TUE CONCILIÜM S SAAL AT CONSTANZ.

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"safe-conduct" granted him by the President of the Assembly— the Emperor Sigismund himself.

This JühnHuss was a Bohemian, and had assumed, as wasusual in those days, the name of his native village, Hussinecz,wliicli signified "goose." Born of humble parents on the 6thof July, 1373 (for, say the Chronicles of Constanz, he was " 43,and not a day," at the time of his martyrdom), John Huss wasindebted for his education to the bounty of one of the nobles ofBohemia. During his studentship at the New University ofPrague lie carried off many honours; and having been ordainedpriest in 1400, he was made minister to Bethlehem chapel inthe Bohemian capital, and the year after elected Dean of theFaculty of Philosophy, being ultimately installed as Rector ofthe University. The Queen of Bohemia, too, appointed himher confessor, and he was even favoured by the King Wenceslas(Wenzels) himself.

But Wyeliffe—"the Morning Star of the Reformation,"as ho has been styled—only a few years prior to the birth ofHuss, had published his essay On the Truth and Meaning ofScripture, in which he advocated the principle of " Gospelliberty," or the right of private judgment; whilst in his tract,On the Schism of the Popes, he had not only denounced thePapal tyranny, as well as the idle and vicious lives of theclergy, but condemned the abuse of her temporalities by theChurch. Moreover, in 1381, Wyeliffe had published thetwelve theses against " transubstantiation," which the Arch-bishop of Canterbury had declared to be dangerous andheretical.

The works of the English Reformer had been carried by aBohemian into his native country, and created a deep im-pression on the minds of many of the teachers in the Uni-versity of Prague. Huss was among the first to embrace the