Church?” (Hausrath, 1, 18.) Yes, Luther had really discovered the Bible, namely, the Bible which the Roman 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 errors that had crept into the text and making the original text of the Bible as accurate as it is possible to make it.  In these labors mostly Protestants were engaged.  Fell, Mill, Kuster, Bengel, Wetzstein, Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, have through three centuries of untiring research cooperated in placing before the world the authentic text of the Bible.

To-day we have not a single one of the autograph manuscripts of the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament.  If the Roman Church existed in the days when Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, Jude, and James wrote, and if she exercised such scrupulous care over the Bible, why has she not preserved a single one of these invaluable documents?  We suggest this thought only in view of the unfounded Catholic boast; we do not charge the Catholic Church with a crime for having permitted the autographs of our Bible to become lost, we only hold that the Catholic Church is not entitled to the eulogies which her writers bestow upon her.