Oh! happiest they of human race,
To whom our God has given grace
To hear, to read, to fear, to pray,
To lift the latch, and force the way;
But better had they ne’er been born,
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.—Monastery.
ENGLISH BIBLE TRANSLATIONS.
Our version of the Bible is to be loved and prized for this, as for a thousand other things,—that it has preserved a purity of meaning to many terms of natural objects. Without this holdfast, our vitiated imaginations would refine away language to mere abstractions. Hence the French have lost their poetical language; and Blanco White says the same thing has happened to the Spanish.—Coleridge.
Wickliffe’s Bible.—This was the first translation made into the language. It was translated by John Wickliffe, about the year 1384, but never printed, though there are manuscript copies of it in several public libraries.
Tyndale’s Bible.—The translation of William Tyndale, assisted by Miles Coverdale, was the first printed Bible in the English language. The New Testament was published in 1526. It was revised and republished in 1530. In 1532, Tyndale and his associates finished the whole Bible, except the Apocrypha, and printed it abroad.