Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/403

 mother tongue that he now almost invariably wrote, as though he would turn aside from the language of the men who had condemned his teaching, and seek a reversal of their judgment from those who, after all, had always commanded his best service and sympathies.

Before he left Oxford he had collected his English sermons, and had written some at least of the expositions in which he sought to simplify theology for unlearned readers. The last stage of Wyclif's life saw him virtually transformed into a writer of tracts for the times—not so much of controversial and political pamphlets as of expository tracts, clearly intended to give popular interpretations of Scripture and religious worship, for the benefit of humble folk who could understand no language but their mother tongue. He evidently believed that in thus writing he was