c o^X 
 
 <Sl 
 
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 Protestantism in Poland 
 
 A Brief Study of its History 
 as an Encouragement to 
 
 Mission Work Among the Poles 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev. Charles E. Edwards 
 
 l 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
 THE WESTMINSTER PRESS 
 1910 
 
 / 
 
Copyright, 1901, by 
 
 The Trustees of the Presbyterian Board of Publi 
 
 CATION AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK 
 
Mission Work Among the Poles 
 
 Thousands of Poles have emigrated to the 
 United States. Some even reckon them bv 
 millions. They come from lands destitute of 
 the Scriptures. Such a fair opportunity for 
 giving them the gospel has not been granted 
 to the Church for three centuries. “ Can they 
 be converted ? ” is the cold question of unbe¬ 
 lief. A direct answer is afforded by the his¬ 
 tory of the Reformation in Poland; and this 
 history may be used in America to encourage 
 efforts in winning a new people for Christ. 
 “ The past, at least, is secure,” said an Ameri¬ 
 can statesman. Poland still has the traces 
 and ruins of her Reformation; and even the 
 ruins of a church may plead for the gospel. 
 Real estate agents point to the remains of 
 cities built in the far West by an ancient 
 American race, and argue that by proper ex¬ 
 penditure these wastes may again be inhab- 
 
 3 
 
4 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 ited and become like the garden of the Lord. 
 Isaiah prophesies concerning our Christian 
 workers : “ And they shall build the old wastes, 
 they shall raise up the former desolations, and 
 they shall repair the waste cities, the desola¬ 
 tions of many generations. And strangers 
 shall stand and feed your Hocks, and the sons 
 of the alien shall be your plowmen and your 
 vinedressers.” 
 
 The significance of the .Reformation in 
 Poland can be better appreciated if we recall 
 its former greatness. It once included the 
 whole of ancient Scythia. It was once a 
 European power, extending from the Baltic to 
 the Carpathian Mountains and to the Black 
 Sea, and from the Oder to the Dnieper. It 
 once had two hundred and eighty thousand 
 square miles and fifteen millions of people, 
 when France had two hundred and eight 
 thousand square miles and twenty millions, and 
 the vast area of Russia, twenty-five millions of 
 subjects. Its plains were a granary for Europe. 
 It was larger than Spain, and not much less than 
 the whole of Germany. John Calvin wrote to 
 “the most mighty and most serene prince, 
 Sigismund Augustus, by the grace of God, 
 the King of Poland, Great Duke of Lithuania 
 Russia, Prussia, and Lord and Heir of Mus- 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 5 
 
 covy/’ etc.; and these titles remind us of 
 Polish victories and power. The Emperor 
 Charles the Fifth obtained dominions more 
 extensive than those of any other European 
 sovereign for eight hundred years, or since the 
 days of Charlemagne. It is a marvel of God’s 
 providence, that he and his son Philip the Sec¬ 
 ond, whose possessions included the distant 
 Philippines that bear his name, were unable 
 to crush the Reformation, which was led by 
 poor men, constantly in danger of exile, im¬ 
 prisonment, or death. Coligni, the French 
 admiral and statesman, a noble Huguenot 
 Presbyterian, planned a gigantic combination 
 of the scattered Protestants, to offset the 
 might of Spain and Austria. A majority of 
 the Polish Parliament were Protestants. The 
 armies which they could muster when their 
 Reformation flourished were sufficient to 
 check those of Polish Romanists. Count Va¬ 
 lerian Krasinski, author of what Prof. W. R. 
 Morfill terms “ an interesting but now for¬ 
 gotten work ” 1 on the Polish Reformation, de- 
 
 1 Historical Sketch of the Rise , Progress and Decline of the 
 Reformation in Poland , and of the Influence which the Scriptural 
 Doctrines have exercised on that Country in literary, moral , and 
 political Respects. By Count Valerian Krasinski. 2 Vols. 
 London, 1838. ‘ ‘ To the Protestants of the British Empire 
 
6 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 dares that if Coligni’s plans had succeeded, the 
 Reformation would have triumphed over all 
 Europe. 
 
 The Poles belong to the great Slavonic race, 
 which includes a majority of the inhabitants 
 in the Austrian and Russian empires, besides 
 myriads of others in provinces subject to the 
 Turk, and in kingdoms newly freed from his 
 rule. The Polish people may be traced as far 
 back as the sixth century. “At the time 
 when all the lands forming the jagged margin 
 of the Mediterranean were included in the 
 vast empire of the Roman Csesars, the Slavo¬ 
 nians were decidedly the most numerous of the 
 four stock-races which divided amongst them 
 the rest of Europe—the Celts in the west, the 
 Goths in the middle and north, the Slavonians 
 in the east, and the Ugrians or Finns in the 
 extreme circumpolar regions. Physically, they 
 are a well-formed race, taller than the Celts, 
 with complexions as fair or nearly as fair as 
 the Goths, and with hair brown or reddish, 
 but seldom black. Contrasted with the Goths, 
 they are what physiologists call brachy-ce- 
 phalic,—that is, their heads were proportionally 
 broader across, and less deep from front to back, 
 
 and of the United States of America, this Work is respect¬ 
 fully dedicated by a Polish Protestant.” 
 
MISSION WOllK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 7 
 
 their cheek-bones being in consequence some¬ 
 what more prominent and their eyes smaller.” 1 
 The Polish State was founded by Mieceslav 
 the First, a prince of the Piast dynasty, about 
 a thousand years ago. Poland then became 
 nominally Christian. At that period Cyril and 
 Methodius translated the Scriptures into the 
 Slavonian tongue, and this version is still in 
 use in all Greek Orthodox churches. The 
 dialect in which thev wrote, now called Church 
 Slavonic, is of great importance to the scien¬ 
 tific student of Slavonic tongues, which differ 
 from each other less than Dutch does from 
 German. Yarious Slavonic countries even¬ 
 tually were won over to the Church of Pome. 
 Those who deride theology as of no practical 
 importance, should consider the far-reaching 
 consequences of religious training, which are 
 stamped upon the Slavonic peoples, which re¬ 
 appear in their American immigrants, and 
 which make a gulf between them and the 
 Americans who have a pure gospel. Their 
 alphabets, literature, schools, architecture, and 
 historical affiliations, have been determined by 
 their forms of religion. Croatians and Serv¬ 
 ians are the same people and speak the same 
 language; but Croatians (who gave us the 
 
 1 Westminster Review , G3 : 114, etc. 
 
8 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 word cravat ) are Romanists and use the Ro¬ 
 man alphabet, while Servians use the Greek 
 alphabet, and follow the Greek Church. “ The 
 Bohemian churches are of a German Gothic ; 
 those of their Russian kinsfolk followed 
 models of Constantinople in architecture and 
 art, as well as discipline and ritual.” 1 As are 
 their churches, so are their alphabets: Poles 
 and Bohemians use Roman letters; Russians 
 and Bulgarians, the Greek. These all are of 
 the Slavonic race, and nearly all of them are 
 represented by colonists, schools, and churches, 
 in our American cities. An American who at¬ 
 tempts to read his mother tongue when trans¬ 
 literated in Greek letters, can see an illustra¬ 
 tion of these national and theological differ¬ 
 ences. 
 
 During stormy centuries of the Piast 
 dynasty, Rome received gifts and conces¬ 
 sions from princes who sought her favor; yet 
 she seems to have had only a feeble hold upon 
 Poland. Other countries trembled before the 
 thunders of the Vatican ; but Poland was in¬ 
 different to its censures. In conflicts between 
 the secular and ecclesiastical powers, the latter 
 were often defeated. There was a sturdy, 
 national spirit in Poland ; and their historians, 
 1 Littell's Living Age, 1879. 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE ROLES 
 
 9 
 
 some of them zealous Romish priests, confess 
 that worship in the national language was ex¬ 
 tant until the sixteenth century. 
 
 With Casimir the Great, the Piast dynasty 
 ended in the fourteenth century. The beauti¬ 
 ful and beloved Queen Hedwig, his daughter, 
 married Jagello, Duke of Lithuania, who 
 was baptized, and introduced Christianity 
 among his heathen subjects. For two cen¬ 
 turies, the most prosperous period of Polish 
 history, the crown was hereditary in Lithuania 
 and elective in Poland ; but a Jagellon was 
 always elected. Under the Jagellon kings, 
 “ the mass of the peasantry are to be conceived 
 of as living in their dirty villages, ignorant 
 and boorish. The nobles, on the other hand, 
 are spoken of as a singularly handsome, 
 sprightly, intelligent and polite race, generally 
 well accomplished and with an extreme facil¬ 
 ity in learning foreign languages and habits; 
 the women animated, clever and more beauti¬ 
 ful than the women of any other continental 
 country. The bravery of the Poles, and their 
 military excellence in every respect, were then 
 as now, universally admitted; and whatever 
 modern theorists of a certain class may say, 
 there is no better test of a nation’s stuff and 
 substance than how it will fight. In the fif- 
 
10 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 teenth and sixteenth centuries, the political 
 suffrage was more extended there than in any 
 other country in Europe. In 1500, Poland 
 with fifteen millions had four hundred and 
 eighty thousand voters. In France, in the 
 last year of Louis Philippe there were only 
 one hundred and eighty thousand in thirty- 
 five millions. In no country of the world was 
 the constitution so republican, and at the same 
 time so efficacious in action; in none was the 
 central authority so respectable, resting on 
 a basis so broad and popular. Sigismund the 
 Third at one Diet was reminded that he was 
 ruling over a nation of free nobles, having no 
 equals under heaven.” 1 
 
 There was a Slavic Deformation a hundred 
 years before Luther’s conversion. Andreas 
 Galka Dobszvn, who received the degree of 
 M. A. from the University of Cracow ex¬ 
 pounded the works of Wyclif and wrote a 
 hymn in honor of the English reformer. “ Ye 
 Poles, Germans and all nations! Wyclif 
 speaks the truth ! Whoever wishes to know 
 himself, let him approach Wyclif; whoever 
 will enter the ways which he has pointed out 
 will never leave them, and never will err. 
 Truth is the heritage of Christ. The priests 
 
 1 Westminster Review, 63 : 130. 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 11 
 
 have hidden the truth ; they are afraid of it, 
 and they deceive the people with fables. O 
 Christ! For the sake of thy wounds, send us 
 such priests as may guide us toward the truth 
 and may bury the antichrist.’’ 
 
