of our early British Reformer. Soon after his retirement to Lutterworth, he received a citation from Pope Urban to appear before him at Rome, with which he refused to comply from ill-health. "He considered his life," says Dr. Townsend, "to be now in the utmost danger. He prepared for martyrdom. The confusion of the times, however, the mutual anathematization of the two Pontiffs (Urban and Clement), the possibility that the power of the Duke of Lancaster would be exerted to protect his person,-even though he disapproved of the extent of his opposition to the Church of Rome,-the great attachment many persons had conceived to his venerable, useful, holy name—all united to protect the Reformer from his enemies." His last days were employed in faithfully preaching the Gospel to his flock at Lutterworth, and the publication of numerous works. On the 29th of December, 1384, while officiating in his church, he fell down on the pavement, struck with paralysis. His sorrowing friends carried him to his own house, where, after lingering forty-eight hours, he resigned his soul to God, and entered into eternal rest. on the last day of the year, in the sixty-first year of his age.

Wycliffe's labours did not end with his death, but continued to bring forth fruit after he was gone to his rest. The Reformation was begun, and went forward. The master being removed, his disciples set their hand to the plough, and England was almost won over to the Reformer's doctrines. The Wycliffites multiplied

everywhere. The light of the Gospel spread abroad over the land, and multitudes rejoiced in it. "Times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord" were experienced. Several who had thus received the light of truth sealed their love of it by a martyr's death, among whom the illustrious Lord Cobham took the lead. Wycliffe foretold that from the bosom of monkery would one day proceed the regeneration of the Church. "Thus," says D'Aubigné, "did Wycliffe's piercing glance discover, at the distance of nearly a century and a-half, the young monk, Luther, in the Augustine convent at Erfurth, converted by the Epistle to the Romans, and returning to the spirit of St. Paul and the religion of Jesus Christ. Time was hastening on to the fulfilment of the prophecy. The rising sun of the Reformation,' for so hath Wycliffe been called, had appeared above the horizon, and its beams were no more to be extinguished. In vain will thick clouds veil it at times; the distant hill-tops of Eastern Europe will soon reflect its rays; and its piercing light, increasing in brightness, will pour over all the world, at the hour of the Church's renovation, floods of knowledge and life."

"Wycliffe," says Dr. Townsend, "struck the rock in the desert, and the living waters sprung forth, which will flow, and ever shall flow on, till the river of life shall make glad the city of our God, and every living thing shall be healed where those waters flow.* Wycliffe rolled away the stone, and the sheep of Israel drank of * Ezek. xlvii. 9.

the well. Wycliffe was the voice in the wilderness, preparing the way of the Lord, and renewing the fulfilment of the promise, that every mountain and hill on which the idolatry of the corruption of true religion is practised shall be finally brought low. Wycliffe planted the acorn of the oak, which is still deepening its roots, and extending its branches, and growing up men know not how, till the fowls of the air lodge in the branches of it. Wycliffe brought the solid gold of the Scripture from the cell of the monastery, and the Church did but coin that gold for use when it distributed its precious portions through our daily and yearly services. Wycliffe rose up among the people as the cloud, like the man's hand in the famine and drought in Israel rose from the sea, and presently there was the sound of the abundance of rain. So God poured forth upon his chosen land and people—the British Israel—the showers of the holy rain which refreshed and restored the Churches. Wycliffe commenced the era which may be called the Scriptural period of the Church.”

Wycliffe's death was a discouragement to his friends and a triumph to his enemies. But, though the servants of God die, "the Lord liveth." The work of God cannot perish, but steadily advances, and will ultimately triumph. Who can hide or roll back the opening light of morning? "The morning star" sunk beneath the horizon, but the light it heralded increased in splendour. In vain did the Church of Rome strive to hide and extinguish it. A Council at Constance,

more than forty years after his death, condemned the writings and opinions of Wycliffe, ordered his bones to be exhumed and burnt, and his ashes to be cast into the river Swift; but, as Fuller quaintly remarks, "the brook did convey his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblem of the doctrine which now is dispersed all the world over." The Evangelical itineracy of the "Poor Priests," established by the Reformer, and the wide circulation of the Scriptures he had translated, spread the light of Divine truth over the country, and converts were everywhere multiplied; so much so, that Knighton, a persecutor, remarks:-" They were multiplied like suckers from the root of a tree, and everywhere filled the compass of the kingdom, insomuch that a man could not meet two people on the road but one of them was a disciple of Wyckliffe." His followers, to whom the name of Lollards was given as a term of reproach, were everywhere persecuted; the circulation of the Scriptures was interdicted under the heaviest penalties; the preachers of the Gospel were arrested, cast into prison, and, in several instances, burnt to death. But in England, as elsewhere, the saying was verified, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church."

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CHAPTER XIV.

TIMES OF REFRESHING AT THE REFORMATION-THE GERMAN REFORMATION-LUTHER.

THE REFORMATION is justly considered as one of the most remarkable of those great eras in the advancement of society in knowledge, religion, and freedom, the influence of which will continue to be felt to the end of time. The great and organic changes in society which it introduced give to this event a character of surpassing importance. "The events which then took place had every mark of being under the Divine hand, and were such as to fill the minds of men with awe, and to lead them to recognise the hand of God. The power which tore asunder that immense ecclesiastical establishment that had so long held the whole of Europe in servitude; which dissolved the charm that had so long held kings, and princes, and people spell-bound; which rent away for ever so large a portion of the Papal dominions; which led kings to separate themselves from the control to which they had been so long subjected; and which emancipated the human mind, and diffused abroad the great principles of civil and religious liberty, was well adapted to fill the mind with