those youthful afflicted outcasts are too often left to pine in sickness in some wretched tenement, or damp and unwholesome cellar, with few or none to pity or relieve them.

instruction, by no means creditable to that principality.

In Scotland considerable interest has been excited by the question, whether others than members of the established church shall be eligible

DIED, On the 15th inst.. at his residence, Lon- to professorships in their colleges. It is supdon Grove, Chester county, Pennsylvania, WILLIAM posed that the influence of the "Free Church" BAILEY, a valuable member and minister, belong-will be sufficient to remove the restriction. ing to New Garden Monthly Meeting-aged about 80 years.

No little excitement has been occasioned by a letter from a Roman Catholic archbishop in Ireland, in which he appears to justify the priests in denouncing in their places of worship certain obnoxious individuals by name; a course which in one instance at least is said to have been fol lowed by the assassination of the proscribed LITERARY AND RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE party. The practice is defended by the example of certain "early Christian Fathers" in deThe second volume of the Memoir of Eliza-nouncing the vengeance of Heaven against perbeth Fry has been issued from the London press. secuting pagans or heretics. Private letters speak of it as a most interesting volume.

In Philadelphia, on the 25th inst., SARAH, the widow of John Cooper, in the 68th year of her age, a member of the Northern District Monthly Meeting.

BY THE CAMBRIA.

the North American Review. JOHN HUSS AND JEROME OF PRAGUE. The meeting of the Council of Constance drew nigh, and Huss was summoned to appear before it.

A Memoir of that eminent minister of our religious society, David Sands, is about to appear in England. It is understood that the papers in possession of his descendants in this country have been used in the composition of the work. Great excitement has been occasioned amongst Huss was confined to his bed by sickness the members of the Established Church by the when his summons to the Council was brought nomination of Dr. Hampden to a bishopric, to him. He started up at once, threw on his his appointment being opposed by a majority clothes, seized his papers, and seemed about to of the Episcopal Bench and many others on the prepare for the journey, as if he had forgotten ground of his holding rationalistic views. That that November was yet so far off. "Do you fearful German heresy which substitutes the not see, he cried to a bystander, "that this news weak and fallible conclusions of the human in- has made me well again?" But he found his tellect upon sacred things for a Divine revela- friends at Prague in a very different frame of tion, may well excite the alarm of all sober mind. They saw slight cause, indeed, for joy thinking men. Dr. Hampden, however, denies in the exposure of a beloved friend and revered the charge; and his friends allege that his offence instructor to almost certain death. That Huss consists in tracing the phraseology of all creeds himself began by degrees, as the fever of enthu to the Scholastic Divinity-refusing to condemn siasm abated, to comprehend the full extent of any for disliking metaphysical distinctions pro- the danger, is apparent from letters written to vided they believe in Scripture truth expressed in his friends just before his departure. In one of Scripture terms, and discrediting the "Fathers" these, addressed to the Bohemians, he speaks of as expressing themselves in the philosophical his enemies in the Council as being more nulanguage of their age. An important result merous than those of Christ had been, and prays of the controversy, which is conducted with that God will enable him to face them without much warmth, may perhaps be a more thorough fear, temptation, imprisonment, and the pains of a examination of the claims of Episcopacy to be cruel death. His enemies, too, had made their a scriptural institution. An accession to the calculations of chances, and were quite content ranks of the Dissenters, it is supposed, may to leave him, without further molestation at home, grow out of this difficulty. to the tender mercies of the council. Two of Another question connected with religious the bitterest among them, Stephen Paletz and topics is the proposed repeal of the acts which Michael Causius, were to go to Constance to prevent Jews from sitting as members of Parlia-press his condemnation. The time of his dement. It is contended that the repeal is incon-parture now approached. In October, 1414, he sistent with the doctrine that Christianity is part and parcel of the law of Great Britain; while the removal of the disability is urged on the plea that all classes of tax paying subjects are entitled to be represented.

