Page:The letters of John Hus.djvu/17

Rh exile. The reader approaching the study of Hus for the first time would, perhaps, do well to begin these Letters in the middle, with the journey to Constance, and read on to the final scene. We are much mistaken if, in this case, he will not receive such an interest in the author of that immortal series of letters written in prison, that he gladly turns back to the less fascinating, because more polemical, earlier portion. After all, a man’s death cannot be understood apart from his life; and the remarkable picture given us of Hus in the prison of the Inquisition at Constance ought not to be isolated from the rest. Only by the study of the whole of the letters can we understand the whole man in all his strength and tenderness, and, we may add, his weakness. We are not without hopes also that this fragment of soul-history—for such the last letters of Hus undoubtedly present to us—may commend itself to some, not merely from the narrower standpoint of history, but from the larger outlook of that unity and continuity of spiritual experience throughout all ages which, under different forms and in diverse manners, is yet the manifestation and working of the one Lord and Giver of Life.

H. B. W. R. M. P.