earth. But his word in Bohemia became flesh--yea, more than flesh--blood
and fire. Human words are never great except when transformed into a
drama--when incarnated into life. Wycliffe was never so great in England as
he became in Bohemia. Christianity in Bohemia was at that time relatively
young, nearly three times younger than in Rome. But since Prince Borivoj
was baptised by the Slav Apostle, Methodius, never did Bohemian
Christianity stand nearer to the primitive Bohemian paganism than at the
time when King Wenceslas ruled in Bohemia, and Pope John XXIII ruled in
Rome, and Jan Huss served as preacher in a Prague chapel called the
Bethlehemian. The paganism under the style of poor Jesus, against which
fought Huss, was much more obstinate and aggressive than the paganism under
the style of Perun, against which fought St. Methodius. Everywhere was
found a substitute for Christ, everywhere a pretext for an easy life and
for a broad way instead of the narrow one. Sins and virtues had been
equalised by means of money. The Church buildings had been transformed into
public places for the exchange of sins and virtues. "_Repentance_, not
_Money!_"--exclaimed Jan Huss. But his voice was stifled by the piercing
sounds of the drums by which the sale of absolution for sin was announced
in the streets. Again exclaimed Jan Huss: "The whole Bohemian nation is
longing after Truth." But the traders in Christ's blood and tears laughed
him to scorn. The doctors of theology asked their colleague Huss to confess
that "the Pope is the head and the Bishops the body of the Church, and all
their orders must be obeyed." But Huss did not care very much either about
the head or the body, but principally about the _spirit_ of the Christian
Church. And this spirit he saw eclipsed. He saw men again falling back to
the creed of serving "two masters." He looked to the heart of the Christian
religion and saw that it was sick, and his soul revolted against it. But
his righteous revolution was regarded as a malevolent innovation, his words
as a scandalous licence, and his tendencies as a deliberate destruction of
Christianity. Therefore Jan Huss was brought before a tribunal of Christian