establish the lay people in any truth, except the Scriptures were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother-tongue, that they might see the process, order, and meaning of the text."

THE publication of the Revised Old Testa- | perience how that it was impossible to ment has aroused fresh interest in all matters bearing upon the history of the English Bible. More than ever is it becoming clear how great a debt the English nation owes to the men who gave them the Word of God in their native tongue. Highest on this roll of England's worthies stands the name of William Tyndale. Wycliffe, a hundred and fifty years before, had translated the Latin Vulgate into English. But printing was then unknown, and the MSS. Bibles were beyond the reach of any but the wealthy. Tyndale, therefore, was the first man to give to the English nation a New Testament translated directly from the Greek original, and in such a form as to place it within the reach of all.

Tyndale was born about 1484, most probably at Slymbridge, in Gloucestershire. He was educated at Oxford, and took his B.A. degree there in 1512, and was created M.A. in 1515. From Oxford he went to Cambridge, where doubtless he acquired a sound knowledge of Greek, and about 1521 he became tutor in the family of Sir John Walsh, at Little Sodbury, in Gloucestershire.

Here he often met abbots, and deans, and other ecclesiastics, and often confuted their errors by the plain words of Scripture. He found these men ignorant of the Word of God, and not only ignorant of it, but unwilling to be instructed. He was also in the habit of preaching to the common people at Bristol, and at the villages in the neighbourhood of Little Sodbury, and found everywhere that they were sunk in ignorance and vice. The conviction began to seize him that no real good could be done until the Bible could be put into their hands. He was moved to translate the Scriptures, he tells us, "because I had perceived by ex

Discussing these matters one day with a priest, the latter at last flew into a rage and cried, "We were better without God's laws than the pope's;" to which Tyndale gave the noble answer, "I defy the pope and all his laws: if God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou doest."

Full of this great plan, Tyndale went to London; applied for help to Tunstal, Bishop of London, who was reputed to be a scholar and in sympathy with scholarly task. But he received Tyndale coldly, and refused to help him. Tyndale spent nearly a year in the great city, "marking the course of the world," and helped by a good London merchant, until, as he tells us, he "understood at 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."

As soon as he clearly perceived this, he crossed over to Germany, then in the height of the Reformation enthusiasm, determined there to accomplish his great work. He reached Hamburg in 1524; passed on to Wittenberg, where he finished the translation early in 1525. The next great undertaking was to get the precious manuscript printed. This could only be done, in most parts of the continent, at the risk of his life.

Tyndale went to Cologne, and induced a printer, Quentel by name, to undertake the work. An edition of 3000 in quarto size was begun, and considerable progress had been made when a rude inter

the library of St. Paul's now guards, as one of its choicest treasures, an imperfect copy of the book once denounced and burnt at its gates.

By short marginal notes, or "glosses," Tyndale pointed out how contrary popish doctrine and life are to the teaching of the New Testament. In the Address to the Reader he also shows how deeply he had penetrated into the heart of the Gospel, by words like these: "When the woeful consciences feel and taste how sweet a thing the bitter death of Christ is, and how merciful and loving God is through Christ's purchasing and merits, they begin to love again, and to consent to the law of God that it is good and ought so to be, and that God is righteous which made it, and desire to fulfil the law even as a sick man desireth to be whole.'

Master, but not for eight years. During
this time he lived in constant peril of
his life, but also in incessant labour. He
published The Obedience of a Christian
Man," a noble book, in which he shows
what God's law expects from all classes
of men. In it he writes, "Remember
that Christ is the end of all things. He
only is our resting-place.
He is our
peace. Thou shalt never have rest in
thy soul, neither shall the worm of con-
science ever cease to gnaw at thy heart,
till thou come at Christ; till thou hear
the glad tidings how that God, for His
sake, hath forgiven thee freely."

In 1530, Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch was published, and in 1534, a carefully-revised edition of his New Testament. During this interval he also sent forth his 'Practice of Prelates,' and his 'Answer to Sir Thomas More,' both very keen and powerful polemics against the "pope and his laws.'

