When one recollects that until the appearance of Pilgrims Progress, the Common People had almost no other reading matter except the Bible and Foxes Book of Martyrs, which is why Foxes made such a deep impression and how it served to mould the national character. After the Bible itself, no book so profoundly influenced early Protestant sentiment as the Book of Martyrs, even in our own time it is still a living force. It is more than a record of persecution, it is an arsenal of controversy, a store house of romance and as well as a source of edification.
