Tárogató, 1947-1948 (10. évfolyam, 3-10. szám)
1947-10-01 / 4. szám
TÁROGATÓ 13 JOHN HUSS LIGHTED A CANDLE By Ruth O. Dobias (This article, by the daughter of a Czechoslovakian pastor, who herself spent about three years in a German internment camp, was written for the Bible Society Record.) The life and preaching of John Huss, who was influenced by John Wyclif to search the Scriptures more thoroughly, lit a candle first for his own people, and later, through his heroic death, for the whole world. The light was set on a high hill where it could not be hid. The immediate result of the teachings of this faithful witness,( who exhorted his people to love the truth and defend it even unto death, was the formation of a practical Christian Brotherhood which, in its earliest beginnings, followed the example of the early Christian church in sharing all things in common. It was of the women of this age that Aeneas Sylvius (Pope Pius II) wrote that every ordinary Czech woman knew the Bible better than any Catholic priest. The spiritual songs of this age, notably the famous “Ye Who Are the Warriors of God and of His Law”, jused as a motif of patriotism in B. Smetana’s greatest symphony, helped to preserve a spirit of nationalism in the ages of darkness that were to follow. The light, lit in darkness, struggled on through the darkness. Among no other people of the earth has the Bible been more treasured. The two most prized books among the Czechs —as in Anglo-Saxon countries, the English Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress—were, after the battle of the White Mountain in 1620, the Bible and “The Labyrinth of the World” by Comenius. But the pathos and inner strength of the lines of the song of the exiles telling of how the exiles have lost their all (home, country, worldly goods and honour) and have only the Bible and the “Labyrinth of the World” left to them, are nowhere paralleled. The exiles went out with Comenius, the great educator and last bishop of the Unity of Czech Brethren. Those who remained very often had to hide the Bible under the floor-work of their homes or in the dough of the big brown loaves of bread they were getting ready to put in the oven. The Bible remained the peculiar treasure they wished to preserve, if at all possible. As my mother and I placed red tulips on the last resting-place of the great Comenius in Naarden, near Amsterdam, where the Czechs since the formation of the Czechoslovakian republic have erected a beautiful mausoleum, there came to our minds the Hussite motto, “Truth will prevail”, and the prophecy of Comenius —who believed firmly that the government of the Czech people would return into their own hands. Does not the brave new republic deserve our prayers? Has it not striven to obey the behest of our Lord, when He said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven”? RATS ARE EXPENSIVE Rats cost Canada something like fifty million dollars annually. That’s a pretty big bill, but rat exterminators say it is probably an underestimate. There are about twenty-five million rats in Canada, and each rat does at least two dollars worth of damage per year. Rats appear to have originated in Asia, and their westward migration brought the black Asiatic rat to England during the thirteenth century. The brown Norway rat was first noticed in England in 1730, having arrived on an East Indian merchantman. Rats also came to Canada on ships, and are now found in almost every part of the Dominion. They invade markets and warehouses, stores and office buildings, barns and homes. They are cunning and resourceful, and attack poultry, eat stored food, and destroy much in their nest-making activities. They gnaw through wood and weaken the foundations of buildings; they chew through lead piping and disrupt plumbing; they eat the insulation off wires and cause fires. Traps and poisons are used to fight the menace of rats. The standard poisons are arsenic and red squill. A new tasteOUR ENGLISH SECTION.
