He was born about 1320, in Yorkshire, and died at Lutterworth in 1384. The carved oak pulpit in which he preached, the plain oak table upon which he wrote, the rude oak chair in which he sat, the robe he used to wear, are all preserved in the little town of Lutterworth, in the church of St. Mary, on the bank of the river Swift. Of this church he had been appointed rector by King Edward, as a reward for his services as ambassador when he met the representative of the Pope at Bruges. This was in 1374. “One loves to picture this remarkable man pursuing his Biblical toils, now in his Lutterworth rectory, then in his college at Oxford, working in the winter nights by his lamp, and early in the summer’s morn as the sun beamed through his window. We see him with his long grey beard sometimes alone bending over the parchment manuscript, carefully writing down some well-laboured rendering; and sometimes in company with others who sympathised in his sentiments and loved to aid him in his hallowed enterprise.”[3] He is supposed to have commenced his work about 1378, and to have finished it about 1380, though the latter date is by some assigned to the New Testament alone. He began with a translation of the Book of Revelation; then came the Gospels in English with a commentary, and the other sacred books followed at unknown periods. This translation was from the Latin Vulgate by Jerome. It was multiplied and widely read by the people; preachers went up and down the country explaining it to the crowds who attended them; it seemed, indeed, as if the Reformation were to come in the fourteenth century instead of two hundred years later. But, just as in spring we often see a frost nip off the plentiful blossoms, so persecution put back the fair promise of fruit for a long time. An attempt was made to destroy these translations of the Scripture, and yet, in spite of the many which were then destroyed, nearly 170 MSS. of this period remain to us. After escaping the malice of his enemies, Wycliffe died at home. “Admirable,” says Fuller, “that a hare so often hunted with so many packs of dogs should die at last quietly sitting upon his form.” The Council of Constance, in the next century, after burning Wycliffe’s disciple Huss, ordered that Wycliffe’s bones should be disinterred and burned, and with contemptible spite they further decreed that the ashes were to be thrown into the river Swift. “Thus,” says Fuller, “this brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblems of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over.” John Purvey or Purnay, who had lived with Wycliffe, revised his master’s work. It was Purvey who first termed the Sacred Book by its now familiar name of Bible.