THE BIBLE PROHIBITED. 9 to him, 'Dear master, one sentence is still wanting.' He replied, 'Write quickly.' The young man soon added, 'It is finished!' He answered, 'Thou hast well said; all is now finished! Hold my head with thy hands. I shall delight to sit at the opposite side of the room, on the holy spot at which I have been accustomed to pray, and where, whilst sitting, I can invoke my Father.' Being placed on the floor of his little room, he sang, 'Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,' and expired as he uttered the last words." A copy of some of St. Paul's Epistles, said to be in the handwriting of this venerable man, is preserved in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. THE BIBLE PROHIBITED. IN the reign of Henry V., a law was passed against the perusal of the Bible in English. It was enacted, "That whosoever they were that should read the Scriptures in the mother tongue, they should forfeit land, cattle, life, and goods, from their heirs for ever; and so be condemned for heretics to God, enemies to the Crown, and most arrant traitors to the land." 10 HIGH PRICES OF BIBLES. HIGH PRICES OF BIBLES. OF W. de Howton, Abbot of Croxton, it is stated, that he bequeathed to the abbey at his death, in 1274, “a Bible, in nine tomes, faire written, and excellently well glossed by Solomon, Archdeacon of Leicester; and paid for it fifty markes sterling," or £33, 6s. 8d. And in a valuation of books bequeathed to Merton College, at Oxford, before the year 1300, a Psalter with glosses, or marginal annotations, is valued at ten shillings; and St. Austin on Genesis, and a Concordantia or Harmony, are each valued at the same price. Let it be remembered that these sums should be multiplied by fifteen, to bring them to the present value of money: and in some instances the comparative value would be still too low, as in the instance of labouring men, whose pay, in 1272, was only three halfpence per day; and who must, therefore, have devoted the earnings of fourteen or fifteen years to the purchase of a Bible. Whitaker, in his "History of Craven,” affords the additional information, "That towards the close of the thirteenth, and at the commencement of the fourteenth century, the average wages of a man-servant, with meat and clothing, were only from three to five shillings per THE DEVIL AND DR. FAUSTUS. 11 annum ; that reapers were paid twopence a day; and that a sheep sold for a shilling, and thirty quarters of fossil-coal for seventeen shillings and sixpence." Madox, in his "History of the Exchequer," says that in 1240 "the building of two arches of London Bridge cost only twentyfive pounds;" eight pounds less than the Bible bequeathed to the Abbey of Croxton by Abbot W. de Howton. THE DEVIL AND DR. FAUSTUS. FUST (or Faustus) having printed off a considerable number of copies of the Bible, to imitate those which were commonly sold in manuscript, undertook the sale of them at Paris, where the art of printing was then unknown. As he sold his printed copies for sixty crowns, while the scribes demanded five hundred, this created universal astonishment; but when he produced copies as fast as they were wanted, and also lowered his price to thirty crowns, all Paris was agitated. The uniformity of the copies increased. the wonder. Information was given to the magistrates against him as a magician; his lodgings were searched, and a great number of copies being found, they were seized. The red ink, 12 LUTHER'S DISCOVERY INCREASE OF BIBLES. with which they were embellished, was said to be his blood. It was seriously adjudged that he was in league with the devil; but, on discovering his art, the Parliament of Paris passed an act to discharge him from all persecution, in consideration of his useful invention. LUTHER'S DISCOVERY. IN the year 1507, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, Luther entered into orders, and celebrated his first mass. In the same year he found, in the library of his monastery, a Latin copy of the Bible, which he eagerly read; and he soon became aware that many parts of it had been kept from the people. This was the commencement of his usefulness. do those days present to ours! without a Bible, it must be their own fault; but then it was impossible to obtain one, or to ascertain the nature and tendency of its blessed truths. What a contrast INCREASE OF BIBLES. TINDAL, to whom we are indebted for the first translation of the New Testament into English, INCREASE OF BIBLES. 13 printed it abroad; and on its making its appearance in England, the Popish bishops and clergy obtained, in the year 1527, a royal proclamation prohibiting the purchase or reading of it. This proclamation only excited the public curiosity, and led to an increased inquiry after the forbidden book. One step which was taken to prevent the circulation of this edition of the Scriptures at once shows the hand of God in extending his truth, and furnishes an amusing proof of the folly of man in opposing the truth of God. The Bishop of London employed a person to purchase the whole impression of Tindal's version of the New Testament, that he might burn them at St. Paul's Cross. By this means the Reformer was enabled to publish a larger and more correct edition; "so that they came over," says Fox, "thick and threefold into England, to the great mortification of the bishop and his Popish friends." Of this purchase the following fact is related: -Sir Thomas More, being Lord Chancellor, and having several persons accused of heresy and ready for execution, offered to compound with one of them, named George Constantine, for his life, upon the easy terms of discovering to him who they were in London that maintained Tindal beyond the sea. After the poor man had |