Huss's mantle on the arm of one of the executioners, ordered
it thrown into the flames lest it should be reverenced as a
relic, and promised the man to compensate him. With the same
view the body was carefully reduced to ashes and thrown into
the Rhine, and even the earth around the stake was dug up
and carted off; yet the Bohemians long hovered around the
spot and carried home fragments of the neighboring clay,
which they reverenced as relics of their martyr. The next
day thanks were returned to God in a solemn procession in
which figured Sigismund and his queen, the princes and
nobles, nineteen cardinals, two patriarchs, seventy-seven
bishops, and all the clergy of the council. A few days later
Sigismund, who had delayed his departure for Spain to see
the matter concluded, left Constance, feeling that his work
was done.

#Hell-Fire#

If such a scene could be witnessed in the world today, it would only
be in some remote and wholly savage place, such as the mountains of
Hayti, or the Solomon Islands. It could no longer happen in any
civilized country; the reason being, not any abatement of the
pretensions of the priesthood, but solely the power of science,
embodied in the physical arm of a secular State. The advance of that
arm the church has fought systematically, in every country, and at
every point. To quote Buckle: "A careful study of the history of
religious toleration will prove that in every Christian country where
it has been adopted, it has been forced upon the clergy by the
authority of the secular classes." The wolf of superstition has been
driven into its lair, but it has backed away snarling, and it still