Douglas Campbell, author of The Puritan in Holland, England and America wrote about how the most celebrated account of Christian witness—Fox’s Book of Martyrs—stirred the soul of a whole nation:
“When one recollects that until the appearance of the Pilgrim’s Progress the common people had almost no other reading matter except the Bible and Fox’s Book of Martyrs, we can understand the deep impression that this book produced; and how it served to mould the national character. Those who could read for themselves learned the full details of all the atrocities performed on the Protestant reformers; the illiterate could see the rude illustrations of the various instruments of torture, the rack, the gridiron, the boiling oil, and then the holy ones breathing out their souls amid the flames. Take a people just awakening to a new intellectual and religious life; let several generations of them, from childhood to old age, pore over such a book, and its stories become traditions as individual and almost as potent as songs and customs on a nation’s life.”
Over the next few weeks faithnews.net will present John Fox’s Fox’s Book of Martyrs rewritten in contemporary English. Don’t miss out on these faith-building stories: Subscribe to receive updates right to your Inbox.
