Page:John Huss, his life, teachings and death, after five hundred years.pdf/348

 self was but an imperfect man under trial for his life. He advanced nothing unworthy of a good man as though he felt confident, as he also publicly asserted, that no just reason could be found for his death

Many persons he moved with humor, many with satire, many very often he caused to laugh in spite of the sad affair, jesting at their reproaches. He said that there had been many excellent men who had suffered for their virtues and been oppressed by false witnesses and condemned by wicked judges He took them back to Socrates, unjustly condemned by his fellow citizens, who did not shun death or pain when he might have avoided both. He mentioned the captivity of Plato, the flight of Anaxagoras, the torture of Zeno, and the unjust condemnation of many other pagans Thence he passed to the Hebrew examples, first calling up Moses, the liberator of his people, Joseph, sold by his brethren, Isaiah, Daniel, Susanna Coming down to John the Baptist and then to the Saviour, he showed how, in each case, they were condemned by false witnesses and false judges Then he took up Stephen, killed by the body of the priests, and all the Apostles, condemned to death as popular agitators and despisers of the gods He dwelt at length upon the principle that such treatment was most iniquitous when it came from the hand of a council of priests Then, proceeding to praise John Huss, who had been condemned to be burned, he called him a good man, just and holy, unworthy of such a death, saying that he himself was prepared to go to any punishment whatsoever. Huss had never held opinions hostile to the church of God, but only against the abuses of the clergy and the pride, the arrogance and the pomp of prelates, who spent their patrimony, not on the poor but on mistresses, boon companions, horses, kennels of dogs and other things unworthy of the religion of Christ

He displayed the greatest cleverness, for when his address was often interrupted with various disturbances, he left no one unscathed, but turned trenchantly upon his accusers and forced them to blush or to keep silent For three hundred and forty days he had lain in the bottom of a foul, dark tower. He did not complain of the harshness of this treatment but expressed his wonder that such inhumanity could be shown. In the dungeon, he said, he had not only no facilities for reading, but none for seeing He stood there fearless and unterrified, not alone despising death, but seeking it, so that you would have said he was an-