Section I

Early Life and Labors of John Huss

This section comprises the first six chapters plus the Preface. They are listed below. To go directly to any particular chapter click on the link to that chapter. Otherwise you can scroll down as you read chapter by chapter.

Preface      
Chapter 1    Conditions in Bohemia   
Chapter 2    Youth of Huss~Wycliffe   
Chapter 3    Progress of the New Doctrines at Prague   
Chapter 4    The Council of Pisa   
Chapter 5    Huss and the Archbishop   
Chapter 6    Huss Excommunicated    

The task of gathering up and combining in a connected narrative the memorials which yet remain of the life and labors of John Huss, together with the results, nearer or more remote, which followed his efforts, has long challenged the attention of the historical student. The movement which he originated in Bohemia, though engrossing for the time the observation of Europe, and fraught with far-reaching consequences, has been overshadowed by the more imposing Reformation of the succeeding century, and Huss, although in many respects the peer of Luther or Calvin, has, through neglect alone, been denied the place to which he is justly entitled by their side.

This neglect has been due, in part, to the fact that the period in which he lived has been less explored by historians; in part, to the premature and violent suppression of the Bohemian Reformation, so that its earliest records were mostly left to hostile pens; and in part, also, to the fact that the various materials necessary to elucidate the subject are so difficult of access.

The task, so long deferred, I have ventured to undertake. When I commenced it, I was not aware of a single work, in the English language, which could afford me any material aid. But, since that period, the last volume of "Neander's Church History" has been translated and published in this country, and the work of Bonnechose—"Reformers before the Reformation"—has been brought to my notice. But neither of these presents such a view of the subject as the great body of intelligent readers demand. The former is fragmentary and disconnected in its arrangement; while the American edition of the latter is impaired in value by chronological errors, and the whole account of the life of Huss previous to the Council of Constance is dispatched in a few pages. On some important points the work is quite meager, while on others the author has fallen into errors, through a failure to consult some of the most important authorities.

I have felt that the Bohemian Reformation was justly entitled to a larger share of attention than it has yet received; and such leisure as professional duties would allow, during a course of several years, and rare opportunities of access to the necessary documents, have been employed in elucidating a period in modern history but little known, yet scarcely inferior, in interest and importance, to any that preceded or that have followed it, with the exception of the Great Reformation of the sixteenth century. The character, ability, and powerful influence of Huss, his earnestness of purpose, his lofty aims, the vigor of his pen, his heroic faith and martyr's death, as well as the magnitude and significance of the conflict in which he was the acknowledged leader, all combined to render him the central figure, around which the great events of his time may be appropriately grouped; while his tragic end, and the consequences which followed it in Bohemia and elsewhere, open to our view those memorable scenes of conflict, where Hussite and Catholic, Bohemian and imperialist, Taborite and Calixtine, reformer and conservative, met in long, bitter, and deadly strife.

The incidents of the period thus presented to view, are many of them possessed of high dramatic interest. The conflicts of Huss at Prague, as the bold and fearless reprover of ecclesiastical corruption and papal indulgences; the champion of Wickliffe and the antagonist of the archbishop; his harsh treatment by the council, which first deposed the pope by whom he had been excommunicated; his heroic fidelity to his convictions; his manly defense, cruel imprisonment, and unjust execution, all conspire to excite our interest in the issue of a struggle where the death of the leader is the signal for thousands to rise up to avenge his fall. As the drama proceeds, nearly all the leading minds and powers of Europe are brought forward upon the stage. The expiring brands of crusading zeal are kindled anew for the auto de fé of a kingdom, and invading armies, like waves dashed to foam upon the rocks, are shattered and dispersed by the fierce fanatic valor of those Taborites, who are the lineal predecessors of the peaceful Moravians.

In the progress of the drama, our attention is arrested by the bearing and efforts of individual actors. We have before us the abominable profligacy and sacrilegious impiety of John XXIII, the impetuous spirit of the Cardinal of Cambray; the learning and ability of the great Chancellor of Paris University, John Gerson; the glowing invective and searching rebukes of Clemengis; the apostolic zeal of Vincent Ferrara; the iron will and pertinacity of Benedict XIII; the self-reliance of Zabarella; the almost fabulous eloquence of Jerome of Prague; the capricious humors of the drunken Wenzel; the unscrupulous or dissembling policy of Sigismund; the heroic fidelity of John de Chlum; the fearless investigation and utterance of Jacobel; the Cromwellian energy and strategic skill of the blind Zisca; and the prudent sagacity and unyielding firmness of the Great Procopius.

We see at last attained by arts and diplomacy, what the power of arms could not accomplish, the Taborites weakened by dissension, and the Calixtines won back by compromise to the "Catholic" church. But the current which seemed lost over the broad marsh of a century, was to feed new fountains, the streams of which were at length to be gathered up to form the church of the United Brethren—an important tributary to that great tide of our common Protestantism, which rolls on today with the force and volume of an Amazon.

The sources from which the materials of the present work have been drawn are many and various. First in importance and value is the compilation of Van der Hardt, designed to illustrate the history of the Council of Constance, and which comprises three large folio volumes of from 1,200 to 1,600 pages each. Here are to be found, also, treatises of Gerson, D'Ailly, Clemengis, Ullerston, Jacobel, and others, the histories of Niem and De Vrie, various sermons and other documents of historical importance, beside a minute record of the proceedings of the council. Second only in importance to this, is the work, in two large folios, entitled "Johannis Hus, et Hieronomi Pragensis, Confessorum Christi, Historia et Monumenta."

In this we have the sermons, letters, commentaries, controversial and other treatises of Huss, beside narratives of his controversy at Prague and his trial at Constance. Quite full accounts of the arrest and trial of Jerome, and several works of Matthias of Janow, are also included in these volumes. The "History of the Hussites," by Cochleius, an inveterate and prejudiced opponent; the "History of Bohemia," by Æneas Sylvius, afterward raised to the popedom; and the "Diarium Belli Hussitici," by Laurence Bezezyna, a Calixtine, and Chancellor of New Prague, furnish some invaluable materials. Mansi's "History of the Councils" is a work of the highest authority, and has enabled me to verify many important points. Schmidt's "History of the Dutch," though by a Roman Catholic, is a work written in an impartial and liberal spirit, and its third and fourth volumes have been of material aid in throwing light on the condition and mutual relations of Bohemia and the German empire. The general church histories of Fleury, Godeau (Germ. Edit.), Schrockh, Gieseler, Neander, Natalis Alexander, and others, have been carefully consulted, and have been of service. Spittler's "History of the Cup," Monstrelet's "Chronicles," the works of Gerson in five folio volumes, the letters and treatises of Clemengis, Crevier's " History of the University of Paris," and L'Enfant's histories of the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle, have all yielded valuable materials in the composition of the work. Something has been gathered from the histories of the popes, by Cormenin and Bower, while Kohler's " Huss and Seine Zeit," Helfert's "Life of Huss," Becker's "Life of Huss," Richerius' "History of the Councils," Oudin's "Dictionary of English Writers," and Moreri's large work have been carefully consulted.

I have endeavored to write with historical impartiality, yet I have not wished to suppress my judgment of the facts presented, or of the career and proceedings of the principal characters that are passed in review. Nearly all the statements contained in the work rest upon the authority of Roman Catholic authors, and where the same facts are given by writers of opposite sympathies, the marginal references are to those who would be least suspected of partiality to the cause or doctrines of Huss.

The reader will find, in the fifteenth chapter of the second volume, some repetition of statements occurring elsewhere in the work. But as that chapter was designed to present a complete view of the Taborites and Calixtines, and necessarily took the form of a dissertation, I concluded not to strike out what seemed necessary to this end, even at the risk of repeating some statements that had preceded.

The task which I have endeavored to perform has been a labor of love. A field of investigation has been opened and explored, where it was a pleasure to linger. If, in the graveyard of History, the lettering on the tombstones of men whom the world should hold in grateful remembrance has been chiseled afresh, and shall be read with the veneration due to the memory of those whose career they record, I shall feel that my labors have not been in vain. 

Harlem, New York City, April 8,1861

E. H. GILLETT

During the latter half of the fourteenth century (1350-1400), Bohemia occupied a place among the nations of Europe somewhat correspondent to her local position in the heart of the continent. Her capital was the residence of the German emperor. Her university at Prague, though recently founded, was the oldest and most flourishing—indeed, almost the only one—in Eastern Europe. Her churches, cloisters, and palaces were remarked by the stranger with surprise and admiration, while through her connection with the German empire, her influence was widely felt. Petrarch could scarce resist the earnest and pressing invitation of Charles IV, who besought him to exchange his loved Vaucluse for a residence—in external beauty fully equal to any which his own Italy could afford—on the banks of the Moldau.

But if Prague lost the honor of sheltering the Italian poet and scholar, she was yet destined to be the center of a movement which should agitate the entire Christian world. The cry of Reform which was to be heard in almost every country of Europe, demanding the removal of the papal schism, and a remedy for the evils of the church, was to find a memorable echo in her own university. In her bosom she was fondly to cherish one of her own sons, whose influence should be more enduring and extensive than that of Petrarch, and the fundamental principle of whose doctrines—the sole and supreme authority of the word of God—was to strike the key-note of the Great Reformation in the succeeding century. She was yet to witness, gathered on her surrounding hills and along her valleys, the mustered hosts of Christendom, whose defeat was to signalize the final struggle of crusading enthusiasm with the growing light and energy of the world’s free thought.

As the capital of an enterprising nation, the residence of the German emperor, and the home of reviving art and literary culture, Prague was the foremost city of Eastern Europe. Her situation was one of the most beautiful and magnificent in the world. Around her on every side spread a broad region vitalized by her influence, and subsidiary to her prosperity and growth. Already upon that soil once possessed by barbarian hordes—the camping-ground of hosts which imperial Rome had regarded with trembling anxiety—a land of wild forests and streams and mountains, to which the ancient Boii had bequeathed their name—there had sprung up those institutions of law, government, and religion, which secured for Bohemia a fair reputation as a civilized and Christian state.

Her very position was one which seemed designed by nature to favor self-development. Situated in the heart of the European continent—bounded on her four sides by as many ranges of lofty mountains, while the angles of this gigantic diagram of rock were directed to the four points of the compass—with a fertile soil and a genial climate—with rivers bursting forth on every side from her mountain barriers, and meeting like rays about her central capital, thence to find their way by the Elbe to Hamburg and to the fourscore towns of the Hanseatic league rapidly rising in political and commercial importance—Bohemia seemed fitted by her location and general features to become one of the foremost states of Europe. She was at once sheltered and accessible, guarded from invasion, yet connected directly with the German towns by means of the Elbe, the great artery of European commerce. Her resources were sufficient to encourage enterprise and self-reliance. She was accessible enough to all that was good, useful, and improving, and yet so far secluded by nature as to encourage the patriotic purpose of maintaining and cherishing her own proper character, customs, and institutions.

But all this would have failed to give Bohemia that important influence which she was destined to exert for at least the lifetime of a generation upon the condition, policy, and prosperity of Europe, if it had not been for other causes that at this juncture began to operate. The time had come when the force of free religious thought was to be manifested on a broader scale, and in a more conspicuous manner than ever before. During centuries past, the world had been losing faith in all but material forces. The German empire was built up and maintained by physical energy. Soldiers of fortune—mercenary chieftains—had become again and again the arbiters of national destiny. Faith in the papacy—no longer what it was antecedent to the "Babylonian Captivity "—had been sadly shaken. The appeal to the sword and to the right of the strongest had superseded every other. Even the popes had shown more faith in the temporal sword which they invoked, than in their own interdicts. Amid the clash of arms—the echoes of battle-fields like Poictiers and Cressy—other voices were drowned.

