it was inevitable that two things should come
to pass. First, that some men would attempt
to make a colloquial version of the Bible; and,
secondly, that others would oppose it. One can
count with all confidence on these two groups
of men, marching through history like the
animals into the ark, two and two. Some men
propose, others oppose. They are built on
those lines.

We are more concerned with the men who made
the versions; but we must think a moment of
the others. One of his contemporaries, Knighton,
may speak for all in his saying of Wiclif,
that he had, to be sure, translated the Gospel
into the Anglic tongue, but that it had thereby
been made vulgar by him, and more open to the
reading of laymen and women than it usually
is to the knowledge of lettered and intelligent
clergy, and "thus the pearl is cast abroad and
trodden under the feet of swine"; and, that we
may not be in doubt who are the swine, he adds:
"The jewel of the Church is turned into the
common sport of the people."

But two strong impulses drive thoughtful
men to any effort that will secure wide knowledge
of the Bible. One is their love of the Bible and
their belief in it; but the other, dominant then
and now, is a sense of the need of their own