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teachings of Christ and the events of his life should long remain unrecorded. At the outset, it is probable that isolated memoranda were made of particular events or discourses. These rudimental records first came into being in Galilee and about Capernaum. In this way, a cluster of traditions would easily come to exist. Then, and before long, followed the combination of them, and the earliest efforts at framing a connected history. Such were the essays which Luke notices in his prologue. At length, within thirty or forty years of the death of Christ, there were efforts at more regular composition, of which the works of Luke are the maturest specimen. The first three Gospels present indubitable traces of such an origin as we have indicated. We are not to look for chronological precision in narratives thus constructed. We are not to look for light on all parts and points of the Saviour's earthly life. The Gospel of John, an original composition, emanating from the mind and heart of the loved disciple, is the document to be first consulted in the scientific construction of the Saviour's history. The four together enable us to gain a knowledge of Jesus, not so full as we crave, yet sufficient for every practical need.

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ARTICLE II.-THE SERMONS OF JOHN HUSS.

Ir is always an interesting question in regard to any man who has exerted a powerful influence upon his age, or who has attained to eminence among his fellows, by what method did he attain that influence or secure that distinction. And sometimes our previous knowledge of the man lends a peculiar charm to common words and trivial incidents which serve to confirm our impressions, or enable us to trace the more minute outlines of his character. Although familiar with the life of a Washington or a Webster, we could yet listen for hours unwearied to the brief anecdote which a gardener or an uneducated neighbor had gathered up from daily intercourse with them, nor should we regard as valueless the correspondence from their pens, which, without adding new facts to our store of information, served for further illustration of their character, principles, or habits.

It is thus that while, from sources at length laid open to us, we are able to study the full-length portrait of the great Bohemian reformer and martyr, John Huss, we yet welcome with unfeigned satisfaction every contribution which can serve to the further elucidation of his spirit and his career. In his monumenta we have many of his saintly letters which seem to transform his prison cell to a Patmos--some of his most memorable discourses delivered before the Synod, in the pres ence of the Archbishop of Prague, and not a few of his doctrinal and controversial treatises, in which we learn to admire the scriptural simplicity and correctness of many of his views, his rare ability in argument, and his vigor in refutation. But it is still gratifying to confirm or correct the impressions derived from these sources by the light afforded in the recent German translations of his Bohemian sermons. These have been translated and published under the supervision of Dr. John Nowotny, pastor of Petershain in Germany, and have been issued in successive parts, the earliest appearing in a

16mo. pamphlet of twenty-eight pages, in 1854. The other parts combined made an octavo of about two hundred and sixty pages, and nearly if not quite all the discourses are derived from an old Bohemian Postille which the Moravian brethren brought with them to Herrnhut, where the translator, Dr. Nowotny, discovered it.

The discourses are thirty in number, and take the form of familiar expositions of the passages of Scripture assigned to be read on the different Sabbaths of the year. In some instances they are little more than an extended popular commentary, in others they embody an excursus on some important point. For instance, he takes up the subject of excommunication, shows into how many kinds it may be divided, in what cases it is to be feared, and in what cases despised. "The power of the Keys" is also taken up, and by a method of exposition. which modern commentators would regard as far in advance of the age, he shows just how far the power of the priesthood extends, and that none can forgive sins but God alone. Again the practical question as to the righteousness or duty of fleeing from persecution is discussed at length, and those subjects in which his contemporaries would naturally take the deepest interest are appropriately introduced, and give occasion for extended remark. Only in a very few instances is there anything approaching in form to a logical or systematic discussion embodied in a single sermon. The style is simple and familiar, adapted to popular apprehension and void of all rhetorical ornament. In his Latin sermons, preached before the Synod at Prague, we recognize in Huss the scholar as well as the earnest reformer. But in these expositions he addresses himself to the common mind, and speaks to his countrymen in their own vernacular.

Unquestionably a large share of the influence which he exerted was due to the effective use which he made of his native Bohemian. His merits in this respect are now freely conceded. In all his Bohemian writings he paid special attention to the language, and "exerted a decided and lasting influence on it." To render the alphabet more interesting and attrac

* Bib. Repository, 1834, p. 434.

tive to learners, he imitated Cyril's ingenious mode of giving to each letter the name of some well-known Bohemian word, which had that letter for its initial, e. g. H, hospodia, lord; K, Kral, King. He wrote a Latin treatise on the principles of Bohemian orthography,* in which he laid down rules which are regarded as authoritative even at the present day. To his larger treatises he was accustomed to prefix a preface, touching on matters of grammar and orthography, for the instruction of copyists, in which he admonished them not to fall back into the old method of writing. With a patriotic zeal he strove against that blending of German and Bohemian which had begun already to prevail at Prague, and which threatened to displace both languages by a mongrel or patois, which was an offense alike to true national feeling and to literary taste. As a Bohemian writer, therefore, he cherished the ambition of a purist, and endeavored to mould his native language in graceful and becoming forms. He studied simplicity, precision, and consistency, not only in the structure of sentences, but in the structure of the alphabet and the spelling of the words. The correction and distribution of the Bohemian Bible is said to have been his constant care. He was, indeed, as really a reformer of Bohemian orthography as of the Bohemian Church.

This is a most significant fact. It warrants us in classing him with the first great English Reformer, Wicliffe, whose translation of the Scriptures contributed in no small measure to give greater precision to English orthography, and to shape the language, as well as with Luther, the publication of whose German Bible is the great landmark in the history of his native language. Had it not been for the superior importance of the labors of Huss as a Reformer, we might still have been called to recognize his merits as the most enterprising and practical student of his native language, as the man to whose labors and critical skill it is most deeply indebted.

We are warranted in the inference that he gave special at

* Palacky's Geschichte von Böhmen, III. 1. 299.

+ Ib. I. 493.

tention to his Postilles, as also to his other Bohemian writings. We are led to this conclusion not only from the consideration of their adaptation to the instruction of his unlettered countrymen, but from the fact that they present on several points an extended vindication of his principles and of the course which he had pursued. Internal evidence shows that they were written for the most part during the year 1413, while he was in exile from Prague. They doubtless embody the substance of what he preached to the crowds led by curiosity or sympathy to hear the words and see the person of one who had been subjected to the terrible sentence of papal excommunication, and on whose account a great city had been put under interdict. They contain more or less extended references to the harsh and cruel measures of persecution to which he had been subjected, his standard of Christian authority and duty, his views in reference to the state of the Church, and the antichristian character of the papacy, his exposures of ecclesiastical vice, as well as simple expositions of Scripture applicable to the needs and the experience of the Christian life, and level to the humblest capacity. The learned Rector of the University of Prague seems to lay aside his academic robes, and vie with Luther in his effort to speak "so that children and servants might understand" his words.

There are some points on which Huss never attained to well-defined evangelical views. The leaven of Romish corruption in doctrine which was not entirely purged out, or rather the authority of the Fathers, whose language repeatedly is what would now be considered loose and unguarded, was allowed to obscure or confuse his apprehensions of the teachings of Scripture. Justification by faith alone is in no instance distinctly presented, although the mischiefs and wickedness of Papal indulgences are unsparingly exposed, and our salvation is made to depend alone on the atoning death of Christ.

But we may set forth his ideas of the truth which the servant of Christ is commissioned to preach in his own words. These indicate plainly enough his emancipation from thraldom to Papal rites and ceremonies, or to any authority which would set aside the commands of Christ.

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