of all. Not first at the Council of
Constance, but long before, he had refused to undertake the
responsibility of Wycliffe's teaching on the holy eucharist. But he did
not conceal what he had learned from Wycliffe's writings. By these there
had been opened to him a deeper glimpse into the corruptions of the
Church, and its need of reformation in the head and in the members, than
ever he had before obtained. His preaching, with the new accesses of
insight which now were his, more than ever exasperated his foes.

While matters were in this strained condition, events took place at
Prague which are too closely connected with the story that we are
telling, exercised too great an influence in bringing about the issues
that lie before us, to allow us to pass them by, even though they may
prove somewhat long to relate. The University of Prague, though recently
founded--it only dated back to the year 1348--was now, next after those
of Paris and Oxford, the most illustrious in Europe. Saying this I say
much; for we must not measure the influence and authority of a
university at that day by the influence and authority, great as these
are, which it may now possess. This university, like that of Paris, on
the pattern of which it had been modelled, was divided into four
"nations"--four groups, that is, or families of scholars--each of these
having in academical affairs a single collective vote. These nations
were the Bavarian, the Saxon, the Polish, and the Bohemian. This does
not appear at first an unfair division--two German and two Slavonic; but
in practical working the Polish was so largely recruited from Silesia
and other German or half-German lands that its vote was in fact German
also.

The Teutonic votes were thus as three to one, and the Bohemians, in
their own land and in their own university, on every important matter
hopelessly outvoted. When, by aid of this preponderance, the university
was made to condemn the teaching of Wycliffe in those forty-five points,
matters came to a crisis. Urged by Huss--who as a stout patriot, and an
earnest lover of the Bohemian language and literature, had more than a
theological interest in the matter--by Jerome, by a large number of the
Bohemian nobility, King Wenceslaus published an edict whereby the
relations of natives and foreigners were completely reversed. There
should be henceforth three votes for the Bohemian nation, and only one
for the three others. Such a shifting of the weig