tions from the marriage vows rendered divorce and even polygamy matters of ordinary occurrence in high life. Unreasonable restrictions led indirectly to unbounded laxity and demoralization. Marriages were forbidden not merely within the limits which Nature prescribes, but as far as the seventh degree of collateral consanguinity; and in addition to this came innumerable degrees of affinity, arising out of the sacraments of baptism and matrimony. Hence "history is full of dissolutions of marriage, obtained by fickle passion or coldhearted ambition, to which the church has not scrupled to pander on some suggestion of relationship."

ject, their own acts. Still is he often fair in judg-| with reference to the Great Charter. Dispensa ment, especially in summation of the evidence for the destruction of the workmen who attempted to build the temple. Nor does his bitterness lead him to discredit Warburton on Julian, any further than a fair censure on his dogmatism and speculation. His attempt to subdue the force of the unprejudiced evidence of Ammianus Marcellinus, is subject to very different questioning. The sagacity of Gibbon, in the judgment he forms on conflicting accounts, is great; but certainly no one can think that he enters satisfactorily into details. His best efforts always seem to us a sketch of a part, but never a view of the whole. Nothing, for example, can be more unsatisfactory than his brief account of Timur; and Von Hammer supplies innumerable deficiencies even on his favorite subject, the virtues of the Ottoman. To impugn, however, the great extent of his acquirements, would be as unjust as untrue. Still Gibbon does not show much philological acuteness; and although his implicit confidence in the events of early Roman history may be carried to an excess, still, for our parts, we confess we are weak enough yet to credit Livy in preference to Niebuhr. As to the visible prejudice against Christianity, which he scarcely thinks it worth while to conceal, we repeat, that we are ignorant from what source it arose; but certainly Voltaire, Rousseau, and Hume united, did her less harm than the covert attacks of the historian of the "Decline and Fall,"

Not only the appointment of bishops, but, to a great extent, the patronage of inferior benefices, was assumed by the Pope, till," as in the history of all usurping governments, time changed anomaly into system, and injury into right." Provisions, reserves, taxation of the clergy, enormously swelled the coffers of the Roman court. Gregory IX. preached a crusade against the Emperor Frederick, in a quarrel which only concerned his temporal principality, and the Church of England was taxed by his authority to carry on this holy war. After that, no bounds were set to such exactions. "The usurers of Cahors and Lombardy, residing in London, took up the trade of agency for the Pope, and in a few years he is said, partly by levies of money, partly by the revenues of benefices, to have plundered the kingdom of no less than fifteen million pounds sterling of our money. Pillaged on every slight occasion, without law and without redress, even the clergy came to regard their once paternal monarch as an arbitrary oppressor. All writers of the thirteenth and following centuries complain in terms of the most unmeasured indignation, and seem almost ready to reform the general abuses of the church."

Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer. Lord Brougham justly censures the account of Cyprian, and of the persecution of that emperor that mowed down the church of God, Diocletian, also the foul indecency of various passages that elicited the indignant censure of even one not remarkable for very rigid chastity of expressionPorson. And here we close our remarks on Gibbon. The next lives, in sequence, are Sir Joseph At length the nations began to feel restive under Banks and D'Alembert; the former, we believe, the galling yoke. None had been so heavily burlike Robertson, both the friend and relation of dened as England, "obsequious beyond all other Lord Brougham, who has enjoyed kindred with countries to the arrogance of her hierarchy; espethe noblest of the earth, the men immortalized in cially during the Anglo-Saxon period, when the the undying annals of fame. They may well be nation was sunk in ignorance and effeminate suproud of their descendant, and look on his multi-perstition." This characteristic she retained for fold acquirements with deep marvel and astonish-ages after the Conquest. ment; for he is not a man of a single speech, or a single subject, or a single book; but one fitted to direct senates, to digest immense materials into succinct form, and to add in each successive year fresh pearls of larger brilliancy and beauty to the chaplet he has already strung of the statesmen and men of letters of England.

