Page:The letters of John Hus.djvu/260

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222
LETTERS WRITTEN FROM

greeting he gave me before the Commissioners[1] was this: “Since the birth of Christ, there hath not arisen a more dangerous heretic than yourself, excepting Wyclif." He went on to say, “Every one that hath heard you preach is infected with this heresy of yours that the substance of the material bread remains in the sacrament of the altar.” “Oh! master,” said I, “what a dreadful greeting this is, and what a dreadful sin you are guilty of! I shall die or be burnt, if perchance I rise from my sick bed. What reward then will be given you in Bohemia?” and so on. Perhaps I ought not to have written this; it may look as if I hated him sorely. These words are ever in my heart: Put not your trust in princes, etc.;[2] and again: Cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm.[3] For God’s sake be careful while you are here and when you return. Carry no letters. Forward books by friends sparingly.

You ought to know for a fact that I have had a struggle not to disclose my dreams;[4] for I dreamt of the Pope’s flight before it took place; and after telling Lord John, he said that very night, “You will see him again.” I dreamt too of Master Jerome’s imprisonment, though not in its actual form; of my own imprisonments also, where I should be taken and how they were disclosed, although not in their actual form. I have often had apparitions of hosts of serpents with heads at their tails, but not one was able to bite me; and many other visions. I am telling you of these, not because I suppose myself

  1. P. 174.
  2. Ps. cxlv. 2, Vulg.
  3. Jer. xvii. 5
  4. Cf. pp. 191-3. Chlum evidently was sceptical as to these dreams. Cf. his answer, p. 192 (second sentence).