prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”[180] Void it did not return. Hitherto the Scriptures were little known. Cædmon, it is true, had paraphrased in verse detached portions of them in the seventh century. Bede, it has been before observed, had translated the Gospel of St. John. Translations of all the Gospels into Anglo-Saxon had been made between the reigns of Alfred and Harold. Elfric produced versions of many books of the Old Testament, as well as of the New; but, meanwhile the invasion of the Danes threw the kingdom into a frightful state of anarchy, and long kept it so disturbed. Then the Norman conquest succeeding again broke its spirit and changed its language; so that the word of God had become precious in the days of Wickliffe. The Anglo-Saxon which still continued to be the staple of the dialect of England, was by this time saturated with Norman words (no great number having been adopted into it since; and whilst Chaucer was labouring to _fix_ the English tongue (its _winged_ words) on principles of taste, amongst the courtiers and nobles, Wickliffe, perhaps even a more perfect master of it still, was establishing it yet more permanently, by knitting up in it the immortal hopes of the people at large, and stamping it in a complete translation of the Bible, with “holiness to the Lord.” At this day his version can scarcely be called obsolete. I speak of the New Testament, for the Old has never yet been printed; a reproach both upon the divines and the philologists of England, which, we trust, will speedily be removed. At this day, it might be read in our churches without the necessity of many even verbal alterations; and on comparing it with the authorised version of King James, it will be found that the latter was hammered on Wickliffe’s anvil. By this great and good work the pleasure of the Most High prospered in his hand. An eager appetite for Scriptural knowledge was excited among the people, which they would make any sacrifice and risk any danger to gratify. Entire copies of the Bible, when they could only be multiplied by means of amanuenses, were too costly to be within the reach of very many readers; but those who could not procure the “volume of the Book,” would give a load of hay for a few favourite chapters, and many such scraps were consumed upon the persons of the martyrs at the stake.[181] They would hide the forbidden treasure under the floors of their houses, and put their lives in peril, rather than forego the book they desired; they would sit up all night, their doors being shut for fear of surprise, reading or hearing others read the word of God; they would bury themselves in the woods, and there converse with it in solitude; they would tend their herds in the fields, and still steal an hour for drinking in the good tidings of great joy:--thus was the angel come down to trouble the water, and there was only wanted some providential crisis to put the nation into it, that it might be made whole.