r care to see their flocks, convey away the treasure of the
country--by the homely preaching of John Ball, that all men are equal in
the sight of God. Wiclif's opposition was not only directed against
corruptions of discipline in the Church, but equally against doctrinal
errors. His dogma that "God bindeth not men to believe any thing they
cannot understand" is a distinct embodiment of the rights of reason, and
the noble purpose he carried into execution of translating the Bible
from the Vulgate shows in what direction he intended the application of
that doctrine to be made. Through the influence of the queen of Richard
the Second, who was a native of that country, his doctrines found an
echo in Bohemia--Huss not only earnestly adopting his theological views,
but also joining in his resistance to the despotism of the court of Rome
and his exposures of the corruptions of the clergy. The political point
of this revolt in England occurs in the refusal of Edward III., at the
instigation of Wiclif, to do homage to the pope; the religious, in the
translation of the Bible.

Though a bull was sent to London requiring the arch-heretic to be seized
and put in irons, Wiclif died in his bed, and his bones rested quietly
in the grave for forty-four years. Ecclesiastical vengeance burned them
at last, and scattered them to the winds.

There was no remissness in the ecclesiastical authority, but there were
victories won by the blind hero, John Zisca. After the death of that
great soldier--whose body was left by the road-side to the wolves and
crows, and his skin dried and made into a drum--in vain was all that
perfidy could suggest and all that brutality could execute resorted
to--in vain the sword and fire were passed over Bohemia, and the last
effort of impotent vengeance tried in England--the heretics could not be
exterminated nor the detested translation of the Bible destroyed.

[Sidenote: The revolt of Luther.] 3rd. Of the revolt of Luther. As we
shall have, in a subsequent chapter, to consider the causes that led to
the Reformation, it is not necessary to anticipate them in any detail
here. The necessities of the Roman treasury, which suggested the
doctrine of supererogation and the sale of indulgences as a ready means
of relief, merely brought on a crisis which otherwise could not have
been long postponed, the real point at issue being the right of
interpretation of the Scriptures by private judgment.

The Church did not res