Huss and Jerome
93
or even to see, in great physical suffering and mental anxiety. Yet his
arguments were presented with as much clearness and power as if he
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had had undisturbed opportunity for study. He pointed his hearers to
the long line of holy men who had been condemned by unjust judges.
In almost every generation have been those who, while seeking to
elevate the people of their time, have been reproached and cast out, but
who in later times have been shown to be deserving of honor. Christ
himself was condemned as a malefactor at an unrighteous tribunal.
At his retraction, Jerome has assented to the justice of the sentence
condemning Huss; he now declared his repentance, and bore witness
to the innocence and holiness of the martyr. “I knew John Huss from
his childhood,” he said. “He was a most excellent man, just and holy;
he was condemned, notwithstanding his innocence.... I also—I am
ready to die. I will not recoil before the torments that are prepared
for me by my enemies and false witnesses, who will one day have
to render an account of their impostures before the great God, whom
nothing can deceive.”
In self-reproach for his own denial of the truth, Jerome continued:
“Of all the sins that I have committed since my youth, none weigh
so heavily upon my mind, and cause me such poignant remorse, as
that which I committed in this fatal place, when I approved of the
iniquitous sentence rendered against Wycliffe, and the holy martyr,
John Huss, my master. Yes, I confess it from my heart; and declare
with horror that I disgracefully quailed, when, through a dread of
death, I condemned their doctrines. I therefore supplicate Almighty
God to deign to pardon me my sins, and this one in particular, the most
heinous of all.” Pointing to his judges, he said firmly: “You condemned
Wycliffe and Huss, not for having shaken the doctrine of the church,
but simply because they branded with reprobation the scandals of the
clergy,—their pomp, their pride, and all the vices of the prelates and
priests. The things that they have affirmed, and which are irrefutable,
I also think and declare like them.”
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His words were interrupted. The prelates, trembling with rage,
cried out, “What need have we of further proof?” “Away with the most
obstinate of heretics!”
Unmoved by the tempest, Jerome exclaimed: “What! do you
suppose that I fear to die? You have held me a whole year in a frightful
dungeon, more horrible than death itself. You have treated me more