'The Savior stood by him in pain,
Nor left him in sorrow forlorn,
And mitered blasphemers and tyrants in vain
Heaped on him their hatred and scorn.
He was meek as the innocent child,
He was firm as the storm stricken rock.'
Song of the Hussites
I bless Thee for the light that dawns e'en now upon my soul,
And brightens all the narrow way with glory from the goal.
—-
Now let Thy good word be fulfilled, and let Thy kingdom come,
And in Thine own best time, O Lord, take Thy poor servant home.'
IT has been said that a great calamity—and the same may be true of a strange, unique destiny—' stains backwards through all the leaves we have turned over in the book of life; all omens pointed to it, all paths led to it.' He whom the Council that day adjudged worthy of the death of fire had borne on his hand, probably for more than thirty years, a scar of fire.
One winter evening, in Prague, a group of boyish students were gathered round the hearth where the logs were blazing. A ' poor scholar,' the widow's son from Hussinec, who earned his bread by singing in the church choirs, sat amongst them. After his wont, he was absorbed in his book, which told of the martyrdom of St. Laurence; and suddenly he stretched out his hand to the flame, and held it there unmoved and silent, until a companion by force pulled it away. Questioned as to the reason of this extraordinary conduct, he answered simply, ‘I was only trying if I could bear any part of what St. Laurence did.'
The ardent boy grew to manhood, as strongly moved by heroic deed or purpose, as careless of self, sometimes perhaps as impulsive. Amidst abounding iniquity, he wore the white flower of a stainless life.' His contemporaries have drawn his portrait for us in words that deserve to be remembered for their beauty as well as their truth: His life glided on before our eyes from his very infancy, so holy, so pure, that no man could find in him a single fault. O man, truly pious, truly humble—who wast conspicuous by the luster of such great virtues—who wast wont to despise riches, and succor the poor, even to the experiencing of want thyself—whose place was by the bedside of the unfortunate—who didst invite by thy tears the most hardened hearts to repentance, and didst soothe rebellious spirits by the inexhaustible mildness of the Word! Thine it was to extirpate vice from every heart by the old remedy of the Scriptures, which sounded new from thy lips.’
But these labors, in which he delighted, were not the only ones to which God called him. Along with His word, which He put into his lips, He laid upon his heart a great burden; it was the same burden which He laid upon His prophets of old-upon Isaiah, upon Jeremiah, upon Ezekiel, when His Spirit lifted him up, and took him, and caused him to behold the wicked abominations' which were done in the house of the Lord. These men had great honor, but they had also great sorrow; to them the word of the Lord was ' like a fire,' which burned within them, bringing agony as well as illumination. The cry Woe is me! ‘was often on their lips. So has it ever been, so will it ever be, with those who are called to look down into the awful depths of human iniquity, and to confront the world's sin with God's message of 'righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come.' The sin against which John Huss was especially raised up to protest, sat enthroned in what called itself the Church, though in reality it was the world. To have exposed the avarice and the licentiousness of the clergy was the real crime of this man, of whom they said in their cruel hate, When thou sawest a thief, thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers.' ‘Woe, then, to me,' he cries, after one of his scathing pictures of the evils that were eating cut the heart of the Church—' Woe, then, to me, if I do not preach against these abominations! Woe to me, if I do not lament; woe to me, if I do not write! '
The sight of horrible and hideous evil is apt to awaken a fierce wrath and indignation, a passion of rage and scorn. Even the tenderest heart (and the rather because of its very tenderness) may be lashed into fury, tossed with wild storms of anger, by this bitter hate of hate.' It was not Dante alone who
Hated well because he loved well,
Hated wickedness that hinders loving.'