But the empire of ideas was now to be notably enlarged, if not inaugurated anew. Superficial observers might look with contempt on the utterances or writings of obscure priests or preachers. They might hope to find the key of destiny in the leaders of armies, in the hands of king or emperor. But it was soon to be seen that, on the great chessboard of European history, monarchs might be merely pawns, like Wenzel of Bohemia, or Charles VI of France; while the real kings were the men of thought—pamphleteers, like Ullerston, Gerson, and Clemenges, or reformers, like Wickliffe, Janow, Jacobel, and Huss.

It is true, indeed, that the great reform movement, of which Huss was the leader, was, to human view, after a most desperate and prolonged struggle, crushed out—not, however, without leaving behind it most important results. But in its own day, it distinctly revealed the comparative impotence of mere material forces, employed to exterminate an idea that had become rooted in a nation’s heart. Army after army, numbering scores of thousands of fierce and reckless men, was dashed to fragments in the attempt to subdue Bohemia to the papal obedience. The attention of Europe—of emperors, kings, popes, and councils—was riveted, for almost an entire generation, upon the progress and prospects of the movement originated by Huss at Prague. The interest of European history for this period centers mainly in the efforts that were made; by the combined forces of Christendom, to restore the old basis of things shaken and overthrown by the Hussite reform.

It is interesting and instructive to trace the origin of the forces from which this sprang, or by the alliance of which it was furthered and sustained. Huss himself did not call them into being. Some of them he found ready to his hand; of others, his own sagacity enabled him to take advantage. The patriotic spirit of the Bohemian people, their jealousy of foreign innovations, and the peculiar advantages which they enjoyed for assuming an independent position in respect to the usages and doctrines of the church, must all be taken into account, as well as the paramount influence of the novel exhibition and enforcement of scripture truth.

We find, indeed, at an earlier period than the one which we are about to consider, the development of a strong feeling of nationality. This feeling, in reality, had gained a remarkable development during the closing years of the fourteenth century—the period immediately preceding the entrance of Huss upon his public career. For the two preceding centuries it had been kept alive, and had even acquired strength in opposition to foreign innovations. The introduction of the usages of the Romish church, and the extended jurisdiction of Roman law, had not been gained without a struggle. The popular literature, meager as it was, was warmly cherished, and gave place but slowly to Latin learning.

Still the policy of the rulers of the nation—especially of the last kings of the Premysl house—favored innovation and immigration. The old jurisprudence was modified by the forced introduction of canon law. Artisans and merchants from abroad were encouraged to take up their residence within the kingdom. Colonies of German settlers were welcomed in the cities and the towns. In some cases they acquired a predominant influence. The nobility gave their castles German names. In many municipalities the German element was in the ascendant. The city records of Prague were written in German. Judicial proceedings were in the German language. German preachers occupied the pulpits. German judges presided in the courts of justice, and the highest civil offices were filled by Germans. German manners and usages, German names and phrases, prevailed in social circles. The university was patronized by German students, who outnumbered the Bohemians in the proportion of five to one. The lucrative benefices of the church were filled by German priests and bishops; and for a time it seemed as if Bohemia was to become a German province.

Charles IV encouraged the introduction of the usages of the Romish church, as well as German immigration. But already the national spirit had begun to react upon the innovations by which it was threatened to be overwhelmed. The first concession made to it was the erection of the archbishopric of Prague—a measure which the emperor successfully commended to the pope, on the ground that the Slavic tongue, peculiar to the Bohemians and Moravians, was strange to their diocesan, the arch-bishop of Mayence, and his clergy. The second victory won by the national feeling was the enactment of a law that none should fill the office of a civil judge who could not understand and speak the Bohemian language.

Meanwhile, Bohemian literature had begun to revive. The scriptures were translated into Bohemian. The venerable Stitny—a patriot and scholar, to whom we shall again have occasion to refer—wrote numerous works in his native language, and labored in various ways to make the treasures of the Latin language accessible to his countrymen. "Before God," said he, "the Bohemian is just as good as the Latin." With much opposition, especially from the friends of "school-learning," he maintained his patriotic position, and endeared his name to every true Bohemian.

The struggle was at length transferred to the university. The Bohemian nation, outvoted by the other three, had seen the most honorable positions and offices held by strangers. Their first resistance to this usurpation of numbers, which denied them what they regarded as their rights, took place in 1384–5, under the rectorate of Konrad Soltow By the favor of the king and court, the archbishop and the native clergy, they gained their point. The foreign party appealed to the pope. The university was filled with confusion and discord. But the Bohemians won the victory, and at length (1399–1403) the "College of the Bohemian nation" was established, expressly for native Bohemians.

As we have already remarked, Huss commenced his university course at the very time when the struggle of patriotic feeling with foreign domination had been transferred to the scenes upon which he now entered. Bohemian by birth, and with a soul alive to the most generous impulses, he showed himself from the first a zealous champion of the nation’s rights. From feeling and from principle, he put himself at the head of the popular movement, and his influence as a reformer was strengthened by his position as a patriot. In the latter character his countrymen have never ceased to cherish his memory. In their eyes, the faults of the heretic are lost in the virtues of the patriot. Many a locality is even yet almost sacred, in popular esteem, from association with his name and memory. In the royal library of the great college-building at Prague, a Hussite hymnbook, written and illustrated with singular splendor, is still carefully preserved. This book, which must have cost many thousand florins, was the joint production of a large proportion of the citizens. Each guild and corporation had a few hymns written, and pictures painted to accompany them, and in this work they were joined by several noble families, each family or guild placing its own pictured arms or crest before its own portion of the book. Most of the pictures represent events in Biblical history, or incidents in the life of Huss. Among the latter are scenes of his disputes with the priests, and of his martyrdom, while the ecclesiastics in their robes are looking coldly on, and angels hover over the victim to comfort him in his agony. Despite his heresy the name of Huss is now spoken with veneration and affection even by those who would still feel constrained to pronounce him a heretic.

The same influences which nurtured a national and patriotic spirit, tended to counteract the aggrandizing and grasping policy of the court of Rome. It was foreign, anti-national, and odious. The Bohemian noble was, moreover, proud-spirited and independent. His country itself lay sheltered in that deep basin which once held the waters of a primeval sea. On every side rose the mountain walls of its defense. It was indeed itself a fortress, and mythologic fancy might be excused if it ascribed the stupendous barriers and abutments that surrounded it to the hands of primeval Titans. The tide of foreign invasion broke as it dashed against the mountain fastness, and he who never had been conquered might cherish the pride that defied attack. A freedom of thought, less congenial to other lands, might find here a secure abode. By those rivers which spread like veins and arteries all over the land, and under the shadows of those forests and giant mountains which bounded the horizon, men felt but little awe, or respect for ecclesiastical censure or persecuting edicts. The jests of the rough knights—often too much tainted, doubtless, with the vices of their kings—showed little regard for the assumed authority or sanctity of the Papal See. In the general assessment by which the avarice of the Roman court spread its huge dragnet over Europe, Bohemia, like England, was sheltered by her isolated situation. And besides all this, her attachment to her old usages, long cherished by the patriotic feeling of her citizens, had made her exceedingly reluctant to conform to the Romish ritual. Former sympathies and associations had connected her with the East. By the Greek church she had first been Christianized, and, until near the middle of the fourteenth century, a strong attachment to the rites and usages derived from this source had very generally prevailed. The process by which the nation was brought to recognize the authority of the See of Rome was slow and difficult. The celibacy of the clergy, and the withholding of the cup in the eucharist, were regarded as innovations. They excited a strong, bitter, and prolonged resistance. The attempt which was at length made, in the reign of the emperor Charles IV, to enforce them by laws and penalties, secured indeed an outward conformity, but among the masses of the nation, the work of reducing the church to Roman usages and ceremonial, could, as a general thing, only excite indignation.

Some of the Waldenses, moreover, driven out from their Piedmontese valleys, had found a refuge within the fortress-like walls of the Bohemian mountains, and there, in quiet and security, spread their doctrines and influence. It was here that Peter Waldo, according to Maimbourg, the founder of that sect, was finally sheltered from the persecution which drove him first into Picardy, and then to Bohemia. Here, in a land where no papal police was as yet tolerated, he found, in all probability, a peaceful grave. Many of his disciples must have followed him. The inquisition drove them from their homes, and their only safety was in obscurity. Thirty-five of them perished in one fire at Bingen. At Strasbourg eighty were burned. The consequence was, that they were driven toward Bohemia. Reiner, in A.D. 1254, reckons the schools of the Leonists in the diocese of Passau at forty-one. Their influence in Bohemia must have been perceptibly felt, and their views were far enough from coinciding with the orthodoxy of Rome. They derided the clerical tonsure. They ridiculed those prevalent ecclesiastical promotions which filled the highest official stations of the church with successors to Simon Magus rather than the apostles. The vulgar tongue was as fitting for prayer, in their view, as the Latin, which they did not understand. Long before Laurentius Valla had exposed the spuriousness of the "false decretals," they had rejected them. They laughed at the legends of the saints. They reverenced "the traditions" of the church no more than Christ did the traditions of the Pharisees. They denied purgatory. They considered lights in churches needless. To them holy water was no better than any other, and the cross was but a piece of wood. But it was their veneration for, and their acquaintance with, the word of God, abundantly attested by their persecutors, that led them to dissent so emphatically from the Roman church. Of the purity of their lives, and the simple devotion which characterized their worship, their foes themselves leave us no room to doubt.

Nearly one hundred and forty years later, in 1391, we find, according to the testimony of a Roman inquisitor, that among their teachers were Hungarians and Bavarians, showing that on both sides of Bohemia the Waldensian doctrines had found a foothold. We cannot doubt that they were more generally held in the sheltered region that lay between Bavaria and Hungary. We shall see hereafter the immediate connection between the Waldenses and the doctrines which brought the wrath of the Council of Constance upon the university of Prague, and the kingdom of Bohemia.

The views which had thus found their way into Bohemia were never altogether rooted out. From time to time they were revived by men whose advocacy gave them an important influence upon the condition of the kingdom. There is no necessity, however, of attributing to a foreign source the origin of the reform movement in Bohemia. Whatever increment it may have received from foreign sources, it was undoubtedly in great part indigenous. The hereditary kingdom of the German emperor was really, at the close of the fourteenth century (1370–1400), in advance of the surrounding nations, in literary and industrial activity. The proof of this will be spread before us as we proceed. It was from the midst of this intellectual agitation and enterprise, that the religious movement sprang. It received an undesigned impulse from the enlarged views and even the aggrandizing policy of Charles IV. No one can trace his career of manifold activity—using every art to extend and consolidate the empire, discarding the sword and the warlike aims of his predecessors but regaining by treaty and stratagem more than they had lost, studiously avoiding all collision with the papacy yet adroitly grasping every advantage which its necessities afforded him—and not perceive that under his liberal patronage the cause of learning and of letters would necessarily enter upon a career of brighter prospects. This was in fact the case. With the exception of the universities of Paris and Oxford, the university of Prague held the highest rank in Europe. It was natural that the attention of its teachers and students should be drawn to the scandalous state of the church, and that the facts which excited the indignation of Wickliffe at Oxford, should not be unnoted at Prague.

It was almost contemporaneously with the founding of the university, that the first notable criticism on the degeneracy of Christendom, and the first indignant protest against its corruptions, were put forth in Bohemia. The character, influence, and labors of those who gave utterance to these views and feelings, have been overshadowed by the more distinguished efforts of their successors, while their continued and professed adherence to the authority and usages of the church has saved them from the notoriety which their condemnation or rejection as heretics would have conferred.

But among the precursors of Huss, who anticipated him in the utterance of views of scriptural reform, there are three men worthy of special notice. These were, the Austrian, Conrad Waldhauser, or Conrad Steikna, as he has been improperly called; John Milicz, of Kremsier in Moravia; and Matthias of Janow.