A commission to investigate the condition of education in Wales has made a report exhibiting a condition of things, both as regards morals and

took his last leave of the Bethlehem Chapel, the home of his heart, which had indeed been to him "his joy and his throne." As he left the city, he was accompanied by several of his friends. "Dear master," were Jerome's last words, "be firm; should I learn that thou hast fallen into any peril, I will fly forthwith to thy assistance." An humble artisan took leave of

him with the words,-"Very dear master John, may God be with you; I can hardly hope that you will return safe and sound." The scene reminds us of the parting between Paul and the elders of the Ephesian church. Huss, too, had reason to fear that bonds and afflictions were abiding him. He, too, had not shunned to declare unto his flock all the counsel of God, and might now say,-"None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself." His heart-broken friends, as they fell on his neck and kissed him, like the disciples of the Apostle, sorrowed most of all that they should see his face no more.

himself to the woman of Sarepta, that received Elijah. The next day the pope was informed of his arrival, and promised him his protection, though he could not be persuaded to give it in writing. For nearly a month Huss seems to have been almost unmolested. He passed his time in writing home, and conversing with those who came to his house to hear him, and in composing a treatise or two. He prepared two sermons, which have been preserved, and are said to be of great excellence, with the intention of preaching them in public. But it would never do to allow so dangerous a man to gain popularity, and to prove to the world that he was no more a heretic than many of the doctors at the council, who gloried in their untarnished orthodoxy. His enemies from Bohemia improved the interval, and made a compilation of certain articles which they pretended to have taken from his works, and shewed busily about to such of the clergy as they happened to meet. Huss, as it seems, was not allowed to preach his sermons, and on the twenty-sixth day after his arrival was summoned to appear before the pope and cardinals. He went, attended by his friend John de Chlum. The cardinals, having

He had received from Wenceslaus a safe-conduct through his dominions, and an escort of noblemen to accompany him to Constance. One of these, John de Chlum, deserves to be held in everlasting honour for the heroic and devoted faithfulness with which, in the midst of foes, and through all manner of ill-report, he clung to his persecuted and forsaken teacher. Other friends probably went with him; for his train, an imposing procession for a poor priest, consisted of thirty horses and several carriages. On his way he was met by a safe-conduct from Sigismund, in which all the subjects of the empire were en-examined him and retired to deliberate on his joined to allow him" to pass, stop, sojourn, and return without hindrance;" a notable document, which has condemned its author to eternal fame. The journey, which occupied twentythree days, was performed on horseback, and in the most public manner. Huss, of course, was not silent, but availed himself of every opportunity to deliver addresses, in Latin or German, in the towns through which he passed. He seems to have excited the greatest curiosity and interest everywhere, especially at Nuremberg, where his reception was of the most gratifying character. Writing from this place to his congregation, he tells them that he has not met thus far with an enemy, and has been well received wherever he stopped.

When he came in sight of the towers of Constance, if we may believe our German biographer, a sudden thrill of fear came over him, which he soon repressed with the trustful exclamation-"If God is for us, who can be against us? They may make me suffer, but the doctrine which I preach is beyond their power." A week before, Pope John, as he approached the city and looked down from a ridge of the Tyrol into the valley below, had uttered the prophetic words,-"Ah, I see how it is; yonder is the pit where they catch the foxes.' The fox was indeed caught, and the heretic was made to suffer; but the weed of heresy survived the fire, and a century later was strong enough to choke the choicest flower in the papal garden. Huss and his friends took lodgings in the great square of Constance, near the pope's hotel, at the house of a widow named Fida (Faith, as Fox the Martyrologist rejoices to call her,) who is compared by Huss

case, yielded at last to the importunity of his accusers,* and delivered him into the custody of a guard of soldiers, who had been posted at a convenient distance, and by whom he was conveyed to the house of an official of the cathedral. Here he remained for a week in confinement. In the meantime his friend Chlum, full of indignation at this gross injustice, hurried to the pope for redress; and being repulsed there, informed the Emperor, who had not yet arrived at Constance, of the indignity which had been put upon him by this barefaced violation of his safe-conduct. Sigismund shook with rage when he heard it, and sent written orders to have Huss set at liberty on the instant. The orders, were never executed, but on the 5th of December Huss was removed to a damp and noisome vault in the prison of the Dominican monastery.

Sigismund did not make his entry into Constance until the morning of Christmas day. In the meantime, the town and its environs had been filling up with strangers from all parts of Europe, who had flocked thither for business or out of curiosity, to the number, according to one estimate, of a hundred thousand. Coronets, red hats, and mitres, which owe so much of their value to their rarity, and are therefore not given to gregarious habits, were to be seen there in most vulgar abundance. As if, too, to show how small was the sum of the wisdom of the scholars of Europe had gathered in mass.

age,

the The

To one of the cardinals, who wished to leave Huss at liberty for the present, Paletz addressed the convincing argument," My lord cardinal, if Huss's doctrine prevails, you can hardly continue a cardinal.”

his disorder had assumed so alarming a form, that the pope, either out of pity or from reluctance to lose his victim by a natural death, sent his own physician to attend him.