THE noontide of Papal dominion extends through the thirteenth century. Rome was then once more mistress of the world, and kings were her vassals. "The superiority of ecclesiastical to temporal power, or, at least, the absolute independence of the former, may be considered," says Hallam, as the key-note which regulates every passage in the canon law." No bond, however sacred, was allowed to stand in the way of this church power. Promissory oaths were frequently annulled, especially when made by sovereigns to their people, as in the case of the English kings,

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Excommunication was the lever by which the clergy moved the world. Monarchs were dethroned

dynasties changed-kingdoms given away-and national rights trampled in the dust. Invasions were encouraged, and the banner of conquest was formally and solemnly blessed, as in the memorable cases of William the Conqueror and Henry II. of England, on condition that the Pope should share the spoil; and for this even the ancient national saints and their holiest shrines were desecrated-their names, whether Saxon or Celtic, cast out as evil and profane!

"There is a spell wrought by uninterrupted good fortune, which captivates men's understanding, and persuades them against reasoning and analogy, that violent power is immortal and irresistible. The spell is broken by the first change of success. We have seen the working and the dissipation of this charm with a rapidity to which the events of former times bear as remote a relation as the gradual processes of nature to her deluges and volcanoes. In tracing the Papal empire over mankind, we have no such marked and definite crises of revolution. But slowly, like the retreat of waters, or the stealthy paces of old age, that

extraordinary power over human opinion has been | the zeal, energy, and fidelity of the people, whom subsiding for five centuries."

they always persecuted, unless when some selfish policy withheld their hand. Such is the great and encouraging lesson which this book teaches.

We are not disposed to criticise this important work. Ours is the more grateful, though more difficult, task of presenting, as far as possible in so brief a sketch, the results of the learned and phil

There grew up, by slow degrees, a conviction of "that sacred truth, which superstition and sophistry have endeavored to eradicate from the heart of man-that no tyrannical government can be founded on a Divine commission. Literature, too long the passive handmaid of spiritual despotism, began to assert her nobler birthright of minis-anthropic author's elaborate investigations, and tering to liberty and truth." And when she came to prepare the way for their joint triumph at the Reformation, the art of printing appeared, to add an hundred fold to her power.

But long before the Reformation, the Papacy had to contend with a foe far mightier and more unrelenting; for literature might be bribed, and learning might be set up against learning. It had to encounter the resistance of conscience, roused and guided by the Word of God.

thus promoting the object which he has most at heart. We hope, however, that many of our readers may be led to seek for themselves more ample information in Mr. Anderson's own pages.

In very early times, portions of Scripture had been translated into the Saxon language. But before the thirteenth century nothing effectual was done for the English people in this department. JOHN WYCLIFFE, a native of Yorkshire, was born in 1324, and came into public view as a reformer at the age of thirty-six, maintaining a conspicuous position for twenty-four years, which were devoted to incessant labor in the cause of truth, learning, and godliness, of which he was the brightest example in that age. We have the most satisfactory evidence that his translation of the Bible told powerfully on the community, and was the principal cause of that "extensive reformation” of manners spoken of by Mr. Hallam.

During many ages of profound ignorance, our forefathers" slept the sleep of orthodoxy," seldom disturbed by the lights of reason, or the sounds of dissent. But from the twelfth century this was no longer the case. "An inundation of heresy broke in that age upon the church, which no persecution was able thoroughly to repress, till it finally overspread half the surface of Europe." This "heresy," so called, was intimately connected with the reading of the vernacular Scrip- Knighton, a contemporary, complained bitterly tures. As on this point the testimony of a learned that "this Master John Wycliffe translated the and liberal layman will be accepted by some, more Gospel out of Latin into English, and thus laid it readily than that of an ecclesiastical writer, we more open to the laity, and to women who could shall quote a few more sentences from Mr. Hal-read, than it had been formerly even to the most lam, who deals with religious movements in those times, merely in their relation to the progress of society.