The first of these, whose death was almost contemporaneous with the birth of Huss, belonged to the order of St. Augustine, and exerted a powerful influence in Vienna, where he preached for a space of fifteen years (1345–1360). During this period occurred the jubilee proclaimed by Clement VI (1350). Among the pilgrims to Rome on this occasion was Conrad himself. He had full opportunity to witness the effect of the papal bull of indulgence, and the mischievous results which followed its publication. The crowd that was assembled at Rome was immense. "One would have thought," says Petrarch, who was present, "that the plague (1347) which had almost unpeopled the world had not so much as thinned it." The concourse of pilgrims was prodigious. It was estimated by the Romans themselves at over a million, and the number present at the end was equal to that at the beginning of the year.

It was impossible for an impartial observer to remain blind to the mischiefs attendant upon the scenes of the jubilee. A plenary absolution of all sins for a pilgrimage to Rome, or the pious donation of the amount of expense which such a pilgrimage would incur, could not be proclaimed, as it was by the papal bull, without producing results which would invite the reprehension of serious and thoughtful minds. The eyes of Conrad were opened by his visit to the capital of Christendom. He returned to Austria a preacher of repentance. The influence of his sermons may be gathered from the charge which his enemies, at a later period, brought against him, of disturbing everywhere the public peace. He defended himself by referring to similar accusations brought against Christ himself.

But from the time of his visit to Rome he seems to have labored less at Vienna, and to have been engaged rather as an itinerant preacher. He taught "through all Austria," even to the city of Prague. Charles IV appreciated the labors and the eloquence of the man. He endeavored to secure him for Bohemia, and in 1360 he was called as parish priest to the city of Leitmeritz. But the field was too narrow for his zeal. It was circumscribed, moreover, by opposition, and a controversy into which he was led with the Dominicans and Franciscans. The result was that he determined to seek at Prague a broader and more inviting field.

For a year he preached in the church of St. Galli, but the edifice could not hold the throngs which pressed to hear him. Unwilling to have the word of God withheld from any who desired to hear it, and anxious to labor for the salvation of many, he went forth into the open market-place, and preached to immense audiences which there assembled. The spirit of his sermons may be gathered from his own words: "Not willing that the blood of souls should be required at my hands, I traced, as I was able, in the Holy Scripture, the future dangers impending over the souls of men." Upon the innovations that had been introduced into the church, and upon the monks, whom he regarded as the authors of them, he was especially severe. He exposed their vices, as well as their hypocrisy. He called them wolves in sheep’s clothing. He showed from scripture that their peculiar dress and mode of life were unwarranted by the authority of the word of God, and could only have originated in monstrous fables; that their bodily mortifications were "vain and damnable"—without promise for the present life, or the hope of future recompense. Their notorious indolence and everlasting psalm-singing were frequent topics with him. The machinery of religion, which killed all true devotion, and measured its value, not by the feelings of the heart, but by bells and hourglasses, was denounced. He protested against the perpetual vows to a monastic life which were imposed by parents upon their children. They only who were led by the Spirit of God, were the sons of God. Monasticism—against which he had nothing to say, when in itself considered—had become by its degeneracy a source of great mischief. One might as wisely embark in a leaky craft to cross the Danube, as repose in it for security. The monks themselves had become like the Pharisees of old; they had bound to men’s shoulders burdens too heavy to be borne, which they would not touch themselves with one of their fingers; they had insolently set themselves up as teachers of the people; they had usurped to themselves the rights and privileges of the pastors, yet, in fact, shut men out of the kingdom of heaven by refusing them the Bible in their own language; they had encouraged superstition, and aggravated the prevalent corruption by their vain questions and controversies, their useless school-quarrels and nonsense. To carry out their designs, they made godliness a matter of traffic, introducing themselves into houses, and leading simple women astray. In this unsparing style he upbraided the monks.

It was natural that they should turn just as hotly upon their opponent. They exhausted their resources and exerted all their influence to secure his overthrow. But their efforts were unsuccessful. The king, Charles IV, is said to have favored him. He was perhaps unwilling to see a man, whose learning and sincerity won his respect, prostrated by such foes, and the rather that Conrad gave no occasion for reprehension in his faith or life.

But he poured the torrent of his rebukes not only upon the monks, but upon the general corruption of his times. His influence upon the minds of some of the richest women was such that they gave away the proceeds of their most costly ornaments in charity to the poor.

Matthias of Janow characterizes both his predecessors, Conrad and Milicz, as men full of the spirit of Elijah. But Conrad was rather a John the Baptist. He was a powerful preacher of repentance. He spoke forth sharp warnings to flee from the wrath to come. No prevalent vice escaped his rebuke. Pride of dress, usury, lightness, and youthful vanities were rebuked, and a powerful impression was made. The usurer gave up his ill-gotten gains. The thoughtless and giddy became serious. Quite a number of Jews were drawn to listen to his sermons. A radical change was effected in the hearts of a large number of his hearers, while the purity of his own life exhibited an example of what he commended to them. In 1364 the hostility toward him came to a head. Twenty-nine articles were drawn up against him by the Dominicans and Franciscans, in concert; but when the day of trial came, no one dared to present them.

Conrad died while parish priest of the Teyn church, in the year 1369. The Jesuit Balbinus objects to his being considered a precursor of Huss. He confesses, however, that his writings against the monks betrayed a freedom of expression which might lead his readers to contemn their teachers and disobey their prelates. One of his treatises is entitled "Indictment of the Mendicants," and contains some severe charges against the bishops and the clergy. The Jesuit should have remembered that the unpardonable sin of Wickliffe was not venial in Conrad, unless Rome had two tribunals, one for England and another for Bohemia.

John Milicz was a native of Kremsier, in Moravia, and a contemporary of Conrad. He had studied theology and law at the university of Prague. By perusing the history of his native land, he had early perceived the superiority of the former and ancient constitution of the Greek church in Bohemia and Moravia. Although a foreigner, he was, by the archbishop of Prague, appointed archdeacon and preacher of the cathedral church. Other offices of distinction were conferred upon him. But the bestowal of these dignities did not lull him into indolence. It only roused his energies anew to the inculcation of wholesome though unacceptable truths. He preached often against the introduction of the practice of administering the sacrament only under one form, the use of an unknown tongue in the public worship, the celibacy and wealth of the clergy, the vows of the religious order, the false miracles and legends of the monks, and their self-invented sanctity. But his course was a disappointment to the hopes of the archbishop and the ecclesiastics. He saw that he was unacceptable to them, and resigned his office of archdeacon. This lucrative prebend he exchanged for the humble office of sacristan in the same church. It was in vain that several prelates urged him to accept, at their hands, the same dignity which he had previously held. He had always taught that a priest and monk should be poor. He was now completely so himself, and his whole worldly dependence was on the alms of his pious fellow-citizens.

To this condition he had not been brought without a severe inward struggle. He had to make a stern choice between popularity and promotion on one side, and poverty and reproach on the other. His acceptance as a preacher was such that he might almost command any position to which he might aspire. It had not indeed been so at the first. His natural and plain style of address had not been pleasing, especially to those who had been accustomed to that artistic inflation and bombast of the monk, which Milicz in his writings has criticized with caustic severity. But good sense at last carried the day. The tide turned in favor of the man whose sincerity of purpose and simplicity of speech stood in striking contrast with the conduct and manner of his opponents, for such the monks proved themselves to be. The people cherished toward him a strong affection. They would not suffer him to be silent, and sometimes he was constrained to preach three or four times the same day. Merchants and strangers from Germany visited Prague in large numbers, and to benefit them he learned the German language. Withdrawing for a while to Bishopteintz, in the circle of Pilsen, and engaging in a humble service as curate, he was not long content in retirement, and in a place where he seemed to himself to enjoy too much luxury, and soon returned to Prague.

Here his labors were abundant, and his self-denial was extreme. He preached twice every Sunday and holiday, and sometimes four or five times daily in different churches. His sermons were not unfrequently two or three hours long, and his only preparation—in many cases the only preparation possible—was prayer. His abstemiousness in eating and drinking was carried probably to an excess. He wore a rough hair shirt next to his skin; and, in his voluntary poverty, as well as in his writings, administered a severe rebuke to the mendicants who violated vows which he never had assumed.

His enthusiastic admirer and pupil, Matthias of Janow, said of him, "Having been a simple priest and secretary at the prince’s court, before his experience of the visitation of the Spirit of Christ, he grew so rich in wisdom and all utterance of doctrine, that it was a light matter to him to preach five times a day—once in Latin, once in German, and then again in the Bohemian tongue—and this publicly, with a mighty force and a powerful voice; and he constantly brought forth from his treasure things old and new."

His preaching bore fruit in a striking reformation. Prague was noted for its depravity of manners. It abounded in brothels. Milicz directed his energies, among other things, to the reform of licentious women. At first twenty were converted, and a dwelling was procured for them. By enlisting the aid of devout women, the work was extended. Several hundreds were recovered from the paths of vice. "Little Venice," as it was called, the "Five Points" of Prague, was so transformed that it was thereafter known as "Little Jerusalem." A Magdalene hospital was founded, and in the chapel annexed to it there was preaching every day. According to Janow, the very face of the city was transformed. "I confess," he says, "that I cannot enumerate even the tenth part of what my own eyes saw, my own ears heard, and my own hands handled, though I lived with him but a short time."

For six years Milicz continued to preach, unwearied in his efforts. But he was not satisfied with himself. His humility made him feel that he was unfit to preach. Only by the urgent persuasion of his friends, who represented to him the bad effects which would result from abandoning his field, was he restrained from adopting a more rigid and secluded life as a monk. But even their persuasions could not long restrain the impulse which he felt, urging him to solitary meditation. To this impulse he yielded. In seclusion from the world, and in the silence of his own thoughts, he reflected upon the condition of the church throughout the world. He seemed to see Antichrist embodied before him, in the variety of errors and abuses which stalked abroad under a Christian name.

Suddenly he felt called upon to visit the pope, narrate to him his visions, and utter his admonitions. He went at the command, as he supposed, of the Holy Spirit. He would have the pope originate a spiritual crusade for the overthrow of Antichrist. A general council should be called. The bishops should devise means for restoring discipline, and monks and secular priests should be exhorted to go forth as preachers.

Milicz went to Rome, when Urban, designing to return from Avignon (1367), was expected daily. For a month he gave himself up to fasting, prayer, and the reading of the scriptures. Still the pope did not arrive. Milicz could no longer restrain himself. He posted on the doors of St. Peter’s that on a certain day he would appear and address the multitude. It is said, moreover, that he added, "The Antichrist is come; he has his seat in the church." But the notification of the sermon alone was enough to excite suspicion. At the instigation of the mendicant monks, he was arrested by the inquisition, loaded with chains, given over to the Franciscans, and closely confined. But he endured all with uncomplaining meekness. Not a bitter word escaped his lips, and his persecutors were confounded by his patient submission.

After a prolonged imprisonment, he was asked what he had intended to preach. He replied by asking his examiners to give him back his Bible, pen, ink, and paper, and they should have his discourse in writing. The request was granted, and Milicz’s imprisonment was alleviated. Before a large assembly of prelates and learned men he delivered his discourse, and it made a profound impression. Still he was kept in prison, and there composed his celebrated work on Antichrist. "The author writes this," he says, "a prisoner, and in chains, troubled in spirit, longing for the freedom of Christ’s church, protesting that he has not kept back that which was in his heart, but has spoken it out to the church," &c.

On the arrival of Urban at Rome, Milicz was released, to the disappointment of the monks who had prophesied the fate of their old antagonist, but to the great joy of his friends at Prague, whom he hastened to rejoin.

