The Life and Work of William Tindale

by William Barrett Cooper

It was, however, the closing year of Tindale's life. Before the book came off the press he may have sealed his testimony; but at least he would be cheered by tidings of its progress, and the knowledge that the work had found its proper home in his own land. "For this end", says Westcott, "he had constantly striven; for this he had been prepared to sacrifice everything else; and the end was gained only when he was called to die."

PAGE FROM TINDALE'S 1536 REVISED NEW TESTAMENT.

Some time elapsed before the discovery of the contraband Testament was made by the ecclesiastical authorities, who then instituted a search so bitterly persistent and so pervasive in its continuance, that, of these editions, there survive in our time only a couple of 8vo. copies, one of these incomplete; and only a fragmentary copy of the 4to. The eventual destruction, however, did not prevent the Testament meanwhile having its own influence and bringing comfort and hope to thousands of English homes.

Not only so,—and this is the tribute that is due to Tindale's translation,—the translation as Tindale made it is in substance and form the English New Testament as we have it to-day. Notwithstanding the numberless revisions that have taken place, it is substantially Tindale's translation still; for the revisers have always, unconsciously perhaps, done their revising in the spirit and manner of Tindale. Of all that have worked upon the English Bible, no other single man has left his mark on this book; the version in our hands to-day bears the unmistakable stamp of its first translator.

"The peculiar genius—if such a word may be permitted—which breathes through it—the mingled tenderness and majesty—the Saxon simplicity—the preternatural grandeur—unequalled, unapproached, in the attempted improvements of modern scholars,—all are here, and bear the impress of the mind of one man—William Tindale. Lying, while engaged in that great office, under the shadow of death, the sword above his head and ready at any moment to fall, he worked, under circumstances alone perhaps truly worthy of the task which was laid upon him,—his spirit, as it were divorced from the world, moved in a purer element than common air."

(Froude, Henry Eighth, Vol. II).

The contents of this book as it passed into the hands of the nation, printed not in the language of the court, nor in that of either the statesman or the scholar, but in the language of the common people, finding them, as it did, more especially at critical times when events seemed to be threatening the overthrow of the nation as much as of the individual, stole into the imagination of the people, and by degrees gave form and life to those great virtues, justice, freedom, truth, tolerance and self-sacrifice, which have become the vivid traditions that govern in the main the English-speaking people. Here was the fountain head from which the main stream of their literature, legislation, public policy, and national character derives its flow and power.

For it is admitted that the distinction of this great people from other nations in a certain generosity, patience, integrity and courage, rests remotely on their silent appropriation of the vital forces released in this book of God.

Such far-reaching consequences afford the best measure of the immense significance—much greater than he could foresee—of Tindale's toil that he might open the eyes of England to the message he succeeded in turning into imperishable language under-standed of the people.