In the dining-room of the old hall a varied group was assembled round the hospitable table. There were Sir John and Lady Walsh, a few gentlemen of the neighbourhood, with several abbots, deans, monks, and doctors, in their respective costumes. Tyndale occupied the humblest place, and generally kept Erasmus's New Testament within reach in order to prove what he advanced.[346] Numerous domestics were moving about engaged in waiting on the guests; and at length the conversation, after wandering a little, took a more precise direction. The priests grew impatient when they saw the terrible volume appear. "Your Scriptures only serve to make heretics," they exclaimed. "On the contrary," replied Tyndale, "the source of all heresies is _pride_; now the word of God strips man of everything, and leaves him as bare as Job."[347]--"_The word of God!_ why even _we_ don't understand your word, how can the _vulgar_ understand it?"--"You do not understand it," rejoined Tyndale, "because you look into it only for foolish questions, as you would into _our Lady's Matins_, or _Merlin's Prophecies_.[348] Now the Scriptures are a clue which we must follow, without turning aside, until we arrive at Christ;[349] for Christ is the end."--"And I tell you," shouted out a priest, "that the Scriptures are a Dædalian labyrinth, rather than Ariadne's clue--a conjuring book wherein everybody finds what he wants."--"Alas!" replied Tyndale; "you read them without Jesus Christ; that's why they are an obscure book to you. What do I say? a den of thorns where you only escape from the briers to be caught by the brambles."[350] "No!" exclaimed another clerk, heedless of contradicting his colleague, "nothing is obscure to us; it is we who give the Scriptures, and we who explain them to you."--"You would lose both your time and your trouble," said Tyndale; "do you know who taught the eagles to find their prey?[351] Well, that same God teaches his hungry children to find their Father in his word. Far from having given us the Scriptures, it is you who have hidden them from us; it is you who burn those who teach them, and if you could, you would burn the Scriptures themselves." [346] When they at any time did vary from Tyndale in opinions and judgment, he would show them in the book. Ibid. [347] Tyndale, Expositions. (Park. Soc.) p. 140. [348] Tyndale, Expositions. (Park. Soc.) p. 141. [349] So along by the Scripture as by a line until thou come at Christ. Tynd. Works, i. 354 (ed. Russell). [350] A grave of briers; If thou loose thyself in one place thou art caught in another. Tyndale, Expositions, p. 5. [351] Ibid. Answer to More (Park. Soc.) p. 49.