"The ecclesiastical history of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries teems with new sectaries or schismatics, various in their aberrations of opinion, but all concurring in detestation of the Established Church. They endured severe persecution with a sincerity and firmness, which in any cause ought to command respect.

*

*

*

Considered in its effect on manners, the preaching
of this new sect (the Lollards) certainly produced
an extensive reformation.
Fostered by the general ill-will towards the
Church, WYCLIFFE's principles made vast progress
in England; and, unlike those of earlier sectaries,
were embraced by men of rank and influence.
Notwithstanding the check they sustained by the
sanguinary law of Henry IV., it is highly probable
that multitudes secretly cherished them down to
the era of the Reformation."*

learned of the clergy." The jewel of the church, said he, "is turned into the sport of the people, and what was hitherto the principal gift of the clergy and divines, is made forever common to the laity.' Animated by similar feelings, an English council, in 1408, decreed that "the translation of the text of Holy Scripture out of one tongue into another is a dangerous thing." Therefore, translation was forbidden by them "under pain of the greater excommunication."

Notwithstanding such threats, the word of God grew and multiplied. The term "Lollard," indeed, was applied to many who did not embrace all the doctrines of Wycliffe, though they echoed his complaints against the hierarchy. In the year 1382, Knighton states that their number had very much increased, and that " every second man in the country was a Lollard," i. e. Protestant. He states, moreover, that their teachers always pretended to have a great respect for "Goddis Law," to which they declared themselves strictly conformed both in their opinions and their conduct. They were also "mighty in words," and both men and women were distinguished by the same modes of speech, and "by a wonderful agreement in the same opinions.'

It is to this era chiefly that Mr. Anderson has devoted his investigations in the volumes before us. He has had the rare good fortune to produce a work that was much wanted on a most important subject, and just at the right time. It evinces great learning and industry, and must have cost It was not by books only that the reformed dochim vast labor. It contains an interesting and trines were then propagated. There was a body most instructive portion of English history, never of itinerant preachers called "Poor Priests," who before so fully or so clearly written, casting light proclaimed the Gospel throughout the land in on many obscurities, and developing some princi-churches and churchyards, in the midst of fairs and ples of vital moment in the present day-all going to prove, in a very remarkable manner, that the Book of God is not only the book of truth and salvation, but also, preeminently, the Book of Freedom; and that it has won its victories, not by the power or patronage of princes and prelates, but by

*See Hallam's Europe during the Middle Ages, chap. 7.

markets, or wherever multitudes were convened. They were denounced by the authorities, and cited to the tribunals, because, “by their subtle and ingenious words, they contrived to draw the people to their sermons, and to maintain them in their errors. Supported in their home mission by the liberality of the faithful, they were free to fly from city to city when persecuted" by the clerks of Antichrist, as Christ biddeth and the Gospel"-" com

ing and going after the moving of the Holy Ghost, and not being hindered from doing what is best by the jurisdiction of sinful men.' These preaching priests would not take benefices, lest they should thereby countenance the iniquity of patronage, commit the sin of simony, or be tempted to live in idleness, misspending honest folk's money.*

Rome was then little aware that she was furnishing to Europe polished weapons for the warfare which was to issue in the destruction of her own power, and which would be first wielded effectually by one of her own most celebrated sons-Erasmus. While Constantinople was being stormed, and while the "brief-men" of Italy were busy with their pens transcribing the classics, Gutenberg, the inventor of printing, aided by John Fust, a goldsmith, who advanced the money, finished at Mentz, the first great work of the Press-the Latin Bible. Thus the earliest homage of this art-the parent of so many bloodless revolutions-was paid to the Sacred Volume. This Bible, in 2 vols. folio, consisted of 1282 pages, finely executed, by

As to the translation of Wycliffe, it is true that he was ignorant of Greek and Hebrew, which some of the priests, 150 years after, regarded as languages newly invented by the Reformers, or by the devil. Such being the utter ignorance, in those ages, of the originals of Scripture, Mr. Anderson thinks that a translation, in the first instance, from Greek and Hebrew, would not have harmonized with the intentions of divine Providence. Latin a process that was a profound secret to all except was the language of learning, of the church, and of the authorized Bible. Against what was manifestly contained in the Vulgate nothing could be said. It was therefore fitting that, as a preliminary step, the translation should be made from that standard version. For this task Wycliffe was eminently qualified.

