possession, the rest by means of faithful readers, while the book existed
only in manuscript; all of them after it came to be printed.

Can any doubt arise, whether there were in the Christian states resources
competent, if so applied, to secure to all the people an elementary
instruction, and the possession of the printed Bible? Resources competent!
All nations, sufficiently raised above barbarism to exist as states, have
consumed, in uses the most foreign and pernicious to their welfare, an
infinitely greater amount of means than would have sufficed, after due
provision for comfortable physical subsistence, to afford a moderate share
of instruction to all the people. And in those popish ages, that
expenditure alone which went to ecclesiastical use would have been far
more than adequate to this beneficent purpose. Think of the boundless cost
for supporting the magnificence and satiating the rapacity of the
hierarchy, from its triple-crowned head, down through all the orders
branded with a consecration under that head to maintain the delusion and
share the spoil. Recollect the immense system of policy for jurisdiction
and intrigue, every agent of which was a devourer. Recollect the pomps and
pageants, for which the general resources were to be taxed: while the
general industry was injured by the interruption of useful employment, and
the diversion of the people to such dissipation as their condition
qualified and permitted them to indulge in. Think also of the incalculable
cost of ecclesiastical structures, the temples of idolatry as in truth
they were. One of the most striking situations for a religious and
reflective Protestant is, that of passing some solitary hour under the
lofty vault, among the superb arches and columns, of any one of the most
splendid of these edifices remaining at this day in our own country. If he
has sensibility and taste, the magnificence, the graceful union of so many
diverse inventions of art, the whole mighty creation of genius that
quitted the world without leaving even a name, will come with magical