earth, I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.' And with that he shut the book together, and said, 'Here is even learning enough for me to my life's end.' . . . When he was come to the foot of the scaffold, they that carried him offered to help him up the stairs, but said he, Nay, masters, seeing I am come so far, let me alone, and ye shall see me shift for myself well enough;' and he went up the stairs, without any help, so lively that it was a marvel to them that before knew his debility and weakness. But as he was mounting the stairs the south-east sun shined very bright in his face, whereupon he said to himself these words, lifting up his hands, 'Ye shall look unto Him and be lightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed.'"

26. After saying to the assembled people that he was come to die for the faith of Christ's Holy Catholic Church, and praying for his king and his country, "he kneeled down and said certain prayers. Then came the executioner, and bound a handkerchief about his eyes; and so the bishop, lifting his hands and heart to heaven, said a few prayers, which were not long, but fervent and devout; which being ended, he laid his head down over the midst of a little block, where the executioner, being ready with a sharp and heavy axe, cut asunder his slender neck at one blow."

27. Thus there was no longer any hope of a peaceful Reformation. Many and many another sainted head would fall, on either side, before Christians could learn how in this imperfect world they might dwell together in unity, each holding his own faith, and yet each loving his brother who held another.

LECTURE XLII.-THE REFORMERS.

Cranmer and Cromwell. The English Bible. Tyndale. The New Testament burnt at St. Paul's. The Bible published by authority. Dissolution of the monasteries. Death of Henry VIII.

1. AFTER the fall of Wolsey, the chief advisers and supporters of the king were two very remarkable men. One of these was Cranmer, who had been made Archbishop of CanCranmer. terbury on account of the help he had given and was ready to give to the king about his divorce. Long afterwards he was burned to death for his Protestant religion; but at this time, though he upheld the king's supremacy, he believed the Roman Catholic doctrines, and consented to the burning of heretics. It is not to be supposed that in those days people became thorough Protestants all at once; it was only by degrees they learnt to see that among the things they had been brought up to believe " some were untrue, some uncertain, some vain and superstitious," and we have no right to blame them for this. Cranmer was not a perfect man by any means; he was more worldly and less brave than most of the reformers; but he did lasting good to the Church and nation; it was he who sent forth into the whole land our English Bible, the book which lies nearer to the heart of Englishmen than any other, and our English Prayer-book, which is also very dear to many of us.

2. The other counsellor of the king was Thomas Cromwell, a man who had been in Wolsey's employ, and who came into favour as the great cardinal declined. He was most Cromwell. faithful to his master in his fall, and did all he could to shield him from disgrace and injury, so that every one respected and admired his honesty and fidelity. But he was a very bad adviser for the king. Henry, as we know, loved his own will. Wolsey had said of him, "He is a prince of royal courage, and hath a princely heart, and rather than he will want or miss any part of his will or pleasure he will endanger the loss of the one half of his realm." This was rather a com

plimentary style of speaking, and the "royal courage and princely heart" in common people would have perhaps been called stubbornness and self-will. "I assure you," Wolsey went on, "I have often kneeled before him for the space sometimes of three hours, to persuade him from his will and appetite, but I could never dissuade him therefrom. Therefore, Mr. Kingstone, I warn you, if it chance you hereafter to be of his privy council... be well assured and advised what ye put in his head, for ye shall never put it out again."

3. Cromwell was exactly the minister to please a king like this, for all his aim and object was to make the king and the king's will supreme in everything. He wanted the country to be governed, not, as of old, by a constitutional king, who had to consult his parliament, and conform himself to the laws of the land, but by an absolute king, who should be above and before all, even above the law. This was all the more dangerous now, because Henry had become the head of the Church as well as of the State, and therefore he had twice as much authority as any of his predecessors, and it would no longer be in the power of the archbishops and bishops to oppose his will. Cromwell introduced a law which one wonders could ever have been adopted in so just and equitable a country as England-that persons accused of high treason should not be allowed to be heard in their own defence. It is very remarkable that when after a time Cromwell's will clashed with the king's, and he fell into disfavour, he was the first to suffer under that law.

4. All these plans and views of Cromwell suited Henry and his successors very well; but they did not suit the English nation, and when the time came, 100 years later, that the king's will and the nation's will went different ways, there was a great crash, and the old English freedom was restored. But this did not happen yet; the gradual change which had begun under Edward IV. still went on, and the country became more and more dependent on the personal will of the king. The Tudors, with one exception, besides being obstinate, were wise; they could see what the nation would put up with, and what it would not, and they never came into collision with their people, because they had so true a perception of what their will really was.

