stantiation. His positive views on this point do not appear to have much clearness, nor can they be stated very intelligibly. He is however clear enough in the negative position, that the eucharistic elements are not the real body and blood of Christ. Consecration, he averred, though it did give a spiritual quality to the elements, mak ing them true representatives of Christ's body and blood, nevertheless wrought no substantial change-substantially they continued as before, bread and wine. Such a denial ranked with the chief of heresies, and the fact that Wickliffe dared to write and preach it-that he did do this and yet escape the penalty of imprisonment-is more than a presumptive proof that he had, at this time, a large and powerful body of followers.

In his denial of the spiritual supremacy of the pope, Wickliffe gave utterance to sentiments which prove him to have been many centuries in advance of his age. The true vicegerent of Christ was the man who was most like Christ in character, and this without regard to his social or official position. The poorest peasant who imitated Christ in his life, was far more truly his vicar on earth than any pope or legate whose life was stained with vice, and whose only badge of distinction was his robes. Christ had promised to be with his disciples always; and hence while Christ lived no pope was necessary. There can be but one head to the church, and if this head be Christ it cannot be an earthly prelate.

In attempting to give a sketch of the Protestantism of England in the fourteenth century, we have for most part confined our attention to Wickliffe, as it was in him that this reform finds its true embodiment. He was not alone, however that is to say, he had not only followers, but coadjutors. His writing and preaching had the effect of calling to the work of reform a body of "poor priests," as he called them, or the Lollards, as they are commonly styled in history. A word is necessary as to the manner in which this order-for such it was-was formed.

It is always to be borne in mind, that while Wickliffe was attacking the doctrines and practices of the church, he grew more and more earnest in his opposition to the clergy, whether the regular order or the friars, who were the servile emissaries of the pope. In fact, he charges the

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great evils of his time to the corrupt lives of the prieststheir wealth, cupidity, and worldly ambition. The friars, indeed, he characterized as a "nuisance," but the whole body of the clergy he alleged to be corrupt, to be more intent on individual ease and profit than the work of saving souls. And the chief point of his attack was their wealth. It was his favorite proposition that priests should be poor-should be unincumbered with the cares of worldly possessions. And his practice corresponded with his teaching. Clad in the coarsest attire, he went about barefoot, everywhere exhibiting the spectacle and also the reality of poverty. Christ and his apostles were poor. Paul labored with his own hands for a subsistence. could those priests claim to be walking in their footsteps, who luxuriated in costly houses, fared sumptuously, clothed themselves in gorgeous robes, and sought lucrative positions in church and state? His evident sincerity, the austerity of his life, and the overflowing enthusiasm of his manner, had their due effect. A party rallied round him, imitated his self-denial, imbibed his spirit, accepted his doctrines, and promulgated them far and wide throughout the kingdom. Such were the "poor priests," or Lollards, through whose instrumentality the reform principles of Wickliffe were conveyed to Bohemia, there to find an advocate and martyr in Huss, and to prove the seeds of that harvest of reform, to be reaped at a later period by Luther, Melancthon, and Calvin.

The history of the Protestant reformation of the fourteenth century occasions surprise on two points-on the one hand, that it should have progressed with so much rapidity, and with so little molestation; and on the other hand, that its visible existence should have so soon subsided, not to appear again for about two centuries. It is a fact, that the Protestantism of Wickliffe was more radical, more a matter of principle, more consistent, more complete, than the Protestantism which two centuries later found a shrine in the church framed by Cranmer and Henry the Eighth; and it seems surprising that so sharp a protest against the church, could have compelled toleration in that superstitious and arbitrary age. Neverthless,

4 Hume's History of England, vol. II., p. 319.

Wickliffe-with the single exception of the fact that his lectures at the Oxford University, in which his heretical notions found a too free expression, were arbitrarily closed-never met with coercive resistance; and though his offences were of a nature to expose him to the severest judgment of the church, he came to a peaceful death on the last day of the year 1384. It is also a fact, that not many years after his death, the persecution of his doctrines commenced; his followers, the Lollards, were burnt at the stake-the secular combining with the ecclesiastical power to exterminate them-and the body of Wickliffe, forty-four years after its burial, was dug up, burnt to ashes, and scattered into the Thames. It seems strange that in such an age there could have been so violent a protest against the papacy; it seems equally strange that there could have been so violent a reaction.

