"On

days in the week he called his "pastime." Monday, he visited all such poor men and women as were fled out of England, by reason of persecution, into Antwerp; and these, once well understanding their good exercises and qualities, he did very liberally comfort and relieve: and in like manner provided for the sick and diseased. On the Saturday, he walked round the town, seeking every corner and hole where he suspected any poor person to dwell; and where he found any to be well occupied, yet overburdened with children, or else were aged and weak, those also he plentifully relieved. His allowance from the Antwerp merchants was considerable, but for the most part he bestowed it upon the poor.-The rest of the week he gave wholly to his book, wherein he most diligently travailed. When the Sunday came, then went he to some one merchant's chamber or other, whither came many other merchants; and unto them would he read some one parcel of Scripture, the which proceeded so fruitfully, sweetly, and gently from him, much like to the writings of John the Evangelist, that it was a heavenly comfort and joy to the audience. After dinner, he spent an hour in the same manner."

He toiled to find the truth, and dug for it as for hid treasure. He was, emphatically, a hard student of the Bible; seeking such learning as the times afforded, with a view to help him in the understanding of Scripture. He strove to unlock the truth, and pour out its treasures on his native land. It was the main business of his life to translate the sacred volume. To that he pledged himself in the Old Manor House of Sodbury. When seated at the table, with a priest who blasphemously said we are better without God's laws

than the pope's, he rejoined, "I defy the pope and all his laws, and if God spare my life, ere many years I will cause the boy who driveth the plough to know more of the Scriptures than you do." At home, he sought a place in which to do it, but in vain. "There was no room," he tells us, "in my lord of London's palace to translate the New Testament, nor in all England," and so, forced into exile, if he would perform his chosen work, he devoted himself to it on that condition, and in a strange land fulfilled his vow. The low state of literature at the time, his want of critical helps, and the few books he could command, must be taken into account, if we would estimate his labour. Slowly and painfully, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, early and late, must the good man have worked on and on; and then, when it came to the printing of the book, fresh demands were made on his energies and diligence; for that portion of his enterprise might be said to be all executed by himself. He toiled to defend, establish, and promote the truth by arguments and appeals, which he wove together in his mind, and then fixed them in his heart, with those glowing colours which only pious love can give, and forthwith spread them out with his busy pen over pages and pages, which, with much cost and hazard, he carried through the press, and prepared for circulation in his own much desired land.

He toiled in silence, obscurity, and concealment; with no eye to fame-no hope of applause to cheer him on but covered with reproaches, his name cast out as evil, printed in royal proclamations as the type of heresy, his steps tracked from place to place, like

game pursued by bloodhounds,-no friend to shield nim, no patron to intercede for him, but left alone, save as he could buy the services of a printer here and there, and procure, for that end, the generous friendship of a few Antwerp merchants.

Yet, in his toil he found encouragement and consolation from the religion he was striving to diffusefrom the book he was preparing to circulate. He knew that "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant; and to him the secrets of the Bible were unfolded, and the riches of the covenant shown. "The Scripture," he says, "has a body without, and within it has a soul; it hath a back and a shell, but within it hath pith, kernel, and marrow, and all sweetness for God's elect, which he hath chosen, to give them his Spirit, and to write his law, and the faith of his Son, in their hearts." And he fed upon the hidden kernel and the secret sweetness of the truth, with which God refreshes and strengthens his own; and like the pulse on which the Hebrew children fed, it nourished his soul for labour, more than the richest dainties of the world could ever have done.

And over him, in all his holy studies and secret toils, in retired dwellings and upper chambers of old picturesque and lonely streets belonging to Cologne, Worms, or Antwerp,-over him, in all his manual labours, with printers and pressmen,-over him in his movements up and down the Rhine, in rude old boats, bearing with him his heavenly treasures,-over him, thus working in his Lord's vineyard, was the smile and benediction of that blessed Lord himself. He looked up from amidst the world's frowns, and saw

that smile, and it was sunshine to his heart, and in its light he laboured on with joy and hope.. And thus must men now, Tyndale-like, toil for Christ; not indeed doing the self-same thing, but doing some kindred thing—some work suited to them-some work of instruction and benevolence, some preaching work, or Bible work, or Sabbath-school work, or visiting work,-doing it in the same spirit in which this good man did his,—doing it not for their own emolument or fame, but willing to be poor for Christ's sake, and making themselves of no reputation,-doing it not to be seen of men, and praised of men, but to be seen and praised by Christ,-doing it in the midst of difficulty and discouragement,—doing it though friends look cold and enemies oppose,-doing it in Divine strength, through study of the Bible, and faith in the promises,—doing it silently, patiently, calmly, bravely, to the end; content if only He, the great lightener of the toils of his servants, and their constant and allsufficient Friend, give, now and then, a token for good. But, if that be denied, in order to their being tried to the utmost, it is their happiness still to know, that He whom now they see not, never averts from their humble doings his observant eye, but with his gracious hand notes down all in his book of remembrance, out of which he will read to them, in a day to come, these words: "I know thy works and thy labour, and how for my name's sake thou hast laboured, and hast not fainted."

A further point of view, in which to look at Tyndale's character, is obtained by noticing his patient endurance.

In one of the interviews which Tyndale had with Vaughan, outside the old grey walls of Antwerp, when the political minister was seeking to decoy the Christian confessor into the meshes of the net which the king was spreading for him, he touchingly referred to his poverty, his exile out of his natural country, his absence from his friends, his hunger, his thirst, his cold, the great danger wherewith he was everywhere compassed; and finally, the innumerable hard and sharp sicknesses which he endured. And, bearing all this, he was willing to bear more, if thereby he could promote the great end of his existence. "If," said he, while the tears stood in his eyes, "it would stand with the king's most gracious pleasure to grant only the bare text of the Scriptures to be put forth among the people, I will immediately repair unto his realm, and there most humbly submit myself at the feet of his royal majesty, offering my body to suffer what pain or tortures, yea what death, his grace will, so that this be obtained."

Not like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke, but like a chastened child kissing and bedewing with tears the hand of his paternal corrector, Tyndale endured, remembering, as he said, how God purgeth all them that submit themselves to walk in his ways, "in the baptism and purgatory of tribulation, delivering them at the latter end, and never suffering any to perish who cleave to the promises." "A blessing verily, and that a glorious and everlasting one, if we suffer adversity with our Lord; and an everlasting curse, if, for a little pleasure's sake, we withdraw ourselves from the chastising and nurture of God, wherewith he teacheth all his sons, and fashioneth them after his godly will,