But Tyndale's enemies pursued him abroad, and at last he was betrayed and imprisoned, and finally condemned to die ' as a heretic. Suchi was the sincerity and goodness of his life, that, during his imprisonment of a year and a half, his keeper, the keeper's daughter, and others of his household became convinced Christians. When William Tyndale was taken out to die he was still longing that the people of Englandi might have the Bible in their own tongue. His last recorded—words were the prayer: "Lord, open the King of England's eyes" We revoice today that his prayer was an-Swered, for within two years Kin Henry the VILL ordered through hi minister, Thomas Cromwell, that a' copy of the Bible in English was to be placed in every parish Church.
A hundred and forty years before Tyndales day John Wycliffe (d,1384), another Yorkshireman, had made an English version of the Bible. Wycliffe himself had translated the New Testament but much of the Old Testament had been prepared by his disciples. Wycliffe's Bible had a wide circulation but it could not become the property of the common people since in those days printing had not been invented. The manuscript had to be copied by hand and in ancient Britain men and women sat in the silence of their cells slowly copying out letter by letter the pages of the Scriptures, watching Patiently month after month the volumes grow beneath their hands. What a moving picture! In those days the price of a Wycliffe Bible was equal to, £40 of our money. Al considerable sum was paid for even a few sheets of the manuscript, a load of hay being given for permission to read it for one hour a day and those who could not afford such expense adopted what means they could. A touching incident is that of Alice Collins being set for to little gatherings "to recite the ten commandments and parts of thei Epistles of St. Paul, which she knew by heart"
A translator, 350 years before; Wycliffe's time, was no less a person than King Alfred the Great (871-900) whose patriotic wish has been so often quoted, "that all the freeborn youth of his kingdom should employ themselves on nothing till they could first read well the English Scripture,"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.