Section 1
It is an old and true saying, that nations sometimes know little about some of their greatest benefactors. If there ever was a man to whom this saying applies, it is John Wycliffe, the forerunner and first beginner of the Protestant Reformation in this country. To Wycliffe England owes an enormous debt: yet Wycliffe is a man of whom most Englishmen know little or nothing.
In drawing up a few pages about this great and good man, the words of the Apostle St. Peter rise up before my mind. He says, ” I think it meet to stir you up by putting you in remembrance” (2 Pet. i. 13). This is exactly what I want to do in this volume. I wish to stir up my readers, and try to make them remember and never forget the man who has been justly called “The Morning Star of the English Reformation.”