The Bohemian Reformer ‘hated well '—not the sinners, indeed, but the sins. In his fiery and vehement denunciation of the evils which wrung his soul, he may perhaps have sometimes forgotten that the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
But, with the burden laid upon him, a great gift was given him. It is the best and greatest gift that God has for any of us—that for which all other gifts were well and wisely counted loss. He knew Christ, and ‘the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings.' For in writing these things, to use his own words, I confess nothing else to have moved me thereto, but only the love of our Lord Jesus crucified, whose wounds and stripes (according to the measure of my weakness and sinfulness) I desire to bear in myself; beseeching Him so to give me grace that I never seek to glory in myself, but only in His cross, and in the most precious ignominy of His passion, which He suffered for me.' They who have seen this vision of the cross of Christ cannot choose but turn away from all else and gaze upon it; and as they gaze they advance, and are changed into His likeness, and His Name shines through them, for He dwells in them.'
Those advance the farthest, and draw the nearest to Him, who follow Him in the path of suffering. Or rather, He draws nearest to them. John Huss (innocent though he believed himself of the charge of heresy) had come to Constance, not knowing what would befall him there, and prepared to suffer for Christ's sake ‘temptation, reviling, imprisonment, or death.' Only praying, and asking his beloved congregation to pray for him, that he might ‘abide steadfast, and be found without stain.' But even the stainless crystal may take a finer and yet finer polish from the master's hand. During those long months of cruel imprisonment, all that there might have been in earlier days of mere human wrath and passion more and more passed from him; and ‘love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness,' grew and strengthened day by day.
When, after the final examination, he was led forth from the Hall of Council, one man from the Kaiser's suite arose and followed him out. He was John de Chlum. Putting the guards aside, lie drew near and grasped the fettered hand of the prisoner with a few brief words of hope and comfort. It was only a little thing to do—a moment's work—yet will it not be forgotten when the King shall say unto them on His right hand, ‘Ye have done it unto Me.' It was tenderly and gratefully remembered, as long as the tried heart he sought to cheer could feel any earthly joy or pain. Oh, how comfortable was the touch of the hand of the lord John de Chlum unto me!' wrote John Huss—' who was not ashamed to reach forth the hand unto me, the miserable heretic, in fetters of iron, cried out upon by all men.'
Nor, indeed, could any earthly lot have been more ‘miserable' than that of the condemned heretic when, weary and exhausted, and so ill ‘that he could scarcely stand,' he reached his gloomy dungeon once more, and was left there alone, face to face with his awful doom, the terror and anguish of the death of fire.
What the first hour of conflict and agony may have been we do not know, and we will not guess. Let silence hide, and darkness veil it. Yet very soon, the darkness passes, the silence is broken. After a brief interval, we see the prisoner again, and the pen is in his hand.
Already thoughts of self have gone from him, and the concerns, the interests, the welfare of others occupy that large and tender heart. All he has suffered, all he has yet to suffer, has faded into distance. He sees no more the furious Council, the dungeon, the flaming pile; he sees instead that dear chapel of Bethlehem' where he had so often preached the Word of God, and the well-known, beloved faces of the flock to whom he ministered. Believing, then, that his time was very short, that the next day, or the day after, might bring the end, he hastened to write to them his parting words of counsel and farewell. In that letter no one was forgotten; great and small, poor and rich, priests and laymen, masters and servants, teachers and scholars,' each had some special word of kindly remembrance, of exhortation or encouragement. All were entreated to serve God faithfully, each in his own vocation; and to keep and stick fast to' the truth he had taught them out of the Holy Scriptures. But they were only to follow him in as far as he followed Christ. He was keenly conscious that he saw through a glass darkly,' that others might understand the things of God more perfectly than he did. ‘I desire,' he says, ‘that if any man, either in public sermon or in private talk, heard of me anything which is against the verity of God, that he do not follow the same. Albeit I do not find my conscience guilty of any such thing. I desire of you, moreover, that if any man at any time have found in me any levity in words or acts, that he do not follow the same, but pray God to pardon me.' He asks their gratitude for the Bohemian lords who had stood by him so nobly, especially for Duba and the well-beloved Chlum. He beseeches their prayers for their king and for their queen (whose confessor he had been), and also for the King of the Romans (Sigismund, who had just abandoned him so basely), ‘that God in His mercy would abide both with them and with you, both now, and henceforth in everlasting life.'
