A Rush of Translations

       In gland in Spenser's days was a nest of singing birds; in the days of Tyndale it was the home of scholars who laid their gifts and graces on the altar for the translation and dissemination of the Holy Scriptures In the years after Tyndale led the way so splendidly, translations came in like a flood. Almost all of that, however, as we have seen, were based on his work-all of them, indeed, which were of real importance and they are often closely connected with each being for the most part revisions rather than distinct translations.

       In the year 1534, Archbishop Cranmer, a true friend of the Evangel, persuaded Convocation to petition for an English version of the Bible; and in the following year. Thomas Cromwell, likewise a true friend of faith and freedom, persuaded Miles Coverdale to undertake the The outcome was what is usually called Coverdale's Bible, and sometimes also the Treacle Bible, because of its translation of Jeremiah 8:22, 'Is there no 'triale in Gilead?' It was issued on October 4, 1535, with dedication to King Henry and Queen Anne, which was afterwards changed as the royal consorts changed. Important as it is, however, as the first complete Bible printed in the English language, it can hardly be admitted to be in the full line of the true apostolic succession . It was not based on a study of the originals, but in the Vulgate and on Luther's German Bible, three volumes of which were printed in 1524 and the remaining two in 1532, and which was now pursuing its triumphant career.

       "To help me," he said, "herein I have had sundry translations not only in Latin, but also of the Dutch interpreters, whom because of their singular gifts, and special diligence in the Bible, I have been the more glad to follow for the most part." But although a translation from the Vulgate had been a great achievement in Wycliff's day, when no better text was available, it was far otherwise at a time when Tyndale was showing every scholar the better path. The 1537 edition of Coverdale's Bible bore the announcement set forth with the King's most gracious license. Because of this, as well as because of its intrinsic worth, it had a large circulation. Its circulation was also helped by the fact that it was used at first by the clergy in their obedience to the injunction to put a copy of the English Bible in a prominent place in every church.

       In the year 1537, there appeared what is known as Matthew's Bible, which has already been described as being practically Tyndale 's. Matthew was in reality John Rogers, who was the first martyr in Queen Mary's reign. The pseudonym may have been adopted to withdraw attention from the fact that his Bible was so largely Tyndale's, his writings having been condemned by the authorities. Rogers was a friend of Tyndale; his literary executor in fact. His Bible may be regarded as the first Authorized Version, although later on in the same year the second edition of Coverdale's also appeared with the royal licence. It contained numerous notes and woodcuts, as well as a considerable amount of matter resembling modern 'Bible Helps.' If we take Tyndale's version as the standard and starting-point, as we should, this may be taken as the first revision of it.

       In 1539, there appeared what is known as Taverner's Bible, the work of Richard Taverner, another scholarly friend of the truth., Less is known of his version than of any other in that era of versions; but it may be noted that in 1549, an edition of it was published in five small volumes, for the convenience of those who were unable to purchase an entire Bible at one time. Like its predecessors, it had notes, which were, however, less polemical than those in Matthew's Bible, some of which were vehemently anti-Roman.

       In the same year as Taverner's, there appeared what has ever since been known as the Great Bible, because of its size, and which may be taken as the second revision in the Tyndale succession. Its pages are fifteen inches in length and more than nine in breadth. It is also known as Cranmer's, because of the preface which he wrote to the second edition ; as Cromwell's, because he had most to do with its preparation ; and in the royal instructions to the translators of the Authorized Version, as Whitchurch's, from the name of one of the printers. By a royal proclamation made during one of the high tides when the study of Scripture was approved by the authorities, a copy of this Bible was ordered to be put in every church. In some cases they were chained to desks; and a few of these  chained Bibles have been preserved in some old churches. This version was due to the desire of Cromwell and Cranmer, and their friends, to have an English Bible which might become national like Luther's translation into German. It is probable also, and in no way to be wondered at, that the controversial notes in Matthew's Bible were held to disqualify it for this great position. Coverdale was again appealed to for this new service and he was assisted by 'divers excellent learned men,' of whose names, however, there is no record.

       As a matter of fact, the Great Bible is little more than a revision of Matthew's revision. When it appeared it had a wonderful reception. Crowds gathered round the copies in the churches, one reading while the rest listened or discussed or even wrangled. Bishop Bonner complained that the Bible had become more attractive than the Service, and threatened to have it removed. Before 1541, seven large editions of the Great Bible were sold in addition to many issues of the earlier versions, which likewise held on their way; and although there was a reaction against the circulation of the Scriptures during the later years of Henry VIII., the short reign of his son saw at least thirteen new editions of the Bible, and thirty-five of the New Testament. The Great Bible still lives in the Psalms in the Prayer Book, and in the 'Comfortable Words' in the Communion Service of the Church of England.

       In the year 1560, yet another version appeared which was destined to play a great part in the stirring times which were at hand; and which may be taken as the third revision of Tyndale's work. This was what is known as the Geneva Bible, from the city where it was prepared. It is also known as the Breeches Bible from its rendering of Genesis 3.7: 'And they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves breeches.' It has several features which commended it for popular use, and it became the Bible of the people as no other version did until the Authorized Version appeared. Not the least of its attractions were its sturdy, lucid notes; and in 1649 an edition of the Authorized Version was brought out with these Genevan notes appended. Fuller says that when they were finally withdrawn, the people complained that they could not see into the sense of the Scriptures for lack of the spectacles of the Genevan annotations. Indeed, as late as 1810, an edition of the Authorized Version appeared with short notes by several learned and pious Reformers, which were virtually the old Genevan notes formerly so much prized.

        Other attractions of this Geneva version were the adoption of Roman type instead of the black letter in which all English Bibles had previously been printed, and the division of the chapters into verses. The use of italics was also introduced to indicate those words not in the original, which had been supplied in the translation to suit the English idiom. They were, how- ever, often introduced where they were not required, since the words supplied were involved in the original if not actually expressed. The division into verses, so far as the New Testament was concerned, had been made by Robert Stephen, the French printer, for his Greek New Testament of 1551; but with all its convenience, it sometimes interferes with the sense, and is often very arbitrary. The division into chapters had appeared as early as Wycliff's time, and was used by him. Some ascribe it to Cardinal Hugo, and others to Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury. It also is sometimes done without discrimination, especially in the Epistles of St. Paul.

       The Geneva Bible unquestionably stands next to the Authorized Version alike for its historical importance, and for its accuracy and scholarship . Among those who shared in its preparation were William Whittingham, whose New Testament has a place in the succession, Thomas Sampson, and Anthony Gilby, along with Cole, Goodman, Coverdale, and others, who, like Paul in the Roman prison and Luther in the Wartburg, turned their enforced leisure to good account. It is unlikely that John Knox took part in the work, as has sometimes been claimed. Its version of the Apocrypha, which it is frequently said to have omitted, was largely influenced by a French translation due to Beza. In the original edition there was a good Bible index, a series of maps, and much other prefatory and helpful matter, along with its admirable notes. For sixty years it was the most popular version in England and Scotland, at least one hundred and fifty editions of it having been issued; some say as many as two hundred. In one year, 1599, no fewer than ten large editions were printed. It was the only serious rival the Authorized Version encountered, and was the favorite version of the Puritans. It is noteworthy that it left the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews an open question. The name of Paul is not only omitted, but it is argued in a prefatory note that seeing the Spirit of God is the Author thereof, it diminisheth nothing the authority, although we know not with what pen He wrote it.

