World of Religion

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22540, 3 October 1936, Page 7 (Supplement)

World of Religion

JT was on October 5, 1536, that William Tyndale, at the age of fortyfive, wns led forth from his cell, where he had long been confined, to the place of execution, and the four-hundredth anniversary of the martyrdom is being widely observed. The stake to which ho was bound was fashioned like a cross, and there lie boro himself liko a man enthroned. He requested that ho might spend a few last moments in private prayer, and at their close, raising his eyes to heaven, ho broko out into the fervent cry: "Lord openthe King of England's eyes." The faggots were piled around him and he was strangled and his body consumed in fire. Ho was a university man, first of Oxford and later of Cambridge, and a priest of the Church'. The purpose to translate the Scriptures into the English tongue-early took shape in his mind, and it was deepened by tho famous words in the prefatory Exhortation to Erasmus' Greek Testament then just published:—"l wold to God yo plowman wold singe a texte of tho Scripture at his plowbome, and that tho wever at his lowmo with this wold drive away tho tediousness of tymo." With Heart Afire Tyndalo, with heart afire, betook himself to London and for a year sought in vain for episcopal permission to begin his work, until it became clear, to quote his own words, "that thero Was not only 110 room in my Lord of London's palace to translate tho New Testament, but also that there was no place to do it in all England." Thus it was that ho crossed to tho Continent and sought the freer air of Lutheran Germany. At Hamburg he completed tho translation of tho New Testament and the printing of it began at Cologne. But the Church was soon on his track. The printers were warmed with wine and disclosed that their presses were busy. Tyndalo in alarm fled by vessel up tho Rhine to the strong Reformation city of Worms, where four years before Martin Luther had defended his doctrines in tho presence of Charles V. He took his precious sheets with him and the work was thero completed in 1525. Scene at St. Paul's Cross Tho expense of tho new translation was borne by English merchants, who undertook to convey tho book secretly into England and to arrange its diaeemination. Every schoolboy knows tho story of how it was smuggled into the country concealed in bales of merchandise and liow the hierarchy strove to suppress its circulation. Tho scene at St. Paul's Cross, when in the presence of Wolsey himself, the books were denounced and amid "a great company of abbots, friars and bishops baskets of the heretical books were brought out and burned," forms an unhappy page in tho history of our religion. So tireless was the proscription of the book that to-day but two copies of the Worms edition are known to exist, one, almost complete, in tho Baptist College at Bristol, the other, wanting in seventy leaves, in the library of St. Paul's Cathedral. Tyndale's work has left an imperishable mark on the English Bible. Every revision since his day, including the Authorised Version of 1611, is based upon his version, and in the Revised New Testament of 1881, "eighty per cent of tho words stand as they appoar in Tyndale's version of 1534." He commanded words "like a magician and an emperor." He was a master of the phrase and found a way to express the deepest truths with simplicity and beauty. Those who would know what he could do with our mother tongue and how

By PHILEMON

ho could express in it the idioms of the Hebrew and the Greek may read the story of Joseph in the Old Testament and the Epistle to the Hebrews in the New, where in the Authorised Version there is scarcely an alteration from Tyndale's version. Of tho man himself we may quote the words of Dr. Henry Guppy, of the Rylands Library, to whose brochure we are indebted: —"No voice of scandal has ever been raised against William Tyndalo. There are no black spots in his lifo which it has been necessary for his biographers to whitewash. The more tho life of Tyndale is examined tho more he is found to bo deserving of the love and veneration of his countrymen." Baptisms of Jews An article in the International Review of Missions gives an account of the number of Jews who, in various Continental countries, are becoming converts to Christianity. The writer, who supports his view by facts and figures, confines himself to a statement of those joining the Roman Catholic Church, and speaks of tho strong protests of the Jewish press against tho "desertion and apostasy." that is becoming evident. In Vienna from 1910 to 1934 the archiepiscopal curia registered 6335 baptisms of Jews; in Hungary from 1896 to 1910 there were 4468 such conversions, and from 1910 to 1933 tho number was 12,062. Thero were 600 baptisms of Jews in Budapest from January to March in 1934. Similar movements are reported from Poland, Egypt, Tunis and elsewhere. In estimating tho value of these figures it must be borne in mind that a proportion of Jews change their faith on the occasion of marriage to a Christian, and it is significant that conversions are more numerous in a time of persecution. According to the article referred to direct propaganda among Jews by the Roman Catholic Church is almost non-existent, and conversions are due to the impression made by her teaching and tho life of her people. The Christian Faith Dr. Hensley Henson, the Bishop of Durham, in his diocesan journal, while welcoming the World Congress of Faiths recently held in England, and attended among others by representative men of the Anglican Church, has something to say about tho relation of Christianity to other religions. The Christian Faith, he writes, is at once tolerant and exclusive. It recognises one God over all peoples and has never doubted that there is a "light which lightetli every man coming into the world." But, he says, "there is no element of truth in the many religions of tho world which does not find its full expression in Christianity, when it is presented in its due relation to other truths, in isolation from which it becomes lop-sided and misleading." He therefore points out that Christianity cannot wholly condemn Mahomedanism or Hinduism or Buddhism and Christian missionaries do not nowadays do so. But it takes its stand upon the fact that only in Christ, the Son of the Living God, is the fulness of truth made known. The annual Assembly of the New Zealand Baptist Church will open in the Auckland Tabernacle on Wednesday next, October 7, when the new president, the Rev. A. Anstice, will deliver the inaugural address on "Puritanism and To-day." On the following Saturday evening an open-air service will be conducted from the Tabernacle steps, the subject of the addresses being "The Baptist Witness.At a later gathering three students of the college, who have completed their training, will bo dedicated for their work.