Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/228

 had by flattery pleased the people, I should not have been a servant of God—therefore I avoid flattery that I may not imperil the souls of others and my own by flattery. Openly and simply have I set down my speech, that I may as far as is in my power crush and weed out simony. Deign Thou to be helpful to me in this cause, oh, merciful Saviour.” I am not, I hope, prejudiced as being a countryman of Hus if I venture to state that, according to my opinion, few sublimer words have ever been written by the pen of man.

To the year 1413 belongs also another of Hus’s most valuable Bohemian works. It may be stated generally that the treatise on Simony, the Postilla to which I shall now refer, and the Letters are the most precious of Hus’s works written in his own language. It is in them that we find the true Hus, not in the scholastic and sometimes sophistical controversies with Stokes, Palec, and others. The Postilla, finished by Hus on October 28, 1413, was not actually the last even of his Bohemian works. It was, however, the last of his more extensive and striking writings and was therefore afterwards greatly venerated as his “testament” or “last will.” A particular veneration for the Holy Scriptures was characteristic of Hus as of Matthew of Janov and all Bohemian church-reformers. The Bible was, however, very little known to the Bohemian people, and its study was by no means encouraged by the priests. The Postilla is a collection of sermons on the gospel for every Sunday and more important holy days of the year. Hus writes in his introduction: “I resolved for the glory of God, and for the salvation of the faithful Bohemians, who wish to know and to fulfil God’s will, briefly to expound with God’s help the gospel for all the Sundays of the year. I desire that those who read or listen be saved, that they may beware of sin, love God above all things, love one another, increase in virtue and pray to the Lord God for me, sinner.” Hus then alludes to the ignorance of the Bible that was general among the Bohemians. “As the people,” he writes, “gener-