Page 44 - 05 John Wycliffe

went out of their prisons, clothed in

penitents’ robes, to publish their recantation.

But the number was not small—and among

them were men of noble birth as well as the

humble and lowly—who bore fearless

testimony to the truth in dungeon cells, in

“Lollard towers,” and in the midst of torture

and flame, rejoicing that they were counted

worthy to know “the fellowship of His

sufferings.”

The papists had failed to work their will with

Wycliffe during his life, and their hatred

could not be satisfied while his body rested

quietly in the grave. By the decree of the

Council of Constance, more than forty years

after his death his bones were exhumed and

publicly burned, and the ashes were thrown

into a neighboring brook. “This brook,” says

an old writer, “hath conveyed his ashes into