       The fourth and final revision of Tyndale's work, prior to 1611, was the Bishops' Bible, which appeared in 1568. It was due to the desire of Parker, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and others to provide a version which would rival the Geneva Bible in popular favor, and be free from the Calvinism which characterized so many of its pithy notes. 'Its mischievous glosses' were thought to be 'undermining the Church of England.'

       The Bishops' Bible was the work of Anglican divines, mostly bishops as the name indicates; but it is said to be the most unsatisfactory and useless of the old translations. It was so expensive as to be practically inaccessible to the people, and it did not commend itself to scholars. It held its place as long as it did because it took the place of the Great Bible in the services of the Church, and was the only version recognized by Convocation. As early as 1571, Convocation ordered a folio copy to be placed in the hall or dining-room of every Bishop, for the use of his servants ; and also that each church should be supplied with this version. The Puritans, however, never acknowledged its authority or made much use of it.

       The only other version which falls to be mentioned is that issued by the Roman Catholics; and as it, like Coverdale's, was not derived from the original tongues, it likewise is not in the apostolic succession but is of secondary importance, although it played its part in the final result in 1611. It was prepared by the scholars of the English seminary at Douai, who hoped by the use of appropriate ecclesiastical terms and the addition of notes on Romish lines to guard readers against error. The New Testament was issued at Rheims in 1582, and the Old Testament at Douai in 1609; and the work is spoken of as the Rhemish, or as the Rheims and Douai version. It professed to be based on a greater respect for the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and other ancient translations than previous English versions; it" being roundly declared that the Latin version had been made before the Greek and Hebrew texts had been 'foully corrupted by Jews and heretics.' It was very deficient in purity of English diction ; but since 1750 it has been brought nearer the Authorized Version; and since then its notes have also been fewer in number. The late Lord Bute said that it did not commend itself to the English ear; but on the other hand it must be acknowledged that many of the felicities of our Authorized Version are due to it, and that many of its theological terms, such as propitiation, victim, remission, and impenitent, were adopted by King James's translators.

       So the good work of revision and translation went on in a fashion which makes it all the more remarkable that for nearly two centuries and three-quarters after 1611 no further revision was seriously attempted. The truth is that, so far as the English of the Authorized Version is concerned, these frequent revisions had made it such that no further revision on that score could have been seriously proposed ; such had been the satisfactory result of the various revisions of the work done by Tyndale. Had it not been that valuable manuscripts and versions unknown or unavailable in the seventeenth century had come to light and had been so collated that scholars became increasingly able to arrive at a text far nearer the original than was possible three centuries ago, it is more than probable that the Authorized Version would not only still have been reigning among the English-speaking peoples, but would have been reigning without a rival. But as the revisers of 1611 themselves asked, 'To whom was it ever imputed for a failing' (by such as were wise) to go over that which he had 'done, and to amend it where he saw cause?' Reverence for God's Word, loyalty to the eternal verities, and patient pressing on in the fullest light we have to Him who is the Light, all involve a readiness to revise whenever the need for revision really comes.

God's Word For The Ploughboy

"Read God's Word diligently, and with a good heart, and it shall teach thee all things.'' William Tyndale 

       Like Caedmon and Bede and Wycliffe, William Tyndale occupies a commanding position in the history of English literature, as well as in the history of the English Bible. His translation of the New Testament, 1525, fixed our standard English once for all, and brought it finally into every English home. He held fast to pure English, and we owe our current religious vocabulary to him more than to any other. In his two volumes of political tracts, ' there are only twelve Teutonic words which are now obsolete a strong proof of the influence his translation of the Bible has had in preserving the old speech of England. Three out of four of his nouns, adverbs, and verbs, are Teutonic. There were those in his time who declared that the English language was so rude that the Bible could not be translated into it; and his reply was as direct as it was indignant.  It is not so rude as they are false liars. For the Greek tongue agreeth more with the English than the Latin; a thousand parts better may it be translated into the English than into the Latin.

       In many essentials the Authorized Version, when it came, was no more than a revision of Tyndale's Bible; and if there is to be  honor to whom honor is due, this must never be forgotten in our rejoicings over all it has achieved. "It is strange to think," said Dr. A. B. Davidson, "that we are still reading his words." Many portions of the New Testament, in spite of all the revisions it has undergone, are almost Tyndale's very words. In some of the shorter books, it has  been calculated that nine-tenths are his; while even in longer epistles, like the Hebrews, five-sixths remain unchanged. Or as Mr. Froude put it, in a passage which can hardly become hackneyed however often it may be quoted:  "The peculiar genius which breathes through the English Bible, the mingled tenderness and majesty, the Saxon simplicity, the grandeur, unequalled, unapproached, in the attempted improvements of modern scholars, ... all are here, and bear the impress of the mind of one man, and that man William Tyndale."

       "In rendering the sacred text," said Westcott, "he remained throughout faithful to the instincts of a scholar. From first to last his style and his interpretations are his own, and in the originality of Tyndale is included in a large measure the originality of our English version.  . . . It is of even less moment that by far the greater part of his translation remains intact in our present Bibles than that his spirit animates the whole. He toiled faithfully himself, and where he failed he left to those who should come after him the secret of success. His influence decided that our Bible should be popular and not literary, speaking in a simple dialect, and that so by its simplicity it should be endowed with permanence." According to the Revisers, the Authorized Version was the work of many hands and of several generations. But the foundation was laid by William Tyndale. His translation of the New Testament was the true primary version. The versions that followed were either substantially reproductions of Tyndale 's in its final shape, or revisions of versions that had been themselves almost entirely based on it.

       When Tyndale was still a young man, a tutor in a country house, during a heated discussion with some of the neighboring priests one day at his employer's table, he passionately exclaimed that if God spared his life, before many years he would cause the boy who drove the plough to know more of the Scriptures than the Pope knew. It was a noble ideal which was to be nobly realized, although he had to spend his life and at last lay it down in carrying it out. Erasmus, as we have seen, had the same ideal after his own fashion; but with Tyndale it was perhaps more definitely evangelical. Wycliffe had had it too, and with him also it was the desire of the man of God to give the Good News to the weary, perishing multitude which was supreme. These two great Englishmen both held that the Gospel had its message for all, and gave themselves up to the work of bringing it within reach of all in a form they could use and understand. Nor is any kind of evangelism more permanently fruitful than that of bringing men and women into touch with the Savior in His own Word.

       For centuries Rome had kept the Bible from the common people. Even where there is no sufficient proof that this was deliberately done in order that they might be kept in ignorance of the truth, the fact remains that that was the result both of what was left undone and of what was done. In England the ban had been very definite. The seventh of the Constitutions of Thomas Arundel ordains "that no one hereafter translates into the English tongue or into any other, on his own authority, the text of Holy Scripture, either by way of book, or booklet, or tract." This was directed against Wycliffe's translation, which had been severely proscribed; but it was applied all round.

