88
The Great Controversy 1888
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 anti-popes
also were deposed, and a new pontiff was chosen.
[107]
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
loth to permit the violation of a safe-conduct, opposed the proceedings
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 he was “perfectly at liberty not to keep faith with
a heretic,“ and that the council, being above the emperor, “could free
him from his word.” 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 prison, and with my fettered
hand, expecting my sentence of death tomorrow.... When, with the
assistance of Jesus Christ, we shall meet again 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.”
In the gloom of his dungeon he foresaw the triumph of the true
[108]
faith. Returning in his dreams to the chapel at Prague where he had
preached the gospel, he saw the pope and his bishops effacing the
pictures of Christ which he had painted on its walls. He was deeply