and approval. Like Luther, afterwards, in his famous journey to Worms, he travelled in a kind of state. Wherever he passed, he professed his willingness to explain his views, and to defend himself from the charge of heresy. The clergy in many places sought his counsel. The parish priest of Pernau, with his vicars, waited upon him at his lodgings, drank to his health in a large tankard of wine, and freely conversed with him on matters of Christian faith. At Nuremberg the "friends of God" welcomed him; and, while he was engaged in church in discussion with them, three Bohemian nobles arrived, bearing the Emperor's safe-conduct, and to whom was intrusted the particular duty of watching over and protecting their countryman in his mission.

All these arrangements, however, were only preliminaries to a base betrayal on the part of the Emperor, and a mock trial on the part of the Council. For about three weeks after his arrival he was left at liberty; and, to all who visited him, he freely explained his opinions, while he continued to urge his claims to be publicly heard. His enemies, in the mean time, were quietly concocting his ruin. Even those who otherwise professed the reformation of abuses, could only see in his aims the overthrow of the Church; and Gerson and D'Ailly joined no less rigorously than Pope John and Michael de Causis in his condemnation. He was seized and thrown into prison on the 28th of December. He and his friends had still a hope in the safe-conduct of the Emperor. The Bohemian nobles urgently remonstrated against the violation of the Emperor's protection, and he himself, when he first heard of Huss's imprisonment, threat

ened to break open the doors of his prison by force.
Craft and bigotry, however, were destined to prevail.
The Emperor, after his arrival, was wrought upon in
such a manner as to abandon his safe-conduct and
leave Huss to his fate.
such an act of perfidy.
that he must either give up Huss or see the Council dis-
solved, which, after so many difficulties, had assembled
at his summons. He chose the former alternative.
Huss was summoned four several times before the
assembled representatives of the Church, confronted
with certain articles from his works, and urged to
unconditional submission. Amid uproar and insult,
and the meanest attempts to entangle him in logical
subtleties on the subject of transubstantiation, he
replied to his accusers with admirable confidence and
self-possession. He would submit when convinced,
but no other considerations moved him. Let the
lowest in the Council convince me, and I will humbly
own my error," he said-meek but brave words,
the day for understanding which, however, had not
yet come! He was condemned to be degraded from
the priestly office, and then burned. The sentence
was carried out with every circumstance of ignominy
and cruelty. As they stripped him of his priestly
robes, he said, "These mockeries I bear with equal
mind, for the name and truth of Christ!"
"We
devote thy soul to the devils in hell!" cried his ene-
mies. "And I commend my soul to the most merci-
ful Lord Jesus!" he calmly replied. Thus perished
John Huss, the Bohemian Reformer, like his great
Master, amid the curses of a triumphant hierarchy.

No excuse can be made for
But Sigismund plainly saw

Jerome of Prague, who had come with rash confidence to be near his friend, and who had also been seized and imprisoned, was next summoned before the Council. Worn out by his miserable imprisonment, his spirits broken and his health feeble, he was induced to make a recantation of his errors; but with time for reflection, he regained his vigour of mind, and professed his determination to maintain to the death the doctrines of Wicliffe and John Huss. His condemnation followed; and, as if to make up for his temporary weakness, he died with the most cheerful intrepidity. Bound naked to the stake, as the flames consumed him, he continued to sing hymns in a "clear untrembling" voice.

The execution of Huss and Jerome kindled the flames of war in Bohemia-a war distinguished alike for atrocity and heroism. Alienation of race mingled with bitterness of religious hatred; and Bohemians fought with Germans, not merely to vindicate the cause of their martyred countrymen, but to avenge their insulted patriotism. Crusading army after army, sent forth by the Emperor and blessed by the Church, were met and routed by the Hussites, under the proud leadership of Ziska and Procopius. The insurrec

tionary movement embraced the whole country, and strengthened itself by successive victories. The Council of Basle, which met 1433, was fain to negotiate with the triumphant Hussites, and a temporary concordat was arranged between them and the Emperor. This did not long prevent the renewal of hostilities, but it served to give permanent effect to dissensions that had

already begun to weaken the cause of the reformers. They separated into two great parties, known by the name of the Calixtines and the Taborites. These dissensions accomplished in course of time what the arms of the Empire had failed to effect. The opposition to Rome gradually languished. So many violent and merely secular feelings had mingled in it, that when the tension of active contest was relaxed, the religious attitude of resistance gave way. A small remnant, however, proving faithful to its principles, formed the seed of the famous Community of Bohemian or Moravian Brethren, whose zealous Christian life survived, not only to the time of the Reformation, but long beyond it.

The decaying issue of the Hussite movement brings us to the verge of the sixteenth century. Yet it cannot be said that we trace any direct links of connection between the German and the Bohemian reformer: Luther bears no such relation to Huss as Huss did to Wicliffe. The immediate effect of the Bohemian insurrection, on the contrary, was to strengthen the power of the Church in Germany. The Germans regarded with offence the opinions of a hostile people, whose arms had not only kept the imperial forces at bay, but invaded and laid waste their provinces and cities. The course of the reform movement seems, therefore, to run out at this point. The torch, if not extinguished, does not pass from hand to hand; yet it remained a grand beacon, at once of encouragement and warning. Luther did not spring in any historical connection from Huss, but the Bohemian reformer remained

to him a noble example of heroic principle, and the Hussite struggle an affecting memory of the inefficacy of the sword to secure the great work of religious reformation.

In the mean time, throughout the fifteenth century, new seeds of preparation for the great revolt were everywhere ripening. The reforming efforts hitherto made had failed, not from any lack of heroism in the men that led them, nor from any deficiency of the truth that animated them, but above all, from the inadequate field prepared to receive the truth. The darkness of ignorance lay as yet, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, too heavy upon the popular mind. Intellectual as well as political power were too strongly centred in the Church to permit of a successful resistance either to the one or the other. A wider field of interest was necessary before individual resistance could rise into triumph; but such a field was now, in the course of the fifteenth century, rapidly preparing, especially in Germany.* We can trace this wider movement of preparation in three several directions, political, religious, and literary; and, with a brief glance at these combined preparatory influences, we shall find ourselves on the threshold of the great crisis of the sixteenth century.

The worldly and degraded spirit of the hierarchy, and the exactions which it everywhere made, continued to come always into more jarring conflict with the

* The movement of Savonarola in Italy is very memorable and important in itself, but it remained too isolated from the general results, and presents too close a parallel to previous movements to require from us separate notice.