It remains to cast a glance on the individuality and character of Hus. He has always been judged in a most opposite manner, according to the religious opinions of those who wrote about him. As Schiller has said of another very different, great Bohemian, it can be said of Hus too:—
"Von der Parteien Gunst und Hass verwirrt
Schwankt sein Characterbild in der Geschichte."
I must rely on what I have already written, but principally on my extracts from the works of Hus, to bear witness for the sincere piety, the enthusiasm for the law of God, the patriotism, the humility and the sincerity of Hus. That he was faultless, I do not attempt to prove, and no one would have resented such an attempt more than the great Bohemian, who, in one of his last letters, begged those who might have heard that he had committed some offence against God's law, not to follow his example, but to pray God to forgive him. It is certain that Hus was imprudent when, by high-coloured descriptions of the misdeeds of their priests, he incensed the ignorant and excitable population of Prague. Neither can it be denied that—no doubt influenced by his firm belief that he was speaking in the name of Christ, not in his own—Hus sometimes showed traces of the self-willed obstinacy which the enemies of Bohemia have ever declared to be characteristic of its inhabitants.
Such slight blemishes, visible indeed to the modern writer, were not unnaturally ignored by the enthusiastic followers of Hus. To them he was "The Martyr," and the National Church of Bohemia, up to the time of its suppression in the seventeenth century, continued to celebrate the 6th of July, the anniversary of the death of Hus.
If, neglecting for a moment the minutiæ of mediæval theological controversy, we consider as a martyr that man who willingly sacrifices his individual life for what he firmly believes to be the good of humanity at large, who "takes the world's life on him and his own lays down," then assuredly there is no truer martyr in the world's annals than John of Husinec.
The name of Jerome of Prague was, particularly among older writers, so closely connected with that of Hus, that it would appear incorrect altogether to omit mentioning his name. He had by no means the great influence on the development of Hussitism in Bohemia—in which country he appeared but occasionally and for short periods—which was attributed to him before the studies of the present century had rendered the past history of Bohemia clearer. What influence he obtained was through his eloquence, not through his pen, so that his place in a history of Bohemian literature is a very modest one. One letter still preserved has been, on doubtful evidence, attributed to Jerome. It is more pleasing, at any rate, to doubt its authenticity. It is supposed to have been written after he had recanted his former opinions. In this letter (dated August 12, 1415), addressed to Lord Lacek of Kravář, Jerome states that "the dead man (i.e. Hus) wrote many false and hurtful things."
FOOTNOTES:
[28] This has ceased to be true since the appearance of Dr. Flajšhans's Mistr Jan Hus.
[29] According to Dr. Flajšhans it may be considered as certain that Hus was born later, between 1373 and 1375.