 John Huss of Bohemia read with delight 
 the writings of Wyclif, the “morning star 
 of the Reformation.” When the quarrel arose 
 between the Germans and Bohemians in the 
 University of Prague, Huss became the leader 
 of his countrymen. The Germans, who em¬ 
 braced in their party all the foreigners at the 
 University, had three votes, while the native 
 Bohemians had only one, at all their elections. 
 Thus Germans disposed of University honors. 
 Huss pleaded for home rule, and has endeared 
 his name even among Bohemians who do not 
 accept his religious views. He urged that the 
 custom be reversed, and that three votes be 
 given to the national party, and one to the 
 Germans, according to the practice of the 
 Universities of Bologna and Paris, which were 
 called the mothers of Prague. The monarch 
 granted this demand October 5th, 1409 ; where¬ 
 upon the Germans seceded and founded the 
 Bhuiversity of Leipsic, which thus indirectly 
 perpetuates the memory of the Bohemian re 
 former. After the departure of the Germans, 
 
12 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 Huss was elected rector of the University. 
 Krasinski writes that “ the national party 
 eagerly embraced the religious doctrines of its 
 leader, the anti-Eomanist feeling being blended 
 with the anti-German. Poland was intimately 
 connected with Bohemia; the languages of 
 both countries were then almost the same. 
 The youths of Poland generally resorted for 
 their education to the University of Prague, 
 where a college for them was founded by 
 Queen Hedwig. One of the first martyrs of 
 IIuss’s Beformation was a Pole.” At Prague 
 in 1411, two Bohemians and a Pole, Stanislaw 
 Paszek, a shoemaker by trade, denounced as 
 false the doctrine of indulgences. Their lives 
 were sacrificed for their zeal, and Huss 
 preached a sermon at their burial. Huss was 
 greatly esteemed in Poland, and all the Poles 
 at the Council of Constance united with their 
 Bohemian brethren in the effort to save him 
 from a martyr’s death. 
 
 Poles assisted Hussites in their wars, but 
 the Beformation of Huss did not triumph in 
 Poland. Had it done so, it might have spread 
 among all the Slavonic nations. Krasinski 
 accounts for the failure partly by the unfavor¬ 
 able effects of dissensions among the Hussites, 
 and partly because the patriotic motives which 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 13 
 
 stimulated Bohemians in contending against 
 Germans, were lacking in Poland, where no 
 such conflict took place. Froude remarks: 1 
 “ The Bohemians had avenged the murders of 
 John IIuss and Jerome of Prague on eleven 
 bloody fields; but they had been crushed, and 
 there remained only Jean Ziska’s skin which 
 he bequeathed to his country to be stretched 
 on a drum, and so keep alive the echoes of the 
 eternal battle music.” Nevertheless, Pome 
 was fast losing her hold upon the minds of the 
 people in the fifteenth century. 
 
 The conflicts between Slav and Teuton in 
 the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the 
 closing years of the nineteenth century have 
 threatened the balance of power in Europe. 
 The gospel which unites Jew and Gentile, 
 barbarian and Scythian, in Christ, cures such 
 national feuds. The Slavic Keformation pre¬ 
 pared the way for that of the German Luther ; 
 and Luther’s doctrines in turn were preached 
 in Bohemia and Poland. “John ILuss,” said 
 Luther, “has weeded the vineyard of Christ 
 from many thorns. He has condemned the 
 scandal of the apostolical see. I have found 
 a fertile and well-tilled ground.” Huss, he 
 said, was the seed which must die and be 
 
 1 Council of Trent. 
 
14 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 buried in order that it might germinate and 
 grow. The doctrines of Luther were dissem¬ 
 inated by Polish students who frequented 
 Wittenberg. In Dantzic, the chief town of 
 Polish Prussia, some suffered for their pro¬ 
 fession of the reformed faith. Sigismund the 
 First (who reigned 1508-1548), was opposed to 
 political innovations, but was praised by 
 Calvin for his tolerance of religious reform. 
 Protestant Bohemians emigrated to Poland 
 and introduced their doctrines into various 
 parts of the kingdom. Although checked by 
 the authorities at first, the Reformation soon 
 became too strong to be suppressed. One of 
 the most singular events in the history of the 
 kingdom occurred during the reign of this 
 sovereign, and shows the growing power of 
 the new doctrines. For generations the cele¬ 
 brated order of the Teutonic Knights had been 
 a thorn in the side of Poland, and various 
 battles had tested the prowess of Pole or 
 Teuton. King Sigismund the First waged 
 war with them and was victorious. In set¬ 
 tling the terms of peace in 1525, the Grand 
 Master of the order, Albert of Brandenburg, a 
 descendant of the Hohenzollern family who 
 in 1411 possessed themselves of the marquisate 
 of Brandenburg, proposed that their order 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 15 
 
 should be secularized. He and other knights 
 married wives and professed Lutheranism. 
 The king himself took part in the stately cere¬ 
 monies which so happily terminated this long 
 conflict. This is said to have been the first 
 instance of secularization in history, and the 
 first diplomatic recognition of Lutheranism as 
 an established religion. 
 
 The most rapid progress of the Reformation 
 in this realm was during the reign of this 
 king’s son and successor, Sigismund Augustus 
 (2548-1572), when the Protestant churches 
 were established, not as tolerated, but as 
 legally acknowledged communities. The Vis¬ 
 tula is the great river of Poland, and it 
 seemed about to become a Protestant stream. 
 Its towns, like Cracow, Sendomir, Thorn, and 
 Dantzic, saw Protestant assemblies. “ In the 
 sixteenth century Poland was the most tol¬ 
 erant country in Europe. The only protest 
 made by any nation against the revocation 
 of the Edict of Nantes and the massacre of 
 St. Bartholomew came from Poland.” 1 The 
 celebrated Jesuit Skarga complained that two 
 thousand Romanist churches were converted 
 into Protestant ones. Calvin’s disciples mul¬ 
 tiplied among the people, the nobility, and in 
 
 1 Westminster Review , 80 : 180. 
 
16 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 the University of Cracow; and his eagle eye 
 saw the importance of gaining that kingdom 
 for the gospel. 
 
 The dedication of a book was a more serious 
 matter in those times than now. Luther dedi¬ 
 cated an edition of his German Bible to Sigis- 
 mund Augustus. In 1549 this king accepted 
 from Calvin the dedication of his commentary 
 on the Epistle to the Hebrews, in which he 
 says:— 
 
 “ Your kingdom is extensive and renowned, 
 and abounds in many excellences; but its hap¬ 
 piness will then only be solid when it adopts 
 Christ as its chief ruler and governor, so that 
 it may be defended by his safeguard and pro¬ 
 tection ; for to submit your scepter to him is 
 not inconsistent with that elevation in which 
 you are placed, but it would be far more glori¬ 
 ous than all the triumphs of the world. Un¬ 
 dertake then, I pray, O magnanimous King, 
 under the auspicious banner of Christ, a work 
 so worthy of your royal elevation, as well as 
 of your heroic virtue, so that the eternal truth 
 of God, by which his own glory and the salva¬ 
 tion of men are promoted, may, wherever thy 
 kingdom spreads, recover its own authority, 
 which has been taken away by the fraudulent 
 dealings of antichrist. It is truly an arduous 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 17 
 
 work, and of such magnitude as is sufficient to 
 fill even the wisest with solicitude and fear. 
 As it is the peculiar work of God, we ought 
 not in this case to regard the extent of human 
 powers as the glory due to his power; so 
 that relying on that not only to help us but 
 also to guide us, we may venture on things 
 far beyond our own strength. For the work 
 of restoring and establishing the Church is not 
 without reason everywhere assigned in Scrip¬ 
 ture to God. The Lord who has himself as it 
 Avere by his own hand laid the foundations of 
 the Church will not suffer it to remain in a 
 decayed state, for he is represented as solici¬ 
 tous to restore it and to repair its ruins; for 
 by speaking thus, he in effect promises that he 
 will never fail us when engaged in this work. 
 As he would not have us sit down as idle 
 spectators of his power, so the presence of his 
 aid in sustaining the hands which labor, clearly 
 proves that he himself is the chief architect. 
 This one thing is abundantly sufficient, that 
 we have such an invincible Leader, that the 
 more he is assailed, the greater will be the vic¬ 
 tories and the triumphs gained by his power. 
 Farewell, invincible King. May the Lord Jesus 
 rule you by the spirit of wisdom, sustain you 
 by the spirit of valor, bestow on you all kinds 
 
18 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 of blessings, long preserve your Majesty in 
 health and prosperity, and protect your king¬ 
 dom. Amen.” 
 
