At that time I was still ignorant of what had passed in the Council of Constance.
All that I could say would only add infinitely to the high character of John Huss. His adversaries render him a striking, though unintentional testimony; for if their clouded eyes could open to the light, they would blush at the remembrance of the things which they themselves narrate. The author of a collection of the acts of the council, written in German, and enriched with very many remarkable details, endeavours, with all his power, to cover with odium the cause of John Huss; and yet he declares, that when Huss beheld himself stripped of all the dignities of his order, he smiled with intrepid firmness. According to the same author, also, Huss, when conducted to the funeral pile, constantly repeated—“Jesus, Son of God, have pity on me!” At the sight of the fatal stake to which he was to be fixed in order to be burned, he fell on his knees and cried out—“Jesus, Son of the living God, who suffered for us all, have pity on me!” Beholding a peasant bringing some wood to feed the flames, he again smiled with mildness, and uttered these words of St Jerome—“O holy simplicity!”[1] A priest having drawn nigh, and demanded if he desired to
- ↑ Luther here confounds two events. The touching expression which he mentions is erroneously attributed to John Huss; it fell from the lips of Jerome of Prague.—(Vide “The Reformers before the Reformation.” Vol. II., Book III., Chap. XII.
