PREFACE. COSTER, of Harelem, cut letters on the bark of a tree with his penknife, and then transferred them to paper to please his children. Guttenberg, of Mentz, in conjunction with Faust, invented the moveable type, and first employed it in printing the Bible. Thus sprung the germ of a power that reformed the Church and ruled the destinies of the world. The press awoke men's minds from their slumbers, and made darkness everywhere visible. It furnished lungs for sentiments, ingendered in solitude and nourished in silence, to breathe through. Thoughts hitherto chained, burst the limits of their prison house, and shot forth on their mission like rays of light, to expose the deeds of tyranny and priestcraft. At first the efforts of this giant power were but feeble, yet it gradually rose in majesty and marched forward in the greatness of its might, till at length prejudice and superstition everywhere fled at its approach. Luther used it as a blazing torch—in what we call the dark ages-to dispel the gloom of the nations. Fox, the martyrologist, says, "Hereby knowledge groweth, books are dispersed, the Scriptures are read, truth is discerned, falsehood is detected and with the finger pointed at." While Bacon, who tells us "Knowledge is power," quaintly adds, "Books are the |