writing pamphlets about the troubles of his country. He had picked
up a smattering of education in Prague. He had studied the writings
of Wycliffe and of Hus, and often appealed to Wycliffe in his works.
He could quote, when he liked, from the great Church Fathers. He
had a fair working knowledge of the Bible; and, above all, he had
the teaching of Christ and the Apostles engraved upon his conscience
and his heart. As he was not a priest, he could afford to be
independent; as he knew but little Latin, he wrote in Bohemian; and
thus, like Stitny and Hus before him, he appealed to the people in
language they could all understand. Of all the leaders of men in
Bohemia, this Peter was the most original and daring. As he
pondered on the woes of his native land, he came to the firm but sad
conclusion that the whole system of religion and politics was rotten
to the core. Not one of the jangling sects was in the right. Not
one was true to the spirit of Christ. Not one was free from the
dark red stain of murder. His chief works were his Net of Faith,
his Reply to Nicholas of Pilgram, his Reply to Rockycana, his Image
of the Beast, his theological treatise On the Body of Christ, his
tract The Foundation of Worldly Laws, his devotional commentary,
Exposition of the Passion according to St. John, and, last, though
not least, his volume of discourses on the Gospel lessons for the
year, entitled Postillia. Of these works the most famous was his
masterly Net of Faith. He explained the title himself. "Through His
disciples," said Peter, "Christ caught the world in the net of His
faith, but the bigger fishes, breaking the net, escaped. Then
others followed through these same holes made by the big fishes, and
the net was left almost empty." His meaning was clear to all. The
net was the true Church of Christ; the two whales who broke it were
the Emperor and the Pope; the big fishes were the mighty "learned
persons, heretics and offenders"; and the little fishes were the