There was too much hazard in it, and the sacrifice of too many early associations, principles, and prejudices, for gray hairs. Time, however, that gentle innovator, settled these differences. At the period when the papal power was put down in England, nearly twenty years had elapsed since Luther first took up his parable against papal abuses. In this interval, a generation of aged defenders of the ancient faith had been gathered to their fathers, and had given place to such as had grown up under the influence of a better star. The press had been active, of which the wonderful influence was first made known upon this great question. The pure doctrines and heroic deeds of the German reformers circulated throughout England. Luther was in every mouth--ballads sung of him. His writings, together with those of Huss, of Zuingle, and of many anonymous authors whom the times evoked, were clandestinely dispersed. Tracts, with popular titles, such as “A booke of the Olde God and New,” “The burying of the Masse;” “A, B, C, against the Clergy,” made their appeals to the people. The confessions of some of the more eminent Lollards, and expositions of particular chapters of Scripture, which were thought to militate the most strongly against the errors of Rome, were industriously scattered abroad. Above all, Tindall’s translation of the New Testament was now in the hands of many; for the price, as compared with that of Wickliffe’s a century before, was just forty-fold less[211]; and by means of it, the multitude were enabled to compare what the Gospel actually was, with what Rome had made it by traditions.[212] The art of printing in this age of the revival of the Gospel, answered in some measure to the miraculous gift of tongues in the age of its first publication. It was soon perceived, that if the pope did not put an end to the press, the press would put an end to the pope. Awkward attempts were made to defeat its labours. It was a new principle introduced into the social system, which in its application, after the experience of three centuries, is found to involve many difficulties, and with which, at that time of day, neither its friends nor its foes knew how to deal. Tonstall, bishop of London, a man of a very different spirit from his brutal successor Bonner, bought up all the copies of Tindall’s Translation, and burnt them up at Paul’s Cross:[213] a humane but useless measure; for it soon appeared, that unless he could buy up ink, paper, and types, he was only making himself Tindall’s best customer. Accordingly, a new edition speedily issued from the Antwerp press, in which former errors were corrected; and though one golden branch had been torn away, another, not of the same but of a better metal, succeeded it. The importation of these foreign wares was strictly forbidden; but there was a demand for them in the country, and they were smuggled notwithstanding. Proclamations were uttered against the