With fresh zeal he now recommenced his labors. Not content with preaching himself, he wished to train others for the work. Often was he heard to say, "Would that all were prophets." He established, in fact, what might be regarded as a Theological Seminary—a school of the prophets. Two or three hundred young men were gathered around him, under the same roof, who submitted themselves to his instruction and training. He copied books for them to study, and engaged them also in the work of transcription. His aim was to multiply and extend the circulation of devotional and instructive books. No external badge, no common discipline, rule, or vow, nor uniformity of dress, distinguished his pupils. They formed a unique brotherhood, bound together by common sympathies and common aims. No effort was spared by Milicz to promote their usefulness. When trained, he sought to find them spheres of labor, with rare humility and fond affection, commending them as those who would surpass himself. Their exemplary, or perhaps we should say, puritanic conduct made them objects of reproach. They were nick-named "Miliczans," "Beghards," &c.

On the death of Conrad, Milicz succeeded to his office. Besides preaching daily, he drew up forms of prayer for public worship in the native language, which were extensively adopted. But his extraordinary course of activity, and reproof of sin, drew down upon him envy and persecution. The priests, whose disgraceful connections he rebuked, united against him. The archbishop, with great reluctance, was forced to call him to account for his street preaching. Twelve heads of accusation were drawn up against him, and sent to the pope (1314). Gregory XI, who then occupied the papal chair, wrote back to the archbishop, and the bishops of Breslau, Olmutz, and Leitomischel, expressing surprise at their negligence and that of the inquisitors, whereby this dangerous heretic had been permitted to spread his errors through Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Poland, and urged them promptly to arrest the evil, provided, however, that the charges made should be found true. A similar admonition was likewise sent to the emperor Charles IV.

In these circumstances, Milicz, doubtless taught by past experience, preferred to submit his case to the pope himself, and, having made his appeal, set out for Avignon. Of the manner in which he was received, we are not informed; and while his cause was yet depending, he died in that city.

The influence exerted by Milicz directly, and through his pupils, must have been powerful and extensive. The archbishop, for many years at least, reposed great confidence in him, and treated him with much kindness. In many important commissions he was employed both by the archbishop and the emperor. Indeed, for a time he was imperial secretary and chancellor.

The writings of Milicz were numerous, and all were written in the Latin language. Some of them still survive. Among them are his Fast sermons, Postilles, and especially his treatise on Antichrist, to which reference has been already made, and which is embodied in Janow’s larger treatise on the same subject. To Milicz unquestionably belongs the credit of having first boldly put forth those views on the subject of Antichrist, which are so largely extended and elucidated by Matthias of Janow, and which were substantially adopted by Huss himself.

In the footsteps of Conrad and Milicz, although eventually taking a position in advance of theirs, followed Matthias of Janow. He was born at Prague, but was generally called the Parisian, from having spent six years at the university of Paris, and having there received his Doctor’s degree. He was also called the Cracovian, from a temporary residence at Cracow. He was for a short time a pupil of Milicz, and perhaps through him became parish priest at Prague, and father confessor of the emperor Charles IV. For this post he was well fitted, both by talent and education. He had traveled much, and been a careful observer as well as close student. He had a large acquaintance with the relations and customs of different countries. No one in his day had a clearer conception of the moral and religious condition of Christendom, and no one labored more diligently or zealously for its reform.

The most decisive and important influence that shaped his career was exerted by the life and writings of Milicz. This penetrated him, as he expresses it, with that holy fire which left him no rest. It was through "the light of God’s word" that the corruptions of the church were made manifest to him. "Once," says he, "my mind was encompassed by a thick wall; I thought of nothing but what delighted the eye and the ear, till it pleased the Lord Jesus to deliver me as a brand from the burning. And while I, worst slave to my passions, was resisting him in every way, he delivered me from the flames of Sodom, and brought me into the place of sorrow, of great adversities, and of much contempt. Then first I became poor and contrite, and searched with trembling the word of God."

In some respects Janow must be regarded as decidedly in advance of Conrad and Milicz. His familiarity with scripture is remarkable. His views of the necessity of reform are clear and comprehensive. He understands fully the difficulties with which it has to contend, and proposes to overcome them by sound and scriptural methods.

No one can peruse his writings without feeling that he has come in contact with a mind penetrated with the love of truth, and possessed of a clear insight into the spirit of the gospel. In an age when the worldly spirit was triumphant; when, with thousands of the priesthood, gain was godliness and promotion was success, he withstood the bribes which were extended to his selfishness and ambition. It was not without a bitter inward struggle that he finally was brought to the point of self-renunciation and self-denial. The record which he has left us of his experience is exceedingly vivid. It portrays the spiritual conflicts through which he was called to pass, in words which reveal the process by which he was prepared for his work.

" My feet," he says, "had almost gone; my steps had well-nigh slipped; and, unless a crucified Jesus had come to my rescue, my soul had sunk to hell. But he, my most faithful and loving Saviour, in whom is no guile, shoved to me their counsels; and I knew the face of the harlot, by which she allures all that stand at the corners of the streets and the entrances of the paths. Nevertheless, I prayed to God and the Father of Jesus Christ my Lord, holding up the Bible in my hands; and I cried out, with heart and voice, ‘O Lord and Father, who ordainest my life, leave me not to their thoughts and counsels, and let me not be taken in their net, lest I fall under that reproachful sin which shall sting my conscience, and drive out wisdom from my soul!’... I confess, before God and his Christ, that so alluring was this harlot, Antichrist, that she so well feigned herself the true spouse of Jesus Christ, or rather, Satan by his arts so tricked her out, that from my early years I was long in doubt what I should choose, or what keep: whether I should seek out and chase after benefices, and thirstily grasp for honors, which to some extent I did, or rather, go forth without the camp, bearing the poverty and reproach of Christ: whether, with the many, I should live in quest of an easy and quiet life for the moment, or rather, cling to the faithful and holy truth of the gospel: whether to commend what almost all commend; lay my plans as many do; dispense with and gloss over the scriptures, as many of the great and learned and famous of this day do; or rather, manfully inculpate and accuse their unfruitful works of darkness, and so hold to the simple truth of the divine words, which plainly contravene the lives and morals of men of this age, and prove them false brethren: whether I should follow the spirit of wisdom with its suggestions, which I believe the divine Spirit of Jesus, or follow the sentiment of the great multitude, which, in their self-indulgence, without show of mercy or charity, while lovers of this world and full of carnal vanities, they claim to be safe. I confess that between these two courses I hung wavering in doubt; and unless our Lord Jesus be our keeper, none will escape the honeyed face and smile of this harlot—the tricks of Satan and the snares of Antichrist."

The man who had passed unscathed through such temptations, had been disciplined for future trials. He was one upon whom all the influences of gain and terror would be alike powerless.

His principal work is entitled, De regulis veteris et Novi Testamenti. Most of it still remains buried in manuscripts, the contents of which have been, in large extracts, set forth by P. Jordan, in his "Predecessors of Hussism in Bohemia." It seems to be composed of a collection of independent treatises, written on different occasions, and hence, as might be expected, abounds in repetitions. Its title indicates its scope. It rejects the authority of human traditions and popish decretals, and substitutes in their place the supreme authority of the divine word. It tries everything by this test. The conduct of the bishops and the priests is severely arraigned. The Antichrist has already come. He is neither Jew, pagan, Saracen, nor worldly tyrant, but the "man who opposes Christian truth and the Christian life by way of deception; he is, and will be, the most wicked Christian, falsely styling himself by that name, assuming the highest station in the church, and possessing the highest consideration, arrogating dominion over all ecclesiastics and laymen"; one who, by the working of Satan, assumes to himself power and wealth and honor, and makes the church, with its goods and sacraments, subservient to his own carnal ends.

The kingdoms of Christ and Antichrist are to be slowly and gradually evolved, side by side. But the spiritual annihilation of the latter (1340) had already commenced. It was to be accomplished by God, "by the breath of his mouth," the utterance of his elect priests and preachers, who were to go forth in the spirit of Elias and Enoch. In his predecessor, Milicz, Janow recognizes one in whom Elias had reappeared. The work begun was to go forward, like the operation of the leaven, or the growth of the mustard-seed.

To expose Antichrist is with Janow an important object. He points out the arrogance and the worldly sympathies and connections of the bishops, their greed of wealth, their vain attempt to serve two masters. But worse than this, because more directly fatal to the spiritual improvement of the people, was the neglect of the parochial clergy. A secularized hierarchy was Antichrist embodied.

The causes of this apostasy are laid open. One of these is the transfer of reverence from the Holy Scriptures to the decretals and Clementines. Human ordinances are placed above the commandments of God. Another is, that men choose to seek salvation in sensible and corporeal things, rather than in the Crucified alone. Those who confess Christ are censured and persecuted. The false prophets extol their own stately ceremonies, and anathematize for their nonobservance. Hereby the consciences of men are ensnared, and the devil acquires great power to involve men in guilt. But no multiplicity of human laws and ordinances can meet every contingency and relation. The Spirit of God alone can do this. Hence the multiplied laws of men are superfluous and inadequate. They should be called, not traditions, but superstitions. In view of this, Janow, with a Christian sagacity, assumes the tone of the prophet: "So have I gathered," he says, "from the Holy Scriptures; and I believe that all the above-named works of men, ordinances and ceremonies, will be utterly extirpated, cut up by the roots, and cease—and God alone will be exalted, and his word will abide forever; and the time is close at hand when these ordinances shall be abolished."

The substitute for all these is God’s word, "the common rule for all." But positive law has been ineffectual to recover fallen men, and Christ has left to them the law of the Spirit. To its sound and simple beginnings the Christian church should be brought back. Monastic orders are not needed for the governing of the church. The unity of this is found in its union with Christ. The priest and the layman alike are one in him. The first has peculiar duties, but the same great privileges are accessible to both.

In connection with this point, we should also consider Janow’s views in regard to the sacrament. He had laid down the principles from which the doctrine of the communion of the cup for the laity was a plain and direct inference. Yet for this he was not called in question. His views in regard to frequent communion are those which seem to have been most obnoxious. On this point he spoke with great earnestness and warmth; and it deserves to be noticed that he uniformly expresses himself as if he thought the laity were also entitled, not only to frequent communion, but communion in both kinds; and it scarcely admits of question that his treatises or letters on this subject were the germ of Calixtine doctrine as developed subsequently by Jacobel.

A large portion of Janow’s writings was for a period ascribed to Huss. Of the separate treatises from his pen, of which his larger work was composed, we have those on "Antichrist," on "The Kingdom, People, Life, and Manners of Antichrist," the "Abomination of Carnal Priests and Monks," "Abolishing Sects," "The Unity of the Church," and a few others less important.

The first, on Antichrist, is an "Anatomy of the Beast." It is indeed a literary curiosity, the product of a mind ingenious and somewhat fanciful, but penetrating, sagacious, scripturally enlightened, and glowing with a fire of holy indignation against the monstrous corruptions of the church. The names of Antichrist are presented in alphabetical order "Abomination of Desolation" "Babylon," "Bear of the Wood," &c. The various members of his mystical body are then described—the head, hair, brow, eyes, nose, neck, breast, loins, &c. Most important are the three false principles which are formed from the tail of Antichrist. The first is, that as soon as one is elected pope of Rome, he becomes head of the whole militant church, and supreme vicar of Christ on earth. This is pronounced a bare lie. The second is that what the pope determines in matters of faith is to be received as of equal authority with the gospel. This is likewise pronounced false, for we must believe him, who has so often erred in matters of faith, only when he is supported by the scriptures. The third—that the laws of the pope are to be obeyed before the gospel—is declared blasphemous, for it is blasphemy to believe the pope or any one else, or to accept his laws, in preference to Christ.

