Church never has been, and never will be, willing to let the people see
while she remains what she is to-day. This "discovery"-tale which so
offends Catholic writers could be verified in our day. Let Catholic
writers put into the hands of every Catholic of America the true,
genuine, unadulterated Word of God, without any glosses and comment, and
let them watch what is going to happen. There will be astonishing
"discoveries" made by the readers, and those discoveries will be no
fabrications.


11. Rome and the Bible.

Catholic writers claim for the Roman Church the distinction which at one
time belonged to the Hebrews, that of being the keepers of the oracles
of God. They claim that to the jealous vigilance of the Roman Church
over the sacred writings of Christianity the world to-day owes the
Bible. The pagan emperors of Rome would have destroyed the Bible in the
persecutions which they set on foot against the early Christians, if the
faithful martyrs had not refused to surrender their sacred writings.
Again, the Roman Church is represented as the faithful custodian of the
Bible during the political and social upheaval that wrecked the Roman
Empire when the barbarian peoples of the North overran Rome and Greece.
Only through the care of the Roman Church the Bible is said to have been
saved from destruction in the general confusion.

The reasoning of Catholics on this matter is specious. In the first
place, the early Christian martyrs were not Roman Catholics. The claim
of the Roman Church that the papacy starts with Peter is a myth. In the
second place, much patient labor has been expended in the last centuries
to collate existing manuscripts of the Bible for the purpose of removing