BY way of introduction to the following account it may be well to present the reader with a sketch of the history of Christian Bohemia, to the period when that kingdom was dispossessed of its liberties, civil and religious, by imperial Austria and apostate Rome — In doing this we prefer adopting as a basis the testimony of Comenius himself, who personally shared in the evils he describes, rather than of such writings as have appeared in the defence of his country's Oppressors, or such as have so mystified events as to conceal the turpitude of the principal actors in a theatre of blood, perhaps the most terrible of any in which the human family has ever embroiled itself.