that the provision made by
the Church for the spiritual necessities of the people was not, at any
rate, less abundant than is the case at the present day. Indeed, there
is no doubt that both Churches and Clergy, and consequently
opportunities for worship and instruction, were far more in proportion
to the number and needs of the population than they can be said to be
now in our own country, even after the persevering and liberal efforts
of late years. [Sidenote: Difficulties respecting Services and Bibles
on the vernacular,] If it is objected that the want of free access to
the Holy Scriptures, and the use of the Latin tongue in the public
services of the Church, were calculated largely to outweigh any
advantages which the people of those days might possess, we may
remember that those comparatively few who could read were just those
who would have access to the necessarily rare copies then existing of
the Word of God, and that to them also the Latin version would be more
comprehensible than any other. Again, with regard to Latin services,
it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to translate the
devotions of the Church into any of the slowly-forming dialects of the
different European nations; whilst Latin was more universally spoken
and understood than French is now, and was probably intelligible to a
larger number of men and women during a {117} considerable portion of
the Middle Ages than any one of the other languages used.

[Sidenote: but the wish for them not wholly disregarded.]

As the various languages of Europe became gradually developed, a desire
naturally arose amongst those who spoke them for services in the
vernacular; and this desire was not left altogether ungratified even
long before the Reformation. Thus, in England, the Epistles and
Gospels and the Litany were translated into the native language in the
Services of the Church, and interlinear translations were made of many
portions of the Mediaeval Prayer Books[3]. Neither must we imagine
that the translations of Holy Scripture put forth by the Reformers, or
even that earlier version to which Wickliffe gave his name, were by any
means the first efforts made to produce the Holy Bible in the
vernacular. From Anglo-Saxon times downwards, we have traces of Bibles
translated for the use of those who preferred such versions; and to the
truth of this statement may be quoted the testimony of John Foxe, the
"martyrologist," who says, "If historie