PLATE TO FACE PAGE I. HARVARD PAPYRUS. ROMANS 1 : 1-7 14 II. ORIGEN'S HEXAPLA 16 III. CODEX SINAITICUS 28 IV. ROLL AND BOOK 30 V. VIENNA GENESIS 32 VI. JOSHUA ROLL 38 VII. THE LORD'S PRAYER ON A POTSHERD 46 VIII. GOTHIC BIBLE 50 IX. ALCUIN'S BIBLE 52 X. THEODULF'S BIBLE 54 XI. LINDISFARNE GOSPELS 66 XII. BYZANTINE MINIATURE 70 XIII. ENGLISH MINIATURE 82 XIV. WYCLIFFE'S BIBLE 116 XV. GUTENBERG'S FIRST PRINTED BIBLE 122 XVI. FIRST PRINTED GERMAN BIBLE 126 THE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE ON CIVILISATION I THE BIBLE MAKES ITSELF INDISPENSABLE FOR THE CHURCH (UNTIL 325 A. D.) There is a small book; one can put it in one's pocket, and yet all the libraries of America, numerous as they are, would hardly be large enough to hold all the books which have been inspired by this one little volume. The reader will know what I am speaking of; it is the Bible, as we are used to call it--the Book, the book of mankind, as it has properly been called. It has been commented upon, treated in every way, but, curious to say, hardly any one has attempted to trace its history through the centuries and mark the influence which it exerted upon our civilisation. In order to do this we follow the traces of the Bible through the different periods of human or, to speak more accurately, of Christian civilisation. In the first period of Christian history, the time of persecutions during the first three centuries of our era, there is not much to say about the Bible as influencing civilisation. Christianity was but starting on its way and fighting for its place in the world. The Bible could not exert a civilising influence upon a hostile world. But by impressing its value upon the Christian mind it made itself indispensable for the church and thereby laid the foundation for the future development.