 Later, in 1554 he wrote: “ When Christ 
 wishes even his humblest disciples to be like 
 lamps suspended in a lofty place, that send 
 out their light to a distance, what does he re¬ 
 quire of a king, whom he has placed at the 
 summit of human dignity, that he might shine 
 before all others ? Remember then, most ex¬ 
 cellent King, that a light has been divinely 
 kindled up for the whole of Poland, which 
 cannot be kept hidden any longer without 
 your incurring serious blame. When the battle 
 that is to be fought here is for the glory of 
 God in the kingdom of Christ, for the purity 
 of religious worship, for the salvation of the 
 human race, such is the excellence of the cause 
 that it should absorb all vexations in its glory, 
 and easily surmount all obstacles. When God 
 asserts that it is his own work to restore his 
 ruined Church, of which he is the only founder, 
 we may conclude with certainty that he will 
 by no means desert us in the moment of need. 
 Because the enemies of sound doctrine will 
 strive with all their might to shut the door 
 against pious and sincere teachers, it would be 
 necessary that a helping hand should be held 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 out to them by your Majesty, in order that 
 without any restraint they may turn the peo¬ 
 ple away from the errors of superstition to the 
 
 straight path of piety.” 
 
 Nicholas Radziwill, one of the most distin¬ 
 guished nobles of Poland, the friend and con¬ 
 fidant of King Sigismund Augustus, in 1553 
 publicly adopted the Reformed doctrines, and 
 caused to be translated and printed at his own 
 expense the first Protestant Bible in Poland. 
 In 1555 Calvin wrote to him : “ It is my wish 
 
 that the kingdom of Christ should flourish 
 everywhere, yet at the present moment Poland 
 deservedly occupies my thoughts with a very 
 special anxiety. For from the time that the 
 light of a purer doctrine began to shine upon 
 it, this happy beginning has at the same time 
 inflamed my desire with the hopes of a better 
 progress. Unquestionably you see that it is 
 a work of immense difficulty to establish the 
 heavenly reign of God upon earth. You see 
 with what indifference that cause is treated, 
 which ought not only to occupy the chief 
 place among our cares, but even absorb all our 
 thoughts.” 
 
 Again he writes to the King: u Since in 
 Poland true religion has already begun to 
 dawn, since many pious and wise men volun- 
 
20 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 tardy aspire after the pure worship of God, I, 
 whom the King of kings has appointed a 
 preacher of his gospel and a minister of his 
 Church, call upon your Majesty in his name to 
 make this work above all others your especial 
 care. Your Majesty has far less difficulty to 
 struggle with than Hezekiah and Josiah, who 
 had an arduous and severe contest with the 
 contumacy of their people; whereas in our 
 days the greater part of the Polish nobility 
 shows a prompt and cheerful disposition to 
 embrace the faith of Christ.” 
 
 Polish nobles desired Calvin to establish 
 their Reformation in person; but he recom¬ 
 mended the Polish noble and reformer John a 
 Lasco or Laski in his stead. During that 
 century there were many eminent representa¬ 
 tives of this family in the Church, the council, 
 and the camp. John Laski, or a Lasco, was 
 born in 1499, and was educated for the priest¬ 
 hood. His travels in Germany, Italy, France, 
 and Belgium, introduced him to many famous 
 scholars of the day. In 1524 Zwingli sowed 
 the first doubt in his mind as to the orthodoxy 
 of the Roman Church. The year 1525 he 
 spent with Erasmus, who had a regard for 
 him bordering on enthusiasm. D’Aubigne, 
 speaking of Erasmus as the greatest critic of 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 21 
 
 the age, quotes his praises: “ A glorious 
 ancestry, high rank, prospects the most bril¬ 
 liant, a mind of wonderful richness, uncom¬ 
 mon extent of knowledge, and with all this 
 there is about him not the faintest taint of 
 pride. The sweetness of his disposition puts 
 him in harmony with everyone. His morals 
 are pure as the snow. He has all the brilliancy 
 of gems and gold. He has manners so easy, 
 so open and so cordial that his company day 
 by day makes me young again.” This friend¬ 
 ship Laski repaid with the liberality of a 
 Polish grandee. He purchased the library of 
 Erasmus, but left to him its use during his 
 lifetime. He returned to his native land in 
 1526, and might have obtained the first 
 dignities of the Polish Church, for his uncle 
 was the primate of the kingdom and he 
 seemed destined to be his successor. By his 
 marriage, after his profession of the Reformed 
 faith, he sacrificed these splendid prospects of 
 preferment. Protestant princes sought his aid 
 in advancing the Reformation. He may be 
 considered as the real founder of the Protestant 
 Church in Friesland, as in 1543 he was nomi¬ 
 nated superintendent of all the churches, and 
 labored there with zeal for six years. By 
 invitation of Archbishop Cranmer he went to 
 
22 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 England in 1548 to assist in the reformation of 
 
 O 
 
 the English Church, and spent six months 
 with him at Lambeth. Latimer highly praised 
 him in a sermon before King Edward the 
 Sixth ; and King Edward in a letter to Sigis- 
 mund Augustus described Laski as a man 
 gifted with eminent qualities and possessing 
 extensive information. After another visit to 
 Germany we find him in England in 1550. If 
 an Anglo-Saxon asks whether a Pole can be 
 converted, it may suffice to point to this 
 Polish noble who was chosen as one of eight 
 divines who formed in 1551 a commission 
 for the reformation of English ecclesias¬ 
 tical law. He was nominated the superin¬ 
 tendent of the foreign Protestant congrega¬ 
 tion established in London, composed of 
 French, Germans and Italians, who found 
 both asylum and liberal support from the 
 English Government. Upon the accession of 
 Queen Mary to the throne, John Laski left 
 England, and after sojourning in Friesland 
 and Frankfort-on-the-Main, where he estab¬ 
 lished a church for the Belgian Protestant 
 refugees, he returned in 1556 to his native 
 land. He had previously published an account 
 of the foreign churches that he had superin¬ 
 tended, and explained his views about the 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 23 
 
 necessity for a reformation in Poland. He 
 became superintendent of all the Reformed 
 churches in Little Poland, soon after his 
 return. He labored to promote a union of the 
 Protestant denominations; and organized a 
 hundred and twenty-two churches in Little 
 Poland. To Calvin he reports : “ I am now, 
 
 my Calvin, so overwhelmed with cares and 
 business that I cannot write. On the one 
 hand enemies, on the other false friends, assail 
 us, so that there is no rest. Farewell. Send 
 greetings most cordially to all brethren in the 
 Lord.” He died in 1560, was buried with 
 honors, and his death was a great loss to the 
 Reformation. At Basel he had studied di¬ 
 vinity with CEcolampadius and Hebrew with 
 Pellican. He visited Bucer at Cambridge. 
 His influence was great in the court of 
 Edward the Sixth, and can be traced in the 
 second prayer book, and in the views of Cran- 
 mer and Hooper. His catechism at Embden 
 in Friesland was partly the basis for the 
 Heidelberg Catechism. He wrote what was 
 virtually the first confession of the Nether¬ 
 lands Reformed Church. Rev. Dr. A. Kuyper 
 of Holland has done good service to the Church 
 in publishing the works of this reformer. 
 D’Aubigne thus estimates him: “ A Lasco 
 
24 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 does not stand in the first rank of the men of 
 the Reformation. But in one respect lie sur¬ 
 passed them all, and this by reason of the 
 state of life in which it pleased God that he 
 should be born. He knew better than anyone 
 what it was to sacrifice for Jesus Christ the 
 world with its dignities and its favors, and he 
 did this with a noble courage. Ho sooner was 
 the bandage, placed over his eyes, removed, 
 than he felt abhorrence of bondage. He be¬ 
 came one of the most beautiful examples of 
 moral freedom in the sixteenth century.” 
 