These anomalous facts may find, in part, an explanation in the peculiar circumstances under which the Prot estantism of the period sprung up. We have seen that on the part of the government, it was merely a patriotic movement, an instinct of self-preservation. As reformers, Wickliffe and his disciples were the allies of the king and parliament, and of course had their protection. It is a matter of history, that the resolute Edward III. was the .patron and protector of the reformer-not perhaps because he was a reformer, but because, in being this, he was the champion of the court against papal exaction, as in the case of the tribute. Wickliffe therefore had of necessity powerful friends-friends whose interest it was to protect him. It is also safe to presume that the statesmen who sustained Wickliffe, did not see the doctrinal tendencies of his principles, and hence gave a countenance to principles of reform of which they had little or no distinct recognition. They gave support to Protestantism, while perhaps they thought they were only countenancing a bold champion of secular power against ecclesiastical interference. Again, the reform movement was very materially assisted by the schism in the papacy. It was during the most active career of Wickliffe, that two popes claimed the pontifical chair. For a time the church had two heads; and while each fulminated anathemas against the other, the great community was not a little perplexed which to

obey. At such a time there was hardly power, much less disposition, to suppress heresy. Wickliffe looked upon the schism as providential, exulted in the opportunity it gave him, and made it the occasion of his sharpest sarcasm.

The truth is, the Protestantism of Wickliffe was ahead of its age; the world was not prepared to receive it; and though under favoring circumstances brought into great prominence, when these circumstances changed it necessarily subsided—not indeed to die, but to wait its timeto be the latent power which, when all things were made ready, should once more assert its supremacy not again to be broken. Accordingly, the death of the great Edward, the minority of his successor, Richard II., the unpopularity of the Duke of Lancaster-who had ever been foremost among the supporters of the Protestant movement, together, it may, be with a clearer perception on the part of statesmen of the extreme tendencies of the movement, all combined to change the current of events, and make the reaction in support of the spiritual ascendency of the church as rapid as had been the visible success of the reformers.

We have seen that an incidental circumstance, that of the papal schism, favored the work of Wickliffe. We must at least allude to a circumstance equally incidental, which told as effectually against him. Nearly every reader knows the story of Wat the Tiler, under whose lead an insurrection broke out in England, resulting in fearful ravages and massacres in the early part of the reign of Richard II. Nominally, and in the outset really, the insurrection was a justifiable protest against unequal taxation; against the oppression of the poor, and also against the arbitrary and often brutal proceedures of the tax gatherAn insult to the daughter of the Kentish brick-layer provoking an act of homicide, was the spark that kindled the excitable passions of the laboring masses into a blaze of rebellion, in the progress of which the nobility were the victims of gross insult; officers of state, and one archbishop were killed, and the king himself exposed to personal danger. It was no difficult matter for those who were interested in doing so, to make the disciples of Wickliffe responsible for the excesses of the insurrection, though in fact they had no hand in it, and were in no way to

ers.

blame. The popular cry of equality, which was the moving impulse in the outbreak against secular authority, was easily confounded with that other spirit of equality which led Wickliffe and his followers to declaim against the authority of popes and prelates. At the same time it was more than hinted, that in the excesses of the populace were to be seen the necessary effects of giving the Scriptures directly to the common people! To these dishonorable acts the reaction against the Protestantism of the time is in no small measure to be attributed. We pass over the several events in the receding movement, to state the significant fact that in the year 1401, at the instigation of Henry IV., a son of that Duke of Lancaster who was the former supporter of Wickliffe,-a law was passed by the parliament, making heresy a crime against the State, and enacting that every relapsed heretic should be publicly burned by the civil magistrate! And with this year we have passed the close of the fourteenth century; an anomalous close indeed for a century which had fostered so earnest and so wide-spread a rebellion against the claims and doctrines of the Roman Church.

It is probable that the conservatives and the time-servers of that year reasoned within themselves that an atrocious agitation had reached a finality. The king and the parliament had come to the rescue of the holy church against reckless and peace-disturbing innovaters, and professed reformers; and a law was enacted, making it criminal to question a dogma or a practice that had the sanction of the ecclesiastical judges. But the prophets of that day-and there were such-doubtless predicted, and rejoiced in anticipation of the "better time coming," when the seed sown in their day and generation was to spring up and make the sixteenth century as prolific in the realization of spiritual emancipation, in the permanent achievement of many blessings of religious and ecclesiastical freedom, as their own time had been of promise. The history of the Protestant movement of the fourteenth century, amply illustrates the truth, that no earnest effort for human good can fail of ultimate success; that time alone is needed to establish the inherent power of the right, and to make good its promise of blessings to the world.

G. H. E.