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blood were poured out to support their

conflicting claims. Crimes and scandals

flooded the church. Meanwhile the Reformer,

in the quiet retirement of his parish of

Lutterworth, was laboring diligently to point

men from the contending popes to Jesus, the

Prince of Peace.

The schism, with all the strife and corruption

which it caused, prepared the way for the

Reformation by enabling the people to see

what the papacy really was. In a tract which

he published, On the Schism of the Popes,

Wycliffe called upon the people to consider

whether these two priests were not speaking

the truth in condemning each other as the

antichrist. “God,” said he, “would no longer

suffer the fiend to reign in only one such

priest, but ... made division among two, so

that men, in Christ's name, may the more