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MARTYRDOM OF TYNDALE.

ligious opinions, filled the days, and many of the nights too, of this good man. Nor was the wear and tear of body and brain by night and day all that Tyndale gave to the service of his Master. Without straining the figure far, we can truly say that his Bible was written with his blood. One Henry Philips, English student at Louvain, by the basest treachery betrayed him in 1534 into the hands of the Emperor's officers at Brussels; near which city, in the Castle of Vilvoord, he was kept a close prisoner for eighteen months. Then, tried and condemned for heresy, 1536 he was strangled at the stake, and his dead body was burned to ashes. His dying words were, "O Lord, open

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the King of England's eyes!"

Tyndale's English is considered, by the best authorities, to be remarkably pure and forcible. His New Testament ranks among our best classics. Tyndale also possessed such a knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew tongues as was rare in his day; and this, securing the fidelity of the translation, stamps his books with no common value.

FROM TYNDALE'S NEW TESTAMENT.

Jesus answered and sayde: A certayne man descended from Jerusalem Into Jericho. And fell into the hondes off theves whych robbed hym off his rayment and wonded hym and departed levynge him halfe deed. And yt chaunsed that there cam a certayne preste that same waye and saw hym and passed by. And lyke wyse a levite when he was come neye to the place went and loked on hym and passed by. Then a certayne Samaritane as he iornyed cam neye vnto him and behelde hym and had compassion on hym and cam to hym and bounde vppe hys wondes and poured in wyne and oyle and layed hym on his beaste and brought hym to a common hostry, and drest him. And on the morowe when he departed he toke out two pence and gave them to the host and said unto him, Take care of him and whatsoever thou spendest above this when I come agayne I will recompence the. Which nowe of these thre thynkest thou was neighbour unto him that fell into the theves hondes? And he answered: He that shewed mercy on hym. Then sayd Jesus vnto hym, Goo and do thou lyke wyse.

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AFTER some years of study, sporting, and teaching at Cambridge, Thomas Cranmer, a Fellow of Jesus College, born in 1489, at Aslacton in Nottinghamshire, went on a visit to Waltham Abbey in Essex, where lived a Mr. Cressy, the father of some of his college pupils. It happened that King Henry VIII., returning from a royal progress, stayed a night at Waltham; and, according to the custom of the day, his suite were lodged in the various houses of the place. Cranmer met Fox, the royal almoner, and Gardiner, the royal secretary, at supper in his friend Cressy's; and when the table-talk turned upon the king's divorce, which was then the great topic of the time, he suggested that the question should be referred to the Universities of Europe. "The man has got the right sow by the ear," said Henry, next day, when he heard of the remark. And from that day Cranmer was a made man.

It is not our purpose here to trace the great career of Cranmer as a politician and a churchman. His literary character and works alone claim our notice. The part which he played in the shifting scenes of the English Reformation may be read in the annals of our Tudor Sovereigns. In March 1533 he was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury, qualifying his oath of obedience to the pope with the statement, "that he did not intend by this oath to restrain himself from anything that he was bound to either by his duty to God or the king or the country."

After escaping, in the reign of Henry VIII., the double danger

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THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.

arising from the king's capricious ferocity and the insidious hatred of the anti-reform party, Cranmer became, during the reign of Henry's gentle son Edward, a leader of the English Reformation and a founder of the English Church. A few years later, under poor, ill-tempered, misguided Mary, having been induced 1556 in the gloom of a prison cell to sign a denial of his Protestant belief, a deed which he afterwards utterly repealed -he underwent at Oxford that baptism of fire which has purified his memory from every stain. Cranmer's great fault was a want of decision and firmness..

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It

There is a book, which ranks with our Bible and the Pilgrim'sProgress, as containing some of the finest specimens of unadulterated English to be found in the whole range of our literature. is The Book of Common Prayer, used by the Episcopal Churches of Great Britain and Ireland. To Cranmer the merit of compiling this beautiful service-book is chiefly due. The old Latin Missal, used in various forms all over England, was taken to pieces; many parts of it were discarded, especially the legends and the prayers to saints, and what remained was re-cast in an English mould. The Litany, differing only in a single petition from that now read, was added as a new feature of the service. By an Act of Parliament, passed in 1548, all ministers were ordered to use the Book of Common Prayer in the celebration of Divine service. And ever since, that sweet and solemn music of King Edward's Liturgy has been heard in our lands, rising through the sacred silence of many churches when the Sabbath bells have ceased to chime.

A book of Twelve Homilies, or sermons, was also prepared under the superintendence of Cranmer, for the use of those clergymen who were not able to write sermons for themselves. The need of such a work shows us how far behind the lower clergy then were, even in the knowledge and use of their own tongue. Four of these Homilies are ascribed to the pen of Cranmer.

His third great literary work was his superintendence of a revised translation of the Bible, which is commonly called either Cranmer's Bible from his share in its publication, or the Great Bible from its comparative size. This edition, which

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came out in 1540, appears to have been founded on Tyndale's version. The Hebrew and Greek originals were carefully consulted, and the English was compared with them, many of the proof-sheets—perhaps all of them-passing under Cranmer's pen. Cranmer's extant original works are very many, and possess considerable merit; but his literary reputation will always rest mainly on the fact that he was what we may call editor-in-chief of those three great works of the English Reformation already noticed, the Book of Common Prayer, the Twelve Homilies, and the Great Bible.

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For two reasons the brilliant but unhappy Surrey holds à foremost place in the annals of our English literature. He was, so far as we know, the earliest writer of English blank verse, and he gave to English poetry a refinement and polish for which we search in vain among his predecessors.

His father was the third Duke of Norfolk; and his mother, Elizabeth, was a daughter of the great house of Buckingham. But Surrey had more from Heaven than noble birth could give, for the sacred fire of poetry burned in his breast. Of his boyhood we know nothing certain. Nursed in the lap of luxury, and the darling of a splendid Court, he yet won a soldier's laurels both in Scotland and in France. But his fame was not to be carved out only with a sword. Travelling into Italy, he “tasted the sweet and stately measures and stile of the Italian poesie," and returned home to re-cast in the elegant mould of his accomplished mind the metres of his native land.

At home, however, he became involved in many troubles. Some of these resulted from the escapades of his own youthful folly. He was once imprisoned for rioting in the streets at night and breaking windows with a cross-bow. But other and graver evils came. In the latter days of the reign, when “Bluff King Hal" had become "Bloated King Hal,” and all the courtly circle saw that the huge heap of wickedness was sinking into the grave, there arose a keen contest between the noble houses of Howard

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