The style of Mr. Gillett is clear, manly, and discriminating.  If, in respect of show, sparkle, nervous energy, verbal felicity, and picturesqueness, it is not equal to that of our chief American historians, yet it is not deficient in ease, grace, or vigor.  He is almost always careful, always unambitious, always in good taste.  To complain that the style is not equal to Mr. Motley’s, simply on the ground that the book is large and the subject historical, is grossly unfair.  Mr. Gillett has not been eager for a place as a writer; his story has more merit in the thing told than in the telling.  Even with his want of German he has been thorough in the investigation of authorities; and if he writes without enthusiasm, his judgment carries the greater weight.  As a scholar and an historian, as a man of candor and resources, his name is an ornament to the Presbyterian ministry, of which he is a member.

And yet the life of Huss is not adapted to produce popular effect, to show to striking advantage the charm of elaborate style, or to lift the hero himself into that upper light where his commonest deeds are dazzling and fascinating.  He had not the acumen, the weight, the learning, the logical irresistibleness of Calvin; nor had he the great human sympathies, the touch of earthiness, yet not grossness, which made Luther so dear to his countrymen, and which have imprinted a cordial geniality on the whole Lutheran Church.  John Huss, though a man of learning, the Rector of a great and powerful University, though a true friend, though a man of wide sympathies, though an eloquent preacher, and a most formidable enemy to the corruptions of the Romish Church, was yet a colorless character in comparison with some men who have become the objects of hero-worship.  There are few of those grand bursts which will always justify Luther’s reputation, nothing of that rich poetical vein of Luther’s, finding its twofold course in music and in poetry:  Huss was comparatively dry, and unenriched by those overflowings of a deep inner nature.  He is, therefore, rather the exponent of an age than a brilliant mark,—­rather a type than a great, restless, creative power.  His life was almost too saintly to be interesting in the popular sense; and although he does emerge above his age, yet it is not as the advocate of an idea, as Luther was, nor of a great system, as Calvin was, nor as a man fearless of kings and queens, as Knox was; his life, rather, was a continued protest against sin in the high places of the Church.  Though in him there appear glimpses of a clearer doctrine than that of his age, yet they do not come to a full expression; it is the pride of pontiffs, the debaucheries of priests, the grasp after place and power and wealth by those who claim to follow the meek and holy One, which provoke his fiercest invective.