346 RELIGIOUS AGENCIES 



more than 2200 years. When the number of lost books written 

 by authors of the greatest celebrity, in an age when history and 

 poetry were highly esteemed, is taken into the account, the facts 

 that, in spite of persecution from governments, philosophers, other 

 religions, and the common people, and of the wholesale destruction 

 of books, so many Christian documents have persisted, and that 

 there is no reason to believe that any really important documents 

 have been lost, support the proposition that religion, whether 

 true or false, can be depended upon to perpetuate the documents 

 embodying its sacred beliefs. That vast collection known as the 

 writings of the Anti-Nicene fathers is an illustration by wholesale 

 of the tenacity of life of such compositions. 



But at all times the circulation of manuscripts was necessarily 

 limited. The art of printing at once multiplied by thousands the 

 facilities for distributing information and preserving records and 

 transmitting to later ages all the literary productions of human 

 thought, whether sacred or secular. 



I. The Service of Printing to Christianity 



The press as a religious agency must be considered from several 

 viewpoints. As intelligently and directly wielded by religious 

 authorities it performs the following functions: It publishes the 

 entire sacred books. The sacred books of the Christian religion, 

 collected in the book known as the Bible, are published not only 

 in the tongues of the people of so-called Christian nations, but in 

 all the principal languages of the earth and in various dialects. 

 The Bible may be published in parts, as in the former instance, 

 without note or comment, admitting the use of it most effectively 

 according to the particular purpose at any time of foe or friend. 

 In addition to this the art of printing admits of the wide distri- 

 bution of the Bible and parts thereof with explanatory notes known 

 as commentaries, whereby counsel is illuminated by the explana- 

 tion of otherwise dark sayings, and at other times darkened by 

 " words without knowledge." 



For the special purposes of teachers and parents the sacred book 

 is sent forth, accompanied by helps, historic statements, maps, 

 definitions, and marginal references. By this means, the value 

 of which is enhanced by the perfection to which the art of book- 

 binding has been enriched, it is connected with the great festal 

 days of domestic life, presented to youth on birthdays, and to 

 those who are establishing families of their own. This ever won- 

 derful art makes it possible to produce speedily in the required 

 number religious books, paraphrasing or illuminating the Bible 

 as a whole, or of particular parts thereof, or of any special doctrine 



