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JOHN HUSS AND JEROME OF

PRAGUE: A SKETCH.

When John Huss was asked at Constance "if he had really said that he wished his soul might be in the same place as the soul of the English Wycliffe," his fearless "Yes" provoked the derisive laughter of the council. The intrepid Rector of Lutterworth had been dead thirty years. But there are periods in the world's history in which the waiting echoes take up every word that is spoken for good, and carry it off to live forever among the reverberations of the distant hills. And there are winds that catch up every little scrap of paper on which the finding of a lost truth is recorded, and bear it direct to some prepared mind, countries or ages remote. Thus the spoken protests and the written thoughts of our own Wycliffe penetrated the Bohemian forests, and wound their way into the cells of the University of Prague. In one of these cells a young scholar was sighing for undiscovered truth, and longing for some one to cut a path through the tangled forest of errors that lay around. The works of Wycliffe reached him at the right moment, struck at the root of this false growth, and, clearing a way through the thicket, showed to the young aspirant a free prospect beyond.

John Huss was born in July, 1369, at the village of Hussinetz, which lies on a hillslope above the river Flanitz, in Bohemia. Peasant-born, trained to labor, and inured to hardship, the proprietor of his native village, the feudal lord, saw in him the rudiments of greatness, and sent him to the University of their own beloved Prague. Eleven years passed, and the peasant-boy of sixteen had grown into the learned scholar of twenty-seven,-blameless in life, gentle and winning in manners, enjoying the respect and friendship of those around him. Then came his degree of Master of Arts. Two years later he was lecturing to

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of age. But power poisoned his unsteady nature, and his character became almost intolerable to his people. And now comes into view one of those golden bands which bind all the scattered pages of history into one volume. Our own degenerate Richard II. married Anne, sister of this disreputable Wenceslaus, an unpromising link, one would have said, either for England or for Bohemia. But Anne was of another nature from her royal brother; and before long she had won in England the pleasant name of "the Good Queen Anne." She was an ardent Wycliffite; for the English reformer's mind was still pervading society, either provoking hatred to his doctrines or infusing the love of truth in opposition to established error. With Queen Anne on the throne, England became an object of interest to Bohemia. A young Bohemian nobleman, who had completed his curriculum at Prague, set forth for Oxford. There he heard of the novelties which had made Wycliffe's name famous throughout the land. He heard how he had boldly given the Bible into the hands of an untaught people; how he had inveighed against the encroachments of the Roman hierarchy; how he had appealed from pope, priest, and council to the Scriptures; and how, when cited before a council at Lambeth by order of the outraged Gregory XI., he had so nobly vindicated the nineteen propositions which the pope had condemned that his judges were appalled by his ability and courage, and had suffered him to depart in safety, to continue to use his pulpit as a chair of what at that period was enlightened theology, and then to lie down and die in peace on his own pillow at Lutterworth. This was a thrilling story for the young nobleman to tell on his return. But he did more than charm his fellowcollegians with an exciting tale, for he had drunk deeply of the sentiments of the British reformer; and, still more, he had brought back with him a large number of Wycliffe's writings. One day he went to John Huss, and spread these writings before him. Huss closed the door and sat down to read. He lived long with these books. He lived in them; and, when he came out from his cell, it was to declaim against the infallibility of the pope, against auricular confession, and against the great "standing army" of monks whose intel

lectual prostration was as complete as their moral corruption.

Such a true and living man could not long dwell alone; such a vivifying influence was sure to spread. A little knot of like-minded friends gathered about him; a little band of admiring and sympathizing disciples encircled him. Among them was a fiery knight of Bohemia, whose name as a scholar was widely known as Hieronymus Pragensis, whose name as a martyr is beloved by the English Church as "Jerome of Prague." He was younger by several years than John Huss, but was his superior in intellectual power, in general cultivation, in vehement energy of spirit, and in a gift of eloquence which was torrent-like when once it had broken forth and had found a rocky channel for its flow. His voice was of that rare kind which is perfectly musical in its notes, and which has the power of expanding in volume and of varying its key in perfect adaptation to its subject. His ardor was of too fiery a nature to permit him to remain long in one place. Now he was in England, eagerly reading at Oxford; then he was at Paris; we search for him again, and he is at Jerusalem; next he is wandering in Hungary; again he is reposing for a moment in Vienna; no longer at Vienna, he must be looked for in Russia; presently he is at Cologne, the queen of the Rhine cities, or at Heidelberg, that beautiful university city of the Neckar. Wherever he went, men stared at the young scholarknight with alarm and prejudice, but, nevertheless, stopped to listen to a speech that bore everything before it. Sometimes he said strange things indeed, for at Oxford he had learned what he could never forget. He, too, had brought back with him some writings of our English Wycliffe which had not previously penetrated into the old city of Prague. He came back, exclaiming, "Until now we had nothing but the shell of knowledge: Wycliffe was the first to lay open the kernel."

