Page:John Huss, his life, teachings and death, after five hundred years.pdf/202

 a court planted with flowers, its arches overgrown with vines, the structure looks out upon the beautiful lake of Constance. The walls of the inner court are painted with frescos illustrating historical scenes in the history of Constance and the convent itself from 600 to 1888—the date when the Emperor William II met with Adolph of Nassau and effected a reconciliation with the two houses they represented, separated in 1866. One of the smaller pictures represents Huss chained. The tower in which he was confined still remains. A few steps away is the Rhine resuming its course to the north. The present cheerful surroundings, bright flowers, shady walks, the groups of ducks and other fowl in the canals, the sounds of daily music in the park—these are in strong contrast to Huss’s grim imprisonment and the harsh methods of the inquisition enacted within its walls five hundred years ago.

The unsanitary condition of the Dominican prison wrought, in conjunction with the prisoner’s undone nervous state, to bring Huss to the very verge of death. Fever set in, and so desperate was his plight that the pope sent his own physician to administer clysters. At the pope’s order, Huss, January 8, 1415, was transferred to another and less unwholesome apartment. By January 19, he was sufficiently recovered to be writing again to his friends. The purpose was to shut him out from the world, and by the rigor of prison discipline to bring him to repentance. Among the books which he had with him was a copy of his Commentary on Peter the Lombard’s Sentences. These and even his Vulgate Bible were taken from him. He made moving appeals for books, and his case easily suggests John Tyndale in his prison at Vilvorde begging the king of England to send him a Hebrew grammar and Bible to while away the lonesome hours. In February, John of Chlum was able to get a Bible into the dungeon. Huss won the sympathy of his jailer, Robert, and the clerks of the papal household treated him with