Reading is the correlate of writing. The person who cannot write, as a
rule, cannot read. For this reason the Bible must have remained a sealed
book to many who had ample opportunity to become acquainted with it. The
wide diffusion of Bible knowledge which Catholic writers would lead us
to believe always existed in the Roman Church is subject to question. It
is true that in the first centuries of the Christian era there was a
great hunger and thirst for the Word of God. But that was before the
Roman Church came into existence. For it is a reckless assumption that
the papacy is an original institution in the Church of Christ, and that
Roman Catholicism and Christianity are identical. It is also true that
in the early days of the Reformation the people manifested a great
desire for the Word of God. It was as new to them as it had been to
Luther. They would crowd around a person who was able to read, and would
listen for hours. At St. Paul's in London public reading of the Bible
became a regular custom. But between the early days of Christianity and
the beginning of the Reformation lies a period which. is known as the
Dark Ages. No amount of oratory will turn that age into a Bright Age.
"From the seventh to the eleventh century books were so scarce that
often not one could be found in an entire city, and even rich
monasteries possessed only a single text-book." (_Universal Encycl.,_
2, 96.) These conditions were not greatly improved until printing was
invented. Luther had to do with people who were emerging from the sad
conditions of that age, the effects of which were still visible
centuries after. He writes: "The deplorable destitution which I recently
observed, during a visitation of the churches, has impelled and
constrained me to prepare this Catechism, or Christian Doctrine, in such
a small and simple form. Alas, what manifold misery I beheld! The common
people, especially in the villages, know nothing at all of Christian
doctrine; and many pastors are quite unfit and incompetent to teach. Yet