Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/253



CHAPTER XI.

WYCLIF THE EVANGELIST.

HE title of Doctor Evangelicus, bestowed on John Wyclif by certain of his contemporaries and successors, was unquestionably earned by the importance which he attached to the words of Holy Writ, by his heroic resolve to translate the Bible into English, and by his commission of the "Poor Priests," who were sent out for the express purpose of reading and preaching upon the English Scriptures.

His action in appointing and commissioning these enthusiastic preachers of the Gospel has been compared with that of Dominic and Francis a hundred and fifty years earlier. The parallel is not very close, but we can hardly doubt that the Reformer was inspired by those two conspicuous examples to 193