Page:The letters of John Hus.djvu/272



God be with you, my dear lord! Your notes reached me on Wednesday before St. Vitus’s Day. I looked at them with a happy heart, although in prison, bound with chains and expecting my death-sentence. I entreat you, dear lord, live as the law of God commands and observe what you have heard from my lips: if there hath been aught of wrong therein, spurn it. Nevertheless I trust, by the Saviour’s mercy, you have learnt nothing from me that hath been contrary to His holy will. I cannot write at length; but in a few words I counsel you to keep in your heart God’s counsels, to be kind to the poor, to abstain from pride, to lead a chaste life, and to remember these words: “What thou art, what thou wert, what thou wilt be, ever ponder: ponder too the matter, the place, the subject, the ‘why,’ the ‘how,’ the ‘when’ of thy words.” Dear lord, remember me, and give my greeting to your wife and family and all my friends; for you will never methinks look upon my face again, as I am every moment expecting the sentence of death. Sent off on Thursday before St. Vitus’s Day. God be with you, dear Bohemians, and with me a sinner; it is for His holy law that I suffer.