He did not perform it in vain. The people, even the soldiers, read it with avidity. "Dukes and earls," also, "his powerful defenders and invincible protectors," were busily engaged in transcribing and studying its precious contents. The translator, conscious that he had done a great work, frequently expressed himself in the boldest terms. "The authority of Scripture," said he, "is independent on any other authority, and preferable to every other writing. "Among his latest acts," says Dr. Vaughan, was a defence in Parliament of the translation of the Scriptures into English. These he declared to be the property of the people, and one which no party should be allowed to wrest from them."

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the artists employed in the work. While the wise men of Paris were ascribing it to the operation of magic and the black art, it found the warmest welcome in the city of the Index Expurgatorius, and its most admiring patron in the Pope. Before the close of the fifteenth century, the different works, published in Rome alone, amounted to 1000. Other cities in Italy and Germany were equally busy. Panzer has reckoned up 198 printers in Venice, and before the close of the century they had put forth 2980 distinct publications, among which were more than twenty editions of the Latin Bible. Thirty years after this glorious invention, there were more than 1000 printing-presses at work in 220 different places throughout Europe.

Such was the state of things when WILLIAM TYNDALE, the first translator of the Bible from the original languages into English, commenced his labors. The parentage of illustrious characters is sometimes involved in an obscurity which baffles all research; and it is amusing to see how biographers puzzle their brains to connect their heroes with some respectable genealogy. Mr. Anderson, with all his Christian philosophy, is not free from thisshall we call it-weakness? And, accordingly, he searches diligently and vainly in Gloucestershire for the paternal mansion of the martyr-Tyndale.

It is a singular circumstance that this translation has never been printed! The New Testament, it is true, was printed 300 years after it was finished; but the entire Bible, now 464 years old, has never been committed to the press. That it was extensively read, however, is evident from the virulent Tyndale, however, was the name of a good old opposition it excited. "Mere gleams of light, stock; and our translator was probably the son of obtained from the Sacred Word, were sufficient,' ," Thomas Tyndale, by Alicia Hunt, of North Nibly says our author, "to bring down the wrath of the in Gloucestershire, and was born in 1484-5 or 6. oppressor. During the fifteenth century, various He was educated at Oxford, where he was distincases of abjuration and burning for heresy had guished by his attainments in the classics and his occurred. Particular periods are then to be marked knowledge of the Scriptures, which he labored to as seasons of persecution.' inculcate on the minds of his fellow-students. This zeal was offensive to his superiors; and though there is no reason to think he was expelled, yet says Foxe, "spying his time, he removed to the University of Cambridge, where he likewise made his abode a certain space." About 1520 he used often to preach in Bristol, and in various towns and villages in the neighborhood of Little Sodbury Manor, where he was a tutor in the family of Sir John Walsh.

It is plain, from what has been already stated, that there can be no greater mistake than that so generally committed, of ascribing the British Reformation to continental influences. It sprung from the seeds of truth, sown in the native soil long before Luther was heard of. The written (i. e. manuscript) Word of God in English was the grand instrumentality employed. In this respect, as we shall see hereafter, England and Scotland owed even less to their rulers than to the German There, he had debates with abbots and other reformers. clergy who frequented the house; for Sir John At the fall of Constantinople, in the middle of the" kept a good ordinary" and the tutor had an fifteenth century, Europe was seized with a sort of literary mania. Crowds of learned Greeks, bearing with them the classical treasures of antiquity, settled in Italy, which became the chief point of attraction to all the learned of the west. The highest ecclesiastical authorities were so enthusiastic, that the discovery of an unknown manuscript was regarded almost as the conquest of a kingdom.

