and more than forty different editions of it appeared before the year 1700. Even before any French Protestant version of the Sacred Scripture appeared, another French Catholic translation was made by Nicholas de Leuse, a doctor of Louvain, and was printed at Antwerp in 1534. The first Protestant version was published at Neufchatel in the following year. Perhaps in Germany at least, the native land of Protestantism, the holy Bible was a sealed book to the children of the Catholic Church? No, it was far otherwise. As early as the tenth century Notker Albulus, abbot of the monastery of St. Gallus, translated into German the book of _Psalms_; and a century later most of the other inspired books were translated by William of Ebersberg, in Bavaria, and other religious whose names have not been handed down to us (_Reuss_, pag. 439). In the succeeding centuries several other translations appeared, so much so, that the author of the Cologne version, printed in 1480, was able to affirm in his preface that he availed himself "of a variety of different versions, which were made and circulated both in Lower and Upper Germany, before printing came into use". The first printed German Bible issued from the Mentz press in two volumes in folio about 1462. Other editions seem to have followed soon after; for, in the next earliest edition which is now known, viz., that of Augsburg, in 1477, the editor was able to commend the accuracy of his version, and eulogize it "prae omnibus aliis antea impressis Bibliis Germanicis". So rapid was the diffusion of the printed text, that from 1477 to 1490, this city of Augsburg alone gave five different editions. The city of Nuremberg gave proofs of equal fecundity, having published distinct editions in 1477, 1480, and 1483. The editor of this last edition laid claim to special elegance of type and accuracy of text, "prae omnibus antea impressis Germanicis purius, clarius, et verius"; and, it would seem, justly, for David Clement, who examined the edition, thus describes it: "I saw that magnificent edition in the library of the Duchess of Nuremberg; the paper, the ornamented letters, the illuminated figures so well drawn and engraved around, all so delightful to behold, giving a most pleasing idea of the degree of perfection to which the art of printing had already arrived, and this only thirty years after the invention of movable types". The other chief cities of Germany, Cologne, Lubeck, Halberstadt, Strasburg, and Mentz, had also their distinct editions; and before the year 1500--that is to say, many years before the appearance of Lutheranism--thirty editions of the entire Scriptures were in circulation in the vernacular language of Germany.