verses of Psalm i., given above, with the forms in which they appeared in the two Wycliffe Bibles, the reader will be able in some degree to estimate the growth of our language, and will also understand how painstaking and reverent was the care taken by these “faithful men” that in this sacred work they might offer of their very best.

In the earlier Wycliffe version the verses read thus:

“Blisful the man that went not awei in the counseil of unpitouse, and in the wei off sinful stod not, and in the chaȝer of pestilence sat not. But in the lawe of the Lord his wil; and in the lawe of hym he shal sweteli thenke dai and nyȝt.”

In Purvey’s revised version they read:

“Blessid is the man that ȝede not in the councel of wickid men; and stood not in the weie of synneris, and sat not in the chaier of pestilence. But his wille is in the lawe of the Lord; and he schal bithenke in the lawe of hym dai and nyȝt.”

This Bible, so long as it remained in use as the Bible of English people, existed, it should be remembered, only in a manuscript form.[11] The chief point, however, to be noticed here is, that with all its excellences, and unspeakable as was its worth, it was but the translation of a translation. Neither Wycliffe nor his associates had access to the Hebrew original of the Old Testament; and although some copies of the Greek New Testament were then to be found in England, there is no reason to believe that Purvey or his friends were able to make any use of them. They were, indeed, aware that the Latin of the common text did not always faithfully represent the Hebrew; but their knowledge of this fact was second-hand, gathered chiefly from the commentaries of Nicholas de Lyra, a writer whose works were held in high repute by Bible students in that age. They did not, therefore, venture to correct these places, but contented themselves with noting in the margin, “What the Ebru hath, and how it is undurstondun.” This, Purvey states, he has done most frequently in the Psalter, which “of alle oure bokis discordith most fro Ebru.”

The third stage in the growth of the English Scriptures is brought before us by the interesting series of printed Bibles that issued from the printing press in the reign of Henry VIII.

After the death of Wycliffe the efforts of the Popish party to crush the Lollards had increased in violence, and various enactments were passed proscribing the use of the Bible which bore his name. An act, passed in the second parliament of Henry V., went still further, and declared that all who read the Scriptures in their native tongue should forfeit land, cattle, life, and goods, they and their heirs for ever. Notwithstanding these repressive measures, copies of the Wycliffe Bible were still made and read in secret. This could be done only with great risk and difficulty, and none but persons of some wealth could afford the expense of a complete copy. Those in humbler positions deemed themselves happy if they could secure a single book, or even a few leaves. Moreover, through the growing changes of the language, many passages were becoming very obscure to ordinary readers. During the hundred years which followed after the issuing of the law just referred to, two important events had happened; namely, the invention of printing,[12] and the German Reformation. Both of these had a large influence in stimulating the friends of the Bible to new efforts in revising it for popular use.

The leader of this movement in our own country was William Tyndale, who, in the year 1525, printed on the Continent, whither he had been driven by the opposition which beset him at home, the first edition of his New Testament, translated from the Greek. A second and revised edition, “dylygently corrected and compared with the Greke,” was printed at Antwerp, and published in November, 1534; and a third and final edition was published in the early part of 1535, in the May of which year he was arrested and committed to the castle of Vilvorde, near Brussels. Of other parts of the Scriptures Tyndale was able to publish only the Pentateuch (1530 or 1531) and the book of Jonah (1534). On the sixth day of October, 1536, he was led to the stake. He was there strangled and his body burnt.

Just twelve months before the martyrdom of Tyndale, the first printed edition of the entire Scriptures in the English language was issued from the press of Jacob van Meteren, at Antwerp. The privilege and honour of accomplishing this memorable work belongs to Miles Coverdale, at that time a poor scholar, dependent upon the patronage of Thomas Cromwell and others, though subsequently, for a short period in the reign of Edward VI., Bishop of Exeter. The first edition of his Bible was “prynted in the year of our Lord MDXXXV., and fynished the fourthe day of October.” Coverdale had been moved to the undertaking by his own deep sense of the needs of his country, and by the earnest appeals addressed to him by others. Through his modesty of disposition, and his lowly estimate of his own abilities, he would have declined the task, but the urgency of his friends prevailed. The expenses also of the preparation and publication of the work were met by the liberality of some of them. In his prologue he says, “It was neither my labour nor desire to have this work put in my hand; nevertheless it grieved me that other nations should be more plenteously provided for with the Scripture in their mother tongue than we; therefore, when I was instantly required, though I could not do as well as I would, I thought it my duty to do my best, and that with a good will;”[13] and in the dedication to the king, prefixed to some of the copies, he says, “As the Holy Ghost moved other men to do the cost hereof, so was I boldened in God to labour in the same.” According to the statement on the title-page this was not a translation made from the original texts,[14] but was faithfully and truly translated out of the “Douche and Latyn in to Englishe.” In the dedication he states that he had, “with a clear conscience purely and faithfully translated this out of five sundry interpreters,” and in his prologue he explains further, that to help him in his work he had used “sundry translations, not only in Latin, but also of the Dutch interpreters;” and he is careful, further, to explain that he did not “set forth this special translation” “as a reprover and despiser of other men’s translations,” but “lowly and faithfully have I followed mine interpreters, and that under correction.” The five interpreters to whom Coverdale thus refers were probably the Vulgate, the Latin version of Pagninus, Luther’s translation, the Zurich Bible, and Tyndale’s New Testament and Pentateuch. Though the volume was dedicated to the king, and though Coverdale was backed by powerful patrons, this Bible was not published with a royal license. No direct attempt, however, was made to suppress it. In the following year (1536) it was virtually condemned by the members of Convocation, who prayed the king that he would “grant unto his subjects of the laity the reading of the