       The popular knowledge of Scripture has so uniformly proved antagonistic to the doctrines and claims of Rome, that it is not surprising that she has never favored the spread of it; and it would appear that in proportion as men drift towards Rome in their sympathies and aspirations, their love for the free and unfettered circulation of the Bible diminishes. To hear the Church was to hear the Bible in its truest and only true sense. Was it not an abuse of the Bible to send shiploads of copies across the seas to convert the nations, is how one of those who in our own time have come under this tendency, expresses what is truly a striking and illuminating reversion to type. The recollection of these events should suffice to prove the mistake of supposing that the Sacred Scriptures, without note or comment, in the hands of all, are a sufficient guide to truth; the Bible thus used is not useless only, but dangerous to morality and truth, is how another of the same school illustrates the same attitude. Yet another has it that the crucifix should be the first book for their . . . English Home Missionaries . . . disciples; and the Holy Scriptures must never be put into the hands of unbelievers. When even a tendency to Romanism in the twentieth century gives rise to such sentiments, there need be no suggestion that it is ungenerous to hold that undiluted Romanism in the fifteenth century did not encourage men to read the Bible for themselves.

       The unwillingness of the Mediaeval Church to put God's Word in the vernacular into the hands of the people, based as it was on the theory that they ought to receive the Divine message through the priests, would have had greater justification of a sort if the priests themselves had known the Scriptures or loved them in such a way as to be able to expound them. But the notorious Bishop of Dunkeld who boasted of his ignorance of Scripture was probably not singular in his ignorance; nor were the priests in the diocese of Gloucester even in the Reformation era, who did not know accurately the Creed, or the Commandments, or the Lord's Prayer, alone in their incapacity. That such blind leaders of the blind should set themselves to stand between the people and God's message for them was indeed intolerable.

       It is full of significance that early in the conflict which ended in the English Reformation a new importance began to be put on the study of the Scriptures. Not only was the spirit of inquiry abroad, but the printing-press was at work to stimulate and satisfy it. Not a few of those in power in the English Church shared in the new spirit; while many who did not share in it saw that it could not be altogether ignored or defied. In the first set of Injunctions to the clergy, issued in 1536, they were enjoined to give themselves to the study of the Bible; while in the second set, issued two years later, they were enjoined to provide one whole Bible of the largest volume in English  and to put it in the church where the parishioners could most easily read it. That was the plan adopted by those who wished to meet the new strivings without any drastic reform, and above all without any breach with the See of Rome. Inevitably, however, it only increased the longings of the earnest and truth-loving for changes such as Rome at her best could never allow.

       All the Reformers believed that in the Scriptures God spoke to them, as in earlier days He had spoken to His prophets and apostles. In describing the authoritative character of Scripture, however, they always insisted that its recognition was awakened in believers by that operation which they called the witness of the Holy Ghost. Their description of what they meant by the Holy Scriptures is just another aspect of their doctrine that all believers have access to the very presence of God. No wonder, therefore, that a man like Tyndale should set himself to put even the ploughboy in possession of God's Word in his mother tongue. That was the ploughboy's birthright, what he was entitled to as made at first in the Divine likeness; and this was recognized by men of Tyndale 's spirit in other lands, so that translations into the vernacular began to appear in Germany, Denmark, Holland, France, Italy, and Spain, as well as in England. As for those who were hostile to all this, it could not but be assumed that they who objected to the ploughboy entering into his inheritance had never found the Word very vital or inspiring for themselves, and had never bowed to its supremacy over all human tradition and everything else which the ecclesiastics had put in its place.

       Scholar as he was, it was Tyndale's ambition to give his countrymen an English version which would be more than a translation of a translation, and would render the sacred Oracles into their tongue direct from the Hebrew and Greek originals, which were now at length available for such a purpose. This ambition he was able happily to realize, and although much of his work was done while he was a fugitive and concealed in secret hiding-places, it is of the very highest quality, as has already been shown from the mouth of many witnesses. There was no royal patronage or historic Jerusalem Chamber, nor any groups of sympathetic and competent colleagues for him; yet no other worker in this field has left his impress on all subsequent work as he did, and what he did can never become obsolete . In one sense his work was actually destroyed Of the original 3,000 quarto volumes of his New Testament only one mutilated fragment remains, and now lies in the British Museum. Of the first 3,000 octavo copies only two are now known to exist. Yet his work remains all the same, and will remain for ever. At the very time when he was dying for his loyalty to Scripture, in a foreign land, laying down his life that the ploughboy might come to his own, a complete edition of his Bible for which the royal licence was ere long to be obtained was actually being prepared, and about to be freely scattered abroad.

       All who have ever taken any part in continuing what he began have been impressed by the splendor of his inauguration of the work. He did not live to see the day of victory, but the dawn was at hand when he passed away. There is no grander figure than that of William Tyndale in all the English Reformation story; and in connection with the Tercentenary of the Authorized Version no name should be more gratefully remembered and reverenced than his. Its triumphs are in reality his. In a very real sense it is no more than his version revised, as those who have shared in one revision after another rejoice to proclaim.

       After he had begun his great work, Tyndale soon found that there was no room in England for what he was doing; and therefore he crossed to the Continent and finished his translation of the New Testament at Hamburg. While it was being printed at Cologne, he discovered that the authorities were about to seize it; and with such sheets as were ready he fled to Worms, where it was ultimately published in 1525. The new volume, so fraught with significance, first reached England in 1526. Every effort was put forth by those in power to suppress it; and it had to be smuggled into the country, where, however, there was no lack of purchasers. It was read in all sorts of places and under all kinds of circumstances; read by merchants, workmen, and scholars. Copies were bought up by its enemies, in the hope that the whole impression might be destroyed; but the effect of that was that Tyndale was enabled to print further improved copies, and to encourage him to go on with the translation of the Old Testament.

       In the year 1530, his New Testament was publicly burned in St. Paul's Churchyard, after it had been condemned at a Council summoned by King Henry VIII. Sir Thomas More, with extreme bitterness, attacked it as misleading and inaccurate; not, however, in reality, because the work had not been well done, but because to him the rendering of certain words and phrases with scholarly exactness seemed  a mischievous perversion of those writings intended to advance heretical opinions. Tyndale's fidelity, however, alike to scholarship and truth was not only vindicated at the time by himself, but has been still more amply vindicated throughout the ages; and the survival of the fittest has ensured the survival of what he did so nobly, so devotedly, and so prayerfully.

       In doing his work he made use of every available help; the Vulgate, the new Latin Version of Erasmus, and Luther's German Bible. But he translated directly from the text of the Greek Version of Erasmus. As regards his work in the Old Testament, it has been denied that he was a Hebrew scholar ; but in his last days we find him writing from prison pleading to be allowed to have his Hebrew Bible, grammar, and dictionary, that he might spend his time in that study. An eminent German scholar, too, Herman Buschius by name, described him as so skilled in seven languages, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, French, that whichever he spoke you would suppose it his native tongue; and this testimony does not stand alone.