5. In this great matter of the Church, though there were many who differed from the Protestant reformers, it seems that the main body of the people more or less sided with them, and were glad to throw off the tyranny of Rome. When Henry and Cranmer began, as they soon did, to cast away. the Romish

doctrines also, and to encourage the reading of the Bible, the more intelligent classes still approved. Above all, the clever and serious-minded young men at the universities, who had read the Greek Testament of Erasmus, and his other writings, were sure to be much influenced by them. Some of these came to be very famous afterwards, and have left a glorious name behind them, as the fathers of the English Church. One of the Tyndale. most notable was Tyndale, who, having read and heartily sympathized with what Erasmus wished about the Bible, determined to do his share towards bringing it to pass, by once more translating the Bible into English. The old translations, even Wycliffe's, had now become old-fashioned; for though but 150 years had passed since his time, the language had altered so much that probably it could not be easily understood. But language altered much faster then than it does now, because the printing of books, which are read by many people all over a country, fixes the meaning of words and their spelling to a great extent; so that though our English Bible, which is more than 300 years old, is somewhat antique, we can all understand it, and delight in its beauty and majesty. A great part of the Bible, as we now have it, is in the very English of Tyndale, and of his friend Miles Coverdale, who helped him.

6. We ought, therefore, to know a little about the life and work of a man to whom all who love their English Bibles owe so much. His biography, as well as that of many others of the reformers, may be read in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, which has always been a very favourite book, and is indeed most interesting, quaint, and vivid, though he was not impartial enough to be thoroughly relied on. Tyndale was a very well-educated young man, having studied both at Oxford and Cambridge, when he went to be tutor in a gentleman's family in Gloucestershire. This gentleman, Sir John Welch, being a rich and hospitable man, was in the habit of entertaining at dinner all the dignified clergy, the abbots, deans, and archdeacons of the neighbourhood, and the young tutor would sit at table among them. Even quite in the country people were already thinking a great deal about the new doctrines which were coming in, and the talk was very often about Erasmus and Luther, and their works. Tyndale, being learned and clever, would join in the conversation, and sometimes put all the dignitaries to silence by his arguments and knowledge of the Scriptures. He happened once to be in company of a divine, "recounted," says Foxe, "for a learned an, and in communing and disputing with him he drave him

to that issue that the said great doctor burst out into these blasphemous words, 'We were better to be without God's laws than the Pope.' Master Tyndale, hearing this, full of godly zeal, and not bearing that blasphemous saying, replied again, and said, 'I defy the Pope and all his laws;' and farther added that if God spared him life, ere many years he would cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture than he did."

7. Thus he soon grew into great disfavour with the clergy round, who wished things to stay as they were; and not only with these higher ones, but also with the lower and more ignorant, who were perhaps jealous of his learning. These latter seem to have been in almost as bad a condition as they were in the days of King Alfred. The Church prayers were still all said in Latin, and of course the congregations could not understand them, but it seems the priests themselves were not much better. Tyndale says he feels sure there were 20,000 priests and curates in England who could not give the right English of the Lord's Prayer, the Paternoster as they called it.

He translates the

Bible.

8. The clergy, high and low, soon made the place too hot for him, and he went to London, full of zeal to keep that promise about the Scriptures. He found very little encouragement there; he remained "the space almost of a year, beholding and marking with himself the course of the world, and especially the demeanour of the preachers, how they boasted themselves and set up their authority and kingdom; beholding also the pomp of the prelates" (this was just in the hey-day of Wolsey's glory), "with other things more which greatly misliked him." He received no protection or assistance, and finally decided that London was no place for him or his work. Accordingly, he went abroad and settled in Antwerp, where he was encouraged by some English merchants, and where he, helped by friends who were like-minded with himself, finished his translation. It was immediately printed; and now the question arose how to get the copies circulated and read in England. This was some time before Henry had broken with the Pope, and it was still against the law for laymen to read the Bible. One of the heads of the clergy, who was afterwards Archbishop of York, tells this in plain words. He had found out about Tyndale and the New Testament, and he writes to the king to warn him. "An Englishman, your subject, . . . hath translated the New Testament into English, and within few days intendeth to

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