jects of Christian Theology, and at Paul's Cross preached the Gospel of Christ in opposition to the ruling authorities of the Church. He lectured, preached, and wrote, at Oxford, and his writings were treasured there. His influence was not confined to his own countrymen. The Lollards found in him a congenial teacher, and there seems to have been a close fellowship between that faithful people and many of Wycliffe's adherents. Copies of his writings were carried to Bohemia, to the University of Prague. Jerome of Prague and John Huss studied them, and thus obtained a clearer insight into the teaching of the Gospel. Huss, especially, preached and gloried in the cross, in opposition to the errors and corruptions of Papal teaching, and sealed his testimony by a martyr's death. "The doctrines of Wycliffe," says D'Aubigne, "proceeding from Oxford, had spread over Christendom, and had preserved adherents in Bavaria, Swa inconia, and Prussia." He has been fitly called the "John the Baptist" of the Reformation.

At Beautiful Florence, Savonarola proclaimed with wonderful energy and clearness the grand doctrine of righteousness by faith in Jesus, and was answered by the reigning Pope, first with fulminations, and when these were found unavailing, with torture and fagot.

One of the most remarkable of the forerunners of the Reformation was John Wessel, who taught theology successively at Cologne, Louvain, Paris, Heidelberg, and Groningen, and by his love for the truth, and the power with which he proclaimed it, obtained the surname of "The Light of the World." Luther himself said of him, "Had I read his works sooner, it might have been said, Luther has drawn everything from Wessel, so much do his spirit and mine accord." The Reformation spirit had thus an existence in many hearts before Luther came; and, by one of these earnest souls, Andre Proles, a provincial of the Augustins, a remarkable anticipation of Luther-it might well be called a prediction-was uttered. For more than fifty years he presided over his order, and when assembled with his friars in the convent, often stopped during the reading of the Word of God, and addressing the listening monks, said to them, "Brethren, you hear the testimony of the holy Scripture. It declares, that by grace we are what we arethat by it alone we have all that we have. Whence, then, so much darkness, and so many horrible superstitions? . . . Oh, brethren! Christianity has need of a great and bold reformation, and I already see its approach." Then the monks exclaimed, "Why don't you yourself begin this reformation, and oppose all their errors?" "You see, my brethren," replied the old provincial,

"that I am weighed down with years, and feeble in body, and possess not the knowledge, talent, and eloquence which so important a matter requires. But God will raise up a hero, who by his age, his strength, his talents, his knowledge, his genius, and eloquence, will occupy the first rank. He will begin the reformation, he will oppose error, and God will give him such courage that he will dare to resist the great."* Could Luther's portrait have been more accurately sketched in advance ?

These pre-Reformation movements were of a strictly religious order, but the "rose of dawn" appeared also from another quarter. A literary revival was taking place. There was the throbbing of a new intellectual life. The mind of the age was beginning to throw off its trammels and assert its claims. "In regard to the nations of new Europe, the age of infancy had passed away, and that of manhood had begun. To the childlike simplicity which believed everything had succeeded a spirit of curiosity, an intellect not to be satisfied without sifting everything to the utmost. It was asked for what end God had spoken to the world, and whether men had a right to station themselves as mediators between God and their brethren."

In Italy itself, where papal darkness had its centre and throne, this light shed its earliest beams. After Dante and Petrarch had given to the world their splendid creations, and uttered their immortal protests against papal perversions, it might have been seen that a new era had begun. The next impulse was given by John of Ravenna, who, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, taught Latin literature with applause at Padua and Florence; and by Chrysolorus, who at Florence and Pavia encouraged a love for the literature of Greece. Learned men began to multiply in Italy, and the passion for antiquity, the growing activity of the intellect, and the flood of light which succeeded, had a great effect in weakening men's confidence in the teachings of the Church, and this effect was greatest in minds of the highest order. These learned men found that the beauties which charmed them in classical authors existed in profusion in the Bible, and not in the works of the theologians, and this prepared them to give the Scriptures precedence of the doctors; and thus the Bible, by raising the standard of taste, and gratifying the taste it elevated, was paving the way for the Reformation.

From Italy the literary revival passed over into Germany. Through the newly-discovered art of printing, the masterpieces of antiquity were put in circulation, and stimulated the German mind.

* D'Aubigné's History of the Reformation, vol. i. p. 69.

The new movement here, to a greater extent than in Italy, took a religious direction, and earnest voices began to be heard remonstrating against the corruptions and superstitions of the Church.

*

Two names stand out in special prominence in this connexion -those of Reuchlin and Erasmus. "To secure the triumph of truth, the first thing necessary was to bring forth the weapons by which she was to conquer from the arsenals where they had lain buried for ages. These weapons were the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. It was necessary to revive in Christendom a love and study of sacred literature, both Greek and Hebrew. John Reuchlin was the individual whom Divine Providence selected for this purpose." A boy with a fine voice, in the church choir, he was taken under the protection of the Margrave of Baden, who, in 1473, made choice of him to accompany his son Frederick to the University of Paris. Here he found able Professors of Greek and Hebrew, of whose instructions he gladly availed himself. For wealthy students he copied the poems of Homer and the speeches of Isocrates, and thus obtained the means of continuing his studies and buying books; and so rapid was his progress that, when scarcely twenty, he taught Philosophy, Greek, and Latin at Bâsle. At Paris he had come under the influence of Wessel, "the Light of the World," and thus his learning became an instrument in preparing the way for the Reformation which was approaching. Amongst his many learned labours tributary to this result, he translated and expounded the Penitential Psalms, corrected the Vulgate, and was the first in Germany to publish a Hebrew Grammar and Dictionary. By this work Reuchlin opened the longsealed books of the Old Testament, and reared "a monument," as himself expresses it, "more durable than brass." By his life, as well as by his writings, and by his personal influence, over the young especially, he greatly helped the Reformation spirit. One instance of this is specially memorable. His cousin, a young man named Schwazerd, son of an armourer, came to lodge with his sister Elizabeth, in order to study under his direction. Reuchlin, delighted at the genius and application of his young pupil, adopted him. Advice, presents, books, examples-nothing was spared to make his relative useful to the Church and to his country. He saw the great promise in his young friend, and thinking the name Schwazerd too barbarous, translated it into Greek, and named the young student Melancthon, who afterwards became Luther's illustrious friend and fellow-worker. Reuchlin's Hebrew learning and labours brought him under the suspicions of the Dominicans. He

