CH. 6. have long continued, except for an impulse from some external circumstances. They were waiting for direction, and men in such a temper are seldom left to wait in vain. A. D. 1525. condition The state of England did but represent the state of all Northern Europe. Wherever the Teutonic language was spoken, wherever the Teutonic nature was in the people, there was the same weariness of unreality, the same craving for a higher life. England rather lagged behind than was a leader in the race of discontent. In Germany, all classes shared the common feeling. In England it was almost confined to the lowest. But, wherever it existed, it was a free, spontaneous growth in each separate breast, not propagated by agitation, but springing self sown, the expression of the honest anger of honest men at a system which had passed the limits of toleration, and which could be endured no longer. At such times the minds of men are like a train of gunpowder, the isolated grains of which have no relation to each other, and no effect on each other, while they remain unignited; but let a spark kindle but one of them, and they shoot The theses into instant union in a common explosion. Such a spark was kindled in Germany, at Wittenberg, on the 31st of October, 1517. In the middle of that day Luther's denunciation of Indulgences was fixed against the gate of All Saints church, Wittenberg, and it became, like the brazen serpent in the wilderness, the sign to which the sick spirits throughout the western world looked hopefully and were healed. In all those millions on the church door at Wittenberg, kindling of of hearts the words of Luther found an echo, and CH. 6. flew from lip to lip, from ear to ear. The thing A.D. 1517. which all were longing for was done, and in two And the years from that day there was scarcely perhaps a Europe. village from the Irish Channel to the Danube in which the name of Luther was not familiar as a word of hope and promise. Then rose a common cry for guidance. Books were called forabove all things, the great book of all, the Bible. Luther's inexhaustible fecundity flowed with a steady stream, and the printing presses in Germany and in the Free Towns of the Netherlands, multiplied Testaments and tracts in hundreds of thousands. Printers published at their own expense as Luther wrote.* The continent was covered with disfrocked monks who had become the pedlars of these precious wares;† and as the contagion spread, noble young spirits from other countries, eager themselves to fight in God's battle, came to Wittenberg to learn from the champion who had first struck the blow at their great enemy how to use their weapons. Stu- The gatherdents from all nations came to Wittenberg,' the banner says one, to hear Luther and Melancthon. As Cross. they came in sight of the town they returned thanks to God with clasped hands; for from Wittenberg, as heretofore from Jerusalem, proceeded the light of evangelical truth, to spread thence to the utmost parts of the earth.'‡ Thither came young Patrick Hamilton from Edinburgh, whose 'reek' was of so much potency, * MICHELET, Life of Luther, p. 71. 6 + Ibid. ‡ SCULLETUS, Annalibus, apud MICHELET, p. 41. ing under of the Сн. A.D. 1524. first appearance and character. CH. 6. a boy-enthusiast of nature as illustrious as his birth; and thither came also from England, Tyndal's which is here our chief concern, William Tyndal, a man whose history is lost in his work, and whose epitaph is the Reformation. Beginning life as a restless Oxford student, he moved thence to Cambridge, thence to Gloucestershire, to be tutor in a knight's family, and there hearing of Luther's doings, and expressing himself with too warm approval to suit his patron's conservatism,* he fell into disgrace. From Gloucestershire he removed to London, where Cuthbert Tunstall had lately been made bishop, and from whom he looked for countenance in an intention to translate the New Testament. Tunstall showed little encouragement to this enterprise; but a better friend rose where he was least looked for; and a London alderman, Humfrey Monmouth by name, hearing the young dreamer preach on some occasion at St. Dunstan's, took him to his home for half a year, and kept him there: where the said Tyndal,' as the alderman declared, 'lived like a good priest, studying both night and day; he would eat but sodden meat, by his good will, nor drink but small single beer; nor was he ever seen to wear linen about him all the time of his being there.' The half year being past, Monmouth gave him ten pounds, with which provision he went off to Wittenberg; and the alderman, for assisting him in that business, went to the Tower escaping, however, we are glad to *WOOD's Athena Oxonienses. FOXE, vol. iv. p. 618. know, without worse consequences than a short CH. 6. lation of press at imprisonment. Tyndal saw Luther,* and under A.D. 1525. his immediate direction translated the Gospels The transand Epistles while at Wittenberg. Thence he the Bible, returned to Antwerp, and settling there under and the the privileges of the city, he was joined by Joy, Antwerp. who shared his great work with him. Young Frith from Cambridge came to him also, and Barnes, and Lambert, and many others of whom no written record remains, to concert a common scheme of action. In Antwerp, under the care of these men, was established the printing press, by which books were supplied, to accomplish for the teaching of *The suspicious eyes of the Bishops discovered Tyndal's visit, and the result which was to be expected from it. On Dec. 2nd, 1525, Edward Lee, afterwards Archbishop of York, then king's almoner, and on a mission into Spain, wrote from Bourdeaux to warn Henry. The letter is instructive : 'Please your Highness to understand that I am certainly informed as I passed in this country, that an Englishman, your subject, at the solicitation and instance of Luther, with whom he is, hath translated the New Testament into English; and within few days intendeth to return with the same imprinted into England. I need not to advertise your Grace what infection and danger may ensue hereby if it be not withstanded. This is the next way to fulfil your realm with Lutherians. For all Luther's perverse opinions be grounded upon bare words of A.D. 1525. CH. 6. England what Luther and Melancthon were accomplishing for Germany. Tyndal's Testament was first printed, then translations of the best German books, reprints of Wycliffe's tracts or original commentaries; such volumes as the people most required were here multiplied as fast as the press could produce them. And for the dissemination of these precious writings, the brave London protestants dared, at the hazard of their lives, to form themselves into an organized association. don Protestants. It is well to pause and look for a moment at The Lon this small band of heroes; for heroes they were, if ever men deserved the name. Unlike the first reformers who had followed Wycliffe, they had no earthly object, emphatically none; and equally unlike them, perhaps, because they had no earthly object, they were all, as I have said, poor meneither students, like Tyndal, or artisans and labourers who worked for their own bread, and in tough contact with reality, had learnt better than the great and the educated the difference between truth and lies. Wycliffe had royal dukes and noblemen for his supporters-knights and divines among his disciples-a king and a House of Commons looking upon him, not without favour. The first protestants of the sixteenth century had for their king the champion of Holy Church, who had broken a lance with Luther; and spiritual rulers over them alike powerful and imbecile, whose highest conception of Christian virtue was the destruction of those who disobeyed their mandates. The masses of the people were indifferent to a cause which promised them no |