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The Great Controversy
transferred to a strong castle across the Rhine and there kept a prisoner.
The pope, profiting little by his perfidy, was soon after committed to
the same prison. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 247. He had been proved before
the council to be guilty of the basest crimes, besides murder, simony,
and adultery, “sins not fit to be named.” So the council itself declared,
and he was finally deprived of the tiara and thrown into prison. The
antipopes also were deposed, and a new pontiff was chosen.
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Though the pope himself had been guilty of greater crimes than
Huss had ever charged upon the priests, and for which he had de-
manded a reformation, yet the same council which degraded the pontiff
proceeded to crush the Reformer. The imprisonment of Huss excited
great indignation in Bohemia. Powerful noblemen addressed to the
council earnest protests against this outrage. The emperor, who was
loath to permit the violation of a safe-conduct, opposed the proceed-
ings against him. But the enemies of the Reformer were malignant
and determined. They appealed to the emperor’s prejudices, to his
fears, to his zeal for the church. They brought forward arguments of
great length to prove that “faith ought not to be kept with heretics,
nor persons suspected of heresy, though they are furnished with safe-
conducts from the emperor and kings.”—Jacques Lenfant, History of
the Council of Constance, vol. 1, p. 516. Thus they prevailed.
Enfeebled by illness and imprisonment,—for the damp, foul air of
his dungeon had brought on a fever which nearly ended his life,—Huss
was at last brought before the council. Loaded with chains he stood
in the presence of the emperor, whose honor and good faith had been
pledged to protect him. During his long trial he firmly maintained the
truth, and in the presence of the assembled dignitaries of church and
state he uttered a solemn and faithful protest against the corruptions of
the hierarchy. When required to choose whether he would recant his
doctrines or suffer death, he accepted the martyr’s fate.
The grace of God sustained him. During the weeks of suffering
that passed before his final sentence, heaven’s peace filled his soul.
“I write this letter,” he said to a friend, “in my prison, and with my
fettered hand, expecting my sentence of death tomorrow.... When,
with the assistance of Jesus Christ, we shall again meet in the delicious
peace of the future life, you will learn how merciful God has shown
Himself toward me, how effectually He has supported me in the midst
of my temptations and trials.”—Bonnechose, vol. 2, p. 67.
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