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tion in those with whom he was brought into contact; yet he knew not what power he wielded. He possessed few of those qualities which are generally necessary to secure the applause of multitudes. He was eloquent, but less so than his far less respected associate Jerome of Prague. He possessed none of Wyclif’s bitter, keen satirical power, or of the rough, hearty humour of Luther; he was, we should gather, habitually serious, though not stern.[1]
There was in him nothing of the braggadocio of the Puritan: nothing, on the other hand, of the ostentatious humility of the Mediæval Saint. Few men who have enjoyed so much popularity, and that the dangerous popularity of a religious leader, have been so absolutely free from affectation. His life was devoted to the assertion of a great principle which had been obscured for centuries: he thought that he was asserting a principle in defence of which good men of all ages would have gladly died. He behaved at Constance as one who was falling a victim to the malice of personal enemies, as one who grieved at being misunderstood; not as one who rejoiced, with a lawful pride, at being accounted worthy to die for a great cause. Few Reformers have been less violent even in words: hardly was he betrayed, even by a righteous indignation, into a single word or action which his maturer judgment would have condemned; yet he became the national hero of a people whose ferocity in religious warfare stands unexampled in the history of Christendom. No man was ever less of a demagogue, no man was ever more gentle or more humble; yet it may be doubted whether a whole people ever conceived such an enthusiastic affection for one who was so worthy of it.
- ↑ The following character is given of him by the Jesuit Balbinus:—“He was more subtil than eloquent; but the modesty and severity of his manners, his unpolished, austere, and entirely blameless life, his pale thin visage, his good nature and affability to all, even to the meanest persons, were more persuasive than the greatest eloquence.” L’Enfant, vol. 1., p. 24.
