2. Ignorance is a fertile soil for evil growths, and the despotic government and doctrinal fallacies of the Church during this period of darkness were nourished by the ignorance of the times. With the change known in history as "the revival of learning" came the struggle for freedom from churchly tyranny. 3. One of the early revolts against the temporal and spiritual despotism of the papal church was that of the Albigenses in France during the thirteenth century. This uprising had been crushed by the papal autocracy with much cruelty and bloodshed. The next notable revolt was that of John Wickliffe in the fourteenth century. Wickliffe was a professor in Oxford university, England. He boldly assailed the evergrowing and greatly abused power of the monks, and denounced the corruption of the Church and the prevalence of doctrinal errors. He was particularly emphatic in his opposition to the papal restrictions as to the popular study of the scriptures, and gave to the world an English version of the Holy Bible translated from the Vulgate. In spite of persecution and sentence, he died a natural death; but years afterward the Church insisted on revenge, and in consequence, his bones were exhumed and burned, and the ashes scattered to the winds. 4. On the continent of Europe the agitation against the Church was carried on by John Huss and by Jerome of Prague, both of whom reaped martyrdom as the harvest of their righteous zeal. These instances are cited to show that though the Church had long been apostate to the core, there were men ready to sacrifice their lives in what they deemed to be the cause of truth. 5. Conditions existing at the opening of the sixteenth century have been concisely summarized by a modern historian as follows: "Previous to the opening of the sixteenth century there had been comparatively few--though there had been some, like the Albigenses in the south of France, the Wickliffites, in England, and the Hussites, in Bohemia--who denied the supreme and infallible authority of the bishop of Rome in all matters touching religion. Speaking in very general manner it would be correct to say that at the close of the fifteenth century all the nations of Western Europe professed the faith of the Latin or Roman Catholic Church and yielded obedience to the Papal See."--(Myers, "Gen. Hist.," p. 520.) **The Reformation**.