Page:The letters of John Hus.djvu/244

might see me being led to the flames rather than so craftily smothered here! I still cherish the hope that God Almighty is able to snatch me from their hands through the merits of the saints. Let me have the hint if to-morrow I am to be brought up for a hearing. Greet all my friends in Bohemia,^[1] beseeching them to pray God on my behalf. If I am to remain a prisoner, let them pray that I may await death without failing of heart. Exhort the masters to stand firm in the truth; also our special friends, the virgin Petra^[2] and all her household and Master Jesenicz,^[3] urging him to marry. Beg my friend Girzik^[4] and the rector^[5] to rest content, though I have not been able to do enough for them in return for their service; please let them give my greetings to my friends of either sex. I know not who will repay those who have advanced money, except the Lord Jesus Christ, for whose sake they have advanced it. Yet I should like some of the richer people to club together and pay the poorer ones. But I am afraid that the proverb will be fulfilled in some cases: “Co s očí, to z mysli” (“Out of sight, out of mind”).^[6]

 

Later in the day, though probably still early in the morning, Hus was brought up for the long-expected public audience. A congregation of the Council had been summoned to meet in the refectory of the Franciscan convent. The intention was to satisfy Sigismund by a public condemnation, but in the absence of Hus himself. So the psalm customary for an inquiry into heresy (Psalm 1.) was read, and the thirty articles against him formally presented. An attempt was then made to deprive Hus of the

 

1. In regno.
2. Cf. p. 236.
3. Who had left in March (p. 200).
4. Cf. p. 151, where we learn that he was a scholar of Hus by name George. From p. 212 we learn that he had become a rector.
5. i.e., Cardinalis.
6. Ep. Piiss. G. 4: Tzo so-czy, to smyssli, which Luther (Ep. Piissimæ) and the Monumenta naturally left untranslated.