It is a striking, and perhaps a significant, coincidence, that the art of making paper from linen fibre, and the art of printing, were discovered nearly at the same time, and were coeval with the first preaching of the Reformation; by Huss and Jerome of Prague, of whom Luther was only the more eminent successor—the whole three events dating from the fifteenth century. It is certain, that printing was the great instrument of the Reformation in Germany, and of spreading it through Europe; and it is equally certain, that the making of paper, by means of the cotton or flaxen fibre, supplied the only material, which has been found extensively available for printing. Whether this coincidence was simply accidental, or was the effect of that high arrangement for high purposes, which we so often find in the history of Providence, may be left to the consideration of the Christian. But, it is evident, that if printing had been invented in any of the earlier ages, it would have been comparatively thrown away. The Chinese bark of the bamboo, or the rice straw; the Egyptian papyrus, and the Greek or Roman parchment, would have been too feeble, or too expensive, for the rapid demands of the Press. But, at the exact period, when Printing was given to the world, the fabric was also given, which was to meet the broadest exigency of that most illustrious invention. That the Chinese, in ages almost beyond history, had made paper of cotton, and even of hemp; and that the Arabians either borrowed, or invented, the manufacture, in the eighth century, is known. But, the discovery perished for want of the Press; as the Press would have perished for want of the vigour, yet to be created in every faculty of human advance, by the Reformation. It should not be forgotten, that the _first_ printed works were religious; as the “Biblia Pauperum,” a small folio, of forty leaves, each with a picture, and a text of Scripture under it; and the “Speculum humanæ Salvationis,” a similar work of pictures and texts, in Latin; and that the last, and noblest, achievement of Printing, has been the renewed publication of the Gospel, in nearly every language of the globe!