In our days, when the Bible lies on almost every shelf and may be had by every man, woman, and child in the land, when we can hardly remember our first acquaintance with the sacred text, it is difficult for us to enter into the feelings of those who read the Bible for the first time. To us, it has become as familiar, and it is to be feared often as tedious, as a twice told tale; and it requires all our reverence for the book as the written and authentic Word of God, to fix our attention upon our daily lesson.
To those who received the English New Testament from the hands of Tyndale and his followers, it possessed all the charm of novelty. They had heard at the best only short and garbled extracts from the Holy Book, and what little they knew was so overlaid and mixed up with legend and fable, that the whole gracious story was to them a new revelation, startling and arousing them alike from what it said and from what it did not say. The doctrine of purgatory, with all its tremendous consequences, fell at once to the ground. So did that of the invocation of saints; and especially the almost divine honors paid to the Blessed Virgin were seen to be wholly without foundation.
To many an overburdened soul painfully striving by prayers and penances to escape from the wrath to come, the knowledge of justification by means of faith in the Son of God, of free forgiveness through His own oblation of Himself once offered, came with an overwhelming sense of relief from an intolerable burden; while to another it brought a feeling of deep humiliation and mortification that all the self-made sanctity for which he had perhaps been celebrated and held up as an example to his fellows was of no avail or value in the eyes of God, not worth so much as a cup of cold water given in the name of Christ to one of His little ones.
Welcome or unwelcome, loved or hated, the Word of God went on its way. It was like the leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal. No man who received it could hide it wholly within his heart. Consciously or unconsciously, it affected his conduct and appeared in his conversation; and thus the new ideas spread from one to another, even among those who were the most bitterly opposed to them.
[CHAPTER VI.]
A FALL AND A NEW FRIEND.
Long after old Margery had retired to her chamber wondering at her master's unusual waste of candle-light, did the other two inmates of the cottage sit listening with rapt attention while Master Fleming read and expounded the Holy Book, or told them tales of the deeds and sufferings of the friends of the Gospel at home and abroad.
At last, in a pause of the conversation, Jack exclaimed—
"Oh, if I could but go with you and help you in this great work, how gladly would I give all my time and strength to the spread of God's Word among the people! I used to wish I had lived in the days of chivalry when the valiant knights went forth in search of adventure, and to succor the helpless and oppressed wherever they were to be found; but this is a greater work still, and better worth one's life and substance."
"You say well," replied Master Fleming. "It is indeed better worth the spending of life and substance than any of the often fantastic enterprises of your favorite knights; and neither is it without sufficient danger to life and goods, though there are no more dragons and enchanters to overcome. But the work of the Lord has this advantage, that it may be done by simple folk as well as gentle folk, and as worthily in the humblest vocation as in the highest. The lowliest life, the commonest task, if sanctified by an earnest and honest intention of doing God service, is as much accepted and blessed by Him as that which is highest in the sight of men. Our Lord Himself has said that a cup of cold water, given in His name and for his sake, is given to Him."