the alderman,
for assisting him in that business, went to the Tower--escaping, however,
we are glad to know, without worse consequences than a short imprisonment.
Tyndal saw Luther,[488] and under his immediate direction translated the
Gospels and Epistles while at Wittenberg. Thence he returned to Antwerp,
and settling there under the privileges of the city, he was joined by Joy,
who shared his great work with him. Young Frith from Cambridge came to him
also, and Barnes, and Lambert, and many others of whom no written record
remains, to concert a common scheme of action.

In Antwerp, under the care of these men, was established the printing
press, by which books were supplied, to accomplish for the teaching of
England what Luther and Melancthon were accomplishing for Germany. Tyndal's
Testament was first printed, then translations of the best German books,
reprints of Wycliffe's tracts or original commentaries. Such volumes as the
people most required were here multiplied as fast as the press could
produce them; and for the dissemination of these precious writings, the
brave London Protestants dared, at the hazard of their lives, to form
themselves into an organised association.

It is well to pause and look for a moment at this small band of heroes; for
heroes they were, if ever men deserved the name. Unlike the first reformers
who had followed Wycliffe, they had no earthly object, emphatically none;
and equally unlike them, perhaps, because they had no earthly object, they
were all, as I have said, poor men--either students, like Tyndal, or
artisans and labourers who worked for their own bread, and in tough contact
with reality, had learnt better than the great and the educated the
difference between truth and lies. Wycliffe had royal dukes and noblemen
for his supporters--knights and divines among his disciples--a king and a
House of Commons looking upon him, not without favour. The first
Protestants of the sixteenth century had for their king the champion of
Holy Church, who had broken a lance with Luther; and spiritual rulers over
them alike powerful and imbecile, whose highest conception of Christian
virtue was the destruction of those who disobeyed their mandates. The
masses of the people were indifferent to a cause which promised them no
material advantage; and the Commons of Parliament, while contending with
the abuses of the spiritual authorities, were laboriously anxious to wash
their hands of heterodoxy. "