*Vaughan's Life of Wycliffe, vol. ii., p. 163.

opportunity of occasionally discussing "God's matters" with well-beneficed dignitaries. Once Sir John and his lady were at a banquet, given by those great doctors, "where they talked at will and pleasure, uttering their blindness and ignorance without resistance or gain-saying." Their arguments being repeated to Tyndale, he refuted them from Scripture.

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Well," said Lady Walsh, "there was such a doctor there as may dispend £100 a year, and

another £200, and another £300; and what! | three thousand copies of the New Testament in were it reason, think you, that we should believe English, with the design of "making all England you before them?"

It was in this house that Tyndale conceived the purpose of translating the Scriptures.

Lutheran," he was "moved with fear and wonder," and induced the authorities to interpose. He also wrote to Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wol"As long," said he, "as the clergy can keep sey, "that they might, with the greatest diligence, the Scripture down, they will so darken the right take care, lest that most pernicious article of merway with the mist of their sophistry-with argu-chandise should be conveyed into all the ports of ments of philosophy, and with wordly similitudes, England." and apparent reasons of natural wisdom, and with Mr. Anderson has shown clearly, that "the unwresting the Scriptures unto their purpose-that divided honor of translating the New Testament though thou feel in thine heart, and art sure how remains with Tyndale alone;" but on the value that all is false that they say, yet could'st thou not of the work as a version, he has not said so much solve their subtle riddles. Which thing only as we could have wished-having noticed it, inmoved me to translate the New Testament. Because deed, but slightly, and only in passing. Yet a that I had perceived, by experience, how that it is critical examination of all our English translations, impossible to establish the people in any truth, as they have been printed side by side by Mr. except the Scripture were plainly set before their Baxter, so as to trace to its sources the language eyes in their mother tongue." of our venerable standard Bible, would be interesting and instructive; however, the theme is too large to be even touched on by us at present.

The incontrovertible proof of Tyndale's erudition, whether as a Greek or Hebrew scholar, is

A rumor soon spread abroad that he was tainted with heresy, and owing to secret accusations, he was summoned before the Chancellor of the diocese, "who threatened him grievously, reviled him, and rated him as though he had been a dog." Having to be found in the present version of our Bible, as escaped from the hands of this man, he was soon after in discussion with a learned divine, who, when forced into dilemma, exclaimed, "we were better without God's law than the Pope's." To this ebullition, so characteristic of the times, Tyndale replied, "I defy the Pope and all his laws, and if God spare my life, ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the plough, to know more of Scripture than you do."

Finding the Italian diocese of Worcester too hot for him, and fearing that he should fall into the unmerciful hands of the spirituality, he set out for the metropolis, bringing with him an introduction to Tunstal, Bishop of London, the future burner of the New Testament. It was his first and last attempt to procure a patron, for his whole life was distinguished by a love of independence, very rare in those days even among Reformers. No public character ever evinced more noble self-reliancenone ever trusted princes less, or Providence more. He was told by the great man that his house was full-he had more than he could well find. Tyndale abode almost a year in the city, studying the church and the world at head-quarters. "I understood," said he, "at the last, not only that there was no room in my lord of London's palace, to translate the New Testament, but also, that there was no place to do it in all England."

read by millions. The circumstance of its being a revision, five times derived, is an advantage altogether peculiar to itself; while, notwithstanding this fivefold revision of the Greek and Hebrew original, large portions of Tyndale's translation remain untouched, or verbally as the translator first gave them to his country. It is, indeed, extraordinary, that so many of Tyndale's correct and happy renderings should have been left to adorn our version, while the terms substituted in other instances still leave him the palm of scholarship. When the incorrect, not to say injurious sense in which certain terms had been long employed, is duly considered, the substitution of charity for love, as Tyndale translated, of grace for favor, and church for congregation, certainly cannot be adduced as proofs of superior attainment in the original Greek."-Annals, i. p. 27.

