Crushed Yet Conquering: A Story of Constance and Bohemia

Crushed Yet Conquering: A Story of Constance and Bohemia (Reformation Trail Series) by Deborah Alcock
http://www.telusplanet.net/public/inhpubl/webip/prod03.htm
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This book opens with the death of a husband and wife, leaving their two boys orphans. Two men each take a boy to care for him. The book then skips ahead many years, where the brothers meet in Constance. The elder is the secretary of the chancellor of Paris, and the younger is a squire of the duke of Burgundy. (On a side note, this book helped my with my history time line. The duke of Burgundy at the Council of Constance is the same that in later years condemned the Maid of Orleans to the flames.) The story follows the two young men, with less focus on the younger brother, during the trial of John Huss. Both meet Christ through the events of the trial and burning. Any true story will speak to a heart because it shows true love. True love to a father, a friend, a faith, a family, a lover. This story has them all. I cried more reading this book than any other in a long time.

The end of the first half of the book tells us that Armande, the younger brother, will follow Christ all his days, although he will always remain a man of his times. John Huss is considered a reformer, but he was truly a good Catholic. He believed in the tenets of Catholicism, including transubstantiation, purgatory (at least in his written works), and did not even say anything against praying to "saints." He spoke against indulgences, and the corruptions of the priesthood, but he was doctrinally Catholic. Even at the Council they found no fault with his doctrine.

The second half of the book follows Hubert, the older brother, as he accompanies John of Chlum back to Bohemia. I had never heard the history of the church in Bohemia, and the terrible persecutions they endured, for the most part because they went farther than Huss. The most controversial thing at that time was that they believed that not only was the bread for all the people in the Lord's Supper, but also the cup. Many lives would have been spared, had people simply said that the cup was not for the people.

The book is well written, and well researched. The author states that all the dialog given to Huss in the book is directly his quotations, and she has the actual words of others in italics. The characters are drawn well, and made me ask myself if my faith is so precious to me as it was to them. I think it is, but if death, not just to me, but to my loved ones, was consequence for holding to the tenets of my faith, would I cling to Christ the way they did?

Definitely one of the best, most edifying novels I have read.