The treatise on "The Abomination of Carnal Priests and Monks" is in the same vein with that on Antichrist. It is peculiarly severe upon the mendicants. Wickliffe at Oxford, or Gerson at Paris, could not have been more unsparing in their reprehensions. The lukewarmness of the prelates; their avarice, wealth, and simony; the negligence of the priesthood in the execution of their duties; the unseemly strifes between the. monks and the regular clergy; the sacrilegious sale of sacred things; the barter of masses, indulgences, &c.; the false worship offered to the bones of dead saints, while God’s poor but devoted children are contemned and despised, are unsparingly exposed. The reign of hypocrisy had become universal. There were, indeed, not a few faithful still left; like the seven thousand in Israel, that had never bent the knee to Baal. But by the iniquity of the times they were proscribed or driven into solitude. No path was open for their promotion. Ambitious and worldly men, by disgraceful methods, attained places of power and influence in the church. Wickedness, if powerful and gilded with pomp, was flattered, while any mention or exhibition of the crucified Jesus in synodical assemblies was impatiently borne.

The various passages of scripture, both in the Old and New Testaments, in which the great apostasy of the church is foretold, or in which the iniquity of Antichrist is exhibited, are successively considered. Ezekiel’s vision; Gog and Magog; he that sitteth in the temple of God; the locusts of Revelation; the beast with the seven heads and the ten horns; the woman seated upon the beast, with her cup of abomination in her hand, and her forehead branded "Babylon the great, the mother of harlots," are brought to view and shown to be exact descriptions of the prevailing apostasy. Even now, Janow declares that the pious are persecuted. They are reproached as Beghards and Turpins, Picards and wretches. Schisms, fraternities, and orders abound. The "religious" eat and drink, and are drunken on the sins of the people. Blasphemous indulgences are published, which one can scarce credit. Donations are extorted by threats of hell, and the poor are robbed by the avarice of the monks.

But Antichrist is to be destroyed. Christ will destroy him by the breath of his mouth and the brightness of his coming. He will raise up those who shall proclaim his word, and thus consume the lies and errors of the great deceiver.

Janow protests that he does not write, directing his words against any individual, but at the general apostasy. Nothing is said in bitterness or pride; and if read as written, none will be injured. He declares that he would not have dared to write, but for the resistless impulse of truth.

The other treatises are in a similar strain. They are bold and fearless in utterance, but abound in gospel simplicity and charity. Every point is enforced by scripture citations. At times, the treatise itself seems attenuated to a thread, upon which the admonitions, warnings, and truths of scripture are strung. Many passages soar to that height of moral rebuke, which reminds us of Christ scourging the money-changers from the sacred temple.

But Janow, although not prosecuted as a heretic, was regarded as an innovator. It was not long before his position began to attract attention. In 1381 he became a prebendary at Prague, and in 1389 he was arraigned before the synod of Prague, by whom his views were condemned. He is said to have been forced to a recantation, but his writings of a subsequent date clearly show that there had been no change in his views. For a time he was banished from the city, but through the favor of the emperor was soon permitted to return. He died in 1394, and in 1410 his writings were honored, with those of Wickliffe, in being committed to the flames.

A mere glance at the lives and doctrines of these three men will suffice to show that already at Prague a work had commenced which could not pause, even when they should be called away. Seed had been sown: truth had been scattered abroad. The new ideas which they had thrown out, and which they had so earnestly vindicated, were to prove in the sequel a powerful leaven. The eyes of men are naturally attracted to the array of physical forces, to fleets and armies, and the extending bounds of empire. But at that day, it is beyond question that the more important results were staked on the teachings of these three men, than on all the territorial aggrandizements of the German empire. It is a shallow philosophy that overlooks the position of the public teacher of new doctrines. Ideas are mightier than swords or bayonets.

In connection with the names of Conrad, Milicz, and Janow, there are others that are worthy of at least a passing notice. Some of them, less known by their writings, were scarcely less conspicuous in their own day in the cause of scriptural knowledge and reform. In one of his sermons, Huss mentions, to their honor, "Nicholas Biceps, the most acute logician; Adalbert, the flowing orator; Nicholas Litomischel, the most sagacious counselor; Stephen of Colin, the most devoted patriot; John Steikna, the noble preacher, whose voice was like the blast of a trumpet; and Peter Stupna, the sweetest singer and most glowing preacher." These belonged to the age then past, and he speaks of his audience as treading over their graves.

But besides these, the names of two laymen, who exerted an important influence upon the age, should not be passed unnoticed. Peter of Dresden was almost, if not quite, a Waldensian in sentiment, and to his influence over Jacobel is to be attributed, in large measure, the origin of that discussion in respect to the communion of the cup, which almost revolutionized Bohemia, and brought down upon it the energies of crusading Christendom. Peter had resided for a time at Prague. He went to Dresden and was there employed as a teacher. But his religious views rendered him obnoxious to persecution, and about the rear 1400 he returned to Prague. He was evidently a man of superior ability, and one who possessed great power over the minds of others. At Prague, among the thousands congregated at its university, he would have large opportunities for insinuating his peculiar doctrines. The very fact that he was instrumental in shaping the enlarged views of Jacobel, suffices to rescue his name and memory from oblivion.

Along with Conrad, Milicz, Janow, and Peter of Dresden, must be ranked a celebrated layman, Thomas Von Stitny, a Bohemian knight and a man of strong religious as well as patriotic feeling. "He was," says Helfert, "a Christian philosopher, in the full meaning of the word." His early years had been spent at Prague. At the university he proved himself a diligent student. The stores of knowledge which he here acquired he bore back with him to the retirement of his father’s castle. Here, exchanging the sword for the pen, he devoted himself to the education of his family and of his countrymen. Many was the book or treatise issued from his retreat, which found its way into the hands of the people, and was rapidly transcribed and widely circulated. In the agitating questions of the day, Stitny took a deep interest. He was probably on intimate terms with Milicz, and his writings reflect the views of that reformer. Like Milicz, he reproves the prevalent vices and errors, reprimands the monks for their neglect and contempt of the rules of their several orders, and urges the claims of Christian purity and devotion. Devoted to the study of the scripture, he had yet no thought of departing from the communion of the church, or of going further than the reform of its abuses. He loved his native land with all the affection of a patriot, and his writings, which indicate his zeal for reform, were written in the Bohemian tongue, and exerted an important influence.

If we consider, then, the connection of Bohemia with the Greek church—the seed sown by the Waldensian exiles—the sagacity, eloquence, and daring zeal of the men whom we have named as the predecessors of Huss; the influence which they, and others like them, exerted upon the mind and heart of the nation; the younger preachers and students of the university, who enjoyed their training, or aspired to tread in their steps; and if, in this same connection, we regard the condition of the papal government, already by protracted schism an object of scandal and contempt to all Christendom, and the reckless indifference to all religion shown by Wenzel, the Bohemian monarch—as devoted to the wine-cask as his father, Charles IV, had been to the pope—we shall see that the way was already prepared for the advent of a reformer such as Huss proved to be.

Other events, moreover, contributed to encourage whatever aspirations or desires might find place in Bohemia, looking toward a purer state of the church. The founding of the university of Prague, in 1360, had given an intellectual impulse to the nation, and thousands of her young men were eager to improve the privileges now brought, as it were, to their own doors. The kingdom enjoyed, moreover, an unexampled prosperity. Charles IV, with all his arts of craft, and sometimes of meanness, was an able and sagacious sovereign. Under his wise policy the industry of the country was encouraged, and its resources were developed. Great privileges were granted to the cities as well as to the aristocracy. A new code of laws was drawn up and published. The Moldau was rendered navigable as far as the Elbe. Mining and agriculture were encouraged. German artificers were introduced into the country. New Prague sprang up by the side of Old Prague. Breslau was in like manner improved. The noble bridge that spans the Moldau was constructed. The king’s passion for architecture was freely indulged, and his nobility aspired to imitate him. Magnificent churches and palaces were rising on every side, to attest the enterprise, wealth, and taste of the nation.

On June 7th, 1394, Anne of Luxembourg, wife of Richard II of England, and daughter of Charles IV, died. Her attendants returned to Bohemia; many of them, like their mistress, had imbibed the views of Wickliffe. They brought back with them from England to Prague, copies of his books. Oxford students, following the practice of the age, had visited the universities of the continent, and, among others, that of Prague. The new opinions found adherents. On all sides there were anxious curiosity, inquiry, discussion. University life had its privileges and freedoms. Upon these Rome had not yet ventured to lay her despotic hand. What was wanted was a man who should use these privileges to investigate and publish the truth of the new opinions—a man who was able to think, able to speak, and not too timid to stand by his convictions; and such a man was found in John Huss.

John Huss, or John of Hussinitz, was born July 6th, 1373. He derived his name from his native village, in the southern part of Bohemia, in the circle of Prachin. This was in accordance with the custom of the age. There is no ground for the slander of an obscure writer, that Huss took the name of his village because he had no knowledge of his father. Among the most distinguished compeers of Huss, in his own and other lands, the greater number whom we shall be called to notice were men like himself, known by the name of the place where they were born or educated. This was the case with that remarkable triumvirate of the university of Paris, John de Gerson, Nicholaus de Clemengis, and Peter de Ailly. Among his own countrymen were James of Misa, or Jacobel, as he was called from his diminutive stature, John of Rokyzan, and numerous others, who, although like Huss of obscure birth, rose to eminence by their talent and diligence, and rescued the places of their birth from obscurity by the distinction which they themselves won.

According to Æneas Sylvius, who was afterwards raised to the papal chair, Huss might boast of an honest and worthy, although obscure parentage. His lot was one favored neither by fortune nor rank. His parents were poor peasants, kind and simple-hearted, who spared no pains to give their son a good education. There are few memorials left us of his childhood. But if we may judge of his training from the fruits it bore, it must have been characterized by affectionate anxiety and a severe purity of morals. We search in vain in any record, whether from friend or foe, for any trace of youthful vice or juvenile excess. Never was any character subjected to more severe or bitter scrutiny; but in the entire catalogue of accusations brought against him, not one is to be found affecting his character. We may reasonably suppose that in his own noble simplicity and unimpeached purity of life, were reflected the simple manners and the quiet virtues of his childhood’s home. That home must have been the abode of peace, gentleness, and love.

His parents, we are told, bestowed great care on his education. He was at first sent to a school in his native place. This was kept at a monastery, not far from the residence of his parents. His quiet manners and quick intelligence made him soon a favorite with the monks. They were pleased with the company of the boy, and, to the disquiet of his parents, often took him with them when they went abroad. Upon his father’s death, which occurred in his boyhood, he was left by his mother entirely to their charge. But such was her poverty that she could not provide him needful clothing. In this emergency, as also at a later period, the nobleman of the place, Nicholas of Hussinitz, came forward to his aid.

When placed in the monastery, Huss devoted himself zealously to study. With boyish curiosity he gazed upon the huge piles of manuscript stored in the monastery, and in vain assayed to read them. They were in the Latin language, and this he had not mastered. The monks, from their own ignorance, could render him but feeble aid, but such instruction as they could afford was freely given. His many questions sorely puzzled them. "If the boy wants to know more," they said, "let him go to the Prachatitz collegium."

To this, a school of higher grade in the neighboring village of Prachatitz, he was accordingly sent. Here he made rapid advances, and won the praise of his teachers. His remarkable progress gave high promise of future distinction.

His course here was at length completed, and he returned home to his widowed mother. "What shall we now do, my son ?" she asked. "I am going to Prague," was his reply. "Let us not be troubled on account of our poverty; God will care for us. The monks have promised that I shall certainly go."

Thus, at his own instance probably, it was determined that he should be sent to the university. His mother, impelled by maternal anxiety, accompanied him to the city. If the story of her journey is true, it affords a characteristic illustration of the simple manners of the age and country. She took with her, from her humble store, a goose (buss in Bohemian) and a cake as a present to the rector. Unfortunately the goose flew away while she was on her journey, and she could not recover it. The poor woman, associating perhaps the lost fowl with the fortunes of her son, received the accident as an ill omen. But if disturbed by superstitious fears, she had yet that simple piety which taught her to trust in God. She fell at once upon her knees, and recommended her son to the care and protection of divine providence. She then continued her journey, much troubled to think that she had only the cake left to present to the rector.

