John Huss, a Bohemian reformer, followed closely after the doctrine of
Wyclif, although he disagreed with him in his opposition to
transubstantiation. He preached for constitutional reform of the
church, reformative administration, and morality. He urged a return to
the Bible as a criterion for belief and a guide to action. Finally he
was summoned to the Council of Constance to answer for his heresy, and
guaranteed safe-conduct by the Emperor Sigismund, who presided; but,
notwithstanding this promise, the council declared him a heretic and
burned him at the stake with Jerome of Prague. This was one of the
results of the so-called reforming Council of {380} Constance--its
reform consisted in silencing the opponents of papal authority and
corruption.

John Tauler belonged to a group of people called mystic philosophers,
who, though remaining within the church, opposed dogmatism and
formalism and advocated spiritual religion. Their doctrine was to
leave formality and return to God. Many other societies, calling
themselves "Friends of God," sprang up in the Netherlands and in the
south and west of Germany. John Tauler was the most prominent of all
their preachers. He held that man is justified by faith alone, and
Luther, who republished Tauler's book on German theology,[1] asserted
that it had more influence over him than any other books, except the
Bible and the works of Saint Augustine.

Savonarola, a most powerful orator and great scholar of Italy, lifted
his voice in favor of reform in the church administration and in favor
of the correction of abuses. He transcended the teachings of the
schools of philosophy, departed from the dogma of the church, and
preached in the name of God and His Son. He was shocked at the signs
of immorality which he saw in common society. As a preacher of
righteousness, he prophesied a judgment speedily to come unless men
turned from the error of their ways. But in the ways of the world he
paid for his boldness and his enthusiasm, for the pope excommunicated
him, and his enemies created distrust of him in the hearts of the
people. He was put in prison, afterward brought to trial and condemned
to death, and finally hanged and burned and his ashes thrown into the
Arno--all because the pope hoped to stay the tide of religious and
social reform.

_Immediate Causes of the Reformation_.--Mr. Bryce, in his _Holy Roman
Empire_,[2] says:

"There is perhaps no event in history which