you please," rejoined Huss, "let it be instruction, correction, or decision; for I call God to witness that I speak nothing but from the heart." "Then," said d'Ailly, taking Huss at his word, yet overlooking the condition which was ever present to his mind, "since thou dost submit thyself to the instruction and mercy of the council, know that this has been resolved upon by near sixty doctors, of whom some have already gone away, whose places have been taken by the Parisians; and it has been confirmed unanimously by the council: First, that thou humbly declarest that thou didst err in those articles that have been produced against thee; next, that thou promisest, on thy oath, neither to hold nor to teach such opinions any longer; thirdly, that thou dost publicly recant all those articles." When many had spoken much to the same purpose, Huss finally said: "I repeat, that I am ready to be instructed by the council; but I beseech and conjure you by him who is the God of us all, that you do not force me to what I cannot do without contradicting my conscience, and without danger of eternal damnation, that you do not force me to renounce upon my oath, all the articles which have been brought against me. For I know that to abjure means to renounce a previously cherished error. As now many articles have been imputed to me, which to hold or to teach never entered my thoughts, how can I renounce them by an oath ? But as regards those articles which really belong to me, I will cheerfully do what you require, if any one can persuade me to another opinion." Upon this, the emperor said: " Why mayest thou not, with good conscience, renounce all that has been charged upon thee by false witnesses? I do not hesitate to abjure all possible errors; yet from this it by no means follows that I have ever taught such errors.' Huss replied: "Most gracious emperor! the word abjure means something different from that which your majesty expresses by it." And cardinal

Zabarella here remarked: "There will be handed thee a tolerably mild form of abjuration; and then thou canst easily make up thy mind whether thou wilt make it or not." We shall be able, perhaps, hereafter to find some clue to the form of recantation which the cardinal had in mind; and this will lead us to divine a remarkable secret

connection in the train of events. The emperor then spoke again, repeating the language of d'Ailly: "Thou hast heard that two ways are proposed to thee,-first that thou shouldest publicly renounce those doctrines which have now been publicly condemned, and submit thyself to the judgment of the council; which if thou doest, thou wilt experience the mercy of the council. But if thou dost persist in defending thy opinions, the council will no doubt understand how to deal with thee according to the laws.” Huss now said to the emperor: "Most gracious emperor, I make no resistance to anything the council may decide with regard to me, I except but one thing-doing wrong to God and to my own conscience, and saying that I have taught errors which never entered into my thoughts. But I entreat that liberty may be granted me from you to explain my opinions still farther, so as to give a sufficient answer to some things objected to me; namely, concerning the offices of the church.' But the same that had already been said was repeated by others and by the emperor. "Thou art old enough," said the emperor," and canst not fail to understand what I said to thee yesterday and to-day. We cannot do otherwise than believe trustworthy witnesses. If, according to Scripture, by two or three witnesses every word shall be established, how much more shall this hold good where the witnesses are so many and so great men! If, then, thou art reasonable, thou wilt accept with contrite heart the penance appointed thee by the council, and renounce manifest errors, and promise on thy oath never to hold forth the like for the future; if not, there are laws according to which thou wilt be judged by the council." One of the prelates now spoke and said, We ought not to believe even the recantation of Huss, since he had written that though he recanted he would reserve his private conviction.* Huss stood firmly to his earlier declaration. Paletz was for showing that Huss contradicted himself, in protesting that he defended no error, and no error of Wickliff, while however in his discourses and writings he defended errors of Wickliff; if he denied this,

* See what Huss says in the letter already quoted concerning this perversion of his language.