Of the means by which Huss was supported at the university we have no reliable information. To his own early history he rarely refers in his writings. It is said that on his arrival in Prague he secured a place in the house of one of the professors, where he was employed in service, and received in return food and clothing, and at the same time enjoyed access to a large and select library. The story is not improbable. John of Rokyzan, a few years younger than Huss, and afterwards archbishop of Prague, was, like him, of obscure parentage, and of extreme poverty. Yet as a charity student he received aid in the prosecution of his course, and by persevering exertion and obvious merit won admission to the "College of the Poor," of which Jacobel was professor. It would not be strange if the course of Huss was, in its early period, parallel to that of Rokyzan.

But if a charity student, and largely dependent on alms for support, the fortune of Huss was full as favored as that of thousands and tens of thousands gathered at the universities of Oxford, Paris, and Prague. Sometimes the pressure of want and hunger was so severe that talent was forced into the market, and genius sold its service for a piece of bread. The powerful Duke of Burgundy could descend to purchase the tribute of the venal learning and ability of Parisian scholars, to procure in them apologists for his crimes. But Huss, with abilities equal to any in the market, was never suspected of the guilt of any mercenary alliance. He bad no powerful or wealthy friend whose patronage could warp his independence, or interfere with the freedom of his moral or intellectual development. If aided—as is not altogether improbable—by Nicholas of Hussinitz, it was with that generosity which studies to confer a favor without imposing an obligation.

The testimony borne to the character of Huss is uniformly favorable. His enemies themselves, who were ready to curse him as a heretic, speak of his manners and his morals almost in terms of eulogy. Æneas Sylvius describes him as "a powerful speaker, and distinguished for the reputation of a life of remarkable purity." The Jesuit Balbinus says of him, that he was accounted even "more acute than eloquent; but his affability of manner, his life of austerity and self-denial, against which none could bring a charge, his features pale and melancholy, his body enfeebled, and his gentleness toward all, even of the humblest class, were more effective than any power of words." "Meanly born, but of no mean spirit," is the testimony of one of his opponents, and no doubt all would have responded to its truth.

With such abilities and tastes, the diligence of Huss soon secured for him eminence in literary attainment. His opportunities were diligently improved. An unprecedented spirit of enterprise and of intellectual activity characterized the period during which he was engaged in his academic pursuits. The university of Prague was now in its most flourishing state. It was founded in 1360 by the emperor Charles IV, a zealous friend of learning and of learned men. He was the son of John of Luxembourg, and grandson of the emperor Henry VII, and had ascended the throne in 1347. Had it not been for his blind, or perhaps we should rather say, politic submission to the popes, the events of the following reign might have illustrated his own. His energy and enterprise were directed into peaceful channels, and he preferred the arts of diplomacy and intrigue to martial prowess. To his exertions Prague was greatly indebted. The prosperity and improvement of the kingdom were studiously promoted. Private citizens, moved by imperial example, devoted their wealth to public uses; and noble architectural structures for public worship, and other objects, sprang up to attest their zeal. Some of these were endowed with imperial munificence. Æneas Sylvius declares that no other kingdom of Europe could boast as numerous and splendid temples as Bohemia. The rites and usages of the church were invested with new pomp, and no expense was spared to add to their attractions.

Even after the desolations of the Hussite war, enough remained to testify to the taste, the munificent liberality, and devotion of the emperor. But Prague was the special object of his favor. He surrounded a portion of it, the k1eine seite, with imposing walls, crowned here and there with towers which, by their names, perpetuated the builder’s fame. He reared castles and temples of exceeding beauty. His course provoked the admiration and imitation of the citizens; and wealthy inhabitants of Prague expended their treasures in a like manner. The Bethlehem church, afterward famous as the one within whose spacious walls Huss addressed large assemblages of his fellow-citizens, was built at the expense of private individuals. Among the other labors of the emperor may be mentioned the stone bridge which he threw over the Moldau, uniting the two portions of the city. For that day it was a noble and imperial work. It was eighteen hundred feet in length, broad enough for three carriages to drive abreast, supported by sixteen arches, and adorned with twenty-eight statues of the saints. It still exists to attest the public spirit of the emperor to whom it owes its origin.

But the great work of Charles IV, and the one for which he deserves the highest praise, was his founding of the university of Prague. In undertaking it, he sought and received the sanction of the Roman pontiff, Innocent VI. The university of Paris furnished him a model. That institution, after the popes, had given law to Europe. In her schools the men had been trained who controlled the public opinion of the world, and became the teachers of kingdoms. She was, in fact, an imperium in imperio. Her word was respected and reverenced throughout Christendom. Even then, the hoar of centuries combined with her reputation for learning and piety to render her venerable. The emperor Charles IV might well aspire to rival the reputation attributed, whether justly or not, to his great predecessor and namesake, Charlemagne, by becoming, like him, the founder of a university. The times were ripe for the enterprise. The ravages of the crusades, and the impending terror of the Turkish arms, had conspired to scatter the treasures of the Eastern empire over the kingdoms of the West. Those treasures were the learning and the learned men which had hitherto been resident within the walls of the city of Constantine. The intercourse between the East and West was once more renewed.

Frequent embassies sought to promote the long-deferred union of the Greek and Roman churches. Prelates of the first were received into the latter with distinguished honor. A new spirit of inquiry and a new thirst for knowledge had been diffused abroad. Popular movements had taken place in almost every kingdom in Europe, which showed that society, even to its lower strata, was restless, and ready for a change.

The labors of the emperor were attended with remarkable success. Scarcely had the university been completed before it was thronged with students. It seemed to reach maturity at a single stride. The zealous patronage of the emperor was, no doubt, one of the most important elements of its success. The most learned and skilful men, moreover, were sought out for instructors, and they were selected, without regard to land or language, for their fitness and ability.

Four nations were represented there—Bavaria, Saxony, Poland, and Bohemia—each of which had a vote in the affairs of the university. At an early period, over two thousand students belonged to it from the German nation alone. It was the practice of the emperor often to be present at the examinations and disputations. He came in his imperial robes, attended by his officers and nobles, sometimes remaining for three or four hours at a time. It is said that he would become frequently so absorbed in listening to the disputations, that, when reminded by his courtiers that it was meal-time, he would reply, "Go, get your supper—my food is here." Circumstances like these could not fail to invest the university with great splendor and importance in the eyes of the nation, and kindle the ambition of the students to excel, and thus merit the notice and favor of the emperor.

Although Charles IV died in November, 1378, the impulse of his influence still survived. The university continued to flourish. It must have been about the year 1389, and when Huss was sixteen years of age, that he was matriculated and became a member of that body. He pursued his studies with such application and success as to receive, in order, all the degrees of honor which the university could bestow, with the single exception of Doctor of Theology, of which we have no proof that it ever was conferred upon him. He received the degree of Bachelor in 1393, of Master of Arts in 1396; became priest and preacher of the Bethlehem church in 1400, dean of the Theological Faculty in 1401, and rector of the university in the following year. It was during his residence at the university as a student that his attention was first drawn to the subjects which afterwards so earnestly claimed his attention and his profound interest, for his convictions, moreover, in regard to which he was to lay down his life. He reached Prague in the same year in which Matthias of Janow died. It was in the year 1393 that he became intimate with a memorable man, James of Misa, or Jacobel (little James) as he was called, from his diminutive bodily stature. This man was a native of the Circle of Pilsen in Bohemia, and was at this time a teacher in the university. Though destitute of anything imposing in his personal appearance, his writings, and the influence he exerted upon the community and the nation, show him to have been a man of ability and energy. Like others of his countrymen before him, be had a strong leaning to the usages of the ancient Greek church. We shall see, in the course of this history, that he was a kindred spirit of Huss, and that their acquaintance of more than twenty years ripened into a friendship which led to the charge upon Huss of holding the peculiar views of his friend, though in this particular case the charge was false.

It was some years later (1398) that he became acquainted with Jerome of Prague, who, along with Jacobel, was accused of spreading the writings and opinions of Wickliffe in the university. Here was another friendship which reflects honor upon both the men whom it united while living, and associated in their deaths. Besides these, there must have been at Prague not a few others—disciples of Milicz and of Janow—whose influence was exerted in the direction of scriptural reform, and in whom Huss found those whose spirit sympathized with his own.

But we need not seek in external sources the impulse which shaped his career. From his earliest years, Huss had manifested a deep interest in the lives of distinguished and holy men deservedly eminent in the history of the Christian church. Upright in his whole conduct, and blameless in his morals and his devotion to religious duties, even by the confession of his bitterest enemies, his zeal for acquaintance with the career and pursuits of those to whom he might look as models, amounted almost to a passion. His manner of life had always been plain, simple, and unostentatious. His tastes were pure and innocent. One might have read, in his pale and somewhat attenuated features, the earnestness of a meditative spirit. There was an air of gravity and reserve manifest in his countenance, which gave evidence of calm purpose and sedateness of thought. His demeanor toward all was friendly and unassuming. His ambition, if he had anything deserving an appellation of such equivocal meaning, was directed toward distinction in the paths of devotion and of Christian effort. He was poor, and yet scorned wealth. He loved truth, and cared little for the honors of men. But to write his name by the side of those who had adorned the history of the church by their exhibition of Christian virtues, was the high and lofty aim that possessed his soul. While a student, it was his delight to pore over the history of the martyrs, to trace the progress of their devotion, to contemplate their self-denials and their sufferings. Once, while reading the history of St. Laurentius, who was put to death by being roasted on a gridiron, he thrust his hand into the fire to test his own constancy and power of endurance, and see whether he would be able himself to endure the torture of a like martyrdom. A friend who was present interfered to prevent the full execution of his purpose.

In this incident we may perhaps discern, on the part of Huss, a morbid religious sensibility, a tendency to an ascetic fanaticism. But beyond question, his severe conscientiousness, his ardent feeling, and his quick susceptibilities especially fitted him to be impressed by the searching and powerful words of Milicz and of Janow. It is evident, from the record of their labors, that they had drawn to their side not a few who, amid the general apostasy of the church, were earnestly devoted to the purpose of a higher Christian life. At Prague, and especially in the university, Huss would come in contact with these. A common sympathy would bind him to them. Yet it was not without a severe inward struggle—as we learn from the record of his own experience—that he was brought to relinquish worldly ambitions, and commit himself to that course which was to bring upon him the reproach in which Milicz and Janow had shared.

But at a very early period his decision was taken, and he never faltered in his purpose. The circumstances in which he was placed, and the objects toward which his attention was necessarily directed, combined to add strength to his convictions and firmness to his resolve. He had of course, by his residence at the imperial capital and his connection at the university, large opportunities for information and observation. He was at one of the foci where the great interests of European Christendom converged. There especially he was brought to understand the real condition and the sad degeneracy of the church. There he heard, from teachers and students, not only from Bohemia and Germany, but in some instances from foreign countries, free expressions in regard to the evils of the times, and he could not fail to take a deep interest in the great questions that were agitating and dividing the Christian world. The great schism which had already endured for many years was the scandal of Christendom. The papacy had become an Augean stable, demanding for its cleansing a more than fabled Hercules. But the mischief was not merely one that was far remote. The church was enfeebled and diseased in all its members. In Bohemia, and within the walls of Prague, there was enough, and more than enough, to excite thoughtful minds to grave reflection. Huss saw on all sides an abounding and prevalent iniquity. He noted a degree of corruption in church and state that could not fail to excite at once grief and indignation. In the contrast between what he saw around him and a primitive Christianity, he seemed to behold the gospel travestied by the lives of those whose duty it was to expound it, but whose whole course was a libel upon Christianity itself. The money-changers had established themselves in the sacred temple. Bold bad men, intriguing aspirants, the profligate and the vicious, had usurped the province of pastors and the Sees of bishops. The scriptures gave place to the decretals, and secular passions were dominant in the most sacred spheres.

