He is said to have been one of the most learned men of his time; to which fact we may attribute the legend that once while he was preaching the stones cried out, “Amen, Venerable Bede!” An eye-witness has left us an account of his closing days. The scribe was writing the translation from the dictation of the dying man, when, as he finished the last verse of the twentieth chapter, he exclaimed, “There remains now only one chapter; but it seems difficult for you to speak.” “It is easy,” said Bede; “take your pen, dip it in ink, and write as fast as you can.” And he did so as rapidly as might be, for life was ebbing fast from the venerable teacher. “Now, master, now, only one sentence is wanting.” Bede repeated it. “It is finished,” said the writer, laying aside his goose-quill. “It is finished,” said Bede. “Lift up my head; let me sit in my cell, in the place where I have been accustomed to pray; and now glory be to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” And so he passed away! His work was done; other men could copy his translation, and the Book that never dies could tell the sweet story of old to men who were then unborn! One is reminded of Moffat’s story after that he had rendered the Word of God into the Sechwana tongue. When the heathen beheld the converts reading the new book, they inquired “if their friends talked to the book.” “No,” was the answer; “it talks to us; for it is the Word of God.” “What, then,” was the astonished question, “does it speak?” “Yes,” said the Christian, “it speaks to the heart.” It indeed became a proverb among this African people that the Bible turned their hearts inside out! This is its privilege and function; it speaks to the heart, and it turns the heart inside out! The Reformers were accustomed to point to the Anglo-Saxon versions as an argument against the Church of Rome, who then permitted what she afterwards forbade! Sir Frederick Madden says, though, of several MSS. of Anglo-Saxon Gospels that are still in existence, “None appear to give the version in its original purity.” “It is very remarkable,” says Dr. Stoughton, “that the Psalms have in all ages drawn towards them the affections of devout minds, and have been a true cardiphonia to mankind in general, so that in this fact we have a satisfactory answer to objections brought against them in modern times.” It is no wonder, therefore, that more attention was paid to them than to other parts of the Sacred Book, just as a correct instinct leads men now to bind up the Psalms with the Gospels. We pass now to John Wycliffe, the morning star of the Reformation. It is indeed difficult to estimate the magnitude of his wonderful work. All men could see the evil of Romanism, but he alone saw the true remedy, and that was the Book of God in the speech of the people!