adhered to his views, and lent their countenance in the diffusion of the Bible. His influence seemed likely to grow into a great schism, which might have alienated the greater part of the nation from Rome.

The time, however, was not yet ripe. A series of popular commotions, which, in their origin, had no connection with the dissemination of Wicliffe's opinions, but which were easily identified with them in the minds of the timid and the prudent, broke forth throughout England. The sack of London, the murder of the archbishop, the wild levelling doctrines proclaimed by the leaders of the movement, alarmed all the friends of order. Now, as in later times, the supporters of religious reform were discredited by the apostles of anarchy: all innovation was confounded with disorder; and in the minds of many the name of Wicliffe became scarcely less opprobrious than that of Wat Tyler or John Ball.

Under the influence of such suspicions, and with Courtenay elevated to the primacy in place of the murdered Sudbury, the clergy resolved to proceed more resolutely than they had yet done against the Reformer. He was summoned to a synod at the Greyfriars in London. As the synod convened, an earthquake shook the city, and many were disposed to regard it as an unhappy omen; but Courtenay, with great presence of mind, said, "It is the earth throwing off its noxious vapours that the Church might appear in her perfect purity." Twenty-four articles were exhibited against Wicliffe. After three days' debate ten were condemned as heretical, the rest as erroneous. Among the heretical articles, prominence was given to his denial of transubstantiation; and many who were otherwise in

clined to follow him, shrank from his views on this head. Every solemnity was given to the promulgation of the decrees of this synod, and a preacher sent down to Oxford, the great seat of Wicliffe's influence, to uphold the cause of the Church. The Reformer himself was prostrated with illness, but nothing daunted in spirit. When supposed near to death, he raised himself in his bed, and said, "I shall not die but live, and declare the work of the friars."

In a few months his voice was again heard in reply to the Council of the Greyfriars, and in a petition addressed to the King and Parliament, in which he claims that he may be allowed to defend the articles contained in his writings, as proved by authority or reason to be the Christian faith. The Parliament was convened in autumn (1382), at Oxford. The Convocation met along with it. The latter body, less confident than the synod at the Greyfriars, hesitated to stir the question as to the temporal privileges of the hierarchy, while Parliament declined to interpose in the matter of doctrine: it had no wish to defend any heresy as to transubstantiation. The result was that the Reformer was summoned to answer on this single point. He appeared, and debated it before his auditory with a profound and perplexing subtlety. Master of a homely and rugged speech in addressing the common people, he was at the same time a most skilfully trained disputant, possessed of the highest scholastic attainments, which he did not hesitate to employ to confound and puzzle his adversaries. But though confounded, they were resolved. Lancaster strongly counselled him to submission, but he would not yield. He was condemned,

and his condemnation publicly promulgated in the very place where he was holding his lecture. No extreme measures, however, followed this step. He was permitted to retire to Lutterworth, where, in the quiet labours of his parish, and in unremitting zeal for the truth, he spent the two remaining years of his life. Worn out by labours and anxieties, the paralysis from which he had formerly suffered again attacked him. On the last Sunday of the year 1384, while engaged in conducting public worship, he was struck down, and, two days afterwards, expired.

His

The high character of Wicliffe, the ardour of his faith, the spiritual energy of his life, had made a strong impression. He himself asserts that a third of the clergy had adopted his views. Knyghton, the chronicler, regretfully declares that, "of two persons met on the road, one of them was sure to be a Wicliffite." disciples, known as Lollards, abounded everywhere— in the Church, in the castle, on the throne-among the poor, the wealthy burghers, and the nobles. The widow of the Black Prince was favourable to them, and the good Queen Anne was almost an active partisan. To what height Lollardism might have grown in England, save for the political mischances which had in some degree overtaken it before its founder's death, and which continued to pursue it, it is difficult to say. The accession of the Lancasterian family to the throne, the support which they gave to the hierarchy, and which the hierarchy in return rendered to them, the revolutionary designs attributed to the Lollards, and for which their leader, Sir John Oldcastle (Lord Cobham), suffered in 1417, all contributed to crush the

party; while the long wars of the Roses which followed, still further served to obscure the light of truth which had been kindled in England. As we shall see, however, this light was never entirely extinguished. It lived on in faint streaks here and there, until it was swallowed up in the dawning glory of the sixteenth century.

Not in England, but in a country which would seem at first to have little connection with it, is the movement of Wicliffe found renewing itself, and rising into European prominence. Bohemia stood in many respects isolated from the German states: a Sclavonian kingdom, surrounded by Teutonic neighbours, with interests of its own, and a population inquiring, earnest, and independent. The University of Prague was a centre of attraction to thousands of students from Germany and Poland: its halls were as thronged as those of Paris and Oxford, and its scholastic reputation scarcely inferior. A spirit of freedom in the Church had raised up a succession of men distinguished by reforming zeal and practical earnestness-Militz, Conrad of Waldhausen, and Matthias of Janow. By the pastoral labours of the first, the most wonderful moral change had been wrought among certain classes of the brilliant but dissolute city. Conrad was even more distinguished as a preacher; the very Jews flocked in crowds to hear him. He inveighed against the worldly practices of the Church, and especially the taking of money in exchange for spiritual blessings, which he denounced as the worst of heresies. He exposed the hypocrisy and pretended poverty of the monks. He

tried to elevate the popular mind above its idolatry of relics, and held forth the supremacy of the spiritual life. "They only," he said, "who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God." Dominicans and Franciscans combined against him, and tried to silence him. They drew up twenty-nine articles of heresy, drawn from his sermons, but at length shrunk from prosecuting them, and he was allowed to continue his work in peace till his death in 1369. Matthias of Janow was rather a theologian than a preacher. By his writings, however, he contributed to a spirit of inquiry even more than Conrad by his sermons; and his influence is very visibly impressed upon the movement which followed.

John Huss entered into the religious inheritance of these men. First a student, and then a teacher in the University of Prague, of deep seriousness of character and unaffected piety, he was naturally drawn towards the small but earnest party which, for nearly half a century, had been labouring to advance the cause of truth in Bohemia. He became, about the close of the fourteenth century, confessor to the Queen, and preacher in what was called the Bethlehem Chapel, attached to the university. At first his denunciations were of a general character, and the clergy were among his warm admirers; but he soon began to direct his most unsparing attacks against the luxury and licentiousness of the Church, and gradually advanced to deeper and more fundamental views of reform. The writings of Wicliffe are said to have been mainly instrumental in producing this advance in Huss's opinions. They had at this time been largely introduced into Bohemia. The marriage of Richard II. with Anne, the