       In the year 1534, Tyndale published a revised version of his New Testament with marginal notes; and two later editions are thought to bear traces of further revision by himself. Before he died, seven editions each representing several thousand copies had been issued; and there were "pirated" editions besides. At least thirty-three editions, practically reprints of his, are known to have appeared before 1560. He was not, however, spared to translate and issue the whole Bible. The Pentateuch was issued by him in 1530, and before he died he had got as far as Chronicles with his work. Two years after his death, there appeared what was called Matthew's Bible, but which was in reality Tyndale's. It contained his New Testament revised, and his translation of the Old Testament so far as he had carried it. The remainder of the Old Testament was taken from Coverdale's Bible, which had appeared shortly before, and was actually the first printed version of the whole Bible in English. It, however, was not a translation from the Hebrew and Greek, like Tyndale's; but from the Latin and German. In Matthew's Bible the Apocrypha was taken from a French translation; and as that was the Bible which was by and by sanctioned by the King, it may be described as the first Authorized Version. That it did not appear under his name, although so much of it was his work, would nowise have distressed Tyndale. It was not his own glory he sought, but the glory of his Savior and the well-being of men; and it was enough for him that the ploughboy and all others who cared to read it had now the Word of God in their own tongue and in their own hands.

Our Grand Old Bible...

   The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul:
the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the 

simple.
   The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart :
the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the
eyes.
   The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever :
the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous
altogether.
   More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much
fine gold : sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
   Moreover by them is Thy servant warned: and in
keeping of them there is great reward.
   Who can understand his errors cleanse Thou me
from secret faults.
   Keep back Thy servant also from presumptuous sins ;
let them not have dominion over me : then shall I be
upright, and I shall be innocent from the great trans-
gression.
   Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my
heart, be acceptable in Thy sight, O LORD, my strength,
and my redeemer.

PSALM 19. 7-14.

