Page:Letters of John Huss Written During His Exile and Imprisonment.djvu/53

This page has been validated.

TO MR MARTIN AND TO MR NICOLAS.

19

LETTER III.

TO MASTER MARTIN AND TO MASTER NICOLAS OF MYLIEZYN.

[He consults them on the subject of the interdiction pronounced against him from the pulpit.^[1]]

May peace be with you, that peace that is not given with the world, with the flesh, and the devil. The Lord has said:—“You shall have tribulations in the world; but if you persevere in well doing, who can do you harm?” I burn with an ardent zeal for the gospel; and my soul is sad, for I know not what to resolve on. I have meditated on these evangelic words of our Saviour (John, chap. x.):—“The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them and scattereth the sheep.”

I have also meditated on these words from St Matthew, (chap. x.):—“But when they persecute you in one city, flee ye into another.” Of these two precepts, so different to each other, which ought I to follow? I know not.

↑ He also asks his friends whether he ought to quit his church; and it is probable that he wrote this letter before leaving Prague.

[1] He also asks his friends whether he ought to quit his church; and it is probable that he wrote this letter before leaving Prague.

[1]