 John Laski did not labor in vain for the 
 union of Protestants in Poland. The Bohe¬ 
 mian Brethren, sometimes called Waldenses, 
 driven from their country in 1548 emigrated 
 to Poland, where they formed forty congrega¬ 
 tions. At the first general Protestant synod, 
 held at Kosminek, 1555, a union was effected 
 between them and the Reformed or Calvinistic 
 churches. Calvin wrote to a Polish nobleman, 
 Stanislaus Krasinski: “ From a union with the 
 Waldenses [or Brethren] I hope the best, not 
 only because God blesses every act of a holy 
 union of the members of Christ, but also be¬ 
 cause at the present crisis the experience of the 
 Waldenses, who are so well drilled in the service 
 of the Lord, will be of no small benefit to you.” 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG TIIE POLES 
 
 25 
 
 In the year 1569 occurred a notable event,— 
 the formal union of Poland and Lithuania at 
 the Diet of Lublin. The principal noblemen 
 of the three Protestant communions of Poland, 
 assembled at that Diet, resolved to promote a 
 union of their respective denominations, hoping 
 that Sigismund Augustus, who had often 
 wished for such a union, would at last be in¬ 
 duced to embrace Protestantism. They were 
 the more impelled to this by the death of 
 their leaders, Laski and Prince Radziwill. 
 Krasinski narrates that at this Diet the King 
 gave a sort of recognition to Protestantism 
 by attending the funeral of a Protestant, (with 
 all his court, senate, and foreign ministers) 
 the Grand General of the Crown, Sieniaw- 
 ski, who died at the advanced age of eighty- 
 one. At Sendomir, in 1570, a synod adopted 
 the Consensus Sendomiriensis , “ the only im¬ 
 portant confessional document of the evangel¬ 
 ical churches in Poland.” 1 It deserves remem¬ 
 brance : “ An Act of religious union between 
 the churches of Grand and Little Poland, Rus¬ 
 sia, Lithuania, and Samogitia, which had hith¬ 
 erto appeared to differ from each other in re¬ 
 spect to the confessions of Augsburg, Bohemia, 
 and Switzerland, concluded at the Synod of 
 
 1 Schaft. 
 
26 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 Sendomir, April 14th, 1570. The Reformed 
 orthodox churches of Poland have resolved 
 from love of peace and concord to convoke a 
 synod, and to bear witness to a complete 
 unanimity among themselves. We have there¬ 
 fore held a friendly and Christian conference, 
 and agreed with united hearts as to the follow¬ 
 ing points : ” here follow statements concern¬ 
 ing the doctrines of God, the Holy Trinity, 
 the Incarnation of the Son of God, justification, 
 and other fundamental articles; also more de¬ 
 tails concerning the Lord’s Supper, with a long- 
 extract from the Saxon Confession which 
 Melancthon prepared in 1551 for the Council 
 of Trent. They add their pledges : “We will 
 at the same time abolish and bury in eternal 
 oblivion all the contentions, troubles, and dis¬ 
 sensions, which have hitherto impeded the 
 progress of the gospel, not without great 
 offense to many pious souls, and which have 
 afforded to our enemies opportunities for ca¬ 
 lumniating us, and for attacking our true Chris¬ 
 tian religion ; but on the contrary, we will 
 oblige ourselves to maintain peace and tran¬ 
 quillity, to live in mutual love, and conjointly 
 promote, in accordance with this our brotherly 
 union, the edification of the Church-,—main¬ 
 taining, however, the order of discipline as 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 27 
 
 w T ell as the rites of every church, as the pres- 
 ent union leaves free to every church its rites 
 and ceremonies; because it is of little im¬ 
 portance what rites are observed, provided the 
 doctrine itself, and the foundation of our faith 
 and salvation, remain pure and unadulterated. 
 After having mutually given each other our 
 hands, we have made a sacred promise faith¬ 
 fully to maintain peace and faith, and to pro¬ 
 mote it every day more and more for the edi¬ 
 fication of the kingdom of God, and carefully 
 to avoid all occasions of dissension. Finally, 
 we do oblige ourselves not to seek our own in¬ 
 terest, but, as it becomes the true servants of 
 God, to seek only the glory of our Saviour 
 Jesus Christ, and to spread the truth of his 
 gospel by words and deeds. And that it may 
 last forever prosperously, firm, and without 
 infraction, we ardently pray to God the Father, 
 who is the Author and abundant Source of all 
 comfort and peace, who has snatched us and 
 our churches from the dense darkness of popery, 
 and gifted them with the light of his pure 
 word and holy truth, that he should bless this 
 our holy peace, concord, union and covenant, to 
 the glory of his name and edification of his 
 Church. Amen.” 
 
 “ A few weeks afterwards,” says Schaff, “a 
 
28 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 synodical meeting w.as held at Posen in the 
 same spirit of union, and twenty brief articles 
 were adopted for the purpose of confirming 
 and preserving the Consensus. When the peo¬ 
 ple who stood outside of the house where the 
 meeting was held, heard the happy conclusion, 
 they joined in the singing of the Te Deum , 
 with tears of joy and gratitude to God. The 
 Consensus was again confirmed by the general 
 synods at Cracow, 1573 ; Petricow, 1578 ; Vlad¬ 
 islav, 1583 ; and Thorn, 1595. This last was 
 the largest synod ever held in Poland.” 
 
 In Poland, as elsewhere, literature and edu¬ 
 cation were fostered by the gospel. The first 
 national poet, Key, was a Protestant; and so 
 was Bielski, the first historian who used the 
 vernacular tongue. In half a century Poland 
 was placed on a par with the most enlightened 
 nations of Europe. Protestants gave the Bible 
 to this nation, as they have done to all the 
 modern world. Christopher Radziwill, a de¬ 
 scendant of the nobleman who published the 
 first Protestant Bible in Poland, dedicated 
 another edition of it to his sovereign, Vladi¬ 
 slav the Fourth, with these words :— 
 
 “ Sire,—As this book of Holy Scripture 
 which was published sixty-nine years ago 
 (1563) adorned with the name of your royal 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 29 
 
 Majesty’s predecessor, King Sigismund Augus¬ 
 tus, of immortal memory, was printed a second 
 time during the election of your royal Majesty, 
 it seemed to be just that it should be also now 
 presented in this new garment, to the world, 
 under the royal name. For as our Protestant 
 ancestors were inspired with such veneration 
 for King Sigismund Augustus of sacred mem¬ 
 ory, that they presented in homage to his 
 earthly throne that which they taught and be¬ 
 lieved concerning the majesty of Heaven, thus 
 also we, having elected by our free votes your 
 royal Majesty for our lord and master, thought 
 it our duty to offer a similar expression of our 
 affection toward your royal Majesty, as the 
 successor not only of the crown, but also of 
 the virtues, of Sigismund Augustus, and par¬ 
 ticularly of his attachment to our nation and 
 its liberties. And, as our ancestors were not 
 ashamed to stand up with this book before the 
 monarchs and potentates of this world, it be¬ 
 hooves us also to declare that not only are we 
 not ashamed of this reprint of the Bible, but 
 that we are ready to appear before the 
 anointed of the Lord and render an account of 
 our faith, not from any human doctrines and 
 traditions, but from the Scriptures, inspired bv 
 the Holy Ghost. And as my ancestor Itadzi- 
 
30 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 will, in his dedication of the Bible to King 
 Sigismund Augustus, took God for witness, 
 that he could not give any stronger expression 
 of respect to his master, and sincerely wished, 
 on the same occasion, to the King every kind 
 of eternal and temporal happiness, thus I, 
 having received this Bible from our pious 
 teachers, who have carefully superintended 
 this edition, take God, the Searcher of hearts, 
 for witness, that it is not for vain ceremony s 
 sake, but as a sign of my true allegiance and 
 devotion that I offer this present, which I con¬ 
 sider the most precious thing in the world, and 
 which I value above my fortune, yea, and my 
 
 pf e !_doing it in my own name as well as in 
 
 that of all the Protestant congregations of 
 Poland and Lithuania, with whom we shall all 
 ever pray for a long and happy reign to your 
 Majesty. 
 
 “ Although I do not admit that anyone 
 having a true Polish heart would be so forget¬ 
 ful of the country’s laws and the times in 
 which we live, as to venture on calumniating 
 to your royal Majesty this our sincere present, 
 as well as our Protestant religion, because 
 there are neither controversies nor allusions in 
 it which can give offense to anyone, yet it 
 some foreigner should act in such a manner. 
 
MISSION WORK- AMONG THE POLES 
 
 31 
 
 let your royal Majesty remember that when 
 the Kin or of kin gs shall call before his throne 
 
 <D O 
 
 all the monarclis of the world, they will have 
 to render an account of their worship to God 
 and of the people intrusted to them according 
 to this statute and not according to any other ; 
 and that nobody will be sheltered there by the 
 advice of others, but will be obliged to answer 
 for himself.” 
 