       The  story of the English Bible has often been written, and well written; with sympathy and insight, that is, as well as with knowledge . In what follows here it is told from the standpoint of the Tercentenary of the Authorized Version, which has now pursued its blessed and fruitful career for three hundred years. What went before it came, is dealt with only in so far as that is necessary to trace back to its sources this river of God which is full of water, and which has been bringing beauty and fertility wherever it has flowed. What has happened since it came, is dealt with only in so far  as that is necessary in order to see how much has grown out of this wonderful version, which is the English Bible rather than an English version, as it has pursued its unique course to the glory of God and the good of men. For its natural strength is not abated; nor has its fascination grown less as the years have gone by. Inviting as the theme is, nothing has been said regarding the ancient versions and manuscripts which lie behind our English translation; and which, in an altogether adequate manner, fill up the gap between the Bible as we have it now and the original autographs which have long since disappeared. There is no translated classic which has such a wealth of manuscript authority behind it as the Bible ; and those who speak as if the existence of various readings, and the like, left us in any real doubt as to what the message of Scripture is in any detail, to say nothing of its message in its outstanding doctrines, must be strangely ignorant of the facts of the case, or weirdly biassed against  the Evangel. Even apart from the manuscripts and versions which are so abundant and helpful, the early Christian Fathers made such liberal use of the Scriptures in their writings, that if everything else were lost which comes to us from other sources, the greater part of the Bible could be recovered from their works. In particular, the whole of the New Testament, except a few verses, is quoted by them in one passage or another .
       The English-speaking peoples everywhere owe so much to the English Bible and especially to that version of it which for well-nigh three centuries was the only version read that it would be both unseemly and ungrateful were no adequate notice taken of the Tercentenary of its appearance in the land, as a great gift of God to the nation. All through these three hundred years it has been spreading light and life and liberty ; and there must be multitudes who are eager to acknowledge their vast indebtedness to it. It has comforted the sorrowing and cheered the downcast. It has guided the perplexed and strengthened those who were ready to perish. It has interpreted the deepest emotions of the believer and increased his gladness. It has led the sinful and erring back to God. And still there are inexhaustible depths of comfort and inspiration and growth, for those who explore the riches of its treasury.
       In the vision of the prophet Ezekiel, the river from the Temple, which grew without tributaries, flowed eastward to the Desert and the Dead Sea; and by the same law of spiritual gravitation which prevails in the realm of the consecrated life, this other river of living water from the throne of God and of the Lamb has always flowed down to the wilderness, and has enriched the lives of the needy and poor. Its work, too, has been to make all the land as if it were beside an Engedi; to render the repulsive attractive and the sordid fair ; to turn the barren places into the garden of the Lord ; and to make the Dead Sea teem with life, even as the Great Sea. ' Everything shall live whither the river  'cometh.'
       It is well, therefore, that those whom this river long since too deep except for those who can swim has so greatly blessed, should walk beside its banks that they may see how marvelously God has led His people, and what great things He has done for them. If our celebration of the Tercentenary is to be worthy of such an occasion, there must not only be emotion, but research ; and the fuller the knowledge is of what God has wrought, the more profound will the gratitude be. If we are to possess the whole land, and give thanks with intelligence, it is both natural and obvious that we should deal, first, with the sources of the river as they are to be found in previous English versions, whether partial or complete ; that we should then consider with greater detail how the river itself arose; and, finally,  that we should look at it as it has flowed down through the ages ever since, in splendor and majesty. To that threefold division there may well be added, as supplement, some reference to the Revised Version of our own time, which will at least do epoch-making service in hearty co-operation with the Authorized Version, how- ever unlikely it seems that it will ever displace it in popular esteem or popular use.
       More than any of our predecessors we can say that others have labored, and we have entered into their "labors" ; and we shall best show our gratitude to the Authorized Version, and our loyalty for all it has achieved, by entering into the whole of the vast inheritance it has brought us . No true friend of the Authorized Version ever claimed finality for it, any more than finality can be claimed for the Revised Version, or any other. That the Authorized Version may continue to be the English Bible to the end of time, and must always be an object of wonder and delight, can in no way interfere with the Christian duty and privilege of welcoming light whenever it breaks forth, or in whatever way it may come; since all light is of God, and belongs to those who are His heirs. It is the strong and confident who are truly tolerant and open-eyed, and hospitable to the ever-deepening revelation.
       Many saints of God have contributed to the noble inheritance in which we now rejoice; many whose names have perished although their work endures, and the list is still unfinished. To the roll-call of fame on which such names appear as those of Caedmon and Bede; Alfred and Rolle; Wycliffe and Purvey; Tyndale and Coverdale; Cromwell and Cranmer; Rogers and Whittingham; Reynolds and Andrewes; Saville and Harding: there fall to be added in our own generation such  names as those of Alford and Westcott; Hort and Scrivener; Davidson and Perowne; and other scholars who have had open eyes on all study and research, and hospitable hearts for all truth, and have kept Biblical learning in our land abreast of all the discoveries and progress of modern times. Those who deem it necessary to depreciate the Authorized Version in the interests of the Revised are shortsighted and circumscribed; while those who think that loyalty to the Authorized Version demands hostility to the Revised are failing in their loyalty to Him who is ever causing new light to break forth for those who have the eyes to see it and the hearts to appreciate it.
       Perhaps the best form which the popular use of either of the versions can now assume, is that the two should be used side by side, at least for private study . This can now be literally done, either with the two in parallel columns as they can be had in convenient forms, or in interlinear editions such as are now also in use. To compare the two versions, to trace the changes which have been made in the later version, and to understand why they were made, is to know the Scriptures themselves after a new fashion; and manifestly the purpose of every translation is to enable those who read it to do this, and thus to bring 'them face to face with the real meaning of what God the Self-revealer has spoken to men in His Word. This mode of comparing Scripture with Scripture often provides the most helpful of all textual commentaries, and brings the reader nearest to the truth.
       Those alone have the true reverence for Scripture, or true faith in its message, who seek always and everywhere to hear what God has said, and to be obedient to the heavenly vision. "Its seed is in itself," as the Word itself has it in another connection ; and those who really trust in it to do its own Divine, saving, keeping work, will never yield to that worship of the external which reaches its climax in those who worship the letter, and make a fetish of the Book itself, apart from what it says. Nor will they ever think of it as if it acted mechanically, as a sort of charm. Marvelous as its fruits have been, alike in individual lives and among the nations, it never works by magic, but always on moral and spiritual lines . "The Spirit ' breathes upon the Word, and brings the truth to sight." Little as God needs our learning, He has even less need of our ignorance; and those alone are truly loyal, either to the old version or the new, who use every, means in their power to get at the very heart of the revelation of God in Christ, as it is contained for just in His Holy Word.
       It is in the Word itself, therefore, and not in any mistaken views of it, no matter how strenuously these may be advocated, or how conscientiously they may be believed, that our trust is to be placed ; and that version of the Scriptures which most fully sets forth God's actual manifestation of Himself and His purpose of grace among men, in terms which the ordinary man can understand, is the version which will bear most fruit, and which therefore ought to be most heartily welcomed and most widely circulated. Whatever is to be the future relation between the Authorized Version and the Revised Version, and whether as seems most probable they are to flourish side by side, history has abundantly vindicated the claim of the former to be a true and adequate representation of the Word of God as set forth in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. It is a representation, indeed, which has far  more of the characteristics of an original work than of a translation from another language. What has been claimed with justice for Luther's German Bible may be equally claimed for the Authorized Version among ourselves that it is rather a re -writing than a mere translation ; a transfusing of the original into a new language rather than a mere version of the letter ; so deep is the insight, so true the sympathy, so perfect the command of clear popular language. Its ascendency can only be ascribed to its intrinsic excellence. It is the English Bible. Its authority arises from its Divine right to rule; and to deny this is to be guilty of lese majeste.
       Even those who emphasize most the inadequacy of the text on which the Authorized Version is based, and the greatness of the progress in comparative philology and the study of the original languages which has been made since the days of King James, hasten to acknowledge, and that in no grudging fashion, that nothing could have more truly or more impressively set forth not only the meaning but the spirit of Scripture, than it did. Nor are those awanting among students and scholars who go further, and say that such was the spiritual sympathy of the translators of three centuries ago, and such their scholarly insight into the fullness of the Word, that they have wonderfully anticipated in their renderings the truer text to which they had no access. "The Revised New Testament is substantially the same as that of Wycliffe and Tyndale, though they lacked the MSS. we have today," says one who is deeply impressed with the superiority of the later text and of its new rendering. The Revisers themselves say, and say it with enthusiasm, that the more they worked with the Authorized Version, the greater did their admiration of it become . "We have had to study this great version carefully and minutely, line by line," they say in their Preface; "and the longer we have been engaged upon it, the more we have learned to admire its simplicity, its dignity, its power, its happy turns of expression, its general accuracy, and, we must not fail to add, the music of its cadences, and the felicities of its rhythm."
       A competent scholar and critic has gone even further than to suggest a happy anticipation of the true text and the true rendering on the part of the translators in 1611. He maintains that "the Greek of the New Testament may never be understood as classical Greek is understood;" and that the Revisers have in reality distorted passages formerly correctly rendered "by translating in accordance with Attic idiom phrases that convey in later Greek a wholly different sense, the sense which the earlier translators in happy ignorance had recognized that the context demanded." Be this as it may, nothing that is said about versions or translations or texts ought ever to be allowed to make us feel that we are removed even by one step from the very mind of God as He has revealed it to us in His Holy Word.
       The Bible not only occupies a unique place in the literature and life of the human race, and has some inherent power of its own which no other book has ; it bears evidence of having been given in order that it might be rendered into other tongues. It loses less than any other book by being translated ; and manifold testimony has been borne to the fact that the Authorized Version in particular resembles a book in its original language rather than a translation . "The tongue of the Hebrew, the idioms of Hellenistic Greek, lent themselves with a curious felicity to the purposes of translation." Although it is Oriental in its origin, the Bible is at home in the West as truly as in the East. Other sacred books, like trees, have their zones of vegetation beyond which they cannot grow ; but where ever man can live, the Bible can flourish as native to the soil. And nowhere has this been made more manifest than during these bygone three centuries in our own land. Muir.

 Experience The Book.

The Morning Star of The English Reformation

"Holy Scripture is the faultless, most true, most perfect, and most holy law of God, which it is the duty of all men to know, to defend, and to observe, inasmuch as they are bound to serve the Lord in accordance with it, under the promise of an eternal reward." John Wycliffe

       No name in all the long history of the English Bible occupies a more honorable place than that of John Wycliffe. To him belongs the unique honor of being the first to give the English peoples the whole Bible in their own tongue. He was a great pioneer of freedom alike in Church and State. A scholar and a thinker, he had great influence in all the upheavals of his time; but above all else, he was a Christian patriot who wished all men to hear the Word of God for themselves and to be free in Christ. It is hardly possible to overrate the significance of his work, at once for the English people and for the English language. More than aught else, it kept alive in the hearts of the people that irrepressible spirit of free inquiry which led to the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Many are of opinion that Chaucer's 'parsoun of a toune,' so winsome and faithful, was no other than Wycliffe, whose teaching the great poet had embraced; and from many points of view there are few, if any, English workers and writers who more deserve the gratitude of the whole nation.

       Wycliffe was a great scholar and an ardent patriot, a lover of the Gospel and intensely brave; but most of all he was a loyal, growing, Christian man. He was a true statesman and man of affairs, wise and conciliatory in all his ways. But he was altogether unyielding where principle and truth were involved; and modern historical research is showing that his work was vastly more fruitful than has sometimes been supposed. Lollardy never died out, either in England or Scotland; and Lollardy was simply the English form of the passive protest against the Mediaeval Church, which under various names maintained itself in France, Germany, and Bohemia, for centuries, in spite of persecution. As late as 1521, the Bishop of London arrested five hundred Lollards; while in 1533, we find Sir Thomas More, in a letter to Erasmus, describing Tyndale and his sympathizers as Wycliffe-ites.

