Page:John Huss, his life, teachings and death, after five hundred years.pdf/340

 munication left the city and that the other complaints were recognized.

In February, 1416, the council of Constance summoned to its bar the four hundred and fifty-two nobles. A commissioner from each of the nations was appointed to act on a court of trial. On hearing of the citation, Sigismund demanded that further proceedings be postponed until his return to Constance. That such measures were insufficient to meet the situation, appears distinctly from a letter addressed by the council to the nobility of Bohemia a month later. It lamented again the leaven of wickedness which originated with the old enemy of mankind, the serpent, who is never at rest and had manifested his power in John Wyclif, of accursed memory, John Huss and others, and inebriated them with the chalice of Babylon. These, in turn, had handed that cup of damnable error and wickedness to others. Some, who according to the flesh were prominent among the nobility, had damnably conspired against Christ to defend their errors.

As for Huss, he had been convicted many times of the most manifest and dangerous heresies both judicially and by scholastic arguments. In spite of the law, divine and human, that he should not be released from prison and chains, he was accorded public hearings and an opportunity for repentance. The attempt was also made to bring him back to the lap of the church and to the truth of the Christian religion by exhortations of sweetest love and superabundant instruction about the Catholic faith. These admonitions fell on dull, viperous ears, for Huss loved iniquity and at last, going to his own place, he received the reward due him and his followers for their crimes—he the most miserable of all miserable men.

The council adjured the nobles to protect the church and assist its legate, the bishop of Leitomysl, in the whole-