five hundred for their manuscripts-when he produced copies of perfect uniformity in the form, size, and position of the letters and words, and as speedily as they were demanded, the ignorant and superstitious thought him in league with Satan, and he was tormented and persecuted by those foolish suspicions. You are now reaping the fruit of this noble invention, an invention not unlike the miracle, which, from a few scanty loaves and fishes, fed so many thousands, and left fragments of larger quantity than the original stock. Every child, therefore, may have, ought to have, its own cherished copy of the Bible. this one book," said Luther, "be familiar to all men's tongues, hands, eyes, ears, and heart." he that readeth." "Let "Blessed is Bibles, I have said, were very dear. The cost of one can scarce be credited at the present day. A load of hay was sometimes given by the peasantry for a few chapters of the Epistles of Paul or James, at the time when printed English Bibles were cursed by the priests, and forbidden to be read by the King. One Abbot bought a written Bible in nine tomes, for a sum which, in our day, would amount to L.500. A copy of Wycliffe's version of the New Testament, cost, in 1429, four marks and twenty-pence, or about twenty-five pounds of our present money. And though these sums, when told in the money of that period, would look much smaller, it is to be borne in mind that the labourer's wages were then very little. Reapers got twopence a-day, and a sheep was sold for a shilling. Twenty years' wages would not have purchased a Bible. Such, therefore, was the high value set upon a copy of the Scriptures, when the scribe, and not the printer, produced them, that when they were given in loan, the borrower was sometimes compelled to give a formal bond for their return. O, what a blessing is a cheap Bible—and now it is the cheapest of books! The God of the Bible has made his own word in our country, as abundant and free as "the rain that cometh down, and the snow from heaven." Still further, you are deeply indebted to the translators of the Bible from the original languages into your own mother tongue. The Old Testament was given to the Jews in Hebrew, for it was their national speech, and the New Testament was published in Greek; for, in consequence of the victories of Alexander the Great, and the colonies founded by him and his successors, Greek was in the days of the apostles a kind of universal tongue. The church, in very early times, always took care to have the Bible translated for the various countries to which the gospel was carried. One author in the fourth century says, that Indians, Syrians, Persians, and Ethiopians had grown wise by such translations. Other writers of that period make similar statements. No book loses less by translation than the Scriptures. They fit themselves for every language, and though in some versions they may resemble Moses when his face was vailed, still their divine splendour gleams through their transparent covering. So we find that holy and patriotic men were employed, in former ages, in translating the Bible into the dialect of this country. The most famous of those early translators was William Tyndale, a man of simple spirit, pure faith, and heroic zeal, who has consecrated, in his death, that cause to which his eventful life had been laboriously devoted. He has earned a nation's gratitude by his tears and prayers, and toils and blood. version, especially the New Testament, is taken from his with few variations. And yet for his work of love, he was oppressed and persecuted. He had to translate and print with as much secrecy as if he had been murdering and stealing; and at last, for the crime of giving the English nation an English Bible, was he apprehended in a foreign land, and on the 6th Our October 1536, burnt at the stake.* You will value your English Bible so much the more, that its accuracy has been attested by scholars competent to form a critical estimate of its merits. It is the best, take it all in all, of any authorized translations. Thus, in order that you might enjoy the privilege of reading the Bible, you have been taught to read; and the Bible has been translated and printed. You may be apt to forget such blessings, and such providential methods of furnishing you with a printed English Bible; but surely such kindness on the part of God to you, such arrangements on His part in past ages for your present benefit, ought always to be remembered with praise and gratitude. And this is not all. Time was, when in this country you would not have been allowed to read the Bible. In the reign of Henry V. a law was passed, declaring, that if any person read the Scriptures in English, they should "forfeit land, cattle, life, and goods for themselves and their heirs for ever, and be condemned as heretics, enemies to the crown, and most arrant traitors to the land." Again in 1543, and in 1546, it was Annals of the English Bible, by Christopher Anderson,--a work of patient research, of successful industry, of christian patriotism. |