"I believe that in the end truth will conquer."
John Wycliffe. portrait from
https://christianclipartreview.blogspot.com

       Writers like Professor Pollard and Dr. Rashdall go so far as to say that the English Reformation was native to the soil, and that it borrowed little or nothing from Luther. They point out that in many particulars it followed the lines laid down by Wycliffe long before. When, therefore, it is said that Wycliffe lived before his time, that does not mean that he was as one born out of due season or that he sowed his seed in vain; but only that in his case the interval between the sowing and the reaping was longer than usual. "It is certain," says Dr. Rashdall, "that the Reformation had virtually broken out in the secret Bible-readings of the Cambridge Reformers before either the trumpet - call of Luther or the exigencies of Henry VIII.'s personal and political position set men free once more to talk openly against the Pope and the monks, and to teach a simpler and more spiritual Gospel than the system against which Wycliffe had striven."

       Even as regards his version of the Bible, his work was far more influential than has often been asserted. Professor Plumptre, writing some fifty years ago, said: "The work of Wycliffe stands by itself. Whatever power it exercised in preparing the way for the Reformation of the sixteenth century, it had no perceptible influence on later translations." But Dr. Moulton has since shown that there is so much in common in language and expression between Wycliffe and Tyndale, that it is probable that the earlier Wycliffe renderings had passed into general currency and become almost proverbial phrases. The truth is, as Forshall and Madden, the editors of The Wycliffe Versions, put it, that in the Reformation era these versions supplied an example and a model to those excellent men, who in like manner devoted themselves at the hazard of their lives to the translation of Scripture, and to its publication among the people of the land. Even yet there are at least one hundred and fifty manuscripts extant containing the whole or part of Purvey 's Bible, the majority of which were written within the space of forty years from its being finished. And many of these are full of interest and must have exerted a great influence. If some of them could tell the story of their wanderings and their work it would be a fascinating tale. One belonged to Edward VI. Another was a birthday present to Queen Elizabeth from her chaplain. Another belonged to Henry VI. ; and yet another to Richard, Duke of Gloucester.

       The exact date of Wycliffe's birth is unknown; but it was somewhere about 1324; perhaps a few years earlier. He grew up in his native county of Yorkshire, and studied at Oxford, where he distinguished himself greatly alike as a scholar and as an administrator. He took an active part in guiding Edward III. and the English people to reject the Papal claim to feudatory tribute; and for a time had much influence in public affairs. He incurred the deep enmity of the Romish hierarchy, but there were always friends who saved him from the consequences of its wrath. He advanced step by step in his opposition to formalism and priestism in religion, and to the prevalent corruption in morals. He wrote tracts in English for the common people; and organized a band of preachers, called the Poor Priests, who went through the country preaching his doctrines of grace. And so he was led on to the great work of translation which occupied his later years. He had laid it down as fundamental that God's Word must be taught because it is the indispensable bread of life, the seed of regeneration and conversion. The next step was to see and determine that the Bible must be rendered into the language of the people, so that it might be known everywhere as God's good news of salvation. That was the next step, the natural and obvious step when once it had been taken; but it had never been taken before, and all honor to the heroic man who took it, as Wycliffe did, in loyalty to the logic of the soul.

       It is probable that parts of Wycliffe's Bible were issued earlier than 1382; but that was the year in which the whole book was finished two years before his death. It was translated from the Vulgate, the Latin version that is, which had been in use since the time of Jerome in the beginning of the fifth century. The time had not yet come for a rendering from the original Hebrew and Greek. Neither of these languages was at that time taught in the West. Of the actual work of translation, only the New Testament can be assigned with certainty to Wycliffe himself; his friend Nicholas of Hereford being responsible for most of the Old Testament and of the Apocrypha. What is believed to be the original MS. of his translation is in the Bodleian Library and breaks off at Baruch 3. 20; while in a second MS., copied from it, it is. noted that the translation of Nicholas ended there. It is generally supposed that Wycliffe himself did the remainder, and that the work of revising the whole, to which he set himself at once thereafter, occupied the rest of his lifetime.

        This revision, however, was a work of time, especially the revision of what Nicholas had done, and Wycliffe was not spared to see it completed. The revised Wycliffe Bible, which is the standard, appeared in 1388, four years after his death. The improvements in it, which were very real, were essentially the work of one man, the trusted friend of the Reformer and in later years his fellow worker, John Purvey, whose name will never be forgotten while that of Wycliffe survives which will surely be as long as the English Bible has its place in our land. When their translation appeared, it was most eagerly received and widely read. Although it cost a sum equal to forty pounds of our money, many copies of it were soon in circulation. Many, of course, had to be content with small portions of it; as, for instance, those who gave a load of hay for a few chapters of an epistle. Touching stories are told of how the people used to gather to hear someone read or even repeat the Word of God in their own speech; and it is not possible to estimate how much this first English Bible must have done to keep the fire burning on the altar in these dark, and in some respects darkening, ages. It had been written for the common people, and they heard it gladly ; and with the spelling modernized it can still be read with ease. It is said that not many years ago long passages from it were read aloud in Yorkshire, when it was found, not only that they were understood by the hearers but that almost every word employed is still in use there.

        It was, of course, a great drawback that Wycliffe's translation was from the Latin and not from the original tongues . But nothing else was possible then; and while there is much even in his English which is now archaic, it was the English in which all future English literature was to be written. Just as Luther's Bible stands at the head of the New High German, Wycliffe's opens the period of Middle English. Chaucer is usually taken as representative of the Middle English literature; but although he is the father of English poetry and has some rare features of superiority, the tendency among philologists now is to recognize Wycliffe's prose as the earliest classic Middle English. Chaucer and he stand side by side; and it has been remarked that Wycliffe rises to an uncommon pitch of perspicuity, force, and beauty, in his Bible translation as compared with his other English writings. Doubtless the greatness of his theme inspired and ennobled him all round, just as it was with Tyndale when, a century and a half later, he took up the same great work . Of the later translator it has been remarked that the exquisite grace and melody of the language of his New Testament has been a matter of surprise to those who are familiar with his other writings, which have no qualities that raise them above the ordinary level of the time. Both men made this their life-work, and threw themselves into it, body, soul, and spirit; and the glory of their work and theme pervaded their whole being.

       The peculiar glory of Wycliffe, however, in this work of translation is not his style or his services to the English language; but that for high and holy ends he set himself to render the whole Bible into the vernacular. Special portions of it had been already translated for special purposes; but he was the first whose whole being thrilled with the great conception of the Bible for the people, and for the people's use in their own homes. The special merit of His translation is that at the time it was not only the one translation of the whole of the Scriptures into English which had ever been made, but actually by a hundred years the first translation into a European tongue. It is absurd either for Sir Thomas More in his day, or for Father Gasquet in ours, to deny this. What meaning could there have been in the attack on Wycliffe by his contemporaries, had he not been a pioneer?

