of Divinity was conferred by the University.  We know nothing of his studious life at Oxford until he received his degree, with the title of Evangelical or Gospel Doctor,—­from which we infer that he was a student of the Bible, and was more remarkable for his knowledge of the Scriptures than for his dialectical skill.  But even for his knowledge of the Scholastic philosophy he was the most eminent man in the University, and he was as familiar with the writings of Saint Augustine and Jerome as with those of Aristotle.  It was not then the fashion to study the text of the Scriptures so much as the commentaries upon it; and he who was skilled in the “Book of Sentences” and the “Summa Theologica” stood a better chance of preferment than he who had mastered Saint Paul.

But Wyclif, it would seem, was distinguished for his attainments in everything which commanded the admiration of his age.  In 1356, when he was thirty-two, he wrote a tract on the last ages of the Church, in view of the wretchedness produced by the great plague eight years before.  In 1360, at the age of thirty-six, he attacked the Mendicant orders, and his career as a reformer began,—­an unsuccessful reformer, indeed, like John Huss, since the evils which he combated were not removed.  He firmly protested against the corruptions which good men lamented; and strove against doctrines that he regarded as untruthful and pernicious.  Such are simply witnesses of truth, and fortunate are they if they do not die as martyrs; for in the early Church “witnesses” and “martyrs” were synonymous [Greek text].  The year following, 1361, Wyclif was presented to the rich rectory of Fillingham by Baliol College, and was promoted the same year to the wardenship of that ancient college.  The learned doctor is now one of the “dons” of the university,—­at that time, even more than now, a great dignitary.  It would be difficult for an unlearned politician of the nineteenth century to conceive of the exalted position which a dignitary of the Church, crowned with scholastic honors, held five hundred years ago.  It gave him access to the table of his sovereign, and to the halls of Parliament.  It made him an oracle in all matters of the law.  It created for him a hearing on all the great political as well as ecclesiastical issues of the day.  What great authorities in the thirteenth century were Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventura!  Scarcely less than they, in the next century, were Duns Scotus and John Wyclif,—­far greater in influence than any of the proud feudal lords who rendered service to Edward III., broad as were their acres, and grand as were their castles.  Strange as it may seem, the glory that radiated from the brow of a scholar or a saint was greatest in ages of superstition and darkness; perhaps because both scholars and saints were rare.  The modern lights of learning may be better paid than in former days, but they do not stand out to the eye of admiring communities in such prominence as they did among our ancestors.  Who stops and turns back to gaze reverentially on a poet or a scholar whom he passes by unconsciously, as both men and women strained their eyes to see an Abelard or a Dante?  Even a Webster now would not command the homage he received fifty years ago.