Within the cell, on a low white bed, was the feeble form of an old man, bolstered up that his eye might rest upon either of the manuscripts supported in position on and about his bed. At a table near him was seated a scribe writing every word which the pale lips spake. One listening heard the scribe say, “There is only one chapter left, master, but you are too weary now, and you must sleep.” “No, go on, it is very easy, write rapidly,” was the reply; and so the writing proceeded according to the faint dictation of the exhausted old man, until he seemed to fall asleep. The scribe awoke him again, and the glassy eyes brightened as the old man heard, “Master, there is but one verse now,” and with an effort to fix the drooping eyes upon the adjusted scrolls, there came slowly forth, one by one, the words of the last verse of John’s gospel, and when the “Amen” was pronounced, the whitened head sank among the pillows lightened with the last rays of the setting sun, as it streamed through the grated window, and the bloodless lips murmured forth, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,” when the form of the Venerable Bede was still, and the awful silence of death followed immediately the ending of his translation. Portions of the Word were also translated in the ninth century, and were authorized by King Alfred. He himself did something at translating, and was careful to have nicely executed, as a preface to every published code, the manuscript of the Decalogue. It might exercise a salutary effect if our statesmen, every law they read, might also have the ten commandments before them. King Alfred made the declaration more than once that he desired to see the day when all men in his kingdom would be able to read God’s word. Elfrac also, after Alfred, from 1004 to 1030, translated portions of the Scriptures into English.