The young Jerome eagerly joined the group of students who were gathered round John Huss. Huss was calm, sustained, the creature of no sudden impulse, but the strong embodiment of principle. It was not his taste to be in the front of contending parties: much rather would he have lived in the quiet exercise of the Christian graces

and in deep communion with his God. But conviction was, with him, action: as he believed, so he must live; and, if he once planted his foot advisedly on a given road, that road would he follow until it ended in eternity. But when his calm eye met the gaze of his young disciple, and when he caught the sound of that disciple's protesting voice, the soul of the elder went out to meet the soul of the younger, and a bond was forged between them which was but strengthened in the after-fires of persecution. The two men, so different and yet so alike,so different in native character, so alike in conviction, opinion, purpose, and fate,—made together one great power which wrought marvellously on their own and the after age. The man of sober principle was stimulated by the youth of generous impulse, and the youth of reckless ardor was chastened by the man of profound experience. So the beautiful compensation was complete. Thus each one supplied what the other lacked; and still they joined hands for mutual encouragement in enterprise, for mutual support in trial; and so closely were they linked together that, when we talk of the attempted Reformation of the fifteenth century, we speak in the same breath of "John Huss and Jerome of Prague."

In 1401 Huss was appointed preacher at the Bethlehem Church in Prague, and there he preached earnestly and resolutely against the abuses of the Roman Church; while in a synod at Prague, in the archbishop's presence, he declaimed with amazing freedom against the vices of the clergy. The archbishop, Zbynek, was a man who liked to keep a good charger in his stall, and, vaulting into his saddle, was ready at any moment to prick forth to battle. But he wished to have no glaring scandals in his diocese; and so he took counsel with Huss about the prevailing abuses of the day, especially about the impostures of false miracles, which then abounded. There was then a pretended miracle going on in the ruins of the church of Wilsnach, where pilgrims came trooping from far Denmark, from the pine forests of Norway, from Sweden, Hungary, and Poland, and where thousands were in the habit of going to be cured by what they were told was Christ's real blood. Glaring scandals ripened around the spot. A grave committee of

three masters, of whom Huss was one, went forth to take evidence on the spot; and they brought back such formidable stories of lying pilgrims and spurious miracles that the young archbishop arose in great wrath, banished all pilgrims, and forbade all pilgrimages in his diocese for the future. Then, feeling his tongue loosed by his ecclesiastical superior, Huss lifted up his voice, and from the pulpit, and by means of a powerful pamphlet also, denounced the blind miracle-hunting and the fraudulent miracleworking of the age. Students and citizens, nobility and the court itself, crowded to hear this favorite of the people. His name resounded throughout the German Empire. The eyes both of friends and foes were turned toward Bohemia.

So long as the opposition of Huss was considered only as the result of transient excitement, it was, or appeared to be, unnoticed. But when, to use the words of Erasmus, he afterward, by the reduction of mass and penance money, and of pious gifts in general, touched the sensitive feelings of the monks, abuse ran high against the enthusiast, the disturber of the peace, the "mover of sedition," the heretic and "pestilent fellow." The priests attached to Rome assailed the royal palace with petitions. At this time King Wenceslaus, by the advice of his physicians, was taking less wine and living more than usually in accordance with the wishes of his wife, an enlightened Bavarian princess, named Sophia. He despatched the petitioners with these words: "You shall leave my goose in peace who lays me golden eggs.' In the mean time the doctrines of Huss had already overpassed the boundaries of the country, and had widely spread, especially in Hungary, where the eloquent and zealous Jerome boldly preached before king and people, and where, as in Poland, a prejudice in favor of the Greek Church had already produced a species of reform.

