Page:John Huss, his life, teachings and death, after five hundred years.pdf/234

 counsel you, not to hold on obstinately to anything, but in the things proved against you and to which you have confessed place yourself wholly at the mercy of the holy council, that for our sakes and for the sake of our brother and for the sake of the kingdom of Bohemia the council may accord to you some grace, and that you may receive penance for the things proved. I have told them that I have no idea of shielding a heretic. Nay, if any one should be found to persist obstinately in his heresy I would wish to be the first to start the fire and burn him.”

To this address Huss replied that he was thankful to the king for the passport and that, in coming to Constance, he had no purpose of obstinately defending errors, but, on the contrary, his purpose was to correct errors, if any were proved against him. Before leaving, Sigismund promised Huss, at the next hearing, a written statement of the accusations with which he was charged. Huss was then conducted to his prison by the bishop of Riga, to whose care both he and Jerome of Prague had been committed.

In writing of the incidents of this hearing of June 7, Huss said that two Englishmen tried to set forth the doctrine of the eucharistic presence but broke down, one of them when he came to discuss the multiplication of Christ’s body. The other pronounced Huss another Berengar. This monk Berengar was condemned at a Roman synod, 1059, for his denial of the doctrine of transubstantiation and, falling upon his face, retracted. Although he afterward returned to his former views, he was protected by his friend, Gregory VII. He regretted that he had been led to recant by fear of excommunication from the church and the worst of deaths at the hands of the people.

Huss refers also to the hootings and hissings which greeted some of his statements. At times he was overwhelmed by