English monarch, and showed that the papal
assumption of authority over secular rulers was contrary to both reason
and revelation. The demands of the pope had excited great indignation, and
Wycliffe's teachings exerted an influence upon the leading minds of the
nation. The king and the nobles united in denying the pontiff's claim to
temporal authority, and in refusing the payment of the tribute. Thus an
effectual blow was struck against the papal supremacy in England.

Another evil against which the Reformer waged long and resolute battle,
was the institution of the orders of mendicant friars. These friars
swarmed in England, casting a blight upon the greatness and prosperity of
the nation. Industry, education, morals, all felt the withering influence.
The monks' life of idleness and beggary was not only a heavy drain upon
the resources of the people, but it brought useful labor into contempt.
The youth were demoralized and corrupted. By the influence of the friars
many were induced to enter a cloister and devote themselves to a monastic
life, and this not only without the consent of their parents, but even
without their knowledge, and contrary to their commands. One of the early
Fathers of the Roman Church, urging the claims of monasticism above the
obligations of filial love and duty, had declared: "Though thy father
should lie before thy door, weeping and lamenting, and thy mother should
show the body that bore thee and the breasts that nursed thee, see that
thou trample them under foot, and go onward straightway to Christ." By
this "monstrous inhumanity," as Luther afterward styled it, "savoring more
of the wolf and the tyrant than of the Christian and the man," were the
hearts of children steeled against their parents.(111) Thus did the papal
leaders, like the Pharisees of old, make the commandment of God of none
effect by their tradition. Thus homes were made desolate, and parents were
deprived of the society of their sons and daughters.

Even the students in the universities were deceived by the false
representations of the monks, and induced to join their orders. Many
afterward repented this step, seeing that they had blighted their own
lives, and had brought sorrow upon their parents; but once fast in the
snare, it was impossible for them to obtain their freedom. Many parents,
fearing the influence of the monks, refused to send their sons to the
universities. There was a marked falling off in the number of stude