nalized
himself by his diligence in breaking the bread of life to hungering
souls, and his boldness in rebuking vice in high places as in low. So
long as he confined himself to reproving the sins of the laity, he found
little opposition, nay, rather support and applause. But when he brought
the clergy and monks also within the circle of his condemnation, and
began to upbraid them for their covetousness, their ambition, their
luxury, their sloth, and for other vices, they turned resentfully upon
him, and sought to undermine his authority, everywhere spreading reports
of the unsoundness of his teaching.

Let us see on what side he mainly exposed himself to charges such as
these. Many things had recently wrought together to bring into nearness
countries geographically so remote from one another as Bohemia and
England. Anne, wife of our second Richard, was a sister of Wenceslaus,
King of Bohemia. The two flourishing universities of Oxford and Prague
were bound together by their common zeal for Realism. This may seem to
us but a slight and fantastic bond; it was in those days a very strong
one indeed. Young English scholars studied at Prague, young Bohemian at
Oxford. Now, Oxford, long after Wycliffe's death, was full of interest
for his doctrine; and among the many strangers sojourning there, it
could hardly fail that some should imbibe opinions and bring back with
them books of one whom they had there learned to know and to honor. Thus
Jerome, called of Prague, on his return from the English university,
gave a new impulse to the study of Wycliffe's writings, bearer as he was
of several among these which had not hitherto travelled so far.

This man, whose fortunes were so tragically bound up with those of Huss,
who should share with him in the same fiery doom, was his junior by
several years; his superior in eloquence, in talents, in gifts--for
certainly Huss was not a theologian of the first order; speculative
theologian he was not at all--but notably his inferior in moderation and
practical good-sense. Huss never shared in his friend's indiscriminate
admiration of Wycliffe. When, in 1403, some forty-five theses, which
either were or professed to be drawn from the writings of the English
reformer, were brought before the university, that they might be
condemned as heretical, Huss expressed himself with extreme caution and
reserve. Many of these, he affirmed, were true when a man took them
aright; but he could not say this