About this time, also, a great sorrow fell upon Tyndale, for his trusted friend, John Fryth, who had ventured into England, was there apprehended and brought up for trial as a heretic. Tyndale had some surmise as to his friend’s danger before the tidings of Fryth’s arrest reached him. He had written a tender letter of counsel and warning, in which he advised his friend to be prudent, and especially to avoid controversy about the Sacrament. “Wherefore,” said Tyndale, “cleave fast to the rock of the help of God, and commit the end of all things to Him; and if God shall call you, that you may then use the wisdom of the worldly so far as you perceive the glory of God may come thereof, refuse it not; and ever among thrust in that the Scripture may be in the mother-tongue, and learning set up in the Universities. But and if aught be required contrary to the glory of God and His Christ, then stand fast, and commit yourself to God; and be not overcome of men’s persuasions” to abjure. After professing his love for Fryth and his confidence in him, Tyndale says grandly:-- “I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus, to give a reckoning of our doings, _that I never altered one syllable of God’s Word against my conscience, nor would this day if all that is in the earth, whether it be pleasure, honour, or riches, might be given me_. “My soul is not faint, though my body is weary,” he says pathetically and touchingly. He concludes his letter with a sentence which exhibits his own feelings:-- “He is our God, if we despair in ourselves and trust in Him; and His is the glory. Amen!” WILLIAM TYNDALE. “I hope our redemption is nigh.” Fryth’s bearing before his judges was princely. He confined his defence to four principal themes, and these he conclusively argued so that his accusers were silenced. They were:--“1. That the Pope’s opinion respecting the Sacrament cannot be considered as an article of faith necessary to be believed upon pain of damnation. 2. That, as Christ’s natural body was in all respects like unto ours, sin only excepted, there can be no reason why it should be in two or many places at once, contrary to the nature of our body. 3. That we are not to understand Christ’s words by what we may conceive to be the meaning of the words, but by comparing one passage of Scripture with another. 4. That the manner in which the Sacrament is administered by the priests is quite different from that in which it was administered by Christ Himself.” In the spirit of his friend Tyndale, is also Fryth’s vigorous and noble reply to Sir Thomas More:--