the knowledge of his weak state prevented his enemies from pressing for the infliction of physical punishment. But a few months before his death he was cited by Urban II. to appear before him at Rome, to answer for his heresies. Wiclif was unable from illness to go, but he addressed a letter to his holiness in which he "tells his belief." The main points of it are his declaration of his entire dependence on Christ as the Son of God, and of his assurance of the supreme authority of Scripture. He acknowledges the pope to be Christ's chief vicar on earth-but adds, that he ought to follow the example of his master, who was the poorest of men when in this world. "This I take as wholesome counsel that the pope leave his worldly lordship to worldly lords, as Christ gave (charged) him, and move speedily all his clerks (clergy) to do so: for thus did Christ, and taught thus his disciples, till the fiend had blinded this world." He declares that if he were able he would go to the pope; but as he cannot, he supposes the pope will not show himself open anti-Christ by commanding him again to do that which God had rendered him unable to do. If his opinions can be proved to be wrong, he is ready to recant; if it be necessary to die for them, he is willing, "for that I hope were good for me."

As he was assisting at the celebration of mass by his curate in his parish church of Lutterworth, on the 29th of December, 1384, another and more fatal stroke of paralysis deprived him of the use of speech and of motion. He lingered two days, when his spirit ascended to that world where misapprehension and strife are alike unknown. His corpse was buried in the church; and there it rested, till forty years afterwards the Council of Constance, at the same time that it crowned itself with eternal infamy by its treacherous murder of John Huss and of Jerome, condemned Wiclif's doctrines, and directed that his corpse should be exhumed and burnt, "if it could be discerned from those of the faithful." The order was obeyed. Richard Fleming, bishop of Lincoln, in whose diocese Lutterworth was situated, directed the process. The reformer's remains were

taken up, burnt, and the ashes cast into the Swift, a little stream that runs at the foot of the hill on which the town is built. "Thus this brook," says Fuller, "hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wiclif are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over."

We have endeavoured, as far as our limits would allow us, to exhibit Wiclif according to his own principles. It remains for us to add a few words on his sentiments, and express our own impression of his character. His opinions have been the subject of much disputation, and it is often said that they are so enwrapped in explanations and mystifications, that it is difficult to make out what they really were. But to one desirous to understand them, the difficulty soon disappears. The contemporary notices of him do not imply that there was any obscurity: the charges brought against him; his own defences; the references his followers make to him, do not suggest it. That his opinions will appear contradictory to one who extracts from his different writings, without regard to the circumstances and the time in which each was written, there can be no doubt; but if it be borne in mind that his creed, like that of every reformer, and especially of every religious reformer, was progressive that his opinions were slowly formed, often forced upon his conviction after a long struggle against them so that he would more than any other lament the necessity imposed upon him to admit, and especially to diffuse them,-if this gradual formation of his creed be remembered, the difficulty of reconciling the articles of it with the statements and reasonings to be found in others of his writings, will not surprise any candid inquirer, whether he admit the truth of the opinions or not. To us it appears he might truly be called the first Protestant- the first who boldly and firmly protested against the papal domination, both in relation to society and to individual man. His doctrinal views were in the main those afterwards adopted by Luther and the reformed churches-in others, he went far beyond them,

verging closely upon Puritanism; while to the last he held many things now only retained by the Romish church.

His moral character was unimpeached. His sincerity has been questioned, but to us it seems to stand firm and unshaken. His faults, however, are manifest. Living up to the lofty character he set before him, he stooped not to one who was unable to attain to the same elevation. A fierce polemic, he is unmeasured in the expression of his wrath against all whom he opposed. But we must not let our dislike of such violence lead us too far. A wise man has told us "not to condemn bitter and earnest writing." In truth, a man cannot beat down idols with a feather broom: and Wiclif's task was not merely to sweep the dust off those about the holy place. After all, Wiclif was abundantly repaid in his own coin. For every handful of mud he flung, a cart-load was thrown back upon him. Let him not be condemned for a fault common to every one who has undertaken so apparently hopeless a task as the destruction of a mighty system of evil. It is a fault that seems to spring out of the vehemence of temper natural and almost necessary to the character of a reformer. The vehemence of his language in some instances, and its cautiousness at other times, appear to have arisen from the fact that, seeing palpably the evil practices of the religious orders about him, and the consequences that resulted from them, he attacked them with an overflowing asperity-while in matters of doctrine he formed his opinions deliberately, was conscious of all the difficulties of the question, and spoke cautiously, moderately, and with an honest desire not to obtrude extreme opinions. This, at least, appears to us the true explanation.

We regard Wiclif as one of the noblest of our Worthies; and as long as true manly earnestness and Christian worth are honoured by his countrymen, his name will live in their remembrance, and be cherished with devout gratitude. A true, honest, noble-hearted man, he recognised the divinity within him, and followed its bidding through evil and through good report. With him worldly honours were nought; the fear of man he knew not; he had a work to accomplish, and he turned

not aside from it. As long as he had a hand or a tongue to labour with, he ceased not to labour. Wiclif was the pioneer in the great struggle to release man from spiritual thraldom. He stood forth and proclaimed the forgotten truth, that the soul of man is responsible alone to its Creator; that no man can stand between his fellowman and his Divine Master. The welcome with which his doctrine was met showed that the hollowness of the ground upon which men stood was felt. He died, but his work survived him. In this country a goodly band remained, and carried on what he had begun; and when they were silenced, his opinions were cherished in private, till on the introduction of the reformed doctrines they were lost in the broader stream. It is probable, indeed, that these secret dissentients within the English church largely contributed to the easy introduction of the reformed opinions here. On the Continent, too, his views found a home and a welcome. Carried into Bohemia immediately after his death, they there spread widely; nor did the martyrdom of John Huss stop their progress. The result was their accomplishment in the great Reformation.

The number of writings attributed to Wiclif, from tracts of a page up to large and elaborate works, which remain in MS. scattered through public libraries, is very great. Few of them have been printed, and it is not creditable to our literature that while the various societies established for the republication of the works of our earlier writers are loading their shelves with much worthless rubbish, only one work attributed to Wiclif (and that not known to be his) should have been printed. The Religious Tract Society, a few years back, published a volume of selections from his writings; but the language is modernized with very little judgment, and the work is of course of no value.

The authorities we have consulted for this sketch are Wiclif's own writings, so far as accessible to us; Walsingham, Knighton, and Wilkins; the Lives by Lewis and Vaughan; the Introduction to the 'Hexapla;' the various ecclesiastical histories; and the papers and prefaces by Dr. Todd.

Two undertakings of more than ordinary importance mark the second half of the fourteenth century, and suggest on various grounds an interesting and useful parallel. Pursuing one of these undertakings, the chief actor in it collected vast sums of treasure by the taxation of the people of England, drew from the peaceful and profitable avocations of industry the materials for army after army of English citizens, and poured them upon the soil of neighbouring country, which he was determined at all costs to conquer. To found for England a new empire on the Continent, was the undertaking on which the brave, able, accomplished, but grasping and unscrupulous Edward III. concentrated the energies of a life. About the very same time that Edward began in earnest to prosecute this undertaking, there was a youth, buried in the seclusion of study, not less actively engaged in the promotion of another undertaking; that too gigantic in its character probably to be determined upon, or even rightly estimated then was doubtless dawning