One woman at least, even in Wycliffe's time, made good use of her opportunity, and this was none other than Anne of Bohemia, the Queen-consort of the young King Richard who had marched out as a lad to meet the peasants' demands. She eagerly read the four Gospels in English and through her influence they came to be known in Eastern Europe. John Huss and Jerome of Prague accepted them with fervent zeal and thus lighted the torch of Reformation in Bohemia.

Women indeed drank deeply at this new fount of life. "It is touching to read of such incidents as that of one Alice Collins sent to the little gatherings to recite the Ten Commandments and parts of the Epistles of SS. Paul and Peter which she knew by heart," so Dr. Paterson Smyth writes in his history of the Bible. Wycliffe's copies, all made by hand, were naturally costly, and only wealthy folk could possess one of their own, a considerable sum being paid for even a few sheets. Even now, after 500 years, one hundred and seventy of these copies remain, showing with what patient diligence Wycliffe's little band of poor preachers must have worked at duplicating the manuscripts.

Queen Elizabeth, two hundred years later, was another of the women to possess a copy. It was given her as a birthday gift by one of her chaplains. How could the adversary expect to keep the Bible a closed book to the women of England when the blessing to Joseph was prophesied as coming through the feminine qualities, and "God's promises are kept." A woman was so to study the Bible in the ages to come that she could write, as a spiritually inspired key to the Scriptures, a "little book" called Science and Health, which was literally to bring health to mind and body, to recover for Christianity the healing art which

Jesus bestowed upon his true disciples and faithful followers in all time, even those very "signs" which he promised should follow "them that believe."

With what tender, stately grace Wycliffe's old English falls upon the ear, and how vividly literal are his expressions in the light of Christian Science:

"Lord now thou lenyst thi servannt aftir thi word in pees; for myn igen hav seyn thin helthe, which thou hast maad redi bifor the face of alle puplis." Luke ii. 29: 31.

"That ye walke worthili to God, plesynge bi alle thingis, and make fruyt in al good werk and waxe in the science of God." Col. ii. 3.

"God, the fathir of Jhesu Crist, in whom alle the tresouris of wisdom and of science ben hid."

The phrase in II Thessalonians 2, which in the Authorized Version reads 'strong delusion', Wycliffe translates "a worching of errour," and continues "we owen to do thankyngis evermore to God for you that God chees (chose) us the firste fruytis in to heelthe in halewing of Spirit and in feith of truethe."

Wycliffe was helped in his great undertaking by two friends, Nicholas de Hereford, who translated about half of the Old Testament, and Richard Purvey, his curate, who revised the whole of it about eight years after its completion, in a most loving and reverent spirit. It is good to think that Wycliffe in his secluded retreat at Lutterworth experienced some of the blessings of home, and peace, and affection. Leicestershire, even as far back as 1380, was the center of the woolen trade, and in the quiet stretches of rich pasture large flocks of sheep grazed. Doubtless, sweet scented clover and the meadowsweet, bloomed along the hedgerows as they do today, and the sunshine came down from heaven in straight shafts of

light, diffusing benediction from tender summer skies. We can imagine how at eventide when purple mists and deepening shadows enfolded tree, and roof, and sheepfold, a light would appear in the window of the parsonage on the hill, and how the steady beat of horses hoofs in the wooded lane off the old Roman Road, would draw nearer and nearer that light as some one of Wycliffe's preachers or friends, perhaps the poet Chaucer himself, would be nearing his journey's end.

We can picture a glad, grave little circle gathering round a simple evening meal, with loving and eager faces, the rush candles showing them to be quickened by the alertness of Truth, while casting a soft radiance over the old, yellow parchments. We can see Wycliffe's majestic form, as he turns over the precious pages with his delicate fingers; can feel the keen, yet fatherly kindliness of his presence, and can hear his voice rich and melodious, like the sweep of a great flow of water, as he interprets the Word to the eagerly listening group. We can feel the spirit of liberty moving here even as the night breeze stirs the foliage of the forests.

Men might oppose and persecute, but the ground had spoken, once in earthquake, and now the gentle winds are speaking of protection and love. The "isles of the sea" had waited for the law of God, and for the redemption of Israel. They would receive it, they would preserve it, yea, they would hold it against all enemies by God's mercy, for the salvation of the whole world. It was the farmers and small landed gentry who treasured this first English Bible, in greatest numbers, and who sacrificed most to obtain and retain it. A load of hay was given for permission to read the Bible for a certain period one hour a day, and all sorts

of extraordinary means taken to gain some knowledge of it. Purvey's preface concludes with this solemn prayer:

"God grant to us all grace to ken well and to kepe well Holie Writ and to suffer joiefulli some paine for it at the laste."

This prayer had terrible meaning when, in after years, readers of the Wycliffe Bible were hunted down as if they were wild beasts and many burned with the copies round. their necks. Oh! may we, as we read the pages of our blood-stained history, learn to be tolerant and charitable to all. The condemnation and persecution of one's fellowmen has never established the Kingdom of Christ! and never will!

It is great comfort to read that at least Wycliffe did not suffer a martyr's death. Like his great predecessor, Bede, he passed away soon after his translation was finished. He was seized with illness during church service, and died in his own house. Forty years after it pleased the Church of Rome to dig up his bones and burn them, casting the ashes into the little stream at the foot of the churchyard, but his work and his noble memory lives, and since that day many a devoted evangelist has been raised up to fulfil Wycliffe's dearest wish, as expressed in his own words,-"The highest service that men may attain to on earth is said to be to preach the word of God." Such a successor in many important respects, as we have seen, was found in Mrs. Eddy, and this appears again in their common thought and estimate of the Lord's Prayer for which Wycliffe had a great and special love. This prayer was also most dear to Mrs. Eddy, and it is the only one used in her form of church service. Of it she has said:

"All Christian churches have one bond of unity, one nucleus or point of convergence, one prayer, the

Lord's Prayer. It is a matter for rejoicing that we unite in love, and in this sacred petition with every praying assembly on earth,-"Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.'" (Pulpit and Press, p. 22.)

Wycliffe's appreciation of this prayer is in line with his usual clear, metaphysical understanding of Christly teaching, and of it he writes:

"It is certain this Lord's Prayer surpasseth all other prayers in authority, in subtlety and profit, both of soul and body. It is of most authority; for our Lord Jesus Christ, God and Man, made it and commanded Christian men to say it, but other prayers be made by men and include no other sentence than doth this Lord's prayer unless it be error. Therefore as Jesus Christ is more worthy than sinful men, so this Lord's Prayer is of more authority than is prayer made of other men though their prayer be good. This Lord's Prayer is more subtle than other prayers for it is made of endless wisdom and charity of Christ and includes all things that be needful both for body and soul in this world and the other."

Even the briefest perusal of Wycliffe's life and teaching gives food for deep meditation, for there is in them a greater spiritual intellectuality than the Puritan School, which sprang from it in later centuries, ever attained. He was convinced that the Bible contained a Science of health for body and soul, and just as Leonardo da Vinci watched the motions of birds on the wing and dreamed of man making himself wings in the ages to come, so Wycliffe, solitary prophet in a dark and evil time, saw the ineffable gift the Scriptures would open out to the whole human race, glory upon glory, until Christ's kingdom was fully come.

The laws for the navigation of the air existed in Leo