Authorised Version. This "received text" was printed by Robert Estienne (or Stephanus), a great printer of Paris. About the same time a desire for a reformation of abuses in the Church caused a deeper interest to be taken in the Word of God. The first English translation of the New Testament shows a desire for a reformation of a somewhat extreme kind. It was the version of _William Tyndale_, which was printed at Worms in Germany, in 1525. In 1534 the Convocation or Church Parliament of England made a petition to King Henry VIII. to allow a better version to be made. The work of translation was interrupted by an order to have an English Bible in every church. As the Church version was not completed, a version made in 1535 by _Miles Coverdale_ had to be used instead. Two other versions, also somewhat inferior, appeared in 1537 and 1539, and then a slightly improved version called the _Great Bible_ appeared in April, 1539. It is {7} also called Cranmer's Bible, because Archbishop Cranmer wrote a preface to the second edition. Three other important versions were published before the end of the 16th century. The Calvinists, who were the predecessors of the modern Presbyterians, published a New Testament at Geneva in 1557, followed by the whole Bible in 1560. The English bishops published what is called the _Bishops' Bible_ in 1568, and the Roman Catholics published an English New Testament at Rheims in France, in 1582. We cannot fail to be impressed by the eager desire felt at that time by the people of Great Britain, of all religious parties, to study the Holy Scriptures, a desire to which these various translations bear witness.