In 500 the Emperor Justinian decreed, to quell some discussion about the preferences of versions, that either might be used with entire liberty in any part of the realm. It is supposed that the Jewish sentiment, vacillating for some time between liberal views and their characteristic conservatism, rebounded at this decree and led to a tenacity for their own ancient language, to which they have since scrupulously adhered, reading mostly throughout their wide dispersion the ancient characters of Job and Moses, but some, as at Frankfort in Germany, using the Chaldaic shading of Ezra’s version. From a little before 600 we are able very definitely to trace the way of the book in England. There was dense ignorance among the masses of common people throughout the middle ages, but the convents and the great monasteries were some of them nevertheless centers of great learning. The Jews of England from the first kept a clear knowledge of their old writings, and furnished men in every century eminent in scholarship. Monks, so inclined, had little else to do but to eat and study, and God perpetuated through their work the knowledge of his word. I was shown in the British Museum a copy of the Gospels in Latin, of exquisite beauty, done by Eadfrid in the seventh century. It is on excellent paper, in red and black characters, executed almost with the precision of type. Near the close of that century Cædmon, the father of English poetry, translated portions of the Scripture into the Saxon or early English. A fragment of manuscript written by Aldhelm, a bishop, in 706, praises the nuns for their fidelity in the daily reading of the holy Scriptures, a circumstance that indicates both that there was something of education among the convents, and also that they doubtless had many copies of Scripture manuscripts. Aldhelm himself is known to have translated fifty of the Psalms into the early English. A bright picture comes to us by the pen of Saint Cuthbert in 735. On the 26th of May—Ascension Day—cloudless and beautiful toward its closing, there were silent tread and hushed voices among the monks of a great monastery in the county of Durham, in England. All attention along the cloisters was directed toward the passageway of one cell, and eager inquiries of all who came thence if the dying one were still alive.