checking and counter-checking the manuscripts and of arriving so near to the

original as to approach almost to complete certainty.

In conclusion, we will briefly give the history of the English versions

and so bring our story up to date.  It may be said that for twelve hundred

years, the English people have not been entirely without an English Bible.

Let us watch the growth of this version in the English tongue.

The Paraphrase of Caedmon, written in the dialect called Anglo-Saxon,

about a.d. 670.

The Psalter of Aldhlem (about a.d. 700).  This is the first true translation

of any part of the Bible into the English language.

Bede (a.d. 674-735).  At the time of his death he was engaged in the

translation of the Gospel of John. Cuthbert, his disciple, tells the never-

dying story of the conclusion of the Gospel.

On the eve of Ascension Day 735, the great scholar lay dying.  The

closing chapters of the Gospel translation were dictated by his dying lips.

On the Ascension morning one chapter remained unfinished.  At evening the

youth who was taking down the translation said, 'There is yet one sentence

unwritten, dear Master'.  'Write it quickly', was the answer.  'It is written

now', said the boy.  'You speak truth', answered the dying man.  'It is

finished now'.  And so he died.

No trace of this translation has come down to us, but its influence was

felt at the time, and its existence shows an early attempt to give the common

people the Scriptures in their own tongue.

The Gospels of the Tenth Century.  The oldest manuscript was written by

one Aelfric at Bath about the year a.d. 1000, the Old Testament of Aelfric

about a.d. 990.

Verse translations of the thirteenth century, the Psalters of William

of Shoreland and Richard Rolle, bring us to the days of Wycliffe.

Wycliffe's Translation represents the first complete Bible in the

English language.  About 170 copies of Wycliffe's Bible are known to be in

existence, including two versions.  Some of the expressions in Wycliffe's

Bible remain in the A.V., although, of course, the spelling has changed, e.g.

'compass sea and land'; 'first fruits'; 'strait gate'; 'make whole'; 'son of

perdition'; 'enter thou into the joy of thy Lord'.  Wycliffe's version,

however, was written while the English tongue was still in the making, and

many words became obsolete in the next century.  It set the example, however,

and prepared the way.

After the days of Wycliffe there was a revival of the study of Greek

and Hebrew, and in 1484 was born William Tyndale, whose translation underlies

every succeeding version to the present day.

Tyndale's Bible (1525).  The presence of Erasmus at Cambridge drew

Tyndale from Oxford; and it was at Cambridge that Tyndale made the resolve

which he so resolutely carried out, with a faithfulness that was literally

'unto death'.  'If God spare my life, ere many years, I will cause a boy that

driveth the plough to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost'.  Tyndale

completed his translation of the New Testament in 1525.  It was solemnly