       One Kneighton, a chronicler of the time, writing in all probability before the year 1400, openly laments the translation of the Bible into English, and ascribes the guilt categorically to Wycliffe. He maintained that Christ gave His Gospel, not to the Church, but only to the clergy and doctors of the Church, that they might communicate it to the weaker brethren and the laity according to their need; and he angrily complains that Wycliffe had made the Scriptures common and more open to laymen and to women than it was wont to be to clerks well -learned and of good understanding, so that the pearl of the Gospel is trodden under foot of swine.

       The theory of the Mediaeval Church, that any knowledge of the Scriptures which was necessary for the laity should come to them through the clergy, was all the more intolerable in that, as corruptions increased, the clergy did not know the Scriptures themselves so as to be able to break the bread of life to the hungry multitudes who looked up to them to be fed; and so often looked in vain. There were only too many ecclesiastics, like the Bishop of Dunkeld, who thanked God that he knew neither the Old Testament nor the New. In England in the year 1551, out of 311 clerics in the diocese of Gloucester, all incumbents of parishes, who were examined as to their knowledge of the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, and the Lord's Prayer, only 90 passed well or fairly well. No fewer  than 171 of them could not repeat the Commandments, 10 could not repeat the Lord's Prayer, and 9 could not repeat the Creed. Manifestly such spiritual guides were not qualified to be the Scriptures for the people, nor were they entitled to offer their teaching as a substitute for the written oracles of God, as they presumed to do.

       That Wycliffe was the first who ever set himself to give the whole Bible to the people, or who had in view the needs of the whole community and not merely the convenience of the clergy, is borne out both by friends and foes. In the year 1412, Archbishop Arundel of Canterbury and his suffragan bishops petitioned the Pope to pronounce sentence of condemnation on the heresy of Wycliffe and those who adhered to him. In this document, among other charges brought against the Reformer, one was that he had contended with all his power against the faith and doctrine of the Church, and that in order to make his malice complete he had devised and carried out the plan of a translation of the Holy Scriptures into the mother tongue. In the previous year, too, one of Wycliffe's admirers, John Huss, in a pamphlet against John Stokes, said: "It is plain from his writings that Wycliffe was not a German, but an Englishman ; . . . for the English say he translated the whole Bible from Latin into English."

       This, then, is the great and assured place which Wycliffe occupies in the annals of the English Bible; and even if what he gave the people was only a translation of a translation, and perpetuated the errors which had crept into the Vulgate, it was a great gift of God to his age and his land. In some respects, the measure of its worth and influence as it shed light all round the circle of life, and roused men both to their duties and their rights is the greatness of the anger and malice of his foes. But most of all, the measure of its worth is the work it did, and which culminated in the sixteenth century, when the truths for which he had contended proved victorious in so many lands. Wycliffe's Bible began a new era in England and for many beyond it, in things political and social as well as in things spiritual and religious.

Professor Ryan M. Reeves lecture

Translations of Psalter and Other Portions of Scripture

"Apart from their own transcendent beauty and universal truth, the Psalms have enriched the world by the creation of a literature which, century after century, has not only commanded the admiration of skeptics, but elevated the characters of innumerable believers, encouraged their weariness, consoled their sorrows, lifted their doubts, and guided their wandering footsteps." Prothero, The Psalms in Human Life.

       With the exception of the merest anonymous fragments, the appearance of translations into the

vernacular of portions of the Bible is coincident with the beginnings of English literature. Caedmon was the first Englishman it may be the first individual of  Gothic race who exchanged the gorgeous images of the old mythology for the chaste beauties of Christian poetry. He was a servant in the monastery at Whitby, and was an old man who knew nothing of the art of verse when the gift of song came to him. He had the care of the cattle; and one evening after he had gone to the stable, he fell asleep, with his mind full of the songs he had heard the others sing, and with his heart sore because he could not sing as they could. As he slept, One came to him who said: "Caedmon, sing me some song." But he could only reply sadly, as he had so often done to his fellow servants, that he could not sing. The Heavenly Visitor, however, assured him that he would sing, and told him to sing of the beginning of created things. Whereupon he began to recite verses to God's praise; and when he awoke, he found that he could not only remember them, but could add to their number. More than that; those in authority who heard his songs declared that heavenly grace had been granted to him, a verdict which won the approval of succeeding ages.

       These songs of Caedmon were sung before the year 680, that being the year of his death; and Bede tells that he sang the story of Genesis and Exodus and many other tales in the Sacred Scriptures. He sang, too, the story of Christ and the Apostles, and about heaven and hell. Others after him tried to make religious poems, but none could compare with him; for he learned the art of song not from men, but, Divinely aided, received that gift. His poems are paraphrases rather than translations; but as we read his earnest, passionate words, twice God-given, we cannot but feel something of the awe which fills the heart as we stand at the headwaters of some great history making river. We can only see him now through the mists of the ages, a dim figure indeed. But his work abides; and who can doubt that as he sang of the Creation and of Christ, of the joys of heaven and the woes of hell, to the simple folk of his time, his message was owned by. Him who gave it, and that many a burden was made lighter and many a yearning met; that eyes were filled with the love light, and weary, aspiring hearts drawn upwards to God?

       Not long after Caedmon's time we find others working in the field of actual translation. Early in the eighth century, the Psalter was rendered into Anglo-Saxon by Ealdhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury and Bishop of Sherborne, who died in the year 709; and by Guthlac, a hermit of Crowland, near Peterborough. Three copies of the former translation, belonging to the ninth and tenth centuries, still survive. At Ealdhelm's request, it is said, Egbert, Bishop of Holy Island, about the same time completed a version of the Gospels in Anglo-Saxon. A copy of this work is still preserved in the British Museum. The records also make mention of Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, of whose translation of the greater part of the historical books of the Old Testament two copies, of date about 1000 A.D., are extant. There were probably others who did work of the same sort which has not survived, but which all went to make the grand result grander and richer in the ages to come. The stream was still very tiny; but it was of pure water, and it must have refreshed many a thirsty soul. It is significant, too, that then, as now, when the Word was precious to men's souls, they sought to share their joy and their treasure with others, and to let them know the good news at first-hand in the records of Divine grace.

       The great name, however, in these early ages is that of the Venerable Bede, with whom English prose may fairly be said to begin. He was a contemporary of the others who have just been named; and it shows how men's minds were being turned towards God, that go many workers were now busy in the field of translation. The story of how he finished his translation into English of the Gospel of St. John has often been told, and will never be forgotten. When the last day of his life had come, the dying man called his scholars to him, that he might dictate more of his translation to them. "There is still a chapter wanting," he was told, "and it is hard for thee to question thyself longer."

       "It is easily done," replied the dying scholar and saint; "take thy pen and write swiftly."

       Throughout the day they wrote, and when evening fell, "There is yet another sentence unwritten, dear master," said the scribe.

       "Write it quickly," said the master.

       "It is finished now."

       "Thou sayest true," was the reply, "all is finished for now."

