Page:The letters of John Hus.djvu/249

This letter, without date, is attributed by Palackẏ to June 5, presumably early in the morning. But the audience that day was too hurried to well fulfil the conditions of the last clause. We think it is better to take it as written with a view to the adjourned audience. In the effects of this audience, after his former experience, Hus has ceased to have much confidence.

 

LVI. To Peter Mladenowic

 

(Without date: June 6, 1415)

 

I dare not rashly say with St. Peter that I shall never be offended in Christ, although all should be offended,^[1] seeing that I have incomparably less zeal and courage than he. For Christ has never plainly called me blessed like Peter,^[2] nor has He promised me so many gifts: the attack too is fiercer, more bewildering, and carried on by more numerous foes. Therefore what I say is that, having hope in Christ Jesus, I intend, so long as I shall hear His message,^[3] to cleave to the truth with your help and that of the saints, even unto death. If Baron John [of Chlum] incurs loss by reason of his expectations about myself, make it up to him, dear Peter, pending your return, so far as concerns the master of the Mint and his wife, who boldly pledged their credit,^[4] and also as regards my other friends, known to the rector who

 

1. Matt. xxvi. 33.
2. Matt. xvi. 17.
3. Dum audivero formam, the exact sense of which seems doubtful.
4. The master of the Mint from 1406–19 was Peter Swojšin Zmrzlík, whose wife, Anna of Frimburg, had much influence with Queen Sophia. It was at the house of this master of the Mint that the Bishop of Nazareth gave his famous certificate of orthodoxy to Hus (p. 143.) He was one of the arbitrators to whom the case of Hus was referred on July 6, 1411 (see p. 41), and in a popular song of 1418 (Doc. 692) is spoken of as one of the chief heretics.