He adds: ‘I write this letter in prison, with my fettered hand, expecting my sentence of death tomorrow, but with a full and entire confidence that God will not abandon me, nor suffer me to deny His truth, or to confess what false witnesses have maliciously alleged against me. When, with the help of Jesus Christ, we shall meet again in the most sweet peace of the future life, you shall learn how merciful God has been to me, and how He has supported me in all my temptations and trials. I know nothing of Jerome, my faithful and beloved disciple, except that he, too, is held in cruel chains, awaiting death, like me, on account of his faith. Alas! it is by our own countrymen that we have both been delivered into the hands of our enemies. I ask for them your prayers. Remain, I entreat of you, attached to my chapel of Bethlehem, and endeavor to have the Gospel preached there as long as God will permit. I trust in God that He will keep that holy church as long as it shall please Him, and in the same give greater increase of His word by others than He hath done by me, a weak vessel. Love ye one another. Never turn any one aside from the truth of God, and watch that the good be not oppressed with violence.'
But the next day did not bring the sentence of death that he expected; it brought instead a form of retraction which he was invited to sign and live. This was studiously mild and favorable: it had evidently been drawn up by a friendly hand—we know not whose, but it must have been by one of the leading members of the Council, probably a cardinal.
Ever sensitive to the least touch of kindness, Huss began his firm though gentle refusal with these words: ‘May the most wise and righteous Father Almighty deign to grant eternal life and glory to my "father," for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake. Reverend father, I am very grateful for your pious and paternal favor.'
‘The father,' whoever he may have been, responded by a really tender and beautiful letter, in which he addressed the condemned heretic as his ‘most loving and beloved brother.' He sought to remove his scruples by every argument he could devise; even saying that if his retraction were a perjury, the sin would not be his, but that of those who required it. And he concluded with these remarkable words: Still greater contests will be given you for the faith of Christ.' Those three days before the Council evidently had not been without fruit.
Everyone, friend and foe alike, was anxious now to save him. The Kaiser, more solicitous perhaps for his own honor than for the life of the heretic, made repeated efforts to induce him to retract. Even those who had been most bitter against him sent or came to him with arguments and earnest entreaties. Many, no doubt, were really touched by his courage and patience; others were concerned for the credit of the Council, to which, as they truly foreboded, the execution of the cruel sentence would not contribute.
He answered all with the same calm firmness—unboastful, unassuming, unwavering. He made no display now of the eloquence, the intellectual acuteness, the argumentative powers that had ‘electrified a nation.' His gentleness and absence of self-assertion might almost have made him seem weak, only that he showed himself strong as adamant. Even in his inmost heart he never appears to have hesitated. This was the more remarkable from the utter loneliness of his position. Not merely the loneliness of the dungeon, where iron bolts and bars shut him out from all human aid and sympathy, but the far more terrible loneliness of spirit in which this one solitary man stood out against the Church of his day. Be it remembered he was not a Protestant, who could regard that Church as apostate and anti-Christian, and fall back for sympathy upon a great cloud of witnesses who had resisted her tyranny in the cause of a purer faith. He knew no other visible Church on earth; he had never dreamed of separation from her; nay, he counted it his greatest honor to be one of her priests; he prized and administered her sacraments; he had never consciously departed from her teaching. He regarded the Council that condemned him as her highest authority, speaking with her voice, ‘a power ordained of God.' But two things with him were of higher authority yet—conscience and the Word of God. The voice of God in the heart of man, the voice of God in the written word, must take precedence even of the voice of the Church. When this bade him do what those clearly forbade, he did not hesitate; looking beyond the Church, he grasped the hand of Christ Himself, and went forth with Him outside the camp '—although he esteemed it the camp of God's Israel—‘ bearing His reproach.'
