terial on which might go forth the messages from God for the healing of the nations.

The earliest book known, printed with movable metal type, was a folio Latin Bible, in Gothic letters, in double columns, by Gutenberg, at Metz, in Germany, 14501455; and this was followed by many other Latin and German Bibles, before there appeared, in 1516, the first Greek New Testament, translated by Erasmus, which was accompanied by a Latin translation also. There was even a French New Testament, by Le Fevre, in 1523, before the first New Testament by William Tyndale "in Englysshe" reached our shores in 1526.

As one hundred and seventy copies of Wickliffe's manuscript version are still known to be in existence, they must once have been very numerous. It had become so odious in the eyes of the priests, that in 1408 a decree was issued against its circulation by Archbishop Arundel, and the little books and tracts that contained it were all suppressed, which soon led to persecution and even to the burning of the readers. Nevertheless their number grew, and the knowledge of Divine truth, gained from these forbidden portions, was transmitted by a succession of pious men for more than a century after Wickliffe's death. Five hundred of these Bible readers were arrested in the one diocese of Lincoln alone-therefore the influence of Wickliffe had not ceased when that of Tyndale began.

This true servant of the Word of God was born about the year 1478, and brought up from a child in the University of Oxford; where by long continuance he " grew up and increased in the knowledge of tongues and other liberal arts." The Bible had early attracted William Tyndale's love and labour, and he soon excelled in knowledge of the Scriptures, which he seems to have read privily to certain students of Magdalene College, Oxford. And when, spying his time, he removed thence to the University of Cambridge, he became further ripened in the knowledge of God's word. Erasmus was at Cambridge from 1509 to 1514, and Tyndale may have resolved to study under him as the most famed Greek scholar of

have preserved Tyndale's own sketch of his position at his master's table-" Often among great beneficed men, abbots, deans, archdeacons, and divers doctors, with whose opinions and judgments those of Master Tyndale's did often vary; for which he would show them the reason by open and manifest Scriptures, till at sundry times the great beneficed doctors waxed weary,' and bore a secret grudge against him. But they hated the teaching of Luther and Erasmus as much; and that of any other who had the terrible matter-of-fact habit of confronting them with the Book; and on the whole they were minded rather to give up Squire Walsh's good cheer than accept it with the sour sauce of Master Tyndale's company."

But when Tyndale began to preach in the adjacent villages and to the crowds who collected round him on Bristol's College green, "the blind and rude priests," says Foxe, "raged and railed against him, reporting more than ever he spake. . . ‘Oh,' said he, while I am sowing in one place, they ravage the field I have just left. I cannot be everywhere. If only Christians had the Scriptures in their own tongue! Without the Bible it will be impossible to establish the laity in the truth.'"

To a Popish doctor angry with the strength of his arguments, who said, "We had better be without God's laws than the Pope's," Tyndale replied, "If God spare my life, ere many years the ploughboys shall know more of the Scriptures than you do." But we are told that he henceforth passed the most of his time in the library or in thoughtful rambles over the Cotswolds, and avoided these controversies. He prayed, he read, and carried on his translation, and seems to have read it as he proceeded to Sir John and Lady Walsh, who were determined to protect him. He now soon, however, left them for the sake of their own safety, and proceeded to London to seek another retreat, where he might follow out his work. He was resolved to translate the New Testament from its original language, Greek-not, as Wickliffe had done, from the Latin Vulgate; and in London he thought it could be more easily printed than anywhere else.

Knowing that he could prove himself a good Greek scholar, he had long looked forward to an interview with Tunstal, the new Bishop of London, thinking that, as a prelate who loved learning, he would protect him in his enterprise, and perhaps allot him peaceful leisure as a chaplain in his palace. But this hope was soon quenched. "God saw I

was beguiled," he confesses, looking back upon the interview, "and therefore he gat me no favour in my lord of London's sight." A stern school of injury, suffering, and exile awaited him instead, through which the writers of the New Testament themselves had passed before his days.

Bishop Tunstal's courtesies he found were reserved for ambassadors and such-like men. For the unknown scholar, who brought him proposals for an English Bible, he had nothing but official reserve. "My lord said his house was full; he had more than he could well provide for." And so the bishop repulsed the man whom God had chosen to give to England that version of his New Testament which still remains substantially the same translation as that to which all Englishmen turn as the source, the guide, and the stay, of their spiritual life; even though all the scholarship of generations has since been brought to bear upon it.

"The peculiar genius," says Froude, "that breathes through it, its mingled tenderness and majesty, its Saxon simplicity, its unequalled grandeur, unapproached by attempted improvement, bears the impress of the mind of one man, William Tyndale. When the spelling is reduced to the modern standard, it will be seen by those who possess a copy of Mr. Francis Fry's fac-simile, on vellum, of Tyndale's first edition of his New Testament, how comparatively few are the words that have been altered. Nine-tenths of the first epistle of John, five-sixths of the difficult epistle to the Ephesians, are retained from Tyndale's version."

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"Our priests have buried the Testament of God," said he, "and all their study is to keep it down, that it rise not again; but the hour of the Lord is come, and nothing can hinder the Word of God, as nothing could hinder Jesus Christ of old, from issuing from the tomb."

The poor man, then sailing towards Germany, was the one who was to send back from the banks of the Elbe the eternal gospel to his countrymen.

He had now entered with great vigour on the two most important years of his life. He seems to have printed, first, the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, and in 1524 he sent them to his friend Monmouth, and then removed to Cologne. Being again disturbed in the midst of printing, he gathered up the ten already finished sheets, and fled to Worms, where he completed the whole New Testament, which crossed the sea to England in 1526.

