Then from the dawn it seemed there came, but faint, As from beyond the limit of the world, Like the last echo born of a great cry, Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice And the New Sun rose, bringing the New Year. CHAPTER I. THERE HERE is surely every reason why all men should have the Word of God in their own tongue so as not to be wholly dependent on oral instruction. For the Bible contains not only the seminal truths of theology and those higher doctrines which find fitting expression in service and worship, but it takes up the relations, duties, and trials of social and public life. It has a loving edict for the parent, and another for the child. It offers a word to the master, with a reciprocal word to the servant; and it contains a directory for the hearth and household. It breathes promises of special tenderness to the widow and orphan, and presents indescribable comfort and hope to the bereaved. It dwells on patience and humility, condescension and self-denial, disinterested love and unwearied beneficence, as characteristic graces. Buyer and seller are included in its equitable precepts; tilling, sowing, and reaping find a place among its allusions; and even the animals yoked to labour are not forgotten in its pervading kindness. It sanctions the sword of the magistrate, and enjoins the "quiet and peaceable" life of the citizen. The wages of the soldier, the hire of the workman, the thirst and weariness of the traveller, the care of the poor and the stranger, are not beneath its notice. The maiden is wedded with its blessing, and the grave is closed under its comforting assurances. In hallowing the "life that now is," it shows the pathway to "that which is to come." In the entire range of literature, no book is so frequently quoted or referred to. The text of no ancient author has summoned into operation such an amount of labour; and it has furnished occasion for the most masterly examples of criticism and comment. The fathers of the first centuries expounded it, and the divines of the middle ages refined upon its statements. It whetted the penetration of Abelard, and exercised the keenness and subtlety of Aquinas. It gave life to the revival of letters, and Dante and Petrarch revelled in its imagery. Our New Testament has inspired the English muse with her loftiest strains. It does effective service in many of the dialogues of Shakespeare; its beams gladdened Milton in his darkness, and cheered the soul of Cowper in his sadness. Among the Christian classics it opened up spheres of thought and research to Ussher, Jewel, and Lardner; it charged the fulness of Hooker, barbed the point of Baxter, gave colours to the palette and sweep to the pencil of Bunyan, and enriched the fragrant fancy of Taylor. The Bible is thus a people's book, overshadowing with its authority individuals, households, churches, and kingdoms; including in its jurisdiction persons of every rank, age, and calling, from birth to death; telling all men what to believe, what to obey, and how to suffer; developing a nation's wealth in its truest form, and fostering liberty and fraternity in their only genuine merit and meaning. The people of this country were naturally very glad to have such a volume in their common speech; and when they got any fragment of it they cherished it with reverential fondness, and in days when it was forbidden to have it or read it, they secreted it with jealous care, and in a quiet hour took it from its concealment and stealthily pondered over it. No wonder that so many men and women suffered all penalties rather than give it up or confess that it was criminal to have the Psalter or Gospels in their "own tongue wherein they were born." The man therefore who first gave such a gift in its integrity to his people deserves to be "held in everlasting remembrance." was The year and place of the birth of John of Wycliffe cannot be definitely ascertained, but his territorial surname probably taken from the parish of his birth, in the vicinity of Richmond, Yorkshire. There were several persons who and the incidents of his career, may be found in the various chapters of 1 The various accounts of the date and locality of the Reformer's birth, 1.] ACADEMIC LIFE. 39 bore it a William de Wycliffe, one of the fellows of Balliol, where John was Master; and in 1363, William de Wycliffe was presented by a John de Wycliffe to the rectory of Wycliffe-onTees. The time of his birth also can only be conjectured. Probably it was before A.D. 1324. Nor do we know when he entered the University of Oxford, though he is said to have been enrolled in Queen's College in the very year of its foundation. But this date of 1340, commonly assigned as the commencement of his academic life, has no tangible ground of support. It is certain, however, that he was Master of Balliol in 1361. On the 4th of May of the same year, he was presented by his College to the rectory of Fylingham, in Lincolnshire, and shortly afterwards he went to reside on his living. The common assertion that he was, in December, 1365, appointed Warden of Canterbury Hall, by Archbishop Islip its founder, rests on insufficient evidence, for the chronicles are silent about it. No contemporary mentions it but Wodeford, and Professor Shirley has at least shaken the validity of his testimony.1 Besides, the Reformer was Doctor by 1366; but in 1365 the Master of Canterbury Hall is simply called Master of Arts in his deed of appointment. Three years afterwards he is styled Bachelor of Divinity; while the Reformer had been a Doctor of several years' standing at that period. The wardenship of Canterbury Hall, and the fellowship of Merton College, may therefore belong to another John Wycliffe, or Whyteclyve, Vicar of Mayfield. Islip, according to Archbishop Parker, intended to invest his hall with the his life, as written by Lewis, London, 1720; Gilpin, Do., 1766; Vaughan, Do., 1828, 1831; and in a Monograph, 1853; Le Bas, 1832; Baber in his Preface to his edition of the New Testament, 1810; and Lechler's Johannes von Wiclif, Leipzig, 1873. Interesting information on these and other points may be found in Forshall and Madden's edition of the Wycliffite Versions. Oxford, 1850. The name itself is spelt in several ways, the commoner forms being Wiclif and Wyclif. 1 Introduction to his edition of the Fasciculi Zizaniorum Magistri Johannis Wiclif cum tritico, ascribed to Thomas Netter of Walden, published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, London, 1858. There are also able articles on Wycliffism by Lewald and Lechler, in Neidner's Zeitschrift, 1846-47-53. patronage of Mayfield; and from Mayfield the deed of appointment to the wardenship is dated.1 Prior to 1367 Wycliffe had become one of the royal chaplains to Edward III, and in November, 1368, he exchanged his first living of Fylingham for that of Ludgershall in Buckinghamshire, being presented to it by Sir John Pavely, Prior of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John. In 1374 he was preferred by the king to the rectory of Lutterworth, and in this parish he laboured till his death. He was also, on the 6th of November, 1375, confirmed by the crown in the prebend of Aust in the collegiate church of Westbury; but in the same month he resigned the appointment. It would seem that at several periods in 1363-4, 1374-5, and 1380, Wycliffe rented rooms in Queen's College, and that he often preached before the University. He was never, in the modern sense, a professor of divinity, though the statement has been often made; but as the degree of Doctor conferred the privilege of lecturing, the title in Latin being Sacræ Theologiæ Professor, he certainly availed himself of his academic position in the first theological school of Europe to expound and enforce his views. The "word of the Lord was as a fire in his bones," and he "could not refrain." His terseness and earnestness were irresistible; his power and popularity produced abundant fruit. Any detailed account of his doctrines, or of the various charges and prosecutions to which they led, is not necessary to our present purpose. His firm and avowed resistance to the Romish usurpation, to its tyrannous policy, its crooked diplomacy, and its unscriptural theology, so edged and animated his sermons, speeches, and publications, both in Latin and English, that he could not be overlooked; for he had not spoken in honeyed words or in whispered rebuke, and his honest, patriotic wrath had boiled over in racy and unsparing denunciation. Though he was a realist, he had ventured to impugn the central tenet of transubstantiation, affirming that the body of the Lord is spiritually or sacra Though he was 1 On this point of the wardenship the evidence is not perfectly satisfacfactory. Dean Hook accepts at once Professor Shirley's theory of two Wycliffes, Dean Milman remained in doubt, but Dr. Vaughan held without hesitation to the common opinion. Monograph, c. iii, pp. 42-63. |