Page:John Huss, his life, teachings and death, after five hundred years.pdf/282



Author:Jan Hus was burned but not vanquished. He belongs to the history of his own people as a patriot identified with one of the most active periods of its annals and, to quote the Bohemian savant Flajshans, as “our greatest and most famous theologian of the fifteenth century.” He has a place in the wider history of his age for the conspicuous part he played at the council of Constance, so that, as long as that assembly’s proceedings continue to have an interest, his name will excite interest and his career be studied. And he has a place in the still wider history of modern progress as a precursor of the Reformation and a witness in favor of the sacred rights of conscience.

As an actor among his own people, Huss stands forth also as its most notable preacher and a leader without equal in the intellectual life of its university. He was the best-known and the best-beloved priest of his times in Bohemia. We have