This is the next way to fulfil your realm with Lutherians." Then he adds: "All our forefathers, Governors of the Church of England, hath with all diligence, forbid and eschewed publication of English Bibles, as appeareth in Constitutions Provincial of the Church of England." The news had travelled far before reaching Lee, and was inaccurate at that: but the swiftness with which it reached him was proof of the excitement which Cochlaeus' discovery had created. More interesting and more accurate is a notice which occurs in the diary of a German scholar,[2] some four months earlier in time. He says: "One told us at the dinner table that 6,000 copies of the English Testament had been printed at Worms: that it was translated by an Englishman who lived there with two of his countrymen. He was so complete a master of seven languages—Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English and French—that you would fancy whichever one he spoke was his mother tongue." He adds that the English, in spite of the opposition of the King, were so eager for the Gospel, as to affirm they would buy a New Testament even if they had to give a hundred thousand pieces of money for it. While the enemy raged, the presses abroad were not idle. Additional editions were printed to take the place of those destroyed. They were conveyed with the same success to English ports. In less than five years six editions had been published, three of them surreptitiously. They numbered perhaps fifteen thousand copies in all, and were distributed to eager purchasers by the same formidable organization of colportage. Nor was Tindale idle. He had foreseen the tactics of his foes. He kept steadfastly at work. He revised his translation of the New Testament, and he proceeded to turn the Old Testament into the English speech; the Pentateuch, the historical books as far as Chronicles, the book of Jonah he completed. In 1536 he was able to send the manuscript of his revised New Testament to England, and there it was put upon the press. That was the first volume of Holy Scripture to be printed on English soil. It was, however, the closing year of Tindale's life. Before the book came off the press he may have sealed his testimony; but at least he would be cheered by tidings of its progress, and the knowledge that the work had found its proper home in his own land. "For this end", says Westcott, "he had constantly striven; for this he had been prepared to sacrifice everything else; and the end was gained only when he was called to die." [Illustration: PAGE FROM TINDALE'S 1536 REVISED NEW TESTAMENT.]