Thus, without knowing it, John Huss became the champion and the martyr of those two great principles of Protestantism —the supremacy of Holy Scripture as the rule of faith, and what is rather inadequately called the right of private judgment. Like all rights, it is duty on the other side, and may be defined in the words of Huss himself, ‘Faithful Christian, seek the truth, hearken to the truth, learn the truth, hold the truth, defend the truth, even unto death.'
It was doubtless with the hope of shaking his resolution that the Council allowed four weeks to elapse between his condemnation and the end.
The long, slow days as they came and went found him always firm; yet it may be not always joyful. Hours there must have been when the shadow of death lay heavy on his heart, when fearfulness and trembling took hold of him. But he found refuge then—where in our own hours of anguish we find refuge now—beneath the cross of Christ. Thinking of the bitter cup which Christ had drunk for him, he found strength and patience to take his own. ‘Certainly,' he writes, ‘it is a great matter for a man to rejoice in trouble, and to take it for joy to be in divers temptations. A light matter it is to speak and to expound it; but a great matter to fulfill it. For our most patient and valiant Champion Himself—knowing that He should rise again the third day, overcoming His enemies by His death, and redeeming His elect from damnation—after His last supper was troubled in spirit, and said: "My soul is heavy unto death," of whom also the Gospel saith that He began to fear, and to be sad and heavy. Who, being then in an agony, was strengthened by the angel, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling on the ground. And yet He, notwithstanding being so troubled, said to the disciples, "Let not your hearts be troubled, neither fear the cruelty of them that persecute you, for Me ye shall have with you always." Whereupon these His soldiers, looking upon the King and Prince of Glory, sustained great conflicts. They went through fire and water, and were saved, and received the crown of the Lord God. Of this crown I trust steadfastly that the Lord will make me a partaker, with all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow in His steps. O most merciful Christ, draw us weak creatures after Thee, for except Thou draw us we are not able to follow Thee! Give us a strong spirit, that we may be ready; and although the flesh is weak, let Thy grace go before us, go with us, and follow us, for without Thee we can do nothing—much less encounter cruel death for Thy sake. Give us a bold heart, an upright faith, a firm hope and a perfect love, that we give our lives patiently and joyfully for Thy Name's sake. Amen.'
His prayer was heard, and ere long the cry of joy broke forth from his heart—'The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?’ And again, ‘The gracious Lord God hath been, and is, and I hope will be, with me to the end.' Yet the light and joy that came from heaven did not exclude a tender longing for human sympathy. To his dearest friend, John of Chlum, he proffered the request that he would be with him at the end. ‘Oh, thou, the kindest and most faithful friend! I entreat of thee to grant me still this, not to depart until thou hast seen everything consummated.' It was the excess, not the defect of friendship that he feared from Chlum, so he wrote to his other friends: Do not permit the lord John of Chlum, that loyal knight, my dearest and best friend, my other self, to expose himself to danger through love for me.' And once more, in the last letter he ever penned: For my sake, although perhaps dead in the body, do not allow any loss to happen to the Lord John, the faithful and worthy knight, and my good benefactor.' Then, as if he thought this plea not strong enough, I entreat of you, for the Lord's sake.'
His letters were full of loving, tender thoughtfulness for all his friends. Each was mentioned by name, and had some special message of counsel or comfort, and very often of gratitude for kindness received. A great number of names-many of them obscure and humble—which otherwise would have been hopelessly engulfed in oblivion have been carried down to us in this way, embalmed in the fragrance of words like these: ' Dear and faithful Master Christian, the Lord be with thee.'
'Petr' (Mladenowic̆), my most faithful and constant consoler and comforter.' And again: ‘Petr, dearest friend, keep the fur coat for a remembrance.' His few possessions he shared thus amongst his friends, carefully considering the needs or the tastes of each. His last letter is a series of such messages, with no word of himself in it but this: I also entreat all to entreat the Lord God and His holy grace for me; we shall meet together ere long in His holy presence. Amen.'