       He sang glory to God, and passed to be with his Lord. He was a great scholar, and had brought honor to the monastery at Jarrow-on-Tyne; and he lives for ever in the story of the English Bible. Nor in presence of his love for the Scripture and his yearning that others also should know and love it, can it be too strongly insisted on that a monastery like his had little or nothing in common with the institutions which overshadowed the land seven centuries later. At its best the early monastery was not a place to which men fled from duty, but a place to which they turned that they might be fitted to follow wherever duty led. It was a Mission Institute, a Training College, a Bible Society, all in one. It was there that the literary treasures which have come down to us from these early ages were lovingly penned, and that the love of letters was kept alive in times of ignorance and continuous warfare.

       King Alfred the Great has also a place in this Anglo-Saxon legion of honor; for when the document entitled Alfred's Dooms was prepared, he put as the first of the laws of ancient England a translation of the Ten Commandments in forcible, simple Anglo-Saxon. He seems also to have set himself to translate the Psalter, which, with the Gospels, was the favored portion of Scripture then as it is now; but, between the Danes and other cares of the State, he was never able to finish that work. An interesting insight into the spirit of these old Anglo-Saxon translators is afforded in a homily which has come down to us on Reading the Scriptures; the work of Aelfric, himself a translator. "Whoever," he says, "would be one with God, must often pray, and often read the Holy Scriptures. For when we pray, we speak to God; and when we read the Bible, God speaks to us. ... The whole of the Scriptures are written for our salvation, and by them we obtain the knowledge of the truth." If such views were at all common, it is no wonder that so many set themselves to make it possible for others, who were able to read, to study the Scriptures for themselves. There is a simple directness about these words, too, which shows that the Mystery of Iniquity had not yet attained the predominance.

       The work of these Anglo-Saxon translators, and of others like them who live only in the grand result, was doubtless meant principally for use in the Church service, there being no reading public then; and they must have cheered and guided many in these early ages. The light would be all the brighter because the surrounding darkness was so dense. The Norman Conquest, however, wrought a great change. The Saxon manuscripts were despised by the new rulers in Church and State; and by-and-by they became unintelligible to the common people themselves. In little more than a century after the Invasion, in addition to the Latin Church hymns the Norman population had a prose translation of the Psalms in their own Anglo-Norman, and the French mediaeval literature was rich in translations of portions of the Bible. But that, of course, meant nothing for the masses of the English people. Meanwhile, however, the fusion was gradually going on which led to the supremacy of the English language; and, in spite of all that Bible translation has done to guide and fix the language at every stage in its development, it is probable that Wycliffe's Bible in 1382 appeared almost as early as any version could which was to be the Bible of the whole nation, and to retain its place among the English people.

       Another influence was likewise at work which may also have had something to do with the cessation of Bible translation among the Anglo-Saxons. Increasingly as Romanism developed on the lines which it still unhappily follows, and sacerdotalism was casting its baleful shadow all over the land, a knowledge of the vernacular Scriptures was regarded with suspicion by the ecclesiastical authorities. As mutterings of dissatisfaction, too, began to be heard among the awakening nations, the influence of the Bible was felt to be hostile alike to the tyrant and the priest. It cannot be claimed for the Mediaeval Church that she ever encouraged a knowledge of the vernacular Scriptures. The utmost she ever did was to tolerate a knowledge of the Psalter, of Service Books, and, in the fifteenth century, of the Plenaria. These were little books with translations of some paragraphs from the Gospels and Epistles read in the Church service, accompanied by legends and popular tales. It is quite beyond dispute that a knowledge of the Bible in the vernacular, especially by the uneducated, was almost always regarded as a sign of heretical tendencies. In the year 1229, a Council at Toulouse had decreed: "We also forbid the laity to possess any of the books of the Old or New Testaments, except perhaps the Psalter, or Breviary for the offices, or the hours of the Blessed Virgin, which some out of devotion wish to have; but having any of these books translated into the vulgar tongue we strictly forbid.

       During the period usually described as that of Old English, from 1250 to 1350, in spite of all the reactionary forces at work, portions of Scripture continued to be rendered into the vernacular by zealous Christian men eager that their countrymen should hear the voice of God for themselves. That it was so often the Psalter which was thus translated may indicate that this was deemed the line of least resistance. Towards the end of the thirteenth century an author, now unknown, made a translation of the Psalms into verse; the language being simple and full of expression. Then, about the year 1325, two translations of the Psalter into English prose appeared almost simultaneously. The one was by William of Shoreham, a country parish priest in the county of Kent; the other was the work of Richard Rolle, known as the hermit of Hampole. The former wrote the Psalms verse by verse in Latin and English; the translation being generally verbal and faithful. The latter had in the first instance written a commentary on the Psalms. This led him afterwards to translate and publish it with an English commentary. In his ' Psalms in Human Life,' Mr. Prothero says that Rolle's work on its spiritual side illustrates one of the movements which led up to the Reformation.

       Somewhat later, too, there was a translator, John of Trevisa in Cornwall, who so far as the history of Scripture is concerned is somewhat elusive. He turned the Polychronicon of Ranulf Higden into English verse about 1387 ; and in the preface to the Authorized Version he is mentioned on behalf of the Translators as one of their forerunners in the good work. Much about that time, even in our King Richard the Second's days, John Trevisa translated them the Gospels, that is into English. The first reference to his work as Bible translator is by Caxton in 1482; but whatever he did, it is not certain that any of his work remains.

       When Sir Thomas More asserted that it was not the case that Wycliffe was the first who carried through a translation of the whole Bible into English for the use of the laity, he added that he himself had seen beautiful manuscripts of the English Bible which belonged to a date long prior to that of Wycliffe. This was not only accepted later by a man so learned as Archbishop Ussher, but Henry Wharton his editor, in turn credited John of Trevisa with having been the translator of one of those pre-Wycliffe manuscripts which they also had both seen. By-and-by, however, Wharton came to see that both he and Ussher, as well as More, had been wrong, and that what they had all seen were nothing more than copies of Wycliffe's version. There is documentary proof that at the time of the Reformation there were several of these Wycliffe manuscripts in the hands of Roman Catholic prelates. Certain it is that neither Wycliffe nor the men of his generation knew anything about any predecessor in this field. Had there been earlier versions of the whole Bible in existence, the wrath of the Reformer's enemies because of what he did would have been altogether unmeaning.

       For the whole period prior to Wycliffe, who first rendered the whole Bible into English and made it the people's book, the state of the case cannot be better summarized than has been done by Professor Lechler of Leipzig, with whose statement this article may be brought to a close. "The whole result for this period, as well of the Anglo-Saxon as of the Norman and Old English tongue, stands as follows:

1.  A translation of the entire Bible was never during this period accomplished in England, and was never even apparently contemplated .
2. The Psalter was the only book of Scripture which was fully and literally translated into all the three languages Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and Old English.
3. In addition, several books of Scripture, especially of the Old Testament, were translated partially or in select passages, as by Aelfric, leaving out of view poetical versions, and the translation of the Gospel of John by Bede, which celebrated work has not come down to us.
4. Last of all and this fact is of great importance in none of these translations was it designed to make the Word of God accessible to the mass of the people, and to spread Scriptural knowledge among them. The only object which was kept in view was partly to furnish aid to the clergy and to render service to the educated class.