Instruction was in Latin which he excelled at. He loved to learn and took every opportunity to read, although books were hard to come by.
After take great pains to get a copy of the New Testament he was dismayed as he read it. He discovered that God was a stranger to him.
"All my life, I've talked about God, professed to worship him, learned much about him. But to know about God is not to know him."
Expressing great fear and even horror he wondered what he must do. As he searched the Scriptures and reflecting on the teaching of Aristole, his teacher he concluded:
"Aristotle may teach me many truths, but the ultimate Truth I must turn to is the One who said, 'I am...the Truth.' To this Book [the Bible] I must give my best effort, testing all other truth by it."
With few exceptions, John Wycliffe remains one of the greatest of the ancient church fathers due to his stand for the Truth of Scripture. His life stands as a bright light in the dark and foreboding time of a church which was just emerging from the dark middle ages. He cast a long, good and great shadow over the church by working to get Scriptures into the hands of his countymen in their own English language. This marked the beginning of the great reformation that was to follow just a few hundred years later by Martin Luther.
It is no wonder that John Wycliffe is called the Morningstar of the Reformation and that he cast such a long shadow for the English speaking people.
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