Page:The letters of John Hus.djvu/72

 that they can gladly suffer for the word of Christ even unto imprisonment, banishment, and death.

Further, beloved brethren, I know not what to write to you, but I confess that I could wish to pour out my whole heart, if thereby I might comfort you in the law of the Lord. Also I salute from the bottom of my heart all the faithful lovers of the law of the Lord, and especially Jacobellus, your coadjutor in the gospel, beseeching that he will put in a petition unto the Lord for me in the universal Church of Jesus Christ. And the God of peace, who hath raised from the dead the Shepherd of the sheep, the mighty Lord Jesus Christ, make you apt in all goodness to do His will, working in you that which may be pleasing in His sight. All your friends salute you who have heard of your constancy. I would desire also to see letters of yours written back to us, for know that they shall comfort us not a little.

At London, on the Nativity of the glorious Virgin, in the year 1410. Your servant, desiring to become a sharer with you in your labours,

Richard Wychewitz, most unworthy of priests.

By the same messenger, it is interesting to note, Woksa of Waldstein, a councillor of Prague and intimate friend of Jerome of Prague, also Zdislaw of Wartenberg (a baron of the realm, one of the University friends of Hus, who on August 10 of that year had defended before the University Wyclif’s tractate, De Universalibus), received letters from the famous Lollard, Sir John Oldcastle. Oldcastle, it would appear, had corresponded at one time with Hus himself, whom he calls ‘a priest of Christ,’ but the correspondence is now lost. Probably the intermediary in this correspondence would be Zdislaw, who had been in England, knew Oxford well, and may have met with Oldcastle himself.

On the receipt of Wyche’s letter, Hus replied as follows:—

May the peace of Christ abound in your heart by the Holy Spirit given to you, my dear friend in Christ Jesus!