Of this New Testament it is hardly too much to say that it has been the greatest blessing ever conferred on England by any of her sons. To every Twelve years after he left England, his English Bible since issued it has con- work on earth was done. While residing tributed, not only a very large number in Antwerp, in 1535, intent on works of of the words and phrases and happy mercy and toiling at the completion of turns of expression which have made the the whole Bible, he was basely betrayed book so dear to English hearts, but what into the hands of his enemies by an is even more important, the simplicity, Englishman named Philips. He was kept the style, and the spirit so subtle and in prison at Vilvorde, in Belgium, for over yet so mighty. He who can measure a year. Attempts were made to save him, what the Bible has been to England, can but in vain. "At last," writes Foxe, measure the nation's debt of gratitude," after much reasoning where no reason due first to Tyndale, and then to the noble band who carried on his labours.

In 1528 he published a book on justification by faith, called 'The Parable of the Wicked Mammon,' and in the preface he writes, "Some one will ask, peradventure, why I take the labour to make this work, inasmuch as they will burn it, seeing they burnt the Gospel. I answer, in burning the New Testament they did none other thing than that's looked for; no more shall they do if they burn me also, if it be God's will it shall be so."

It was the will of God that, by a martyr's death, he was to glorify his

would serve, although he deserved no death, he was condemned, tied to the stake, and then strangled first by the hangman, and afterwards with fire consumed, crying thus at the stake with a fervent zeal and loud voice, Lord, open the King of England's eyes!"

No other death could have fitly crowned a life like his. With an iron will, with entire consecration, with Christ-like patience, he had toiled year after year to give to his ignorant and suffering countrymen the true knowledge, and light, and deliverance that are found only in Jesus Christ.

STOCKHOLM, COPENHAGEN, AND HOME.

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where their husbands were present. On the pedestal of this splendid work of art, TOCKHOLM, which in which the two towering naked Scandistands at the influx of navians heave and wrestle and strain the waters of Lake every muscle, the belt binding them Mälar to an arm of the together being at full tension and deeply Baltic, is a handsome indented in the flesh, there are four city, with a population reliefs, with inscriptions in Runic characof 170,000, and is popu- ters, representing the origin and issue of larly and poetically the conflict. The National Museum, bestyled the Venice of the North, sides containing a rare collection of because of its numerous islands Swedish antiquities and paintings, posand bright and sparkling water- sesses a wonderful assortment of the ways. Any number of small costumes of Swedish kings and queens. steamboats ply by day and night These chiefly consist of coronation and on its waters, and for a very small fare gala attire and uniforms. Among the the traveller can be transported hither last are the blood-stained clothes of that and thither to the most interesting places. great general and valiant defender of the The environs are primeval forest and reformed faith Gustavus Adolphus, towater-"Water, water everywhere." The gether with the sheet in which his body Ethnographical Museum is only second was wrapped when he fell victorious on in importance in Europe to that at the field at Lützen. There are also to Moscow. Models of Swedish peasants be seen the blue coat, yellow waistcoat, arrayed in their striking costumes, and breeches and huge boots of Charles XII., with their domestic surroundings, are together with the hat pierced by the fatal set up in a long succession of rooms bullet which caused his death in the according to the districts into which trenches of Frederikshald in 1718. We the country is divided. The capital is were perhaps most interested in the visit adorned with numerous statues, the we paid to the Riddarholms Kyrka, the principal being those of Gustavus Westminster Abbey of Sweden, the burialVasa and Gustavus Adolphus, Birger Jarl, place of kings and queens and the most Berzelius, and Bernadotte; but by far famous of Swedes. The remains of Gusthe most interesting monument consists tavus the Great repose in a green marble of a group in bronze, the masterpiece of sarcophagus, beneath the simple yet the Swedish sculptor Molin, representing eloquent inscription, "Gustavus Adolphus the Bältespännare or girdle duellists. It Magnus." By the side of Gustavus lie stands close by the National Museum. the remains of his queen. Charles XII. The subject is one of those murderous is interred in a sarcophagus of black old Scandinavian duels in which the com- marble, on which is spread a lion's skin batants were bound together by their worked in brass, together with a crown, belts, and then fought with drawn knives sceptre, and sword. Bernadotte, the only until one, and frequently both, fell mor- marshal of the great Napoleon who estatally wounded. These quarrels commonly blished a royal line, together with his arose out of strong drink, and so often beautiful queen Desideria, also repose in did they occur that it is said the wives this historic church. Their pomp and were in the habit of carrying winding- glory have departed, and there they lie eets along with them to the banquets, to point a moral and adorn a tale.