 The press was a formidable weapon by which 
 the Reformation assailed the errors of Rome; 
 and it gave Luther and Calvin a surpassing 
 advantage over Wyclif and IIuss. Protes¬ 
 tants in all parts of Poland established print¬ 
 ing presses, which published large numbers not 
 only of religious but of literary and scientific 
 works. Polish Protestants also established 
 schools, one of which, Lezno or Lissa, in the 
 seventeenth century gained a European repu¬ 
 tation, through its eminent teacher, John Amos 
 Comenius. His Janua Linguo/rum Reserata , 
 or Door of Languages Unlocked, was trans¬ 
 lated into twelve European and three Asiatic 
 tongues. The governments of Sweden and of 
 England invited him to reform their schools. 
 In Little Poland, the Calvinists had fourteen 
 higher schools, and several in Lithuania, chiefly 
 established by the Radziwills. In the sixteenth 
 
32 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 century, the elementary schools, mostly Protes¬ 
 tant, are said to have numbered fifteen hun¬ 
 dred. “ The effects of toleration stimulated 
 commerce and industry. Many foreigners 
 sought in Poland a refuge from religious per¬ 
 secution. Thus Italian congregations existed 
 at Cracow, Vilna, and Posnania, as also did 
 German, French and Scotch, by whose immi¬ 
 gration, the towns of Poland rapidly increased 
 in population and wealth.” 1 
 
 There was great need for a reformation in 
 Poland. Modrzewski, who became secretary 
 to Sigismund Augustus, explained to him the 
 necessity for reforming the Church. “ What 
 has created the dissensions in the Church? 
 The corruption of manners and discipline; 
 neglect of the laws; and perversion of doc¬ 
 trines and ceremonies. Those who have pos¬ 
 sessed themselves of the lucrative dignities 
 of the Church have engaged in unwmrthy 
 occupations. They have become fond of 
 revels, of rich dress, precious stones, and large 
 retinues. All their time is devoted to play 
 and hunting. They have become enamored of 
 comfort, ease, and luxury. What is now the 
 intellectual authority of the clergy ? The 
 greatest part of them are ignorant of the 
 
 1 Krasinski. 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 33 
 
 Scriptures; some are given up to atheism; 
 they deride everything that is holy. They 
 have ceased to believe in religion ; they have 
 rejected doctrines and neglected actions pre¬ 
 scribed by God. They have appropriated to 
 themselves villages, towns, castles, tithes, 
 enormous incomes, and richly endowed states. 
 They have founded their supremacy upon 
 money, upon worldly connections and assist¬ 
 ance, and upon a luxurious life. They wish 
 to rule only by force; and in order to main¬ 
 tain their authority they have elevated their 
 Church contrary to the precepts of Christ. 
 But no religious community can be durable 
 and maintain its unity if its doctrines and 
 actions are not founded upon the pure word 
 of God.” 
 
 The Roman Catholic Synod of Lowicz made 
 some remarkable confessions: “ The beginning 
 of the troubles has been caused by the care¬ 
 lessness of the parochial, as well as of the 
 higher, clergy; but the apostolical see has 
 also committed many errors; it has neglected 
 the dangers and remained indifferent to them. 
 The inactivity and supineness of the bishops 
 have increased the troubles of the Church and 
 produced the greatest injury to the clergy. 
 One of them has publicly said in the assembly 
 
34 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 of the nobles, ‘ Let the people believe what 
 they like, provided I receive ray income.’ 
 We must not conceal our faults. The regular 
 and secular clergy are infected with the ut¬ 
 most profligacy of manners. They are ad¬ 
 dicted to luxury, avarice, debauchery, idleness, 
 carelessness; and, what is worse, the priests 
 have no knowledge of the law of God.” 
 
 Pope Paul the Fourth sent his nuncio, Lippo- 
 mani to Poland, in 1556. The King had sent a 
 letter for the Pope to the Council of Trent, de¬ 
 manding that mass should be performed in 
 the national language the communion in 
 two kinds, the marriage of priests, the abo¬ 
 lition of the Annates, and the convocation of 
 a national council for the reform of abuses. 
 The famous convert, Peter Paul Vergerio, who 
 had himself been a papal nuncio to Germany, 
 whose pen was an aid to the Reformation, 
 wrote to the King, of Lippomani: “ A man is 
 now entering your realm who will destroy 
 your wise and salutary designs; he will pre¬ 
 vent a peaceful reformation of the Church and 
 will disturb the kingdom.” The Pope wrote 
 to the King: “ If I am to credit the reports 
 that reach me, I must feel the most profound 
 grief and even doubt of your and your realm’s 
 salvation. You favor heretics, you listen to 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 35 
 
 their conversations, you admit them to your 
 company and board, you receive their letters 
 and write to them. You suffer their works, 
 sanctioned with your name, to be read and 
 circulated. The Palatine of Yilna, 1 a heretic, 
 is chancellor of Lithuania, the most intimate 
 friend of the King, in private and in public, 
 and may be considered in some measure as the 
 coregent of the kingdom and the second 
 monarch. John Laski and Yergerius have 
 arrived by your orders in this country. As 
 our letters, embassies, admonitions, have been 
 without effect we shall have recourse to the 
 utmost severity.” Lippomani entreated the 
 King to “ seize arbitrarily the leaders of the 
 Keformed party, and to execute them in a 
 summarv manner, because the Protestants 
 being deprived of their heads would then 
 have been easily exterminated.” 2 This con¬ 
 versation became public, and raised violent 
 hatred throughout the country against the 
 legate. The Synod of Lowicz, which was con¬ 
 voked by Lippomani, attempted to try Luto- 
 mirski, rector of Konin, for heresy. ILe boldly 
 appeared with influential friends, each armed 
 with a Bible ; and the synod did not dare to 
 prosecute him. It did succeed, however, in a 
 
 1 Nicholas Radzhvill. 2 Krasinski. 
 
36 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 case of sacrilege. Dorothy Lazecka, a poor 
 girl, was absurdly accused of obtaining the 
 host at communion, and afterwards selling it 
 to Jews who pierced it with needles, and ob¬ 
 tained some blood from it. The Jews and 
 this woman were condemned to be burned alive, 
 the King’s exequatur was forged, and this 
 sentence was executed before his messenger 
 could prevent it. All Poland was filled with 
 horror; and Lippomani left the country fol¬ 
 lowed by national execrations. 
 
 The triumph of the Reformation seemed 
 certain; but though it advanced rapidly for 
 fifty years, it declined as rapidly in the next 
 half century. Religion has its book of lamen¬ 
 tations. The tolerant and accomplished Sigis- 
 mund Augustus showed a fatal irresolution 
 when he vacillated between the counsels of 
 Calvin and the threats of the Pope. For two 
 hundred years the Jagellon dynasty had 
 guided the affairs of the kingdom. This mon¬ 
 arch was the seventh and last of his line. In 
 two centuries more, under Swedish and Saxon 
 dynasties, “ after a career of degeneracy al¬ 
 most unexampled in the history of the 
 world,” 1 Poland disappeared from the map of 
 Europe. The free election of its kings meant 
 
 1 Westminster Review, 63 . 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 37 
 
 the offer of its crown in the markets of 
 Europe; and it was generally obtained by a 
 foreigner. 
 
 How are the mighty fallen! And wdiy 
 Poland ? The invasions of Turks, Tartars, and 
 Swedes, the growth and greed of Austria, 
 Prussia, and Pussia, and the resentment of the 
 two last-named powers for the persecution of 
 Lutherans or Greek Orthodox, have been men¬ 
 tioned as external causes; and for internal 
 ones, the lack of a middle class and of sym¬ 
 pathy between nobles and peasantry, the lack 
 of a national spirit and of centralized power 
 like that which developed itself in other Euro¬ 
 pean nations. Yet Isaiah suggests the real 
 reason for the decline of this kingdom, whose 
 history illustrates his prophecy : “ The nation 
 and kingdom that will not serve thee shall 
 perish.” It is aptly remarked, that “ Prussia 
 was as flat and incomparably more sterile than 
 Poland, and equally exposed to the ambition 
 of its neighbors; but it steadily increased in 
 territory and population.” 1 The gospel, the 
 strongest bond between noble and peasant, the 
 power which enlightens and uplifts any peas¬ 
 antry, was stolen from this kingdom by the 
 Jesuits. Calvin’s. words to the King seem 
 
 1 Blackwood, 30 : 231 . 
 
38 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 prophetic: “ If the opportunity offered by 
 God is neglected, you may afterwards have to 
 stand before a door that is closed.” 
 
 Poland may well rue the day when Cardinal 
 Hosius, despairing of other means for hinder¬ 
 ing the gospel, in 1564 sought the aid of the 
 Jesuits. They are the most learned order in 
 the Church of Rome, and have been a curse to 
 mankind wherever they have gone. “ Beware 
 of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s 
 clothing, but inwardly they are ravening 
 wolves.” The questions at stake between 
 Jesuits and Reformers may seem too compli¬ 
 cated for solution by ordinary readers. Yet a 
 wayfaring man though a fool can apply the 
 wise maxim of Christ, “ By their fruits shall 
 ye know them.” The Rev. Dr. Dalton of St. 
 Petersburg said, in 1884, to the Presbyterian 
 Council at Belfast: “ It is my deepest convic¬ 
 tion, as the result of long years of study, that 
 Poland has been strangled by the Romish 
 Church. Had that noble people remained 
 true to the leading of John a Lasco, then to 
 the present day had those melancholy words 
 6 Finis Polonioe ’ remained unspoken. If 
 anyone wishes to understand what the auda¬ 
 cious man of Rome, with his bodyguard of 
 Jesuits, can make out of a noble country, let 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG TIIE POLES 
 
 39 
 
 him study the history of Poland to the present 
 day—the history of a people that, as few oth¬ 
 ers, offered in its worldly circumstances so 
 many favorable points to a Presbyterian de¬ 
 velopment.” 
 
