When, therefore, the imperial and royal wishes for his presence
at Constance were signified to him, with a promise of safe-conduct
and full security, he willingly assented, and so anxious was he to
be present at the opening of the council that he did not even wait
for the promised safe-conduct, which reached him only after his
arrival there. That some discussion took place among his friends
as to the danger to be incurred there can be no doubt. Jerome of
Prague, when on his trial, asserted that he had persuaded Huss to
go, and Huss in one of his letters from prison alludes to the warn-
ings which he had received. He himself was evidently not wholly
without misgivings. A sealed letter left with his disciple, Master
Martin, not to be opened till news should be received of his death,
alludes to the persecution which he had suffered for restraining
the inordinate lives of the clergy, and his expectation that it would
soon reach its consummation. He makes disposition of his slender
effects his gray gown, his white gown, and sixty grossi, which
comprise the whole of his worldly gear--and expresses his remorse
for the time wasted before his ordination, when he used to play
chess to the loss of his own temper and that of others. The unaf-
fected simplicity and pure-heartedness of the man shine like a
divine light through the brief words of his last request. A letter
in the vernacular to his disciples also announces his fear that his
enemies may seek in the council to take his life by false testimony.
He asks the prayers of his friends that he may have eloquence to
uphold the truth and constancy to endure to the last. Still, he
did not wholly neglect precautions. Not only did he procure from
the inquisitor Nicholas, Bishop of Nazareth, the certificate of his
orthodoxy already alluded to, but he posted, August 26, through-
out Prague a notice in Latin and Bohemian that he would appear
before the archbishop, then holding a convocation of the Bohemian
clergy, and challenged all who impugned his faith to come forward
and accuse him either there or at Constance, asserting his readi-
ness to submit to the punishment of heresy in case he was con-
victed, but that accusers who failed should be subjected to the
talio. When John of Jessinetz, his representative, presented him-
self the next day at the door of the convocation, he was refused ad-
mission on the pretext that the body was deliberating on national
affairs, and he was told to come back another time. In the as-
sembly of nobles, however, Huss obtained an audience of the arch-
Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/472
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BOHEMIA.