Posted by
ValiantForTruth on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 2:13:09 PM
Pages from Forgotten American History from the works of George Bancroft (1800-1891)
Human enfranchisement could not advance securely but through the people; for whom philosophy was included in religion, and religion veiled in symbols. There had ever been within the Catholic church men who preferred truth to forms, justice to despotic force. "Dominion," said Wickliffe, "belongs to grace;" meaning, as I believe, that the feudal government, which rested on the sword, should yield to a government resting on moral principles. And he knew the right method to hasten the coming revolution. "Truth," he asserted with wisest benevolence," truth shines more brightly the more widely it is diffused;" and, catching the plebeian language that lived on the lips of the multitude, he gave England the Bible in the vulgar tongue. A timely death could alone place him beyond persecution; his bones were disinterred and burnt, and his ashes thrown on the waters of the Avon. But his fame brightens as time advances; when America traces the lineage of her intellectual freedom, she acknowledges the benefactions of Wickliffe.