moss, lies the dust of men famed in all the world for learning and for saintly virtues, old Rabbis and Masters in Israel, who, after waiting in vain for the coming of the Messiah, fell asleep in darkness. Many of the tombs are marked by the symbols of their tribes. Hither come pilgrims from all parts of Europe, treading their way with weary feet, that they may kneel, and weep, and pray at the tomb of the fathers of their people. They leave behind little pebbles, placed upon the tombs by respectful hands, the poor tokens of their love and veneration.

From these memorials of ruin and decay we turn at once to princely halls and imperial grandeur. Across the Moldau, on the brow of a hill which rears its head erect and lofty as the castled crag of Edinburgh, stands the vast pile of the Hradschin, the palace of the ancient Bohemian kings. Our horses had a hard pull up the steep ascent. At length we wheeled around upon the summit, which commands a view of the whole city beneath, and of the valley for miles. Here stands the cathedral-a structure that was intended to be very

magnificent, but that never reached its full proportions, and whose actual grandeur has been shattered by the storm of war. Over its head flew the bombs of Frederic the Great, and its sacred roof did not escape. In fact, the great captain found the high tower an excellent target for his guns, and told his artillerists to point their cannon against it. The very first shot struck it, and during the siege two hundred and fifteen balls passed through the roof, and in the end the church received more than fifteen hundred! One of these balls still hangs in the church, as a memorial of the fiery ordeal through which it passed.

But the cathedral is especially interesting for its treasures. Here is the rich shrine of St. John Nepomuk, the tomb and its ornaments containing nearly two tons of silver! But even this is less precious than the bones of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which are here kept for the wonder of the faithful, and the pocket handkerchief of the Virgin Mary!

The palace is interesting rather from its historical associations than from its architectural grandeur. It is a vast range of buildings-being larger than the palace at Vienna. It was the residence of the Bohemian kings, and when their country passed under the power of Austria, here were devised plots against Bohemian liberty. In the front of the palace is a hall of council where met the advisers of Ferdinand II., and where they were startled one day by the appearance of a body of depu

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ties, who burst into the room, demanding that they should cease from their plots against the nation; and who, finding no redress, seized two of the boldest and pitched them out of the window, a distance of eighty feet. Their lives were saved, somewhat ingloriously, by falling on a dunghill. This act of popular violence was the beginning of the Thirty Years' War. In the same room we were shown the table on which, at the close of that war, was signed the Treaty of Westphalia.

Of late this old palace seems to be devoted to defunct royalties. Here, Charles X., after being driven from France, passed the poor remnant of his days, and here now resides that old granny, the late Emperor Ferdinand. I would not speak evil of dignities, but everybody knows that the late sovereign of Austria is half an idiot, who hardly knows enough to go in the house when it rains, and as in 1848, the year of revolutions, it rained very hard, there was nothing for him to do but to make a rapid retreat. Here he spends his days chiefly in mumbling prayers to the Virgin. His queen finds it pretty dull business, and so she goes off to Vienna or to Italy, to enjoy herself as well as she can.

At present the ancient Bohemian liberties are pretty effectually extinguished. The young Emperor of Austria, I believe, has not taken the trouble to be crowned King of Bohemia, nor King of Hungary. Both kingdoms are absorbed in the one great Empire. Yet here are elements which do not readily coalesce. The Bohe

mians are not Germans. Of the hundred and fifty thou sand inhabitants of Prague, more than half are native Bohemians, who cherish a lively remembrance of their grand national history. Nor can they easily submit to the rule of the foreigner. As I wander about these streets, and listen to the music of the military bands, which is celebrated throughout Europe for its plaintive character, it seems as if the voice of the nation found utterance in these wild airs; as if they were mourning for the glorious days of Huss and of Ziska.

CHAPTER XV.

PROTESTANTISM IN BOHEMIA-EARLY REFORMATION-JOHN HUSSTHE UNIVERSITY OF PRAGUE-HUSS BURNT AT CONSTANCE-THE WARS WHICH FOLLOWED-BLind Ziska-THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR -WALLENSTEIN-PRESENT STATE OF PROTESTANTISM IN BOHEMIA.

THE saddest thing which I behold in the streets of Prague, is not the Austrian soldiers, nor the downcast Jews-but the decline and almost utter extinction of Protestantism. No country in Europe acted a more conspicuous part in the early Reformation than Bohemia. Nearly five hundred years ago, the first dawn of that day which was to spread over half of Europe, touched almost at the same time the mountains of Bohemia and the white cliffs of England. These two countries were then closely connected by marriage of royal houses, and by the ties of learning and a common faith. In England, Wickliffe had begun to teach the pure faith of the Gospel, and among those who read his writings, and caught his spirit, was the future apostle and martyr of Bohemia, John Huss. A hundred years before Luther stirred the heart of Germany, a voice like that of John the Baptist -the voice of one crying in the wilderness-was heard on the banks of the Moldau, preaching repentance for