 It is true, indeed, that some of the professed 
 Protestants of Poland must bear their burden 
 of censure. Professed Protestants in the 
 United States have sometimes thought more 
 of their personal ambitions than of their reli¬ 
 gion. Those who love religious liberty may 
 learn from Polish annals not to trust in such 
 leaders. Some Polish churches were com¬ 
 posed almost entirely of nobles who neglected 
 the evangelization of their peasantry. Lack 
 of missionary zeal is always a sin, and in this 
 case was a disastrous mistake; according to 
 Krasinski, it was the principal cause for the 
 decline of Protestantism in his country. In 
 1718 Little Poland had only eight Reformed 
 churches, whereas in the sixteenth century it 
 had a hundred and twenty. The Princes 
 Radziwill were instrumental in the conversion 
 of thousands of their peasantry in Samogitia, 
 whose descendants preserved their religion for 
 generations, and contrasted favorably in their 
 morals and prosperity with their Catholic 
 neighbors. IPad all Polish nobles imitated 
 
40 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 this example, the nation might have been 
 transformed and saved. The organization oi 
 the Protestants was not complete. A per¬ 
 manent committee should have been main¬ 
 tained in the capital to watch over their in¬ 
 terests which were exposed to persistent 
 Pomish persecution. The three political divi¬ 
 sions of the country, Grand and Little 
 Poland and Lithuania, were independent in 
 their ecclesiastical establishments—meeting in 
 general synods, it is true, in times of emer¬ 
 gency. The harmony sought by the Synod of 
 Sendomir did not continue; and instances of 
 Lutheran ill will toward the Bohemian and 
 Reformed churches mar the pages of Polish 
 history. The compact phalanx of the Jesuits 
 was always ready to profit by such dissen¬ 
 sions. 
 
 The Protestant ranks were weakened by the 
 lapse of some into Socinianism. Faustus 
 Socinus, an Italian who was connected by 
 marriage with the first families of Poland, de¬ 
 veloped the Unitarian opinions of his day into 
 a system. The number of his adherents in¬ 
 creased until they could hold synods where 
 eminent men were present. Calvin’s sagacity 
 detected the insincerity of Blandrata, an Ital¬ 
 ian Unitarian, and his warnings were read at 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 41 
 
 the Synod of Cracow. Rakow was the Rome 
 of Socinianism, its fountain head for Europe, the 
 “ Sarmatian Athens,” whose school once had 
 a thousand pupils, and whose printing press 
 published not only Socinian but literary 
 and scientific works as well. There could be 
 no union between Protestants and Socinians, 
 then or since. Through Jesuit influence, 
 Socinians were persecuted and in 1658 ex¬ 
 pelled from Poland. Though zealous, their 
 converts were never numerous and were 
 chiefly from the upper classes of society. 
 They created dissensions in some Reformed 
 churches, and kept many in the Church of 
 Rome who inclined toward Protestantism. 
 Many such became indifferent to the Scrip¬ 
 tures, and adopted the easy, deceitful Romish 
 tenet, that the study of the Bible should not 
 be permitted to all. Unitarianisin paralyzed 
 some Presbyterian churches of Ireland at a 
 more recent period, but in that land of Protes¬ 
 tant liberty, the breach w r as repaired. It was 
 a misfortune of Polish Protestants that every 
 error of doctrine, organization, or policy, was 
 sadly avenged by the Jesuits. 
 
 Catharine de’ Medici had a son who was 
 Charles the Ninth of France. Coligni sug¬ 
 gested to her the advantage of securing the 
 
42 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE TOLES 
 
 throne of Poland for his brother, Henry of 
 Yalois, Duke of Anjou, and Catharine eagerly 
 accepted the suggestion. Such a combination 
 of kingdoms might have changed the face 
 of Europe. Polish Protestants cooperated 
 with Coligni and their brethren in France ; 
 Polish Catholics had no objection to Henry, 
 as a Catholic prince who fought Protestants 
 at the battle of Jarnac. The French ambas¬ 
 sador to Poland, Montiuc, was a Roman Cath¬ 
 olic bishop in name only, as he had adopted 
 the Reformed opinions. 
 
 While Montluc was on his way to Poland, 
 he learned of the massacre of St. Bartholomew 
 and martyrdom of Coligni. This was not 
 only a crime but a blunder. Catharine saw 
 the necessity of pursuing Coligni’s policy ; and 
 Montluc received orders to continue his jour¬ 
 ney. Moreover, his instructions, written by 
 Coligni, remained unaltered; a striking trib¬ 
 ute to his statesmanship. The Polish Prot¬ 
 estants first exacted from the French ambas¬ 
 sadors a promise of amnesty and religious 
 liberty for their brethren in France, after 
 which they agreed to the election of Henry. 
 An embassv of noblemen was sent to France 
 
 t/ 
 
 to announce the election of Henry and to take 
 his oath to uphold religious liberty ; and they 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 43 
 
 made a great impression in Paris by their 
 learning and accomplishments. In his royal 
 progress to Poland, Henry was feasted at 
 Heidelberg, where he was seated opposite a 
 large picture which delineated the horrors of 
 St. Bartholomew ; and his attendants were 
 Huguenot refugees. In the ceremony of cor¬ 
 onation, Firley, the Protestant Prime Minister 
 of Poland, observed that the oath taken by 
 Henry at Paris was omitted. He boldly 
 seized the crown and told him that he could 
 not be king unless he took this oath. “ Si non 
 jurabis , non regnabis .” Dembinski, Grand 
 Chancellor of Poland, also a Protestant, stood 
 by him, and presented the scroll containing the 
 oath ; and through their firmness the King was 
 compelled to repeat it. In four months, when 
 he heard that his brother Charles the Ninth 
 had died, he fled secretly to France—a ludi¬ 
 crous procedure as some describe it, and a 
 o*ood riddance for the nation that he had 
 
 o 
 
 scandalized by his dissipation. 
 
 Cardinal Hosius sent congratulations to 
 Cardinal Guise for the murder of Coligni, 
 which news “ had filled him with incredible 
 joy and comfort.” He u thanked the Almighty 
 for the great boon conferred on France by the 
 slaughter of St. Bartholomew, imploring that 
 
44 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 he might show equal mercy to Poland.” The 
 Protestant leaders had been alarmed by the 
 treacherous counsels of Hosius, who advised 
 Henry to break his oath to protect Protes¬ 
 tants ; and they now endeavored to elect a 
 Protestant king. Stephen Bathori, the able 
 Duke of Transylvania, seemed to be such a 
 man; but after his election, to their dismay, 
 they saw him kneeling at the mass. He had 
 yielded to Pomish arguments,—that none but a 
 Bomanist could be sustained on the throne of 
 Poland, and that the Princess Anna, to whom 
 he was betrothed, a sister of Sigismund Au¬ 
 gustus, was a bigoted Bomanist who would 
 not accept a Protestant husband. Although 
 he promised liberty to the Protestants, his 
 election was the turning point of their cause. 
 His reign of ten years gave glory to Poland; 
 and also began its ruin through the sway of 
 the Jesuits. 
 
 By the favor of Stephen Bathori, the schools 
 and colleges of the Jesuits spread over the 
 country. At Polotzk, and even in the Lu¬ 
 theran province of Livonia, at Dorpat and 
 Biga, he founded their colleges ; and in Biga he 
 ordered a church to be taken from the Luther¬ 
 ans and given to the Jesuits. In Yilna, he 
 established the chief Jesuit university, though 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 45 
 
 this was the center of a large Protestant popu¬ 
 lation and of the Greek Orthodox. Prince 
 Badziwill, Palatine of Vilna, refused to affix 
 the seal of the State to the charter of this 
 university, and the Piet of 1585 attacked the 
 King’s arbitrary act as unconstitutional; but 
 in the end the monarch prevailed. Jesuit 
 influence arrested Bathori’s victorious career. 
 The Czar Ivan Yassilowich deluded the Jesuit 
 Possevinus, who believed that he could induce 
 the Church of Moscow to submit to Pome; 
 and he accordingly persuaded Bathori to 
 change his foreign policy and conclude peace 
 with Muscovy. 
 
 After the death of Stephen Bathori there 
 was another interregnum, followed by the 
 election of Sigismund Yaza, the son of King 
 John of Sweden, and Catharine Jagellon, 
 sister of Sigismund Augustus. Although his 
 father was a Lutheran, he had him taught 
 the Polish language and trained in the Boman 
 Catholic faith, with reference to such a ca¬ 
 reer ; while his mother was entirely under 
 Jesuit influence. The long reign of this fa¬ 
 natical king, known as Sigismund the Third, 
 for forty-five years (1587-1632) led to the ruin 
 of Protestantism and of Poland. The kings of 
 Poland, though their authority was limited, had 
 
