him, consists of the totality of the elect. It is doubtful whether this theory was in direct opposition to the doctrine of the Church of Rome, in the development which it had reached in the fifteenth century. Long before his rupture with the Church, Hus, speaking before the archiepiscopal synod, had defined the "Ecclesia" as "Prædestinatorum Universitas." The head of this Church, according to Hus, is Christ, not the Pope, whose predecessors held no higher rank than other bishops.
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