*D'Aubigné, vol. i. 77.

was denounced as a heretic, threatened with the fetters of the Inquisition, and if he himself was not condemned to the flames, his learned works were. The rage of his enemies was not permitted to injure him further than this, and Luther, sensible of the great value of his work, wrote to him: "The Lord has acted through you, in order that the light of Holy Scripture may again begin to shine in this Germany, where for many ages, alas! it was not only smothered, but almost extinguished."

An impulse still more powerful, however, was given by Erasmus, who was born at Rotterdam, when Reuchlin was about twelve years old. To speak of Erasmus at all adequately would require much more space than we have now at command. He was early put to school, and at thirteen years of age his teacher, clasping him in his arms with rapture, foretold that he would rise to the highest pinnacles of knowledge. His parents dying, his guardians were bent on his becoming a monk. His own taste did not lie in this direction, but he was at length prevailed upon to enter a convent of canons regular. He had no sooner done this than he began to feel his vows a burden. Soon afterwards, notwithstanding his monastic vows, he is found at the University of Paris-a poor student, but prosecuting his studies with indefatigable diligence. His love of knowledge, and of Greek literature especially, amounted to a passion. For scholastic disputes he had no taste; and he, it is said, revolted from the study of theology lest he might discover errors in it, and be denounced in consequence as a heretic.

As the result of his Greek studies, he acquired a perspicuity and an eloquence of style which placed him far above the most distinguished men of learning in Paris. He published works which attracted great admiration and applause; and now, shaking off the last remnants of the cloister, he devoted himself entirely to literature, in which he well knew how to combine instruction with a lively and entertaining style.

Erasmus had great gifts, and they were turned to great purpose by extraordinary diligence and power of application. He composed while travelling, whether on foot or on horseback, and, on arriving at his inn, committed his thoughts to writing. He preferred the work of writing and correcting books to the honours and luxuries of the magnificent courts to which he was invited. He rejected the perilous dignity of a Cardinal's hat; and, instead of employing his great learning to buttress up the Papacy, left himself at liberty to hold its absurdities, and those of its supporters, the monks and ecclesiastics, up to ridicule.

He did this, first of all, in his celebrated work, "The Praise of Folly," a work which he wrote while travelling from Italy to Eng

land, and which was full of elegant and biting sarcasms against the theology and superstitions of the age. The ignorance, the sensuality, and absurdities of the monks were held up to ridicule as well as the gross superstitions of the people, nor were even the Popes themselves allowed to go free. "Are there," says Folly, who is personified as the daughter of Plutus, born in the Fortunate Islands, and nursed on intoxication and impertinence, "are there more formidable enemies of the Church than those impious Pontiffs, who, by their silence, allow Jesus Christ to be destroyed, who bind Him by their mercenary laws, falsify Him by their forced interpretations, and strangle Him by their pestilential life? "*

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Holbein furnished this remarkable work with grotesque engravings, among which the Pope figures with his triple crown. The impression it produced throughout Christendom was extraordinary. Twenty-seven editions were published in the lifetime of Erasmus; it was translated into many languages; it gave an astonishing impulse to the anti-Papal feeling, and thus greatly helped to prepare the way for Luther's work. In 1524 the Colloquies" appeared, a work of sparkling vivacity—not calculated to reinstate him in the good graces of the Romish clergy. And such was his popularity that 2,400 copies were exhausted in a single day, and the reprints were almost numberless. He also published an admirable little work, entitled "The Handbook of the Christian Soldier," an enlightened and earnest effort to explain the truths and enforce the duties essential to a Scriptural piety, and which Dr. James Hamilton thinks to be more evangelical in spirit than Jeremy Taylor's "Holy Living." We have not yet, however, mentioned his greatest service to theological truth. This was the first publication of the New Testament in Greek, in the year 1518. This was the first time the original Greek text had been printed in Europe; and to this he added a Latin translation-his own amended version of the Vulgate. Strange to say, to this work was prefixed a letter from the Pope-the gentlemanly infidel Leo X., patronising the author and his work. For once a Papal bull in favour of the Bible! Of course it was a mistake, and the great mass of the monks and the clergy evidently thought infallibility

* The "Praise of Folly" was written off in nine days. "As Erasmus shows up the silly trifling of the schoolmen, the low lives of the mendicant friars, the greed and grasping of the successors of those Apostles who forsook all when they followed their Master, the ink grows so caustic as to burn holes in the paper; and from the time this jeu d'esprit came forth, its author could expect nothing but rancorous hatred from the clergy. 'Pray walk into my parlour, said the spider to the fly; and after the appearance of the 'Praise of Folly,' the writer of it received pressing invitations to return to Rome, but he had been in the Pope's parlour already, and he was too old and wise a fly to venture back again."-DR. JAMES HAMILTON.