But these troubles not only enlarged "the noble army of martyrs," they also had the effect of driv­ing many into exile. Geneva, which under the rule of Calvin had become a Protestant stronghold, hospitably received the English refugees. There they were safe from pope and queen and could labor for their country's welfare unmolested. Among them were William Wittingham, afterwards Dean of Durham, the celebrated John Knox, the venerable Miles Coverdale, Anthony Gilby of Christ's College, Cambridge, and Thomas Sampson, Dean of Chichester. These, aided probably by Beza and Calvin, labored on the English Bible, revising and annotating it. And in 1560 they published their version, "translated according to the Ebrue and Greke, and con­ferred with the best translations in divers languages, with most profitable annotations upon the hard places." Very naturally, it received the name of the Genevan Bible.

Queen Elizabeth⤒🔗

Let us recall an interesting incident. Queen Elizabeth, Mary's successor, to whom this Bible was dedicated, was the daughter of Anne Boleyn. Now a proof of the regard which this beautiful, but unfortunate Anne Boleyn had for Tyndale, and of his gratitude to her, may be seen in the British Museum at the present day. This is a copy of the English Testament, splendidly printed on vellum, and bearing the inscription, "Anna Angliae regina." (Ann, Queen of England.) She had used her influence to extricate one Richard Hume, a merchant, from the trouble into which he had fallen for circulating Testaments; and Tyndale, out of gratitude for her kindly help in the matter, sent this splendid copy as a present to her. From her, probably, the princess Elizabeth received her first favourable impressions of the Protestant faith and she may have retained the memory of those impressions through all her chequered and eventful life. On the day of her cor­onation there was a great pageant in the streets of London. Among the characters one was dressed as old Father Time, and he led his daughter, Truth, by the hand. He presented his daughter with all ceremony to Elizabeth, and she handed duly a copy of the Holy Scriptures to the queen. At once the queen accepted the present and, in the sight of that vast concourse, pressed it to her lips and her heart. Then there arose such a ringing cheer as had not been heard in the city for many a day. Thousands were moved to tears of joy and ecstasy of delight. The horrid nightmare of prison, torture and stake had vanished, and the morning of liberty had dawned again.

The Bishops' Bible←⤒🔗

Space will only allow us to give a bare passing notice of two other versions which belong to this period. The Bishops' Bible, so called because it was the work of some of the Bishops, and was published under the supervision of Archbishop Parker, never became popular, and fell out of use altogether about the year 1606. Its various parts, the work of different translators, were very uneven in style and unequal in merit, and its notes, except those which were taken without acknowledgment from the Genevan Bible, were feeble and pointless. It has but one feature of interest for us here, that it was the ground text upon which King James' companies made their correction; but of that we shall speak in the next chapter.

The other version was the Douai-Rhemish one, so called because the Old Testament was translated at Douai and the New Testament at Rheims. It is the recognized English Bible of the Roman Catholics. It was made from the Latin and therefore it displays the faults of the Vulgate, as well as the general defects which must always be found in a translation of a translation. Words and expressions are often used (such, for example, as "do penance" for "repent") rather to gain Scriptural countenance for Romish dogmas than to set forth the true meaning of the original. In several places it gives such a slavishly literal rendering of the Latin that an ordinary English reader can hardly make sense of it. And the marginal notes are so strongly, even violently Papal, that they are frequently used to wrest the Holy Scriptures instead of explaining them. Possibly this version was originally intended to counteract the Genevan, but if so, it had little success.

The Geneva Bible 1560 A.D.←⤒🔗

The Best Book of All, and How it Came to us The Geneva Bible, Bishops' Bible and Douai-Rhemish BibleWhen Catholic Mary Tudor came to the throne, public use of the Bible was again prohibited. Scholars fled to Geneva, Switzerland, and there undertook a new version of the Bible, after a study of many Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. The Geneva Bible was published as a small book for use by the people, and it quickly became the most popular version. For the first time, the text was divided into verses. The copy shown here was brought to America on the Mayflower, in 1620, by Governor Brad­ford of the Plymouth Colony.

The Bishop's Bible, published in 1568, was a revision of the Great Bible by a committee of scholars supervised by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Most of the committee were bishops, hence the Bishop's name. It was used in the churches, but never replaced the Geneva Bible in the home.

The Rheims-Douai Bible, first issued by the Roman Catholic Church in 1582 and 1609, is an English version based on the Latin Vulgate.