Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/143

 was desired to accuse of heresy. The partisans of Rome, little acquainted with the works of Wycliffe, which, indeed, they were forbidden to read, had transformed the English divine into a monster of the infernal regions. Thus the Carthusian monk, Stephen of Dolein, tells us in his Medulla Tritici that when some one known to Stephen was one night reading Wycliffe's Trialogus, it appeared to him as if Wycliffe had rushed into the room, gnashing his teeth, reproaching him for not believing his statements and striking him heavily, while many spectators appeared to be present. He retired before the enraged fiend, but fortunately found on the floor a dungfork. He seized it, and with it struck his adversary so severe a blow that he fell to the ground. He then battered in his brains and killed him. The spectators praised God, and the victor, somewhat distressed by the manslaughter he had committed, was comforted by the spectators with the words: Fear not! the murder of this man involves no guilt. Hus, it is almost needless to repeat, always admitted that he had deeply studied the works of Wycliffe and felt in sympathy