egarded as an act of sacrilege, worthy of condemnation
and punishment. So furious was the outcry against him, as an audacious
violator who dared to touch the sacred ark with unconsecrated hands,
that even a bill was brought into the House of Lords forbidding the
perusal of the Bible by the laity, and it would have been passed but for
John of Gaunt. At a convocation of bishops and clerical dignitaries held
in St. Paul's, in 1408, it was decreed as heresy to read the Bible in
English,--to be punished by excommunication. The version of Wyclif and
all other translations into English were utterly prohibited under the
severest penalties. Fines, imprisonment, and martyrdom were inflicted on
those who were guilty of so foul a crime as the reading or possession of
the Scriptures in the vernacular tongue. This is one of the gravest
charges ever made against the Catholic Church. This absurd and cruel
persecution alone made the Reformation a necessity, even as the
translation of the Bible prepared the way for the Reformation. The
translation of the Scriptures and the Reformation are indissolubly
linked together. Nobody doubts that the whole influence of the Catholic
hierarchy has ever been, and still continues to be, hostile to the
perusal of the Scriptures by the people in the vulgar tongue; and it was
this translation by Wyclif which made him more obnoxious to the Pope
than all his tirades against the vices of the monks and the other evils
which disgraced the Church. We cannot call this translation a reform,
but it led to reforms: it arrayed the people against the usurpations of
the Pope and the corruptions of the Church as an institution. Yea, more,
it was the main cause of that memorable religious movement which
followed the death of Wyclif: there would have been no Lollards had
there been no translation of the Bible. It led also to the affirmation
of that private judgment which was the foundation pillar of
Protestantism, and which existed among the Lollards long before Luther
delivered his message.

And yet it is not strange that the Catholic hierarchy (I say Catholic
rather than Roman, because in the fourteenth century there was but one
Church, although in that Church considerable difference of opinion
existed both as to matters of faith and government) should have bitterly
opposed the translation of the Scriptures into vernacular tongues, since
it opened the door to private judgment. If there is anything the
Catholic Church