Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/327



the great part that Hus played as a church-reformer is widely known, his great importance as a Bohemian patriot is almost unknown beyond the borders of his native land. Many Bohemians who are firm adherents of the Roman Church therefore feel great sympathy for Hus, admiring not only his saintly character, but also his devotion to his country and its language, to the development of which he so largely contributed. As has already been mentioned, Husinec, the birth-place of the great church-reformer, lies in a district in Western Bohemia which is near the Bavarian frontier and where the German nationality marches with the Bohemian one. No doubt, in consequence of this proximity, the national feeling is very strongly developed in this part of the country. Though little is known of his early youth, it is certain that Hus was brought up as a strong Bohemian patriot. Though so saintly a man as Hus was incapable of hatred of Germans or of men of any country, the injustice of the system which placed in the hands of foreigners—mostly men hostile to the Bohemian nation—most of the dignities of the university and the largest part of the ecclesiastical patronage, filled him with great and justifiable indignation. In one of his earliest sermons, which has already been mentioned, Hus spoke very strongly on the humiliating and subordinate position of the Bohemians in their own country. Like the Bohemian patriots of all periods—for they have retained this characteristic up to the present day—Hus was devotedly attached to the national language. The constant contact with Germany and the fact that many