"It has the makings of a man in it,' was the mother's instant reply, clasping it more fondly in her arms."-The Nineteenth Century, January, 1883.

For though some hearts, in search of gold,
To higher aims seem now so cold;

Yea, though through love of ease and mirth,
Full many a one still clings to earth,
While not a few their God disown,
With knee unbent before His throne;

Yet He may see, though we are blind,
Faint yearnings in the unlikeliest mind,
Yearnings for noble things and high,
Which, feeble now as infant's cry,
May prove to be, in finished plan,
The makings of a Christ-like man.

For oft hath One whose strong rich grace
Would lift to heaven earth's fallen race,
E'en hearts most stained, been swift to bless
With love of inward holiness,

Until, redeemed from sin's control,
God's image rose within their soul:

So" oft," indeed, that could we stand
Amid the saints at His right hand,
And glance with keen inquiring eye
Across their backward history,
Our lips would fail to tell the love
That bore those ransomed hosts above.

And yet we need not go so far
To prove how rich His mercies are,
One heart at least to each is known,
To good so slow, to ill so prone,
It would not to the world reveal
The grief and shame it needs must feel.
Yet since the Christ hath not passed by
E'en that weak heart with scornful eye,
We dare believe that still His care
Will so our many frailties bear,
That all His Church at length shall be
From spot and blemish wholly free.

While thus He saith to each glad one,
"Now do thyself as I have done,
Nor ever quench the smoking flax,
Nor let thine efforts once relax,
Until again earth's worst arise
To shine as saints in Paradise."

John Wycliffe.

JOHN WYCLIFFE, the 500th anniversary of whose birth is to be celebrated this month, was born in the parish of Wycliffe, near Richmond, in North

Yorkshire, his family before and afterwards being the possessors of the manor. Of his childhood we know nothing, but presume that he received his early education either from the parish priest or at one of the many schools which even at that time were to be found in the conntry towns and cathedral cities of our land. About 1335, when he may have been 15 years of age, he went to Oxford, and mingled with the thousands who then resorted to that famous seat of learning and of intellectual activity. With Oxford he was associated almost throughout his life, and it is gratifying to observe that the professors and scholars of Oxford have in our time awoke to the conviction that Wycliffe is perhaps the greatest ornament of which their University can boast, and have devoted themselves to the study and publication of his writings, and to the vindication of his proper place in their glorious annals and in the yet more glorious annals of our common country.

Only a few of the colleges which now contain the bulk of the students of the University were in existence in the middle of the 14th century, and there is dispute as to the colleges with which Wycliffe was connected. There is no doubt that he was at Balliol, of which college he was certainly Master in 1361, and that he was Warden of Canterbury Hall; and it has been contended that he was for some time at Merton, whilst he is known to have had rooms at Queen's, at a later period. However this may be, Wycliffe became a great scholar, a famous logician, and an adept in all the learning of his time. Indeed he ranks among the few greatest names of the century, and was a worthy follower of the famous Bradwardine of Merton. It is not so much as a scholar that we have to do with him here, but it must be remembered that at Oxford he

sharpened the marvellous powers of his intellect, and acquired his great reputation among his contemporaries. He was a student of Scripture as well as of the Fathers and the Schoolmen, and when he became (as he did) a teacher and lecturer, he led the collegians who resorted to his teaching into the knowledge of the great doctrines and principles of the Gospel. It cannot be doubted that it was the study of the word of God that called out his highest powers, and gave the great bent to his professional activity and his public life.

But what were the circumstances which made of Wycliffe a reformer? In the first instance, it was the spirit of the Englishman rising up and protesting against the unjust and tyrannical pretensions and exactions of the Bishop of Rome. The Pope Urban V., in the year 1365, demanded from King Edward the payment of the annual tribute which Innocent III. had induced the traitorous John to promise to the Papal See. The king referred the demand to his parliament, which indignantly repudiated the Papal claim. It was at this conjuncture that the Oxford scholar came forward as a patriotic Englishman;; he published a refutation of a pamphlett put out by a monk in support of the Pope's demand. So intimate is Wycliffe's acquaintance with the political views of his countrymen, so crushingly does he deal with the Papal pretensions, that it has been conjectured with some plausibility that he must have been at this time a member of the parliament. Certain it is that England found at this crisis a spokesman in Wycliffe, and that from this time he was regarded by friend and foe as the leading champion of his country in all controversies with Rome.

It must be borne in mind that this was not a solitary effort at encroachment; the contest between Rome and England was one that lasted for generations indeed for centuries. The people of this country do not seem to have doubted the spiritual supremacy and authority of the Popes; but they resented their grasping and extortionate conduct. The