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The Spirit of Prophecy Volume 4
accepted by nearly one-half of the people of England. The kingdom
of darkness trembled. Mendicant friars, who swarmed in England,
listened in anger and amazement to his bold, eloquent utterances.
The hatred of Rome was kindled to greater intensity, and again she
plotted to silence the Reformer’s voice. But the Lord covered with
his shield the messenger of truth. The efforts of his enemies to stop
his work and to destroy his life were alike unsuccessful, and in his
sixty-first year he died in peace in the very service of the altar.
The doctrines which had been taught by Wycliffe continued for
a time to spread; but soon the pitiless storm of persecution burst
upon those who had dared to accept the Bible as their guide and
standard. Martyrdom succeeded martyrdom. The advocates of truth,
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proscribed and tortured, could only pour their suffering cries into the
ear of the Lord of Sabaoth. The hunted reformers found shelter as
best they could among the lower classes, preaching in secret places,
and hiding away even in dens and caves. Many bore fearless witness
to the truth in massive dungeons and Lollard towers.
The papists had failed to work their will with Wycliffe during
his life, and their hatred could not be satisfied while his body rested
quietly in the grave. More than forty years after his death, his bones
were disinterred and publicly burned, and the ashes were thrown into
a neighboring brook. “The brook,” says an old writer, “did convey
his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas,
and they into the main ocean, and thus the ashes of Wycliffe are the
emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over.”
Little did his enemies realize the significance of their malicious act.
It was through the writings of Wycliffe that John Huss of Bo-
hemia was led to renounce many of the errors of Romanism, and
to enter upon the work of reform. Like Wycliffe, Huss was a no-
ble Christian, a man of learning and of unswerving devotion to the
truth. His appeals to the Scriptures and his bold denunciations of the
scandalous and immoral lives of the clergy, awakened wide-spread
interest, and thousands gladly accepted a purer faith. This excited
the ire of pope and prelates, priests and friars, and Huss was sum-
moned to appear before the Council of Constance to answer to the
charge of heresy.
A safe-conduct was granted him by the German emperor, and
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upon his arrival at Constance he was personally assured by the pope