It was not until Elizabeth had been for some years on the throne that any attempt was made to provide the Welsh people with a substitute for the religion of which they had been deprived. The legal continuity of the Church was maintained; but little else remained. Benefices were poor, and the priests few and ignorant. The people sank deeper and deeper into spiritual indifference. As late as 1585 a well-qualified observer could write that "Many places in Wales, yea, whole counties, have not a single Christian within them, but live like animals, most of them knowing nothing of righteousness, but merely keeping the name of Christ in memory." The scandalous extent to which pluralism existed, despite the Pluralities Act of Edward VI, left large numbers of parishes without any sort of spiritual ministration. Even the great Edmund Prys did not scruple to be at the same time Rector of Maentwrog, Festiniog, Llandudno, and Ludlow, as well as Archdeacon {154} of Merioneth, and Canon and Prebendary of Bangor. He soon resigned Ludlow, but only to acquire the additional livings of Llanenddwyn and Llanddwywe, as well as a stall at St. Asaph. Fortunately for the country, a few Welshmen were conscientious and enlightened believers in the Reformed Faith; and they beheld with sorrow the plight to which Wales had been brought. They perceived that the only way in which the people could be raised and cleansed was by giving them the Bible in their own language. So far back as 1546 Sir John Price of Brecon had translated a few Biblical passages into the vernacular, and in 1551 William Salesbury translated the Gospels and the Epistles. In 1563 Parliament passed an Act commanding the Welsh Bishops, together with the Bishop of Hereford, under penalties, to have a complete edition of the Bible in Welsh ready by 1566. A Welsh version of the new Prayer Book was issued in 1567. But it was not until the appearance of Bishop Morgan's translation of the Scriptures, in 1588, that the Bible began to be a popular book in Wales, and to influence the minds of the people. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the influence exercised by Morgan's Bible. Not only did it, in time, {155} rouse the people from religious lethargy, but it did for the Welsh language what Luther's Bible did for Germany--it became the canon of Welsh prose, fixing for centuries its idiom, its diction, and its style. Morgan was ably assisted in the work by men like David Powel of Ruabon, Edmund Prys, and Dr. John Davies of Mallwyd. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Whitgift, was sympathetic, and Gabriel Goodman, a native of Ruthin, who was at the time Dean of Westminster, rendered financial assistance.