Huss was profoundly affected and afflicted by what he saw around him. In common with many others, he recognized the necessity of a thorough and radical reform. In the writings of Milicz and Janow, and in the fruits of their labors, he could not but have discerned signs of hope. There were, moreover, others conscientiously adhering to the old hierarchy, but demanding its renovation, whose voices must have reached him at Prague. But the words which seemed to his listening ear most earnest, hearty, and effective, came to him from beyond the British channel. In the Oxford professor, driven from his public post, but in his humble parish of Lutterworth scarcely escaping by a peaceful death the vengeance he had provoked, Huss recognized a man whose bold and daring views, extraordinary ability, and scriptural method of reform were powerfully to confirm the bent of his own mind. The influence of Wickliffe on the religious movement at Prague, and on the career of Huss, was most important. The death of the English queen in 1394, leaving her Bohemian attendants free to return to their own land, occurred before Huss had completed his university career; and through them, doubtless, the writings of Wickliffe were extensively published.

It is at this point that we are called to survey the connection of the Oxford professor with the student of Prague.

England had long maintained a jealous watchfulness against the usurpation of the See of Rome. From the time when the first Norman seized her scepter, she seemed more deeply conscious of her individuality and independence. No king was ever more unpopular than John Lackland, who mortgaged the kingdom to the pope. The rude barons, extorting Magna Charta from their monarch, were little inclined to surrender rights, if possible still more precious, to a foreign potentate. English patriotism prepared the way for Wickliffe. Men regarded him as the champion of the nation’s rights. For once religious reform was supported by the spirit of the nobles, and for some years, Wickliffe’s protector, the Duke of Lancaster, virtually swayed the scepter, and enabled him effectually to defy the priests and the monks, who were his most bitter opponents.

Wickliffe was born in 1324, in the small village of Wickliffe, in Yorkshire, of respectable and probably somewhat wealthy parents. He was educated at Merton college, Oxford. The title which he here won, in a college which produced Thomas Bradwardine, the Profound Doctor, Walter Burley, the Perspicuous Doctor, William Occam, the Singular Doctor, and others of eminence and merit, indicates his ability and success. Although a perfect master of the scholastic philosophy to which he applied himself, Wickliffe was honored with the appellation of the Evangelical or Gospel Doctor. His attention was early directed to the study and investigation of the Bible. In this respect his example had few precedents in the university. Fifty years before, Roger Bacon had said that scholastic studies were in higher repute than the knowledge of the scriptures. At first no exception seems to have been taken to Wickliffe’s course. The language of his enemies attests his high standing. He is spoken of as a most eminent theological doctor, "accounted second to none in philosophy, and in scholastic attainments incomparable."

The first of his works which he made public, indicates his acquaintance, through the pages of the New Testament, with a Christianity compared with which what bore its name was a distorted and grotesque caricature. It is entitled "The Last Age of the Church," and seems to have been suggested by the general apprehension excited throughout Europe on account of the plague, and the strange phenomena by which it was accompanied. Fearful natural visitations and signs filled Christendom with alarm. When Wickliffe was in his fourteenth year, the great comet appeared. For several succeeding years the ravages of the locusts were fearfully destructive. An earthquake of unusual violence devastated Cyprus, Greece, Italy, and the valleys of the Alps as far as Basle. Mountains were swallowed up. In some places whole villages were overthrown. The air was thick, pestilential, stifling. Wine fermented in the casks. Fiery meteors appeared in the heavens. A gigantic pillar of flame was seen exactly over the papal palace of Avignon. A second earthquake nearly destroyed Basle. At Avignon (1334) persons of every age and sex were said, in the heat and drought which prevailed, to have changed their skins like serpents. Scales fell from the face, the neck, the hands. The populace, seized with madness, scourged and lacerated their half-naked bodies as they ran howling through the streets.

But these self-inflictions were not to be compared with the excesses that the Flagellants were guilty of thirteen years later. The plague that now ravaged Europe threatened to exterminate its inhabitants. It touched a sound and healthy body as fire touches tinder, and from the first moment all hope was abandoned. The victim was suddenly covered with black spots like burns, and not unfrequently dropped down dead almost before he was aware of the attack. At Basle, fourteen thousand people were destroyed by it; at Strasbourg and Erfurt, sixteen thousand; while in Italy its progress and desolations have been immortalized by the pen of Boccacio. The consternation was universal. Men that never prayed before, prayed now. Some few gave themselves up to voluptuous and luxurious indulgence; but the great mass trembled, and thousands went so far as to join the ranks of the Flagellants. Never had there been such seriousness, such alarm. Vice shrunk back abashed into the shade. Crime seemed paralyzed in its stronghold.

All these things were familiar to Wickliffe. Some of them took place while he was yet a student at Oxford, and at Oxford he met students from the continent to whom the scenes themselves had been present, witnessed realities. He had not yet taken his second degree when the plague visited Europe. His own mind undoubtedly was deeply impressed; and while he wrote of "The Last Age of the Church," the impression had not passed from the minds of others. Indeed, it was not until August, 1348, that the destructive malady made its appearance at Dorchester in England. Its havoc was dreadful. It was regarded as the work of the destroying angel, premonitory to the final doom of the world. The gross and revolting corruptions of the church were, by men far less severe in their convictions than Wickliffe, accounted its procuring cause. Wickliffe seized the occasion to speak out words of solemn admonition and threatening. Worthless in its prophetic character, the treatise is valuable chiefly for the bold tone of utterance in which it denounces the prevalent sins of the age. It would be eagerly listened to, at least by many of his countrymen; as in the plague of 1666 even the Non-conformists were welcome to the pulpits of London, and thousands hung upon their words.

Never was a rebuke more plainly called for. The pictures left us of ecclesiastical vice and abuse are worthy of an original in Pandemonium. Petrarch, whose devotion sent him to Rome in the Jubilee of 1350, and carried him scrupulously through all the prescribed ritual of the pilgrims that he might attain the blessing, was shocked to observe the doings in the court of the pope. Avignon was to him "that Western Babylon, that he hated like Tartarus." He describes it as "a terrestrial hell, a residence of fiends and devils, a receptacle of all that is wicked and abominable." "Why," he asks, "should I speak of truth, where not only the houses, palaces, courts, churches, and the thrones of popes and cardinals, but the very earth and air appear to teem with lies? A future state, heaven, hell and judgment, are openly turned into ridicule as childish fables. ... Whatever perfidy and treachery; whatever barbarity and pride; whatever immodesty and unbridled lust you have ever heard or read of; in a word, whatever impiety and immorality either now is or ever was scattered over all the world, you may find here amassed in one heap." Rome was no better than Avignon, and the poison of the heart spread to the extremities of the ecclesiastical body.

What the state of England was can easily be gathered from the complaint of "Piers Plowman," and the pictures left us in Chaucer’s rhymes. Wickliffe saw Antichrist around him on all sides, and his words, however stinging, were too palpably true to be gainsayed. His career was largely shaped by the influences already noted, and he pursued it unfaltering to the end. The mendicant monks, at first acceptable for their zeal and poverty, had now become the curse of Christendom. They were the militia of the pope—ecclesiastical robbers and banditti. At Paris and Prague, as well as Oxford, they had become a nuisance. But long before Gerson exposed them, they were arraigned by Wickliffe. His blows fell fast and heavy, and excited against him the envenomed rage of his foes. He succeeded, however, in greatly limiting their rapacity and turbulence. In the midst of this conflict, the pope revived his claim on England for tribute and homage. Edward III laid the claim before parliament. It was resolved that it should be resisted; and the pen of Wickliffe was summoned to the task of its refutation.

But Wickliffe’s great work was the translation of the Old and New Testaments—the first complete English version of the Bible. He employed his "poor priests" to multiply copies of it. These were widely circulated. The effect was wonderful. The germ of Protestantism was planted in English soil—two centuries later to spring up to a vigorous growth. No episcopal scrutiny, espionage, or authority could root it out. "The Evangelical Doctor" vindicated the justice of his title. It was in vain that the attempt was made to silence or condemn him. To the English councils, and to the summons of the pope at Avignon, he paid little regard. From the first he was shielded by persons high in power; to the last he replied without the least trepidation, in plainer language than papal courts were wont to hear. Notwithstanding all the measures of persecution taken against him, driving him first from the headship of Canterbury Hall, and afterwards from Oxford, he died quietly in his own parish of Lutterworth, at the age of sixty-one years (1384).

The writings of Wickliffe were numerous; and though some of them were obscured with scholastic subtleties, yet others, in which he sets forth his religious doctrines based on the sole authority of scripture, are sufficiently perspicuous. Of his numerous treatises, many are of a practical character, adapted to the comprehension of the common people. Scattered among them are passages of exceeding beauty, and some in which we recognize the deep and fervent devotion of the author. It is his Trialogos, however, that has acquired most notoriety. It is in this work that he impugns the doctrine of transubstantiation, and presents what may be regarded as his theological system. This was the work which traversed Europe, and attracted most attention at Prague. It is a compendious review of the religious questions of the age, and embraces the sum and substance of Wickliffe’s religious opinions.

These opinions are nearly related to those held two centuries later, by the Puritans of the Elizabethan age. On the subject of justification by faith, his views are indistinct and ill-defined when compared with those of Luther. But the same is true of nearly all the reformers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. His predestinarian notions fall little, if at all, short of those of Calvin. The prevalence of pilgrimages and image worship led him to denounce these abuses of devotion with unsparing severity. Of excommunication and papal interdict he stood in no fear. He treated them only with deserved contempt. Whatever an ideal pope might be, the actual pope was Antichrist. It was enough that the church had one Supreme Head in heaven. To give it another on earth was to make it a monster. The order of the hierarchy was odious and unscriptural. Presbyters and bishops, on New Testament authority, he accounted equal in rank. The church invisible was the simple, and the church visible the mixed, body of Christ. The seven sacraments of the church were all admitted, though in a qualified sense, by Wickliffe. It is evident that his exposition of their significance would strip them of all that peculiar importance which was attributed to them by the prevalent superstitions of the age. The fasts of the church, which substituted fish for flesh, were food fastings. The cumbrous ceremonies which disfigured its services, he would have reduced to a simpler ritual. Church music had no charms for him, when it charmed the thoughts of men from the words sung to the manner of performance. Judicial astrology, which was strangely prevalent in his age, found in him an unsparing assailant. Some strange sentiments have been ascribed to him which are not to be found in his writings, but which, probably, were extorted from his scholastic propositions. One of his chief heresies, as charged upon him by his enemies, was the doctrine that "Dominion is founded in grace." Here, however, he seems to have merely followed the lead of the apostle Paul, when he said, "All things are yours"; for civil authority and jurisdiction found nowhere a more strenuous defender than Wickliffe. The fanaticism of the later Anabaptists had no place in his views or character. He did, indeed, maintain the supremacy of civil tribunals over the persons of ecclesiastics, as well as over the accumulated possessions of the church; but these views and theories were justified by the reformation, which, less than two centuries later, adopted them in England. Church endowments Wickliffe regarded as inconsistent with the purity and proper constitution of a spiritual body. He opposed the civil jurisdiction of ecclesiastics, and accounted tithes as the alms of the people, and not to be extorted against their free choice.