46 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 the power to distribute domains called staros- 
 ties among the nobles, who held them for life; 
 and these were bestowed by this king upon 
 converts to Rome. This proselyting policy 
 had its effect upon ambitious men. At the be¬ 
 ginning of his reign, the senate had only a. 
 minority of Catholics; at its close, it had but 
 two Protestants. He gloried in the nickname 
 of King of the Jesuits, and was a tool in their 
 hands. Their riches increased so rapidly that 
 in 1627 their annual income was four hundred 
 thousand dollars, a large sum at that period. 
 They had fifty schools, in which the majority 
 of the children of the nobles were taught, and 
 thus they practically superintended national 
 education. Protestant schools, though superior 
 in their methods, could not compete with the 
 great endowments of the Jesuits. They were 
 changed into Romish schools, were abandoned 
 entirely, or had a lingering existence, as many 
 of their noble patrons apostatized to Rome. 
 Broscius, a zealous Romanist, described the svs- 
 tem of teaching in Jesuit schools : “ The Jesu¬ 
 its teach children the grammar of Alvar, 1 which 
 is very difficult to understand, and much time 
 is spent at it. This they do, that by keeping 
 children a long time in school they may be- 
 1 A Spanish Jesuit who published a Latin grammar. 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 47 
 
 come well acquainted with their minds. They 
 want to keep boys at school till the age of 
 manhood, that they may engage for their order 
 those who show much talent or expect laige 
 inheritances. But when an individual possesses 
 no talents, nor has expectations, they will not 
 retain him. And what can he do ? Knowing 
 nothing, and being unlit for any useful occu¬ 
 pation, he must request the fathers to take 
 care of him, who will provide him with an in¬ 
 ferior office in the household of some benefac¬ 
 tor of theirs, that they may make use of him 
 afterwards as a tool for their purposes.” Litera¬ 
 ture rapidly declined under this withering in¬ 
 fluence ; and scarcely any work of merit was 
 produced from that time until the latter part 
 of the eighteenth century, when the Jesuits 
 lost their power. The language was corrupted 
 by a mixture of Latin and barbaric phrases 
 called Macaronic—a badge of this shameful 
 servitude. Contrary to the decree which pro¬ 
 claimed the liberty of the press, the Jesuits 
 introduced their censorship. Many Protestant 
 printing presses went the way of their schools, 
 into oblivion, or into Pomanist hands. The 
 Jesuits systematically destroyed all records 
 and memorials of Protestantism, so that the 
 materials for a history of the Polish Keforma- 
 
48 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 tion have become rare or difficult of access; 
 which accounts for the fact that it has been 
 obscured and undervalued. 
 
 Krasinski regards the overthrow of Protes¬ 
 tantism in Poland as unparalleled in the re¬ 
 ligious world. It was not suppressed by legal 
 authority as in Italy or Spain, but “by an 
 unprincipled faction, acting in opposition to 
 the laws of the country, and is the more 
 remarkable, as the free institutions of Poland 
 which facilitated the progress of the Refor- 
 mation were afterwards rendered subservient 
 to the persecution of its disciples.” “The 
 most invariable and successful policy of the 
 Jesuits in Poland was to agitate the lower 
 classes, and to insure, by intrigues with the 
 higher ranks of society, impunity to the ex¬ 
 cesses which an infuriated mob committed at 
 their instigation.” 
 
 The preaching of Cardinal Hosius, that no 
 faith should be kept with heretics, brought its 
 fruitage when the Reformed church of Cra¬ 
 cow was pillaged by a mob, in 1574; and 
 other outrages occurred there in later years. 
 Such attempts were repeated at Vilna, but 
 restrained by Stephen Bathori. Another riot 
 occurred in 1591, when the Protestant church 
 at Cracow was burned. The Jesuit Skarga, 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 49 
 
 claiming divine inspiration, highly praised the 
 destruction of this church. The congregation 
 dared not rebuild it, but transferred their place 
 of worship to the neighboring village of 
 Alexandrowice. Sigismund the Third left 
 unpunished the rioters who in 1593 plundered 
 the house of John Kolay, one of the principal 
 citizens of Cracow, and a member of this con¬ 
 gregation. In 1613 another mob attacked 
 Protestants in Alexandrowice; and they again 
 removed their place of worship to a more dis¬ 
 tant village. In 1626, materials for their new 
 building in this village were destroyed by a 
 mob. In 1605, and in subsequent years, the 
 Protestant churches of Posnania were sim¬ 
 ilarly destroyed through Jesuit instigations. 
 A young Italian minister at Yilna suffered 
 martyrdom for his faith ; and like persecutions 
 occurred at Lublin. Here the wife of William 
 Tuck, a Scottish merchant, while he was 
 absent on a journey, was fettered and im¬ 
 prisoned for her faith, which she would not 
 recant, in spite of threats and visits of the 
 Jesuits. When asked whether she were a 
 Catholic, and attended the confessional, she 
 replied, “ Ho; I am evangelical and confess my 
 sins to God.” She was the mother of five 
 children, the youngest of whom, was but an 
 
50 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 infant, but intercessions in her behalf were in 
 vain. 
 
 Through the growing power of the Jesuits, 
 such excesses could not be prevented by 
 Vladislav the Fourth, son and successor of 
 Sigismund the Third. His tolerance was 
 shown by his acceptance of Christopher 
 Badziwill’s dedication of the Bible, alreadv 
 mentioned. With conciliatory designs, he 
 summoned a conference of Protestants and 
 Bomanists at Thorn in 1645, the Colloquium 
 Caritativum , as it was called. This held 
 thirty-six meetings, and led only to increased 
 bitterness and controversial publications. 
 
 Vladislav was succeeded by his brother, 
 John Casimir, who was a Jesuit and a cardi¬ 
 nal. His reign continued the work of destruc¬ 
 tion begun by his father, Sigismund. Protes¬ 
 tantism was crushed and ceased to be a power 
 in the nation. Subsequent kings, including 
 Sobieski and the Saxon dynasty that followed 
 him, were unable or unwilling to punish re¬ 
 ligious persecutions. In 1724, Posner the 
 burgomaster of Thorn and several leading 
 Protestants were executed, upon the false 
 charge of having fomented a riot—atrocities 
 which sent a thrill of horror throughout Europe. 
 Protests came from the English Minister at the 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 51 
 
 Polish court, from Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, 
 Holland, and even from the Czar of Russia, 
 who threatened war; but all this only made 
 matters worse for the Protestants. 
 
 But the misfortunes of Poland accompanied 
 the persecution of evangelical believers. Civil 
 war broke out during the reign of Sigismund 
 the Third. The Muscovites sought an alliance 
 with Poland and elected his son Vladislav 
 their czar; but Sigismund sought this crown 
 for himself. As the Muscovites saw his zeal 
 for Rome they changed their policy and op¬ 
 posed a Polish alliance. Tolerance brought 
 foreigners to Poland; intolerance made them 
 emigrate elsewhere. The borders were dev¬ 
 astated by Turks and Tartars. Stephen Ba- 
 thori had given military organization to the 
 Cossacks of the Ukraine, who fought loyally 
 for Poland against Turks, Tartars, and even 
 their brethren the Muscovites. When perse¬ 
 cution attacked them, when the last Greek 
 church of Lublin was taken from them, Li- 
 tynski, one of their nobles, said, “ God, who 
 surely punishes every wickedness, will raise a 
 nation which will take for one a hundred 
 churches.” The revolt of the Cossacks as 
 John Casimir came to the throne shook the 
 kingdom of Poland to its foundations. A 
 
 O 
 
52 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 king of Sweden invaded Poland and occupied 
 the greater part of its territory for a time. It 
 was natural, though unfortunate, for the Prot¬ 
 estants of Poland to look to Sweden for aid, 
 to Gustavus Adolphus, and Charles the Twelfth. 
 This exposed them to the charge of being un¬ 
 patriotic, though they furnished some of Po¬ 
 land’s bravest soldiers, for instance, Christopher 
 Radziwill who defended Livonia against the 
 Swedes. King Sigismund hated him because 
 he was a Protestant, and allowed his royal 
 flatterers to call that conflict the “ Kadziwill- 
 ian War.” He would not assist Radziwill. 
 In the end, Livonia was lost to his kingdom. 
 The fame of Poland’s warriors resounded 
 through Europe in the seventeenth century, 
 but they could not prevent her fall. 
 
 The Elector of Saxony, under the name of 
 Augustus the Second, succeeded John Sobieski 
 as King of Poland in 1696. He was expelled 
 from the country by Charles the Twelfth of 
 Sweden; but after the battle of Pultava was 
 restored by the aid of Peter the Great. 
 Hitherto, the persecutions of Protestants were 
 conducted in defiance of constitutional law, 
 but under his reign the laws themselves were 
 changed by a remarkable treaty w r hich re¬ 
 stricted religious liberty. 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 53 
 
 In order to maintain his authority against 
 invaders and insurgents, Augustus kept a body 
 of Saxon troops in Poland, who committed ex¬ 
 cesses as if they were in an enemy’s country. 
 The Poles were soon at war with these troops, 
 until Peter the Great intervened and drew up 
 the Treaty of Warsaw between the King and 
 the nation in 1716. Szaniawski, afterwards 
 Bishop of Cracow, who owed his elevation to 
 the Czar Peter, inserted a paragraph which 
 was a triumph for Pome: “ As it is not al¬ 
 
 lowed to the dissident in the Christian religion 
 to have any churches with a free religious 
 service in them, except such as were built be¬ 
 fore the enactment of the laws of 1632, 1648, 
 1668,1674, and as it is permitted only to those 
 dissidents who inhabit the towns and other 
 places of the kingdom of Poland and the 
 grand duchy of Lithuania to have in their 
 dwellings private service, nevertheless with¬ 
 out singing and sermons, therefore it is en¬ 
 acted by the authority of the present treaty, 
 that all Protestant churches which may be 
 found to have been built in contravention to 
 the above-mentioned laws, may be destroyed; 
 and those who entertain such different opinions 
 about religion shall not have any meetings or 
 assemblies, either in public or private, for the 
 
54 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 sake of preaching or singing.” But this same 
 treaty was the death warrant of Polish inde. 
 pendence ; for Szaniawski put in another clause 
 which reduced the army of Poland from eighty 
 thousand to eighteen thousand, a number in¬ 
 sufficient to guard the long line of exposed 
 frontiers. 
 
