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The Bible Society. Toronto. March 1938.

I am glad to be here tonight and to pay my humble tribute
to the work of the Bible Society. During its term of existence
it has been doing work compared to which the labours of governments
and parliaments are small and ineffectual. It has been engaged in
the greatest of human duties, what Wordsworth called "the spreading
of knowledge in the widest commonalty", and the knowledge which it
has spread is the most vital of any knowledge, the knowledge of
what is man's chief end.

Tonight we are met for a special purpose. This year we
celebrate the fourth century of the English Bible, for it is four
hundred years since a copy of a Bible was ordered to be set up in every church.
Tyndal had produced that translation of his which is the
basis of our authorised version. He was the pioneer, and he paid for his boldness
with his life. Without the foundation he laid, the great edifice
of 1611 would have been impossible. In commemorating Tyndal
we commorate the birth of the English Bible.

It is often a little hard to realise the magnitude of
familiar things. It is like living under a high mountain. We recognise
that it is above us; we see its lower slopes, we feel the
benefit of its shelter, but we cannot grasp its huge mass or catch
sight of its cloud-capped summit. It is so with our English Bible.
It requires an effort of thought, some detachment of mind to realise
the marvel and the miracle of it.

Consider its story. Ever since the Bible became available
to our people in their own language it has been the object of
fierce contention. In the seventeenth century different schools,