hangers on of a council, like those of a camp-| found his accusers in public, he was removed to meeting, are a significant part of a great crowd, the Franciscan prison, where he remained till and we have statistical enumerations of cooks, the pope's escape from Constance. At one time, barbers, and other signs of civilization. The first measures of the council must have appeared to the pope very like the preparations for the fox-hunt he so much dreaded. It was resolved that the delegates should vote by nations; a proceeding which palsied the right arm of papal patronage. It was also voted that the secular dignitaries should have a voice as well as the clergy; another blow on pontifical influence. The arrival of Sigismund, instead of arresting the course of the pope's antagonists, only emboldened them the more. They were resolved on pushing John to an abdication. He endeavoured to elude the danger by fleeing from the city, hoping thus to break up the council. But the firmness of Sigismund, who had determined to sustain the council, prevented its dissolution; and the miserable pontiff was finally deposed. These transactions, however, occupied several months. We return to Huss.

By the scanty rays of light which found their way into his gloomy dungeon, he was able to write from time to time to his friends in Bohemia, and to draw up a few practical tracts for the use of his jailors, who had become much attached to their meek and patient prisoner. His health at last gave way; he suffered under the most horrible attacks of a disease to which he had never before been subject, and was reduced by a fever to great extremity. In this deplorable state he writes: "If you should see me, you would pity me. I have scarcely any rest from pain. It presses me together like a worm, and rolls me about on my miserable pallet. And yet pity me not, for I fear that I may be reserved for much greater sufferings, unless death first comes to my relief." In the mean time, he received a visit from three commissioners, sent by the pope to examine him on certain charges which his indefatigable accusers had preferred against him; an act of Christian charity, doubtless, for he was "sick and in prison," and did they not "visit" him? Nor was it a mere call of ceremony. They came to cheer his dull sense with fresh proofs of the malice of his foes, and when the lonely man, sick with hope deferred and crushed by disease, applied for the aid of a professional advocate, he was told, in language which showed that he had fallen into pious hands, that the canons of the church forbade every one to defend the cause of a heretic. "I besought the commissioners," he writes, "to allow me an advocate. They at first granted iny request, but afterwards refused. I therefore put my trust in the Saviour Jesus Christ. May he be my advocate and judge!" After a captivity of two months in this prison, where the pangs of disease were aggravated to a degree which to his nature must have been intolerable, by his inability to face and con

The news of his imprisonment was received at Prague with greater indignation than astonishment; for, as we learn from Huss himself, he had been warned by several persons in Bohemia not to rely on the safe-conduct. Nor could the letters which came from him, so full of sweet resignation, of abiding affection and heroic firmness, be read without tears of grief and rage by the multitude of friends he had left behind. Letters were despatched by the nobles of Bohemia to Sigismund, remonstrating in the strongest terms against his breach of princely faith. But that monarch, hemmed in by a fence of bristling crosiers, had imbibed, with the ready absorption of a bigot, the subtle poison of priestly sophistry, instilling into his ear the glozing suggestion that he need not keep faith with a heretic; that he had no right to grant the safe-conduct without the consent of the council; and that the council could absolve him from his promise. It was a rare case of special pleading, by which it ap pears, first, that the promise was invalid in its conception; secondly, that he had a right to break it; thirdly, that the council gave him leave to break it. This triple cord was too strong to be broken, and Huss's doom was sealed. The pope's officers, after their master's flight, which took place in the latter part of March, 1415, gave up the custody of Huss; and he was transferred to the castle of Gotleben on the banks of the Rhine, where he was chained with irons on his feet, and at night fixed to his bed by another chain which was riveted to the wall. Rather more than two months afterwards, the deposed pope was brought a prisoner to the same castle, for fear that the serpent's fangs had not been quite drawn. Huss probably never saw his fellow-captive; but he knew of his fate, and found in it a triumphant confirmation of his own doctrines; for he could now say, as matter of fact, that Christendom was without a head on earth, and possessed Jesus Christ alone as a chief to direct it.

The deposal of Pope John was voted at the twelfth session of the council; the eighth, which was held on the fifth of May, was occupied with the reading and condemnation of Wycliffe's works. This was a fit prelude to the trial of Huss, and almost a prejudging of his case, inasmuch as the most offensive doctrines of the Bohemian were to be found in the writings of his English forerunner. The emperor was present, a cardinal presided, and a patriarch celebrated mass. The passage from the Gospels beginning, "Beware of false prophets," was read by way of preparation for the day's work. A bishop