The materials which embody the divine revelation have ever been subject to precisely the same exposures and vicissitudes of alternating fortune and misfortune as those to which all other literary productions have been subjected. And, furthermore, it is the well-known fact that the "autograph" copies or the first writings of the New Testament are all lost, and, probably, without the remotest hope of recovery. They are not even mentioned by the authors and writers who succeeded the Apostles as having ever been seen by them. The conclusion is forced upon us that these first copies of the New Testament writings probably all perished before the close of the first century. [The "paper" then in common use was that made from the Egyptian papyrus plant, and this all perished except that which had been fortuitously (but not miraculously) preserved in Egyptian tombs and mummy-cases or under lava-beds at Pompeii and Herculaneum. The oldest of the existing copies of the scriptures are the Sinaitic and the Vatican Manuscripts which were written in the Greek language on vellum parchment at about the middle of the fourth century, and are thus above fifteen and a half centuries old.] In view of this destruction and loss of the originals of the New Testament writings, we may "restore" the "autographs" of our scriptures only by the methods which apply equally to all literature, and which are adequate to the approximate "restoration" of the scripture text, viz., by the translation or counter-translation of later copies and the versions, back to the earlier sources; and thus come, substantially, to the original writings. VI MATERIALS EMBODYING LITERATURE The substances upon which literature has been embodied and by means of which has been preserved and disseminated are matters of far more importance than would be supposed at a superficial reflection. They call for a larger consideration than the modern state and stage of the book-making industry might seem to warrant. Now, if a book is worn out, accidentally destroyed, or "borrowed" by some "good book-keeper" and not returned, it is usually an easy and simple matter to secure another. Not so, previous to the invention of printing. For then, the cost and time required to make a book "by hand" gave to each single copy a distinct individuality and also a correspondingly increased importance. The two chief desiderata of a manuscript book--of a written production which was intended to give currency to a writer's thoughts and at the same time to serve as a more or less permanent depository of them--are _legibility_ and _durability_. He who writes for the publicity of his ideas will not write on stone nor on clay; and he who writes for the preservation of his ideas will not write on ice or dust. And he who writes that his thoughts may be read and understood will not write with a scrawl nor in an illegible "hand."