Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/412

 for a few days, watched and tended by those who had clung to him in his direst extremity, and who must have been prepared for this closing scene ever since the illness of 1382. Most of all, we may be sure, the veteran himself, who had continued his battle for the truth without the slightest intermission, had never buckled on his armour in the morning without reminding himself how feeble was the hold which he had upon life.

Wyclif's enemies could only regard his death from one point of view, as the judgment of God upon the greatest of sinners. The account of Walsingham is very much what we might expect of the pious and superstitious monk of St. Alban's. On the feast of St. Thomas of Canterbury, he says, "Organum diabolicum, hostis Ecclesiæ, confusio vulgi, hæreticorum idolum, hypocritarum speculum, schismatis incentor, odii seminator, mendacii fabricator, Johannes de Wyclif—whilst he was about to spue forth against Saint Thomas himself (as they tell us) invectives and blasphemies in the sermon which he had prepared to preach, was suddenly smitten by the judgment of God, and felt that paralysis had spread over his whole body. Thus his mouth, which had spoken high-swelling words against God and his saints, or against holy church, presented a horrid spectacle to those who gazed at him, being twisted out of shape; his tongue was stricken dumb and refused him utterance; his wagging head proclaimed that the curse of God against Cain had fallen upon him. And, as they who were present at his death inform us, he manifestly despaired in his last