In Prague the contest with Rome was not only carried on by words, but was represented by symbols. There was then a remarkable amount of intercourse between these two seats of learning,-Oxford in England and Prague in Bohemia; and a story has survived illustrative of the kind of influence which reached the Bohemian *The name "Huss" in the Bohemian dialect means a goose.

capital from our country. Two young men, James and Conrad Canterbury, undergraduates of Oxford, arrived at Prague, and fearlessly began to attack the pope's supremacy. Being speedily silenced by the rector, they turned their ingenuity in another direction. They were good hands at painting, and on the ball-room of their landlord they placed a most significant representation. On one side was represented the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, "meek and sitting upon an ass," before him the common people and children with olive branches, behind him his apostles, barefoot and in linen garments; on the other side, the pope, riding a charger decked with gold, silver, and precious stones, preceded by trumpeters and kettle-drummers, lifeguardsmen and soldiers, and followed by cardinals, also well mounted and richly dressed. Thousands of people daily crowded the hall, and exulted in the witty device. Great commotion was caused in Prague by this striking picture, and the Englishmen

had to retire.

But the time was now drawing on when the great antithesis was to be worked out by sterner weapons than the pencils of the young English students. The archbishop thought it time to appear on the stage himself.

He had but a small hold on the students of the university, where the reputation of Huss was so high that young men flocked from all parts of Germany to listen to his teachings as Professor of Theology. It is declared that at one time there were no fewer than forty thousand students residing in Prague. They had scant reverence for the archbishop. They called him the "Alphabetarius," or "the A B C doctor." He could hold a bridle more skilfully than a pen, and could judge a horse better than a thesis. He summoned Huss, and commanded him not to further insult the dignity of the pope, and, above all things, to abstain from the heresy of Wycliffe. Huss modestly replied that he "taught only the doctrines of Christ." Zbynek dismissed him, half-mildly, half-angrily, but himself inwardly determined to put an end to the affair by a single blow. The following day, in the palace of the archbishop, barricaded and surrounded by soldiers, the collected works of Wycliffe, most of the writings of Huss and Jerome, as well as those of

their predecessors, Milicz and Janow, altogether more than two hundred carefully written and splendidly bound volumes, were piled together and burned. A cry of indignation ran throughout Bohemia. Public opinion and taste were at once outraged. Even the priests, but the nobility especially, protested against this Vandal-like destruction. The queen wept, and Wenceslaus cursed aloud.

John Huss was not the man to be silenced by the vivid eloquence of these tongues of flame, though they uttered very warning denunciations. The following Sunday he ascended the pulpit, and commented on the conduct of his adversaries. "Fire," he cried, "does not consume truth. It is always a mark of a little mind to vent anger on inanimate and uninjurious objects: the books which are burned are a loss to the whole nation." He set to work afresh, translated many of the condemned writings into the language of the Slavonian race,-one of his translations is now in the library at Stockholm, carried thither by the Swedes at the close of the Thirty Years' War. At the same time he issued the first translation of the whole Bible among the people. Aided by Jerome, he wrote for them hymns which turned into melody the thoughts and feelings of their deepest life. Then the archbishop, hot from his great fire, interdicted him from preaching, in Bohemian, in the Bethlehem chapel; but he preached on to vast crowds. He was now Rector of the University of Prague, and from that exalted station he thundered against the sale of indulgences, the fire of purgatory, prayers for the dead, the worship of images, invocation of saints, auricular confession, communion in one kind, and transubstantiation.

This boldness raised the anger of the pope, John XXIII., who issued a bull summoning Huss to Bologna, where that pontiff was then holding his disreputable court. As this would be merely to walk into his grave, Huss disregarded the summons, declaring that the pope, who in ecclesiastical power was not above other priests, had no right to summon any one before him, and that he himself, John Huss, maintained the confession of Doctor Wycliffe. The king, the queen, the university, all interceded with the pope, but to no purpose. Sentence of excommunication was then pronounced against

Huss as a determined heretic. It was put forth with the most terrible formulas. If Master John Huss persisted twenty days longer in his disobedience to "the Holy Father" (the monster) John XXIII., the ban was to be proclaimed in all churches with ringing of bells and extinguishing of tapers. Every place that housed him, every man that bore him company, should lie under the same curse. Master John's person must be seized, condemned, and burned according to law; and Bethlehem chapel must be destroyed to its foundations, that no more heretics might nestle there. So ran the sentence of excommunication. When Huss heard the thunder, he said, "I appeal from the Roman court to the most just Judge and High Priest over all."

