Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.--_John 5, 39._ This year marks an event of more than passing interest to the English-speaking world, _viz._, the tercentenary or 300th birthday of the translation of the Bible. It was in 1611, early in the summer, when, after seven years of the most painstaking labors, the most scholarly men of that time completed and turned over for publication their manuscripts. It was styled the King James Version or Translation, because it was with the help and patronage of that monarch of England, King James, that it was issued; and so as the Germans speak of Dr. Luther's Bible translation, the English speak of King James' Version. It is this translation of God's Word that lies before us, for though in the past three centuries there have been more than a score of worthy revisions, none has dislodged this from its place of supremacy, and so it is fitting that grateful mention should be made of the glorious work, the blessings of which continue to flow out to us whenever we open the holy pages. It must be remembered that the Bible, prior to these translations, was a sealed book. One seal was the tyrannical policy of the Church of Rome, that forbade the people to read it for themselves. Chained to the altar of some cathedral or to the wall of some library, like that which Luther discovered in the University at Erfurt, it was securely clasped and locked. The only persons who had anything to do with it were the monks, who in their dark and obscure cells would spend their days mechanically copying the sacred parchments. It was in this respect, indeed, a sealed book. Another seal were the languages in which it was written, so that, even if the people had possessed a copy, they would for that reason have been unable to read it; Hebrew, Greek, and Latin were things they could not understand and read. And to this might be added another seal, _viz._, that the Church of Rome had well seen to it that the majority of the people could not read at all. Ignorance among the masses was profound.