Page:The letters of John Hus.djvu/76

generation.^[1] Grant to us help in tribulation: for vain is the salvation of men.^[2] May our hope be in Thee!^[3] May we be drawn to Thee by the threefold cord^[4] that cannot be broken: for it hath been woven by the Lord Jesus Christ. May He, dear brother, grant to you and your helpers a life inviolate in glory, that you may be able to live a long while and bring back^[5] the straying sheep to the way of truth.

I greatly rejoice with all who love the gospel that you have shown your loving-kindness by giving us healthful counsel. Our Lord the King and all his court, the Queen, barons, and common folk, are on the side of the word of Jesus Christ. The Church of Christ in Bohemia greets the Church of Christ in England, and yearns to share in its confession of the holy faith by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. May the glorious God be your reward for having ministered to our need by the example of your great labours. May yours be the peace that passeth all understanding!^[6] Amen.

 

What became of Wyche we know not for certain. He is usually assumed to have been the same Wyche who many years afterwards was first degraded, then burnt on Tower Hill (August 2, 1439), and to whose tomb, as Foxe tells us, the Londoners made pilgrimage, accounting him a prophet and a holy man. ‘So they upreared a great heap of stones and set up a cross there by night.’ This Richard Wyche, as we learn from the writ prohibiting the pilgrimages, ‘did long since heretically hold, teach, and publicly preach certain heresies in many places, and being judicially convicted did before a judge abjure all heresy generally.’ If this Richard Wyche was the same as the author of this letter, he must have been, at the time of his

 

1. Matt. xii. 39.
2. Eccles. iv. 12.
3. Ps. cvii. 13.Inexact.
4. P.: redire; read with H.: reducere.
5. Ps. lxi 8.
6. Phil. iv. 7.