The pontiff was inflexible, and, as Huss stood firm, the city of Prague was placed under the terrible papal interdict. It was deserted by the clergy, the churches were closed, the dead were left unburied. The merchants grumbled on the quiet quays, the landlords sighed over their empty chambers, and Prague was on the point of starving. "It is Master Huss that hath brought the mischief," murmured one. "It is that firebreathing Jerome," said another. "It all comes of religious schism," gloomily remarked a third. Strife between the adherents of the old and of the new doctrines was unavoidable. Serious preparations for contest were made on both sides. The reformer's party was not by any means the least in either physical or moral strength. But the natural mildness and the patriotism of Huss made him abhor bloodshed and civil war. He acted, therefore, as noble confessors had done before him: he went into voluntary exile, that the strife of arms might be averted, and that Prague might be relieved from the fearful curse of the interdict. But, like Luther in the Wartburg, it was labor, and not repose, that he sought; and his remarkable work, "De Ecclesia," was the fruit of his visit to the fortress of the lords of Anstie. From time to time he moved about, shifting his quarters; but he was perpetually coming forth from his places of refuge to preach in the open air to vast multitudes of people who came to hear him. It is remarkable that as yet he remained personally uninjured. One cause of this fact, independently of the anxiety with which his

friends watched over his life, is thus explained by one of his enemies: "His manners are reserved and austere, his life and conduct a course of self-denial, and so far removed from vice that in this respect no one can find aught against him. His haggard and faded countenance, his tall, emaciated figure, his ready disposition to sympathize with and assist all men, even the meanest, attract adherents more even than his eloquence. The stupid people hold him as a saint, and as such they are persuaded that he can neither deceive nor be deceived." Events were now happening of the most momentous kind, and these were tending to raise the Protestant movement from its

narrow confines till all Europe should feel its power and do homage to its champions.

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What was to be done? scandals, such intolerable abuses of spiritual power, had been perpetrated in the very light of day that the stifled murmur on the lips of princes and people had at length broken out into a loud cry for reform.

The story of what came of it all—the calling of the famous Council of Constance, and its treatment of Huss and Jerome—will be told in another and concluding paper. S. FLETCHER WILLIAMS.

Scarborough, Eng.

WRITE HIS SERMON.

The

Christendom was scandalized and bewildered by three rival popes. The Italians had Balthazar Cossa, who, as John XXIII., set up his chair at Bologna; the French had Angelo Corario, reigning at Rimini as Gregory XII.; HOW A MINISTER WAS HELPED TO and the Spaniards had Peter de Lune, who, as Benedict XIII., reigned at Aragon. All these were infamous characters. Each declared on oath that he was Saint Peter's legitimate successor. All cursed one another, as only "vicars of Christ" can eurse. The puzzled laity went about begging, for pity's sake, to be told which of the three heads that seemed to have the nimbus around their brows was in truth Christ's vicar. John said that Benedict and Gregory were devils, and Benedict and Gregory gave a similarly affectionate certificate of character to John. As a wag of the time observed, the chair of Saint Peter was well-nigh broken by three popes all sitting down upon it at one time. Europe was in a state of civil war, and indulgences were freely sold to secure gold to carry on the contentions of these rival popes.

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This is the way it happened. It was Thursday morning. The working hours of one day had been spent in the anxious effort to decide on a subject for the next Sunday's sermon. The choice was still, to all appearances, as far as ever from being made. anxiety about it had become a painful solicitude, with a sense of fear and distress ready at any moment to turn into despair. For not the least part of the work of making a sermon is choosing the subject. Not that there are few things that need be said, nor few subjects appropriate to the pulpit,not this constitutes the difficulty. But a preacher is not an arrangement of millstones and hopper into which current event and moral principles and truth generally calcu lated to elevate and inspire may be thrown, and leave him only to draw the slide and take out the weekly grist.

That indefinable something called the "personal equation" is more potent and more imperious in the preacher's work than in any other. There must be a sympathy established and maintained between the pulpit and the pews,—a subtle, acute, vital sympathy,or the pulpit utterances become irrelevant, and the preacher's work becomes an affected, soulless, perfunctory business, for so much a year and certain perquisites. Now, it is this

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