Tyndale's prose has been read in Britain ever since, and that, too, every Sabbath-day;' for, notwithstanding all the confessed improvements made in our translations of the Bible, large portions in almost every chapter still remain verbally the same as he first gave them to his country. In this, it is true, he was merely a translator, but then the style of his translation has stood the test of nearly ten generations. It has been their admiration all along, and it will continue to be admired while the language endures."-p. 245.

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He therefore embarked for the Continent, and remained in Hamburgh about a year, busy at his The New Testament arrived in England in translation, being supported chiefly by the liberality January, 1526. The history of this importation of a London merchant. It has been generally of "pernicious merchandise" is full of romantic supposed that he went at once to Luther, and was incidents, and "if only the half were told, would leagued with him in this work. But this is a mis- be one of the most graphic stories" in our annals. take-he never set foot in Saxony before the pub- No siege by sapping and mining which England lication of his New Testament. From Hamburgh has ever since achieved, could furnish a tenth part he removed to Cologne on the Rhine in 1525, of the incident, or evince half the courage by accompanied by his amanuensis, William Roye. which she was herself assailed."-Annals, í. There he committed to the press, the New Testa- p. 88. ment, in the form of a quarto volume. But the Think of the tremendous forces that were acting printers had not proceeded far, when the work in combination against the introduction of the was interdicted. They managed, however, to se-printed Scriptures into England in the native lancure the printed sheets, and sailed with them up guage. Henry's royal honor was staked to vindithe Rhine to Worms, where they resumed their cate his proud title of Defender of the Faith, task in safety, and with renewed zeal. When Cochlæus, an indefatigable defender of the "Old Learning," discovered, by intoxicating the printers, that the two apostate Englishmen, learned, skilful in languages, and fluent," were actually printing

which he had won in controversy against Lutheranism, the opprobrious designation now employed towards all the friends of the English Testament. His chancellor, Wolsey, was next to him in power -a man of vast wealth and inordinate ambition

an intriguing aspirant to the Papal chair, and providentially interrupted by the fearful epidemic, virtually Pope of England, both from his political called by foreigners, "Sudor Anglicanus," as it influence, which enabled him to dictate to the Court attacked only the English, and seized on them of Rome, and his new office as Vicar. He had just wherever it found them. established Cardinal College in Oxford, designed to make that University the most glorious in the world; which college he amply endowed with the revenues of several small monasteries, and filled with the most talented young men he could find, in order expressly to counteract the new learning,

and maintain the old faith in its integrity.

It is well known that he was unfortunate in all his high-flying schemes. His diplomacy about the Popedom, enforced by immense sums of money, utterly failed, and injured his influence; his office of Vicar-General (as well as his college and his splendid brazen statue) was assumed by the king, and became the origin of the spiritual supremacy which has ever since attached to the English crown. He also gave Henry the fatal precedent of the confiscation of small monasteries, which led the way to the seizure of them all. And moreover, many of the well-selected advocates of the "old learning" in Cardinal College became the most devoted champions of the new.

From pole to pole, from Atlas to the East,
"It seemed the genial air,
Was then at enmity with English blood;
In foreign climes; nor did this fury taste
For, but the race of England, all were safe
The foreign blood that England then contained."

In two months 40,000 were affected in London alone, of whom 4000 died. Both the king and his chancellor made their wills, and confessed daily, that they might be ready for this terrible visitant. It is worthy of remark that Wolsey and Bishop Gardiner were the zealous agents of Henry VIII. in trying to procure the divorce from Queen Catherine; and from what we have already stated about Dispensations, it is easy to infer, that whatever stood in the way at Rome, it certainly had nothing to do with scruples about the legality of the proceeding. The Pope would have gratified Henry's wish-for a due consideration, of course-without a moment's hesitation, only that Charles V., whom he dared not offend, was the Queen's nephew.