Meanwhile Bishop Tunstal was closely watching the ports against the entrance of the pernicious books he had heard of; and having gained possession of a copy, took pains to tell the people that he had found in it two thousand errors, and that if more such books appeared, he meant to burn them all at Paul's Cross. But he also entered into a secret speculation to buy them up of the merchant who imported them. "So the bishop had the books, the merchant had the thanks, and Tyndale had the money, which afterwards caused the Testaments to come thick and three-fold into England; and the more they were suppressed, the greater was the desire of men to possess them, and to

Now there lay at that moment, in the river Thames, a vessel loading for Hamburg. Humphrey Monmouth gave him ten pounds. for his voyage, and carrying with him only his New Testament, he went on board.

There is but one perfect copy of this first edition of the printed New Testament in English, which is kept in a fire-proof safe in the library of the Baptist College, Bristol, being of course very precious, as the single one which has escaped the flames; and even that is without its title. There is another imperfect copy of this, "The New Testament in Englysshe, by William Tyndale," printed by Peter Schoeffer at Worms, 1526, 8vo, which was lent by the dean and chapter of St. Paul's Cathedral to the Caxton Celebration of 1877, with this annotation :

"This is one of the rarest and most precious volumes in our language. Only two copies are known-this, and the one at Bristol. This one is very imperfect, while the Bristol copy only wants the

title."

There was also sent to the same wonderful collection of printed specimen editions of

Holy Scriptures ranging over more than four hundred years, Mr. Francis Fry's fac-simile of the Bristol copy reprinted on vellum, and illuminated with great care and fidelity, being compared and verified by himself in every separate line. The paper on which this facsimile is printed was manufactured expressly to imitate the colour and appearance of the original. One hundred and seventy-seven copies only were produced, twenty-six of them being in quarto. It seems that when Tyndale first began to print at Cologne, it was an edition in quarto, with marginal references and notes at the sides. In this he was interrupted at the tenth sheet, or the Gospel of St. Mark. It had also an introduction of a doctrinal character. Although he completed this edition at Worms, it seems probable that before it was finished, he printed also the Bristol edition in octavo, containing nothing but the text. The small book was of course cheaper, and within the reach of poor readers. Of the quarto only thirty-one leaves have yet been discovered, and these are preserved with great care as a rare treasure in the British Museum. "There is good reason to believe," says Dr. Demaus, "that between the year 1526 and 1534, when Tyndale revised and issued a new edition, from fifteen to twenty thousand copies of the book which contained only the text of Scripture, were sold in England; and at one-tenth of the cost of the old manuscript fragments of Wycliffe, already so prized."

There were frequent bonfires in St. Paul's Churchyard, made during this memorable seven years in our annals; for the bishops bought up all they could to burn. And, meanwhile, amid all hardships and dangers, Tyndale continued his labours, intending to give to his countrymen the entire Bible. In January, 1530, he printed the Pentateuch, January, 1530, he printed the Pentateuch, translated from the Hebrew, and this also in spirit and substance is the version we still use. In 1531 he translated the book of Jonah, with an introduction applying the warning of the Jewish prophet to his own times. And there is thought to be sufficient evidence that his translation, at least up to the end of the second Chronicles, was completed by him before his death. After the printing of his New Testament he ran the gauntlet of persecution for six or seven years; ferreted out, alas! by English emissaries sent abroad for the purpose, cursed and reviled by all bishops, and even by such men as Sir Thomas More. He was at last hunted down, seized, and imprisoned in the Castle of Vil

vorde, eighteen miles from Antwerp, where he remained till he was put to death. No researches among State papers at home or abroad reveal by whom this was instigated. He was arrested in 1535, and martyred in 1536.

The Castle of Vilvorde was built after the manner of the Bastille. It had seven massive towers, and was surrounded by a moat. In this grim prison, where he was afterwards to find a grave, he wrote a letter in Latin, which has been found in the archives of the council of Brabant. It has neither date nor superscription, but was probably addressed to the governor of the castle. The translation is as follows; and how touching are the petitions! like those of Paul, sending for his cloak and his books, "but especially the parchments," from the similar damp and tedium of his gloomy Mamertine dungeon.

"I entreat, Right Worshipful," says Tyndale, "and that by the Lord Jesus, that if I am to remain here during the winter, you will request the Procureur to be kind enough to send me, from my goods which he has in his possession, a warmer cap, for I suffer exconsiderably increased in the cell; a warmer tremely with a perpetual catarrh which is coat, also, for that I have is very thin; a piece of cloth to patch my leggings. He has a woollen shirt of mine, if he will be kind enough to send it. I wish also for his permission to have a candle in the evening, for it is wearisome to sit alone in the dark. But, above all, I entreat and beseech your that he may kindly permit me to have my clemency to be urgent with the Procureur Hebrew Bible, Hebrew grammar, and Hebrew that study. If any other resolution has been dictionary, that I may spend my time with come to concerning me, I trust I shall be

patient, abiding the will of God, to the glory of the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ, whose spirit I pray may direct your heart. Amen.

"W. TYNDALE."

We have reason to suppose that these modest requests of Tyndale were granted, and that he continued the love-labour of his life until the end. His last manuscripts were committed to his gaoler, of whom it is said he had made a Christian friend, with injunction to forward them to Rogers, who had assisted him in his labours, and to whom, by undisputed tradition, was bequeathed the honour of completing the work to which Tyndale had consecrated his life.

This being his last act, on the 6th of October, 1536, he went forth to his execu