men and women in the lower ranks were positively forbidden to read it,
or to have it read to them, under the penalty of a month's imprisonment.

Dr. Franklin has preserved an anecdote of the prohibited Bible in the
time of our Catholic Mary. His family had an English Bible; and to
conceal it the more securely, they conceived the project of fastening it
open with packthreads across the leaves, on the inside of the lid of a
close-stool! "When my great-grandfather wished to read to his family, he
reversed the lid of the close-stool upon his knees, and passed the
leaves from one side to the other, which were held down on each by the
packthread. One of the children was stationed at the door to give notice
if he saw an officer of the Spiritual Court make his appearance; in that
case the lid was restored to its place, with the Bible concealed under
it as before."

The reader may meditate on what the _popes did_, and what they probably
would _have done_, had not Luther happily been in a humour to abuse the
pope, and begin a REFORMATION. It would be curious to sketch an account
of the _probable_ situation of _Europe_ at the present moment, had the
pontiffs preserved the omnipotent power of which they had gradually
possessed themselves.

It appears, by an act dated in 1516, that the Bible was called
_Bibliotheca_, that is _per emphasim, the Library_. The word library was
limited in its signification then to the biblical writings; no other
books, compared with the holy writings, appear to have been worthy to
rank with them, or constitute what we call a library.

We have had several remarkable attempts to recompose the Bible; Dr.
Geddes's version is aridly literal, and often ludicrous by its