At rest about himself, he found rest also about those aims and hopes which to men like him are far more than life, since they are ‘the things that life lives for.' He had striven, and toiled, and suffered to lead men's souls to Christ, and to cast out evil from the House of God;—for the reformation of the Church, and for the triumph of the Gospel of Righteousness and Peace. Yet, as a Reformer, he had wrought no deliverance in the earth, neither had the inhabitants of the world fallen. His half-day's work' was done now: he was to die, and to die in a lost battle with the forces of evil. Standing face to face with death, he meekly accepted the lesson of his life, ‘I shall pass, my work shall fail. I have labored in vain, and spent my, strength for naught, and in vain.' It was God's will for him, and it was well.
But ‘heaven is for those who have failed on earth—failed so.' Will heaven, even for them, have a greater joy than to stand by the side of the triumphant Christ, and to see Him do, by others, the work that dropped undone from their own feeble hands? To John Huss there was given so sweet a foretaste of this joy that in after times men came to think
‘there were prophet words on those lips in death.’
It has been often said that he foretold the coming of Luther, and the dawn of the great Reformation. Yet he was no prophet, as he said himself; save in so far as he heard the mystic voices of those three great and true prophets, Faith, Hope, and Love—which bear continual witness within us of the final victory of truth and right, and the glorious manifestation of the sons of God. This was all that he foresaw, and it was enough. ‘I pray of you,' he wrote to Chlum, 'expound unto me the dream of this night. I saw how that, in my church at Bethlehem, they came to raze and put out all the pictures of Christ, and did put them out. The next day after, I arose, and saw many painters, who painted and made more fair pictures, and many more than I had done before, which pictures I was very glad and joyful to behold. And the painters, with much people about them, said, "Let the bishops and priests come now, and put us out these pictures." Which being done, much people seemed to me in Bethlehem to rejoice, and I, awaking herewith, laughed for joy.' This vision he himself expounded afterward: ‘I am no prophet, and yet I firmly hope that this image of Christ, which I engraved in men's hearts at Bethlehem, where I preached His word, will not be effaced; and that, when I cease to live, it will be far better portrayed, and by far mightier preachers, to the great joy of the people. And I, too, when I awake in the Resurrection, shall rejoice thereat with exceeding joy.'
Christ measures nearness to Himself by the keeping of His commandments,' Huss had written in earlier days; and now he found His commandments not grievous '—even that one which says, ‘Love your enemies.'
All the insults and injuries of Michael de Causás, who, not content with accusing him falsely before the Council, set spies about his prison to cut off his communication with his friends, and boasted to his keepers in his hearing how soon they would burn him, drew from him no harder word than ‘Poor fellow.' ‘He could forgive him heartily, and pray for him most earnestly.' But Palec̆, his own familiar friend in whom he trusted, had caused him far more bitter pain. Not all at once did this pain pass into the perfect peace of a Christ-like forgiveness. At an earlier period of his imprisonment, Palec̆ came to his dungeon, when he lay very ill and in great suffering, and began to reproach him cruelly with his so-called heresies, and especially with that one which he had really never held, the denial of Transubstantiation. Huss turned upon him with a flash of natural indignation: ‘Oh, Master Palec̆, is this your greeting unto me? Truly, you sin grievously herein. Behold, tomorrow I shall die, or perhaps when I arise I shall be led forth to be burned; and what thanks, think you, will they give you in Bohemia for this?'
‘But afterward he feared lest he should seem to hate him.' Yet in this too, before the end, God gave him the victory. He forgave Palec̆ entirely; and he found a unique and characteristic way of showing it. The Council, with strange inconsistency, allowed him a confessor; and he made choice of Paled for the office. He was willing to kneel at his feet, and to take from his lips the assurance of God's forgiveness of himself.
Palec̆, very naturally, declined the task: but he came once more to the prison, and not now to taunt or to threaten. This time the 'greeting' was very different: it was Huss who spoke first. 'Palec̆,' he said, using the familiar address of the old days, ‘I have said some things that must have given you pain. Especially, I called you a "fictor" or "concocter." Will you forgive me?'