such writings of his could be laid before the council. The same was said by the emperor; and to this Huss replied: "Gladly would I have it done; and could wish that not these merely, but other books of mine might be laid before the council." Several other charges connected with the Hussite movements in Prague were then laid against Huss. We will repeat none of these, as we have already spoken of the same matters in narrating the events themselves. One thing only needs to be mentioned, as serving to give us a clearer insight into the character of the proceedings against Huss, to show how no means were left untried to procure his condemnation, and what presence of mind, what power of faith the man must have possessed; what resolution, what summoning of every energy was required on his part when, after having suffered so long and so severe an imprisonment, where he had passed through so much sickness and experienced so much that must have grieved and depressed his spirits, and after having been kept awake through the whole preceding night by tooth-ache, he was compelled, in that long trial, to reply to such an unimaginable variety of attacks and surmises from so many different quarters. At this time, after all the charges had been brought against Huss, Paletz had the effrontery to step forward and say: "I call God to witness, in presence of the emperor and of all the prelates here assembled, that in these complaints against Huss I have been actuated by no hatred, no ill will towards him; I have only felt bound to the due discharge of my doctor's oath.' The same said Michael de Causis. Hereupon Huss declared: "But I commend all this to our Father in heaven, who will righteously judge the cause of both parties." And cardinal d'Ailly was biassed enough by the interests of the church party to express, as he had before done, his admiration of the mildness of Paletz, who he said might have cited things a great deal worse than he had done from the writings of Huss. But when Huss, worn down and completely exhausted, was led back to his prison, the noble-hearted knight of Chlum hastened to visit him, under the full influence of the impression made by his appearance and defence of himself, and seizing his hand pressed it in a way which must have told more than words.

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Huss himself describes the effect which this testimony of friendship, made at such a time, produced on his mind: Oh, what joy did I feel," he writes, "from the pressure of my lord John's hand, which he was not ashamed to give me, the wretched outcast heretic, in my chains!"*

As regards the further proceedings of the council in this affair of Huss, it remains for us to say, that the emperor, after the defendant had been removed, made a proposition to the council, declaring to them, that Huss, as had been clearly proved by many witnesses, had taught so many pernicious heresies, that he deserved, in his judgment, and for some of them singly, to perish at the stake; but though he should recant, he never should be allowed to preach or to teach again, nor permitted to return to Bohemia; for, owing to the great number of his adherents in that country, it would be easy for him to excite anew still more violent commotions, and the evil would only grow worse. The emperor, furthermore, advised that those doctrines of Huss, on which the council had pronounced sentence of condemnation, should be made known throughout Bohemia, Poland, and other countries, where those heresies had found admittance; and that the spiritual and secular powers in those lands should be called upon to coöperate in bringing to punishment those who taught such doctrines. Severe measures, also, should be taken against the adherents of the Hussite doctrines, who were to be found in Constance. As we have already said, several persons in the council, seizing upon those words of Huss, in which he humbly professed himself ready to be instructed and to recant, without taking them in his own sense with the condition which he presupposed, were led to entertain the hope, that Huss might yet be persuaded to recant: and for this reason the final decision of his fate was put off, and several attempts were made to persuade him to recantation. But even in this case it was thought not advisable, and the emperor himself had expressed the same opinion, that he should be restored to full liberty. Not without reason, it was supposed that Huss would still never deviate from the main direction which he had always taken. The

* Opp. I. fol. 68, 2; Ep. 33,

council had drawn up a resolution with regard to Huss in case he should recant, by which little more was granted him than barely permission to live. It ran as follows: Since it is evident, on the ground of certain conjectures and outward signs, that Huss repents of the sins he has committed, and is disposed to return with upright heart to the truth of the church, therefore the council grants, with pleasure, that he may abjure and recant his heresies, and the heresies of Wickliff, as he voluntarily offers to do, and as he himself begs the council to release him from the ban which had been pronounced on him; so he is hereby released. But inasmuch as many disturbances and much scandal among the people have arisen from these heresies, and inasmuch as great danger has accrued to the church by reason of his contempt of the power of the keys, therefore the council decrees, that he must be deposed from the priestly office, and from all other offices. The care of seeing to the execution of this decree is assigned to several bishops at the council, and Huss was to be condemned to imprisonment during life in some place appointed for that purpose.*

*

Huss himself was entirely ignorant of these transactions within the council; and being resolved not to recant till convinced of his errors, after what he had heard expressed at the council, he had nothing else in prospect but the stake, and nothing to wait for but the decision of his fate. Accordingly, with these expectations, he wrote, on the 10th of June, a letter to Bohemia, which he addressed to persons of all conditions, rich and poor, men and women. He exhorts them, in the first place, faithfully to adhere to the truth which he had always set before them from the law of God; but, if anything had ever been uttered or written by him contrary to divine truth, he entreated them not to follow him in that thing. Furthermore, if any person had ever observed any lightness in his words or his actions, he begged such person not to lay it up, but pray God the Lord, that he would forgive him for it. He gives them admonitions suited to every condition; to the knights, burghers, and artisans; to masters and students. He re

* V. d. Hardt, IV. pp. 432 and 433.