asking incidentally how long it was since he was rector there.  She said she did not know exactly, but as far as she could remember she thought it was about 146 years since he died.  On arriving at the church we found that it was about 487 years since Wiclif departed, and we thought it strange that a lady who lived almost under the shadow of the church steeple could have been so ill-informed.  The church had recently been restored, and a painting of the Day of Doom, or Judgment, had been discovered over the arch of the chancel under the whitewash or plaster, which we were told Oliver Cromwell had ordered to be put on.  At the top of this picture our Saviour was represented as sitting on a rainbow with two angels on each side, two of whom were blowing trumpets, and on the earth, which appeared far down below, the graves were opening, and all sorts of strange people, from the king down to the humblest peasant, were coming out of their tombs, while the fire and smoke from others proclaimed the doom of their occupants, and skulls and bones lay scattered about in all directions.

[Illustration:  JOHN WICLIF. From the portrait in Lutterworth Church]

It was not a very pleasant picture to look upon, so we adjourned to the vestry, where we were shown a vestment worn by Wiclif in which some holes had been cut either with knives or scissors.  On inquiry we were informed that the pieces cut out had been “taken away by visitors,” which made us wonder why the vestment had not been taken better care of.  We were shown an old pulpit, and the chair in which Wiclif fell when he was attacked by paralysis, and in which he was carried out of church to die three days afterwards.  We could not describe his life and work better than by the inscription on the mural monument subscribed for in 1837: 

Sacred to the Memory of John Wiclif the earliest Champion of Ecclesiastical Reformation in England.  He was born in Yorkshire in the year 1324, and in the year 1375 he was presented to the Rectory of Lutterworth.  At Oxford he acquired not only the renown of a consummate Schoolman, but the far more glorious title of the Evangelical Doctor.  His whole life was one perpetual struggle against the corruptions and encroachments of the Papal Court and the impostures of its devoted auxiliaries, the Mendicant Fraternities.  His labours in the cause of Scriptural truths were crowned by one immortal achievement, his Translation of the Bible into the English tongue.  This mighty work drew on him, indeed, the bitter hatred of all who were making merchandise of the popular credulity and ignorance, but he found abundant reward in the blessing of his countrymen of every rank and age, to whom he unfolded the words of Eternal Light.  His mortal remains were interred near this spot, but they were not allowed to rest in peace.  After a lapse of many years his bones were dragged from the grave and consigned to the flames; and his ashes were cast in the waters of the adjoining stream.

That he was a man of distinction may be taken for granted, as he was master of that famous college at Oxford, Balliol College, where his picture hangs in the dining-hall to-day.