Conant’s "History of English Bible Translation."* *May be had at same address as this magazine. Price, 25 cents.* I The above title hardly conveys to the reader the extensiveness and interesting character of the work we are about to commend. We therefore place at the head of this notice the words ''Reformation Times," to call attention to the subject really presented in the book.

To the Scriptures we should turn first of all both for doctrine and instructive history; but the history of the Church is also profitable-full of suggestion, instruction, comfort, warning.

We shall be the better prepared for the fight and furnished for the journey by acquaintance especially with Reformation history; and, as "history repeats itself," acquaintance with one period affords a very full supply of instruction,-above all when that, period is marked by events, under the hand of God, that are among the most interesting and remarkable in the world's history.

History, we know, is a mirror in which we see reflected our. own selves, and the communities in which we live, giving object-lessons illustrating the precious teachings and warnings of the Word. Such, of course, is life to us in general, and all that we meet with and hear and see. "Wisdom crieth aloud in the streets." A fool has no heart for wisdom, and the world is blind to the meaning of its own history; but the lessons are continued nevertheless, and the great examination-day will come, and folly will meet its doom, and God will be glorified in all the records of the past. "A prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself, but the simple pass on and are punished." (Prov. 22:3.)

"Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest; for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest doest the same things." (Rom. 2:1:) So solemn and weighty are the lessons of history in the light of Scripture.

Wickliffe and his times and Tyndale and his times are really the subjects brought before us in the book of which we speak, only that the author had in mind prominently the history of our English Bible in connection with the sufferings endured by such witnesses, (sufferings of persecution by the malice of Satan, and persecution, in Tyndale's case, to death,) that we might have God's Word in our own tongue. Hence the title, " History of English Bible Translation;"-no mere reference to a work of scholars and students, but a living picture from the pages of history of a deadly conflict like that of David with the Philistine giant. A conflict in which prominently these two men stood up against the enemy when the people of God in general were trembling and ready to flee,-such is the goodness of our God to us.

They were not associated in time :Wickliffe was the pioneer-a hundred and fifty years before the time of Tyndale and the Reformation. Wickliffe had grace from God to stand single-handed for the truth, bearing fearless witness for God and for Christ; and when at last driven from Oxford by persecution to a measure of retirement at Lutterworth, he made diligent use of the occasion to produce the work of his life,-a translation of the Latin Bible into English; so that, under the unerring and merciful providence of God, the apparent diminishing of opportunity, as so often the case, afforded him the real opportunity of his life. But none will wonder at this who know the meaning of the cross, and its results. There, defeat was victory; and on that line God is leading His .people, and will to the end. None can fight against God. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. We have but to stand still, and see the salvation of God.

Tyndale's work, though not greater, was in a yet stormier time, when by the Reformation God was about to give deliverance to His people from an "iron furnace" and from bondage. Things had come to a head, and the conflict the fiercer. Wickliffe's translation was only in manuscript, and from the Vulgate. At this period, the study of Greek had been introduced, and the art of printing. The way was prepared of God, and Tyndale, having forsaken England for Antwerp and Cologne for safety, translated the New Testament into English, and found means by English merchants to send his little messengers back to England.

When we consider the great results that followed the arrival of this little book in the Thames, and the persecution that arose by the heads of church and state, we see tin the part of the enemy the same malice at work behind the scenes that is presented to us in the twelfth chapter of Revelation, where the dragon stands ready to devour the man-child, and on the other hand, for our joy and comfort, the folly of all efforts to hinder the purposes of God. There we may rest with peaceful expectation of the end. As a tender plant is nourished, the providence of God sheltered in the main the silent progress of the truth from Wickliffe's days until the Reformation a hundred and fifty years after, when, we may say, the time for warfare by full-grown men had come, and victory in deadly conflict. If at such a time distress increased, and the awful clamor of the enemy, it was the heat of battle that precedes victory and peace, however defective the results through failure among the faithful themselves.

Wickliffe's work was more preparatory; Tyndale's and Luther's, at a time of more rapidly accomplishing events toward the approaching end. But he that sowed and he that reaped can rejoice together.

Since writing what precedes, an interesting introductory review in a work on revivals* came to notice only to-day,-no doubt, of the Lord. *"Narratives of Remarkable Conversions and Revival Incidents. Review of Revivals from the day of Pentecost to the great awakening in the last century. Rise and progress of the great awakening of 1857-58."*We venture to add an extract in continuance and development of the theme just now briefly suggested in our last few words. Like a bird's-eye view of a country, we get in the following extract a comprehensive and spiritual view of an important era in church history, and an impressive lesson of how God is ever working to an end, however little noticed by men, and even at times by His own.

" Darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people," deepening as if to endless night. It' a star or two appeared, it was only to be quenched apparently in clouds of devastating war. None could see a harbinger or promise of returning day at the period when the secret work of Providence was ripe, and the morning watch came unperceived, and God said, "Let there be light!" Then Wickliffe, the morning star of the Reformation, arose before the dawn, in the fourteenth century, clothed in the light of a reopened Bible. Soon after, in the beginning of the fifteenth, John Huss caught the reflection, and added to it the flame of martyrdom. The revival of letters advanced:twenty-universities arose in less than a hundred years. In the midst of this movement the art of printing was given, imparting an impetus to literature which had been otherwise inconceivable, and providing the swift and subtle agent by which the infant Reformation was to surprise and overpower its great adversary unawares. At the same juncture, the Mohammedan power, overwhelming the eastern metropolis, swept the remnant of Greek learning into Europe. Finally, in and about the last quarter of the same memorable century, Luther, Zwingle, Cranmer, Melancthon, Knox, and Calvin, with other mighty champions of the truth, were born. Little thought the simple mothers what they had in their cradles. But God's time was at hand, and the final preparations for His work were now masked under the form of a few poor men's babes.

"O God, when Thou wentest forth before Thy people,-when Thou didst march through the wilderness, the earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God. . . . The Lord gave the Word; great was the company of those that published it." In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the unlooked-for heralds came, proclaiming free salvation by Christ crucified:first Lefevre, Farel, Briconnet, Chatelain, and their friends in France then Zwinglius in Switzerland:and almost at the same moment, the giant^of the Reformation, Martin Luther, in Germany;-each attended by a host of zealous and able coadjutors both in church and state. Ecolampadius, Melancthon, Calvin-preachers, scholars, princes, and nobles :soon Tyndale, with his printed English Testament in England; Patrick Hamilton, Geo. Wishart, and John Knox in Scotland; John Tausseii in Denmark; John Laski in Poland; Olaus Petri and Laurentius in Sweden; and humbler names without number in every quarter;-all these arose at once, or within little more than a quarter of a century, by the mysterious workings of the Spirit and providence of God, filled Europe with their doctrine, and triumphantly established the truth of the gospel in the countries now protestant within periods varying from ten to fifty years-from the date of this marvelous uprising.

Much, indeed, of what is commonly called "the Reformation" belongs to a kingdom that is only of this world. Political power and ambition, political alliance and protection, political means .and appliances, were the bane of its spirituality and purity; and while these elements seemed indeed to preserve it from extinction, it is probable that in some cases, a's in France, they were also its ruin. The struggle for liberty beginning in the struggle for divine truth, was long identified with it, and fastened its changing fortunes upon the cause of the gospel. The progress of the kingdom of Christ through this stormy chaos of good and evil is what all can witness but none clearly trace, save the all-wise Being who directs both the operation and the result. Now, however, the confusion is measurably cleared; the vexed elements have gradual!)7 settled and separated; the contradiction in nature which severs the heavenly from all earthly kingdoms begins to be apprehended, and we can contemplate the Reformation proper in distinction from the mere politico-religious changes attached to it. To contemplate this pure heavenly object, we must seek it in the hearts of God's people. Eminent illustrations of its power and quality will be found in another part of this volume, exhibiting the essence of the Reformation, which history cannot represent. So much of the historical Reformation was the mere creation, or rather fiction, of law, that the measure of true religious improvement effected in the Protestantized churches is often left extremely dubious. But here, in the inner life, whose records are preserved to us, we have veritable unambiguous substance. Here is the revived power of the doctrine of the cross of Christ:here is the secret of a revolution equal, and we may hope more than equal, to that which in a similar length of time (three centuries) had at first broken the power of paganism as that of popery is now broken, and placed Christianity on the throne of the Caesars. Here is once more a supernatural wonder, an operation of the Holy Ghost,-in common language, a revival, a restoration of life, a spiritual resurrection, of the most amazing and glorious character. Scarcely less sudden and overwhelming than the descent of Pentecost, with the subsequent general spreading of the gospel by Paul, and perhaps hardly inferior to the same in the multitude of its converts and the number and piety of its martyrs, while to all appearance beyond comparison with it in the permanence of its impulse and the magnitude of its immediate fruits. It is identified with the primitive revival in its central principle- Christ crucified, and closely resembles it as a spiritual springtime awakening at the word of God out of the profoundest depth of wintry desolation; but not without a patient sowing of precious seed long previous, and an unconscious softening and preparation of the common heart by divine Providence. The reforming preachers came to a people long involved in night; but it had been a night of storm and tempest,-no stagnant, putrescent, Asiatic calm. The mass, of men were strangers to leisure for luxurious vices and corrupt philosophies:their minds were vigorous, simple, and earnest; neither were they hardened by habit to a disregarded gospel. The excessive wickedness in high places, which had almost blotted out the memory of true Christianity, had saved the common people from that most deadly, depraving, and indurating form of sin, the disbelief and contempt of revealed truth and a crucified Savior. The news of such a Savior once announced, flew like the winds among " a people prepared for the Lord " more perfectly than we can guess, by the very miseries of their state; and being welcomed with exultation, were cherished with a tenacity which death and torture could not relax.

Let us notice the solemn truth of the words, "that most deadly, depraving, and indurating form of sin, the disbelief and contempt of revealed truth and a crucified Savior." This the people at large, then, were not ruled by. But how is it now? If then the people were "prepared for the Lord," are they not now, in pride and folly, being prepared for Satan and apostasy? Let the leaders of thought be warned of their wickedness, and of the judgment of God. May His grace prevail mightily in hearts mislead, ere the darkness of night and the woes of judgment are upon them. E.S.L.