It is evident that most of Wickliffe’s views were drawn from scripture. They were enforced by his own peculiar and impressive energy of language. In the university of Oxford, as well as in various parts of England, they took deep root. The minds of men were in a state to yield them a careful attention. The singular visitations of providence by earthquakes and the plague, the incredible and enormous corruptions of the church, the overgrown pretensions and claims of the popes, the sympathy of the Duke of Lancaster and of others high in power with the new opinions, and their admiration of Wickliffe, conspired to secure for his words a favorable reception, and to give them a powerful effect. His writings had acquired a notoriety that would secure them, after his death, a candid and careful perusal on the distant banks of the Moldau. It was all in vain that the bishops, in the council of London, condemned them. The seed was sown—it was taking root, and no ecclesiastical police could root it out. 

The spread of Wickliffe’s doctrines could not be confined to England. There were various channels by which they would be sure, ere long, to reach Bohemia. One of these has been already noted. The attendants of Anne of Luxembourg, queen of England, returning upon her death (1394) to their native land, would naturally spread abroad a knowledge of the new opinions. Huss himself says (reply to John Stokes, 1411) that for twenty years they had been known in Bohemia. Of course they must have been brought to Prague before the death of Wickliffe. Nor was this all. It was a common practice with the scholars of that age to visit the different universities of Europe, disseminating their own philosophical and theological views, and at the same time imbibing those of others. By their means every novelty in the moral or religious world was soon ventilated and spread abroad.

But among these knights-errant of literature, no one in that age exhibited a more adventurous and enterprising spirit than Jerome Faulfisch, or Jerome of Prague, as he is more commonly called. He was by several years the senior of Huss, full his equal in zeal for knowledge, far more impulsive in feeling, and remarkably enthusiastic in his devotion to whatever enterprise he undertook.

He had traveled through different lands, but made the longest stay in England. At Oxford he became acquainted with the writings of Wickliffe. The fame of the Evangelical Doctor was yet fresh within its halls, and his views were embraced or favored by a large number of the students. Jerome was struck with the ability with which they were presented, and was especially gratified by the manly tone in which they rebuked the errors and vices of the age. He transcribed several of his books, or caused to be transcribed, and bore them back with him on his return to Bohemia (1397–8).

Jerome was not a man to conceal his sentiments or disguise his aims. He gave free expression to his opinions on the subjects discussed by the English reformer, and to his estimate of the man. He found himself at Prague surrounded by many inquiring minds, and the new views which he advanced could not fail to draw attention. But among the members of the university opinions were divided. Some were bitterly opposed to the positions taken by the "Evangelical Doctor," and few if any voices were raised decidedly in their favor.

At first—so we are assured by one historian—Huss himself shared deeply in the popular prejudice. Shortly after his return from Oxford, in 1398, Jerome is said to have shown Huss one of the books of Wickliffe which he had brought back with him. Huss regarded it as heretical, and spoke severely against it. He advised Jerome either to burn it or throw it into the Moldau, lest it should fall into the hands of persons eager for innovation. The story at least is not improbable. To the last, there were some of Wickliffe’s views which Huss never accepted, and at this early period he was probably acquainted with but a small portion of his writings.

But in the following years (previous to 1403) the books of Wickliffe seem to have been more extensively read and circulated at Prague. They begin at least to attract in a special manner the attention of the university. A large number of his articles had been already condemned by the London synod, and it did not become the masters of Prague to be less orthodox than the English clergy. A still larger number was selected from the books of the English reformer by John Hubner, who proposed their condemnation by the university.

To propose was to secure their sentence, especially after they had been interpolated, as is asserted, by Master Hubner. A blind prejudice existed against whatever bore the name of Wickliffe. It was enough that his views had been pronounced heretical by the English synod, and that his course had enraged the English clergy. To add a new impulse to the zeal of the German party in the university, Wickliffe’s philosophy—for he was a Realist—greatly contributed. The Germans were Nominalists, while the Bohemians inclined to side with Wickliffe.

A convocation of the university was summoned (May 28, 1403) to examine and pronounce upon the controverted doctrines. The theological faculty met also. A third and full assembly of the doctors, masters, bachelors, and all the students of the Bohemian portion of the university, was held at the church called Nigra Rosa. Huss himself is said to have been present. But few voices were lifted in favor of the obnoxious doctrines. Huss was not himself prepared to defend them, for, by his own account, there were certain portions of them which he could not accept. He sought, however, to prevent any decisive action. But in spite of the opposition of himself and his friends, sentence against them was pronounced in the following words: "Know all men, that all the doctors and masters here assembled, with one consent, and with scarcely the show of objection, have rejected, refuted, and condemned the forty-five articles of Wickliffe, as in their sense heretical, erroneous, or scandalous." And they "charge all and each, subjects of this nation, that no one shall rashly presume to defend or teach, whether openly or secretly, any articles of such nature, and this under penalty of expulsion from the said nation."

Anyone, moreover, who had not attained to the degree of master, was forbidden to read the books of Wickliffe, especially those on the Eucharist, his Dialogue and Trialogue, in which the aforesaid doctrines were more prominently and plainly brought forward.

Whatever the views of Huss may have been—and undoubtedly he accepted some of the condemned articles—at this time he made no strenuous show of opposition to the sentence. He was probably aware that it would have been utterly ineffectual. But the decision may have been, and probably was, the means of drawing his attention to a closer examination of the whole subject. He, at least, as a master of the university, was not prohibited from the perusal of Wickliffe’s books. He might be willing to wait and improve future opportunities for pursuing the course that he should deem wisest after more mature deliberation.

Meanwhile the career of Huss was opening with bright promise. His position was one of high influence, and was becoming stronger and more important every day. He was popular not only in the university, but in the pulpit. In 1401 he had been selected, for his zeal and eloquence as well as his purity of life and religions devotion, to occupy one of the most important posts in the whole kingdom. He was made Confessor of Queen Sophia of Bavaria, second wife of King Wenzel. She was a woman of strong mind and high character. Through her influence Huss was received with favor at court, and acquired powerful friends.

Through one of these, the founder of Bethlehem chapel, then resident at Prague and present at court, he was soon called to occupy a position of still more commanding influence. It was in the pulpit of that chapel that the great work of Huss’s life was to

be achieved. We must trace the erection and endowment of this edifice to two causes—one, the enterprise excited by the example of the emperor in his architectural improvements, and the other to that zeal for more popular religious instruction which

had been enkindled by the labors of Conrad, Milicz, and Janow. To add to the architectural beauty of Prague by the erection of an elegant structure for public worship, and to afford facilities for the preaching of the word of God independent of the encumbrance of rites and ceremonies, were objects which combined to draw out the large liberality of the two men most concerned in the founding of the chapel.

It was built in the closing years of the fourteenth century. A rich merchant of Prague—Kreutz by name—gave the ground, and John of Mulheim founded the chapel. The intention of the latter is expressed in the deed of foundation. Anxious for the salvation of his own soul, and the spiritual refreshment of believers; and considering that, while in Prague there were many places suitable for purposes of divine worship, there was none specially provided simply for the preaching of the word of God, and that preachers in the Bohemian tongue especially were thus forced to go from place to place in private houses and secret conventicles, he determines to erect, on the ground granted by the merchant Kreutz, a chapel in honor of the Holy Innocents, to be known by the name of Bethlehem, with the simple intent that common people and Christian believers might there "be refreshed by the bread of holy preaching."

The erection of the building was commenced in the year 1391, but it was not completed till 1400. The first occupants of the pulpit were John Protiva, of Neudorf, and afterwards Stephen of Colin, both of them learned theologians and glowing patriots. But at the court of the king the founder of the chapel became acquainted with Huns, and a warm friendship sprang up between the nobleman and the youthful preacher. The result was, that the founder himself selected Huss to fill the pulpit of Bethlehem chapel (1402). Doubtless he discerned in him those characteristics and qualifications which fitted him to carry out the original design of the endowment. A wiser choice could not have been made. It justified the sagacity of the nobleman, whose friendship was warmly reciprocated by Huss. The latter speaks of him frequently in his letters, and makes mention of him in terms of kindness and respect.

Thus the chapel becomes identified with the life and career of Huss. There for full twelve years he occupied an independent position. The benefice, if such it must be called, was not the gift of prelatic favor, but left its possessor free from ecclesiastical restraint.

The recorded design of the founder of the chapel throws light upon the successful efforts of Milicz and Janow in bringing over others to their views. John of Mulheim was evidently one of a class at Prague who were zealous for the dissemination of scripture truth. Nor, unless he had been cognizant of a state of things which would warrant the measure, would he have made provision for the endowment of the chapel. He was confident that a preacher there would not lack for an audience, and he intended that the endowment should be a perpetual foundation. So long as the yearly income of the endowment did not exceed a certain amount, it was to be given to the support of the preacher. In case of an excess, provision was to be made for the care of the chapel and the purchasing of such books as the preacher might need. When it had increased so as to suffice for the support of two preachers, another was to be chosen as a colleague of the first. In case there was still an excess, the balance should be devoted to the support of charity students at the university.

The preacher was, moreover, obligated to personal residence in the city. He was not to imitate those who sought their own and not the things of Christ, receiving the pay but not performing the labors; and he was to withdraw from his post of duty only in case of necessity, and with the permission of the archbishop or his vicar.

The election of the preacher, after the founder’s death, was to be vested in the three senior masters of the Caroline college, belonging to the Bohemian nation, who were to sit and advise with the mayor of the old city. The last was to select one of three whom the first should nominate as most capable of discharging the duties of the office. The three masters, together with the preacher, should direct in regard to the disposition of the fund for charity students, and the conduct of those by whom it should be received.

The king sanctioned the endowment; Archbishop John of Jenstein laid the corner-stone of the edifice; and the pope, some years later, confirmed the foundation. The mayor and city council released the ground without requiring the payment of the customary tag paid on the transfer of property from municipal to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and declared it free from all future city taxes and assessments.

Although the edifice was not completed till some years later, the first preacher, Protiva of Neudorf, commenced his labors as early as 1395. The merchant Kreutz, in the following year, appointed as altarist Matthias of Tucap, who probably remained at his post till 1403. But previous to this time Huss had commenced his labors as the preacher of the chapel. He was inducted by the vicar of the archbishop, March 14, 1402.

His appointment seems to have been received with general favor. The archbishop was his warm and steadfast friend. He cooperated with him in several measures of reform, and manifested such confidence as to invite information from him in regard to the abuses and corruptions of the church.

From the first Huss was popular among the citizens, and his personal qualities combined with his eloquence to secure their love and attachment. Bethlehem chapel, notwithstanding its spaciousness, was crowded by throngs eager to hear the youthful preacher expound the word of God. With honest zeal he set forth the divine commands, reprehending with just severity every departure from them. The excesses and vices of every class were faithfully, perhaps often sternly, rebuked. The blameless life of the preacher gave double force to his words. Men were forced to respect him in his conscientious discharge of official duty. They saw in him, not the actor nor the mere orator, but the devoted minister of Christ, who practiced himself what he preached to others.

For several years he continued to fill the pulpit under no suspicion of heresy. Many, it is true, must have felt the severity of his admonitions—the indirect condemnation of their lives by the doctrines which he taught—and have been forced to regard him with secret hate. But, strong at court and in popular favor, it was only in whispers that dissatisfaction with him could be expressed.

Meanwhile he was himself taking enlarged views of the great question of reform. To this result he was brought in part, undoubtedly, by the perusal of Wickliffe’s writings. The more he perused them, the more accordant they appeared to be with his own views. Speaking on this point at a later period, he says, himself, "I am drawn to him (Wickliffe) by the reputation he enjoys with the good, not the bad priests at the university of Oxford, and generally with the people, although not with bad, covetous, pomp-loving, dissipated prelates and priests. I am attracted by his writings, in which he expends every effort to conduct all men back to the law of Christ, and especially the clergy, inviting them to let go pomp and dominion of the world, and live, with the apostles, according to the law of Christ. I am attracted by the love he has for the law of Christ, maintaining the truth, and holding that not one jot or tittle of it could fail."

We discern here the grounds upon which