 The historian Lelewel says: “ From the be¬ 
 
 ginning of the reign of John Casimir and the 
 Avars of the Cossacks to the end of the Swedish 
 Avars and the Dumb Diet, i. e., from 1648 to 
 1717, different kinds of disasters desolated the 
 Polish soil and nation. These calamities 
 caused the decline of Poland, the limits of 
 Avhich Avere narroAved by the loss of many 
 provinces, whilst its population was diminished 
 by the emigration of the Cossacks, the Socin- 
 ians, and a great number of Protestants, as Avell 
 as by the exclusion from the rights of citizens of 
 the remaining dissidents. The nation Avas 
 rendered weak by general impoverishment 
 and distress ; by the system of education Avhich 
 Avas either in the hands of the Jesuits or en¬ 
 tirely neglected; finally by the exhaustion 
 consequent on the convulsive struggles that 
 had agitated the country during seventy 
 years.” 
 
 Under Augustus the Third the dissidents 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 55 
 
 suffered, as is shown by their petition to 
 Stanislaus Poniatowski at the Diet of 1766, in 
 which they say: u Our churches have been 
 partly taken from us under different pretenses, 
 and partly are falling into ruins, as the repair¬ 
 ing of them is prohibited. Our youth is 
 obliged to grow up in ignorance, and without 
 the knowledge of God. The burying of our 
 dead, even at night time, is exposed to great 
 danger; and we are obliged in order to bap¬ 
 tize children to convey them out of the coun¬ 
 try.” 
 
 But the md was at hand. Deforms proposed 
 by Polish patriots, which received the plau¬ 
 dits of English statesmen, came too late to save 
 the unhappy kingdom. Three successive par¬ 
 titions in a little more than twenty years di¬ 
 vided Poland between Russia, Prussia, and 
 Austria, and it vanished from the map of Eu¬ 
 rope. Bloody insurrections have failed to 
 break the Russian yoke, which is the heavier 
 for the presence and license of an army of 
 three hundred thousand Russian soldiers. 
 
 Krasinski gives a description of the Lithuan¬ 
 ian guards, almost exclusively officered by 
 Protestant nobles of that province, and the 
 fifth regiment of infantry which contained 
 many of them. They fought the forces of 
 
56 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 Suwaroff, Nov. 5th, 1794, “the most fatal day 
 of Poland’s annals. The commander of the 
 last-named regiment, Count Paul Grabowski, 
 belonging to a distinguished Protestant family, 
 a young man of great merit, was then laid up 
 with illness. He dragged himself, however, 
 from his sick bed in order not to miss the post 
 of honor on the night when the attack was ex¬ 
 pected. He found a glorious death at the head 
 of his regiment, which, with the Lithuanian 
 guards, was lost to a man; not a single 
 man escaped, not a single man surrendered. 
 This fatal day threw into mourning almost 
 all the noble Protestant families of Lithu¬ 
 ania.” Our author frankly confesses mis¬ 
 takes of Polish Protestants; and he pathet¬ 
 ically closes his book by sho wing the “ expia¬ 
 tory sacrifice which they made of themselves 
 on the funeral pile of their country.” 
 
 Yet after centuries of persecution, Polish 
 Protestants survive, as we learn from a letter 
 dated Warsaw, May 9-21, 1884, sent to the 
 Belfast Presbyterian council, by the Evan¬ 
 gelical Reformed Consistory in the kingdom of 
 Poland:— 
 
 “ Perhaps it is not known to all the mem¬ 
 bers of your venerable Assembly, that there 
 exists in the Kingdom of Poland, an Evangel- 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 57 
 
 ical Reformed Church, with a Synodical Pres¬ 
 byterian form of government, which conducts 
 its affairs according to Church order. Al¬ 
 though the spirit of the Reformation has been 
 partly trodden down and partly chilled, yet 
 ten Evangelical Reformed Congregations form 
 themselves into a union whose affairs are 
 managed by an annual Synod, not ignoring a 
 Presbytery in every congregation ; a moder¬ 
 ator of Synod (the Consistory) carries out the 
 findings of the same, and is, besides, an author¬ 
 ity mediating between the Church and the 
 State, the free exercise of all the rights of the 
 Church not being interfered with. The num¬ 
 ber of souls under pastoral care is six thousand, 
 besides those who are living in the Dispersion. 
 We have only four pastors at present in settled 
 charges. In a material point of view, there is 
 much to be wished for, except in the case of 
 the congregation in Warsaw, which in the 
 year 1880 celebrated joyfully the acquisition 
 of a beautiful house of worship. The harvest 
 is great; we request that you embrace us in 
 your intercessory prayer, that the Lord of the 
 harvest will send forth laborers into his har¬ 
 vest.” 
 
 The report of the London Presbyterian 
 Council, 1889, gives a description of the Re- 
 
58 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 formed churches in Russia, which it classifies 
 in three groups, those in “ Poland, Lithuania, 
 and the rest of the Empire. 1. The Reformed 
 in what was formerly the Kingdom of Poland 
 — partly the remains of the once flourishing 
 Presbyterian Church of Little Poland, formed 
 into a Synod by John a Lasco, number at pres¬ 
 ent six thousand five hundred or seven thou¬ 
 sand souls. There are nine congregations, 
 with a Consistory in Warsaw. The oldest of 
 these congregations, that of Sereje, was founded 
 in 1584; that of Warsaw, 1776 ; that of Zelow, 
 1802, which, with nearly two thousand four 
 hundred members, is a purely Bohemian con¬ 
 gregation, descendants of the old Bohemian 
 Presbyterians. 2. The Reformed congrega¬ 
 tions in Lithuania are firmly bound together 
 in a true Presbyterian organization, which 
 includes thirteen or fourteen congregations, 
 embracing about eleven thousand one hundred 
 and twenty-five souls. Some congregations are 
 nearly extinct; some could not exist but for 
 old foundations which are to be traced to the 
 pious and powerful Prince Radziwill, the 
 friend of Calvin, and which afford material, 
 though at present wretched, means of sup¬ 
 port. 3. The Reformed in Russia Proper, form 
 two widely separated bodies, which because of 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 59 
 
 the vast distance separating them have scarcely 
 any mutual sympathy.” 
 
 The doctrines of the Reformation must be 
 preached from evangelical pulpits, or instead 
 of a standing we shall have a falling church. 
 The history of the Reformation illustrates 
 these doctrines. Scripture teaches us a va¬ 
 riety of uses for history. For instance: In 
 intercession, “Yet they are thy people and 
 thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out 
 by thy mighty power and by thy stretched 
 out arm.” In entreaty: “Awake, awake, put 
 on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in 
 the ancient days, in the generations of old. 
 Art thou not it that hath made the sea a way 
 for the ransomed to pass over ? ” In expostu¬ 
 lation : “ O my people, wherein have I wearied 
 thee ? For I brought thee up out of the land 
 of Egypt, . . . and I sent before thee 
 
 Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.” In praise : “ O 
 give thanks ... to him which led his 
 people through the wilderness: for his mercy 
 endureth forever.” In promise: “According 
 to the word that I covenanted with } r ou when 
 ye came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth 
 among you: fear ye not.” In America, we 
 may enter into the labors of the departed 
 saints who toiled and suffered in Europe for 
 
60 
 
 MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 the gospel. Each thought of the judgment 
 day grows more impressive as we see how 
 our Master puts himself in the place of the 
 foreigner, and blesses forever his true bene¬ 
 factors by the gracious acknowledgment, “ I 
 was a stranger, and ye took me in.” Poles 
 are already joining our evangelical churches. 
 Schisms in their Catholic churches sometimes 
 show how restless they are under its despotism. 
 Let us give them the colporteur and the Bible, 
 the missionary and the gospel. They are worth 
 saving. The Turks had long possessed the city 
 of Constantine and the church of Chrysostom; 
 and boasted that they would also capture 
 Rome and make St. Peter’s a mosque. Who 
 rolled back that tide of Mohammedan inva¬ 
 sion, never to return? John Sobieski, a hero 
 of Poland. He had fought the Ottomans on 
 the Dniester, and although their position 
 seemed impregnable, and their forces four 
 times his own, he won a glorious victory,, 
 Again, before terror-stricken Yienna, he at¬ 
 tacked the Turks, outnumbering his army 
 four to one. One hundred and twenty thou¬ 
 sand Turkish tents were still standing after 
 the battle. His decisive victory was the theme 
 of pulpits in Germany, Italy, and even in the 
 Protestant churches of England. Beside him 
 
MISSION WORK AMONG THE POLES 
 
 61 
 
 in the old cathedral of Cracow (the Polish 
 Westminster Abbey) sleeps Thaddeus Kosci¬ 
 usko who was honored by Americans for his 
 part in their war for liberty. Pulaski, an¬ 
 other Pole, showed himself a hero at Brandy¬ 
 wine and Germantown ; and also at Savannah, 
 where he fell and has his sepulcher, erected 
 by the people of Georgia, its corner stone 
 having been laid by Lafayette. And Poles 
 will make good soldiers of Jesus Christ. 
 Copernicus, of Poland, whose name is known 
 wherever astronomy is taught, revolutionized 
 that science and discovered the secret of the 
 stars. Let us pray God that he may raise up 
 from this people some who shall turn many to 
 righteousness, and shine as the stars forever 
 and ever!