The heart which had been hardening itself so long was touched and melted now. Paled burst into tears. As soon as he could recover himself sufficiently to speak, he began to implore his injured friend to retract, and to save himself.
Huss explained to him with great gentleness the reasons for his refusal, saying to him, ‘I pray you, tell me your mind. Put yourself in my place. If you were called on to abjure what you had never held, or what you knew to be true, would you do it? '
‘It would be very hard to do,' Poke' acknowledged. What further passed between them we cannot certainly say.
All we know is, that Paled left the prison utterly broken down, and weeping bitterly.
The last day Huss spent in prison, July 5, witnessed another parting, which stirred far deeper springs of feeling. An unexpected joy came to him; but it tried his self-command more terribly than much pain. He was brought from his dungeon to the refectory, to meet a deputation from the Kaiser, sent to him, as a last hope, with a still easier form of retraction; he need only abjure those articles which he confessed to be his own. On entering the hall he saw four bishops, members of the Council, and with them—Duba and Chlum. The Kaiser had begged of these Bohemians to go and try what they could do with their countryman.
He could scarcely restrain his emotion when Chlum drew near and spoke to him, no doubt with a warm pressure of the fettered hand. ‘Dear master, I am not learned; I cannot help you by my counsel, you must therefore decide for yourself. You know whether or not you are guilty of the things of which the Council accuses you. If you are conscious of any error, do not hesitate, be not ashamed to yield. But if not, I cannot advise you to sin against your conscience. Do not leave the path of truth through any fear of death.'
Not the hostile eyes of the bishops, not the long, long habit of self-control, which had stood such cruel tests, availed to keep back the tears these words drew forth. His heart recognized the true nobleness of his friend, who trusted him so utterly, and would not add to his burden one appeal or entreaty which might make it heavier. ‘Generous lord—oh, my noble friend! '—he began; but his voice failed, and he broke down completely. When he regained his composure, he said, ‘If I knew myself to have taught anything erroneous, I would humbly retract it, God is my witness. I always desire to be shown better reasons from Scripture, and if they are shown me, I will retract what I have hitherto held.'
Encouraged, no doubt, by what they took for a sign of weakness, the bishops began to press him. ‘Do you want to be wiser than the whole Council?’ they asked.
‘I do not want to be wiser than the whole Council,' he answered meekly. ‘I pray you, give me one of the least of the Council to instruct me with better and stronger Scriptures, and I will yield at once.'
‘See how obstinate he is in his heresy!' said the bishops as they withdrew. Between the friends no farewell seems to have been exchanged; but no doubt they looked in each other's eyes, and silently gave each other tryst beyond the grave and gate of death, in the kingdom of the Father.
The farewell words, which he could not or did not speak, Huss had already written in the solitude of his prison to his dear friends and 'gracious benefactors,' the Bohemian lords. It was his last charge to them that they should give their service ‘to the Eternal King, Christ the Lord. He casteth off no faithful servant from Him, for He saith, "Where I am, there also shall My servant be." And the Lord maketh every servant of His to be the lord of all His possession, giving Himself unto him, and with Himself all things; that without all tediousness and without all defect he may possess all things, rejoicing with all saints in infinite joy. Oh, happy is that servant whom when his Lord shall come He shall find watching. Happy is that servant who shall receive the King of Glory with joy. Wherefore, well-beloved lords and benefactors, serve you that King in fear, who shall bring you, as I trust, now to Bohemia at this present by His grace, in health, and hereafter to an eternal life of glory. Farewell, for I think this is the last letter I shall write; who tomorrow, as I suppose, shall be purified in the hope of Jesus Christ.'
Not far were the golden gates, and the vision of the King in His beauty, from the man who wrote thus. ‘But no one can be too near heaven for a work of lowly love,' so he added, ‘I pray you have no suspicion of faithful Vitus.'