ion of St. Thomas of
Canterbury, John Wycliffe, the organ of the devil, the enemy of the
Church, the idol of heretics, the image of hypocrites, the restorer of
schism, the storehouse of lies, the sink of flattery, being struck by
the horrible judgment of God, was seized with the palsy throughout his
whole body, and that mouth which was to have spoken huge things against
God and his saints, and holy Church, was miserably drawn aside, and
afforded a frightful spectacle to beholders; his tongue was speechless
and his head shook, showing painfully plainly that the curse which God
had thundered forth against Cain was also inflicted on him."

Some time after his death a petition was presented to the Pope, which to
his honor he rejected, praying him to order Wycliffe's body to be taken
out of consecrated ground and buried in a dunghill. But forty years
after, by a decree of the Council of Constance, the old reformer's bones
were dug up and burned, and the ashes flung into the little river Swift
which "runneth hard by his church at Lutterworth." And so, in the
often-quoted words of old Fuller, "as the Swift bear them into the
Severn, and the Severn into the narrow seas, and they again into the
ocean, thus the ashes of Wycliffe is an emblem of his doctrine, which is
now dispersed all over the world."

But it is with his Bible translation that we are specially concerned. As
far as we can learn, the whole Bible was not translated by the reformer.
About half the Old Testament is ascribed to Nicholas de Hereford, one of
the Oxford leaders of the Lollards; the remainder, with the whole of the
New Testament, being done by Wycliffe himself. About eight years after
its completion the whole was revised by Richard Purvey, his curate and
intimate friend, whose manuscript is still in the library of Trinity
College, Dublin. Purvey's preface is a most interesting old document,
and shows not only that he was deeply in earnest about his work, but
that he thoroughly understood the intellectual and moral conditions
necessary for its success.

"A simpel creature," he says, "hath translated the Scripture out of
Latin into Englische. First, this simpel creature had much travayle
with divers fellows and helpers to gather many old Bibles and other
doctors and glosses to make one Latin Bible. Some deal true and then to
study it anew the texte and any other help he might get, especially Lyra
on the Old Testament, which helped him much with this work.