In January, 1529, Wolsey despatched Gardiner to Rome secretly, with orders, if necessary, to threaten that England would withdraw her obedience unless the Holy See consented to be the instrument of cutting the knot that could not be untied. To this new idea of the king's suprem

Wolsey, roused by a personal satire against himself, commenced the work of persecution by instituting a secret search for books. It was found that Garret, a curate in London, had been in the habit of conveying large quantities to "a little flock" in Oxford. He and all suspected of receiving the books were cast into prison. Among these were a number of the students of Wolsey's own col-acy in spiritual matters, the cardinal was quickly lege. They were immured in a dungeon, where, getting no food but salt fish for five months, four of them died.

Dr. Barnes having, in a sermon, ridiculed the cardinal's golden shoes, golden cushions, and red gloves, was called upon to "abjure or burn." After painful suspense, he was persuaded to abjure, and Wolsey had triumphant revenge. In St. Paul's, on Sabbath-day, he sat enthroned in state, and clothed in purple, surrounded by thirty abbots, mitred priors, and bishops, while Fisher preached against the "heretics," and then baskets full of books were thrown into a fire kindled without. Barnes and his fellow-abjurers were obliged to carry fagots round the fire three times before they cast them in, and the whole ended by proclaiming an Indulgence to the spectators.

sacrificed on the pretext that he had obtained bulls from Rome without the royal license. He had raised himself by talents, judgment, and policy from humble rank to the highest degree of wealth, power, and dignity ever enjoyed by an English subject. In an age of pewter, his tables were covered with gold and silver plate-the highest nobility were his household servants, waiting upon him in white robes, as in the king's palace. His master cook was arrayed in damask satin, with a gold chain about his neck. There were one hundred individuals daily in attendance on the person of this successor of the apostles. In his " poor house of Westminster," as he was accustomed to style his gorgeous palace, "there was of all sorts of arras, velvets, carpets, &c. &c., enough to have set up many a substantial tradesman, besides completely a nobleman's palace! He had ruled England, and powerfully influenced the politics of Europe for twenty years, during which he had been courted and caressed by the kings of the civilized world.

Thus the work of exterminating the Scriptures went on; but it was not confined to England. In obedience to Wolsey's instructions, the English ambassador not only visited Antwerp, Barrow, Zealand, and other places for this purpose, but he made "privy inquisitions" after books at Ghent But in one day all this glory vanished! The and Bruges, Louvaine, &c. He made some "good king frowned, and the honors which were so thick fires" of the New Testaments; but in an attempt upon him withered in a moment. "I have been to punish the printer of them at Antwerp, he to see the Lord Cardinal," said the French amreceived an effectual check from the free govern-bassador, Bellay, on that very day—" and he has ment of that place, which presented a happy contrast to the slavery of England. It was this ambassador, Hacket, who first suggested the idea of buying up the New Testament in order to burn it. So greatly were the bishops alarmed at the prospect of its circulation, that Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, spent £664 thus, on part of Tyndale's first edition, and called on the bishops to contribute their share of the money, which they did, and thanked him cordially for this "glorious and blessed deed."

In 1528, persecution raged fiercely against the readers and venders of the Scriptures, till it was

shown me his case with the most deplorable rhetoric I ever saw; for both his heart and his spirit entirely failed him. I can say nothing more striking than his face, which has lost half its proper size." Upon his departure to the country by water, a thousand boats were on the river, crowded with people, expecting the pleasure of seeing him going to the Tower. "He died not merely in obscurity, but in disgrace; and though the charge of high treason hung over him unrefuted, with his last breath he enforced persecution." Yet on this point he should be judged in the light of the age in which he lived. He was not as bad as his