THE CHARACTER AND PERSONALITY OF JOHN WYCLIF.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3196, 26 September 1881, Page 4

THE CHARACTER AND PERSONALITY OF JOHN WYCLIF.

•A natural curiosity leads us to turn from doctrines and opinions, and ask what the man was like. Portraits exist which are said to represent him, but of too recent a date to allow us to rely on their authenticity. From verbal description all we know is that he was thin and worn, and most innocent of conversation, and that he had a charm of manner which led men of the highest rank to delight in his society. Judging from his works it is rather difficult to discern in what the charm consisted. They are marked hy learning and earnestness, and are occasionally relieved by touches of witty or humorous sarcasm, but they lack the strong personal stamp which wins our regard for Luther in spite of all his faults. Of Wyclif's own feelings, his inward struggles, his doubts and hesitations, wo learn nothing • even when he tells us how he has changed an opinion it is in a quietunimpassioned way as a simple relation of fact. Nor do we find in him whrvt may be called the religious genius j the deep insight into spiritual things, tho vivid sense of the invisible presences, which at times carries Luther, as it does Saint Bernard or Saint Theresa, into mystical rapture. Wyclif's piety is fervant and unfeigned, but never lifts him out of himself ; his distinction is moral and intellectual — a moral enorgy which could not be satisfied with Anything short of an ideal, fearless intellectual activity which proved all things and shrank from no conclusions in an honest and devout search after truth. This preponderance of the intellectual and moral sides of his nature over the emotional accounts in some degree for the sense of hardness which we are conscious of in readme 1. works. When angered by a mischievous doctrine or an evil practice, he is ant tn "Tpress* and justify hi* indignation so f. .*iiv Ih.-i"; even bis positive teaching seems it: . '.'.:. [> . -sti-- .. i-i-W:«s c:;::»e'v.,■■>:■> •■!' \\v: J . >•; ■ ; )\v\ tell- no \h-d he strove and prayed against it, but it was to the end of his life too strong for him. Yet, whatever were his faults of temper, he mus* have posses.. 1 a singular n.'traetivoness. No mere reputation for learning and intellect could have made him the adviser of the King, the companion of nobles, the head of a party at Oxford, and the adored leader of a hand of faithful friends and disciples there and at Lutterworth. Not even the rancour of his enemies could impugn the hlamelessness of his life, and the only sins they charged against him were pride of intellect and desire of distinction, accusations which no one can hope to escape who sets himself against the prevailing beliefs and customs of his time. He has, however-, been blamed for cowardice by those who have accepted Knighton's very connpicious story of his recantation at Oxford. Even apart from this he is said to have been shifty, speaking out his opinions vehemently and fully before his disciples and the crowd, denying, veiling, or minimising them before authority. Ido not think he is fairly open to censure on this point. No doubt, when put upon his trial, he explained away some of the charges brought against him. In his defence handed in to the Bishop in 1378 he says that some of the charges were f ouuded on reports .'youths who had heard him lecture, and *yen if the delators had by a single chance been accurate, yet sentences detached from their contest- must sometimes have needed quulifieation. V . anyone who looks through _• dt-fwe will see that in many cases lie ■übstantially upholds his original theses, aud that so clearly that the Bishops would certainly have condemned him if they had been free to act. The pertinncit-v with which during the last years of his life he reiterated his most heterodox doctrines in all ways, in tracts and sermons as well as in formal treatises, shows that he did not shrink from braving the authorities of the Church. If we bear in mind hew solitary he then was, without any party to encourage him by their applause or nerve him by their expectations, we shall wonder at his constancy rather than accuse bim c" faint-heartedness. — The English Works of Wyclif, by F.D.Matthew.