Chapter I

The Evangelist here speaks of books—of the possibility of writing an immense number of them on one subject; and thus he calls to our mind the saying of the wise man, that “of making many books there is no end.” They were very numerous in the ancient world. The library of the Ptolemies at Alexandria was of such prodigious magnitude that it numbered half a million volumes. Large public and private collections were not uncommon in St. John’s time; and in Rome, at that period, the bookseller’s trade signally flourished. In the shop doors lists of new publications were exhibited; nor were the prices of some by any means immoderate, a considerable proportion of the MSS. being so small as to come under the modern denomination of pamphlets or tracts. Thus early existed multitudes of those productions which Milton eloquently describes as “not dead things,” but such as “contain a potency of life,” as “active as the soul whose progeny they are,” preserving, “as a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect which bred them,” as “vigorously productive” as the “fabulous dragon’s teeth,” and which, being “sown up and down,” may, like them, perchance, spring up into armed men. Throughout the civilized world, in the first account of Christianity, were there books containing “the life-blood of master spirits,” that “ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of reason.” And besides these, there existed, among the elect people of God, a literature incomparably superior to anything else—a literature furnished by historians, poets, and moralists, who far surpassed merely classic ones. For now, in the fulness of time, the Greek, as well as the Hebrew language, had become enriched by inspired contributions, and four peerless histories or biographies appeared—four lives of the divinely-incarnate and ever-living One—followed by another history, recording the acts of his Apostles, accompanied by epistles or letters which explained the meaning of the life of Jesus, and the acts of the first preachers of his incomparable and blessed Gospel. These books came into the world, stamped with unmistakable signs of a Divine origin perfectly unique. They were sons of God amongst the children of men—Divine wisdom visiting the earth in human form, thought after thought, like angel after angel, coming down from heaven, with a countenance like lightning, with raiment white as snow, yet speaking in tones of meek assurance to affrighted souls, telling them not to fear, because the crucified Redeemer of mankind had risen from the dead. Such books have, indeed, a life within them; a life truly, and without any hyperbole, immortal, to attempt to kill which would be as idle as it would be impious, for it would be to strike a blow at that which, above everything else on the face of the earth, is an image of God.

And numbers of books since then, without pretending to rival them, have caught more or less of their divine spirit. Human minds replenished with instructions derived from these unparalleled sources have communicated their thoughts to mankind—thoughts of such a character, so morally and religiously superior to anything known in lands unblessed by these gifts of inspiration, as to declare their lineage and descent to be of that divine race of which the ancestors were the first-born children of celestial light. A precious inheritance of Christian literature has thus descended to modern times, surrounding us with intellectual and spiritual advantages, which many are slow to acknowledge, because unable to estimate. Yet it is the heirloom of our churches and our families, laid up on the shelves of our libraries, and what is still better, I hope, that its effect upon us mingles with our daily life.

The discovery of printing, in the providence of God, although it cannot add to the immortality of Christian thought in itself, has contributed a new method, first of perpetuating in their original forms all expressions of truth, whether human or Divine, and next, of multiplying such expressions, in the same original form, so as to fill the world with them, and to give to immortal wisdom a sort of visible and palpable ubiquity. And extremely interesting it is to notice, that the Bible, or the Psalter, was certainly the first book of any considerable size which came forth from the press, whence “we may see in imagination this venerable and splendid volume leading up the crowded myriads of its followers, and imploring, as it were, a blessing on the new art, by dedicating its first fruits to the service of heaven.” A mighty revolution has, no doubt, been wrought by the invention of printing. It has not diminished the force of spoken words, it never can supersede the necessity of the living voice as the chief means of proclaiming the Gospel of Christ, it never can destroy the enchantment of human eloquence; but it narrows the sphere of instruction from the pulpit, it supersedes the continuance of the ancient practice when preachers at Paul’s Cross took up the questions of the day, and discussed them in their homilies; it hands over to the press, as a more convenient field for discussion, a number of instructive and important topics, whilst it provides for the diffusion of religious knowledge in all sorts of ways, and in all sorts of places, far beyond the reach of any preacher’s, or any missionary’s voice. At the same time it gathers up in the best form, and perpetuates to the latest age, and circulates to the end of the world, the richest utterances of the Christian ministry. The voice from the pulpit has lost somewhat of its range of themes; it cannot now announce ecclesiastical and political news, as it did once; but it has a special work still to do, through the human countenance, the human eye, the human lips, as it exhibits well-known truth and inculcates familiar lessons, appealing to the heart and calling forth our sensibilities and sympathies as nothing else can ever do. And after all the lamentations poured forth by some, and all the taunts flung out by others, the pulpit still remains an unrivalled power—unrivalled in the demand for its exercise, and unrivalled in the supply of its proper spiritual effects, even the conversion and edification of souls. But the press, although we do not count it a rival, but rather as a helper, in the one great field of Christian instruction, is doing, and will do a work, which all the preachers and speakers in Christendom can never overtake and accomplish. Its power in the dissemination of the Gospel is surprising beyond what we can imagine, until we come to deeply ponder the subject in our minds; and the obligation resting upon us to employ such power for this sacred purpose is most obvious, most solemn, most pressing.