two prelati, who had been ordered to watch him, acted as if they had a criminal in charge. They would not let me open the volume," he says, "without searching my pockets to deprive me of pen, ink and paper." They sought to distract his attention by rude talk and laughter. If he began to look closely at a passage, they would roughly snatch the volume away. The fortune of Dean Alford, in 1861, was scarcely better. Although he had gained from the very highest authority, the papal prime minister, Antonelli himself, a special order authorizing him "to verify passages," it would seem that the custodians must have had a secret hint that the order was to be rendered practically worthless. For Alford found, to his surprise and chagrin, that the librarian insisted upon interpreting the order to mean "that he was to see the book, not to use it." But the world moves, even at Rome. Five years later, Tischendorf secured the privilege of studying these wonderful pages for fourteen days, of three hours each; and, by the aid of his accurate paleographical learning and marvelous memory, succeeded in giving the world a far better copy of this bible than had yet been known. The failure of Mai's disgracefully imperfect edition has resulted in the authoritative production of a new reprint, copying the words letter for letter.

Let us imagine now that we have secured the orders necessary for a view of this priceless volume, and that the watchful attendants have opened its locked cabinet and placed the book on the table before us. We behold a heavy quarto, bound in dingy red morocco covers, containing 759 leaves of very thin and delicate vellum. The appearance of great antiquity speaks to the eye at once of the countless years of use through which the book has passed. But if we ask what is known of its history before it was brought to this "magnificent mausoleum of dead books," the answer is disappointing. Its external history previous to A. D. 1475, when it was first enrolled in the Vatican catalogue, has entirely perished.

No one can tell who brought the Vatican Bible to Rome, or whence it came. Was it conveyed thither by the learned John Bes

sarion, the patriarch of Constantinople, who contributed so largely to the revival of learning in the fifteenth century, and turned his own residence into an academy and home for literary men? So some have thought. Was it written in Alexandria, fifteen and a half centuries ago, when that splendid city was the chief seat of Christian learning, and its bishop, the powerful Athanasius, was entitled the "Judge of the World?" Many great scholars have so conjectured. Or did it originate in Southern Italy, the Magna Grecia of old, when its cities were so celebrated for their literary culture? So the most recent investigators infer, arguing from the peculiar similarity between its style of handwriting and that of the Herculaneum papyri, and from the extensive agreements between its readings and those of the other most ancient manuscripts of South Italy, some of which they think must have been copied from this very book. But these, with all other theories of its origin and early history, belong to the realm of conjecture. From what source it issued; what hands wrote these faded lines; in what palaces, castles, monasteries, it has lain from age to age; along what currents it has floated down the centuries; through what perils of wars and conflagrations in different countries it has passed unscathed -these are inquiries which offer wide room for the activity of the historic imagination; but the facts that would answer them are shrouded from us in the oblivion of forgotten things.

Our chief knowledge of the Vatican Bible is derived from its own pages; and these, though they cannot tell us the story of its origin and lines of transmission, exhibit manifold evidences of its extreme antiquity and value. The six narrow columns of small, square, precisely written letters shown by each open double page; the continuous writing, without breaks into words or sentences; the absence of capitals, accents, breathings and punctuation marks; the retouching of the original handwriting, now much faded by lapse of ages; the peculiar paleographic division into sections, antedating the Euthalian, Eusebian, and even the Ammonian canons (A. D. 340)—all

justify the conclusion that this very copy of the Scriptures must have been written during the first quarter or half of the fourth century. Such scholars as Dr. Scrivener agree with Dr. Tregelles in placing the writing between A. D. 300 and A. D. 325. Davidson and Tischendorf would put it nearly at A. D. 350; while Westcott and Alford assign it to the same century without indicating more precisely the date.

The Vatican Bible contains the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament except the first forty-five chapters of Genesis and Psalms 105-37, which have been lost. In the New Testament the portion after Hebrews 9: 14, and with it First and Second Titus, Philemon, and the entire Apocalypse are wanting, these missing parts being substituted in a comparatively recent handwriting of the fifteenth century. Dr. Tregelles, a consummate paleographist, told Dr. Scrivener that he was "deeply impressed with the general appearance of the manuscript, as being far more venerable than anything else he had ever seen," and said that, while he felt quite sure that it was already written at the time of the council of Nice, A. D. 325, he did not like to say how much earlier it might well have been written.

While the seclusion of the Vatican Bible in its splendid repository at Rome is a distinguishing fact in its history, the most striking circumstance in our knowledge of the Sinai Bible, is the strange place and story of its discovery. The Vatican palace is encircled and filled with the monuments of human art, and its air is tremulous with the chantings of papal worship, or the incessant footfalls of devotion and curiosity crowding thither from all the world. But about the lonely fortress convent is spread the perpetual silence of the desert, and over its walls and towers frown the awful crags of Sinai. Among human abodes a center of busier concourse could hardly be contrasted with a spot of more utter isolation.

The convent stands in a valley so narrow that, while its lower wall touches the dry bed of the torrent, which sweeps down the wady for a few weeks only in the year, its side walls mount steeply along 250 feet up

the slope of the mountain. On each side rise fantastic mountain peaks, not dull and uniform in aspect, but glowing with gorgeous colors, streaked with crimson, green, lilac, purple and pink, varying from the dark red of granite, or the dead black of basalt to the dazzling white of limestone. The convent buildings are enclosed within heavy walls of red brick and granite. They are rude and irregular, constructed in different ages, and many of them now unused and half ruined. The chief building is the great church, probably thirteen centuries old. Its interior is profusely decorated with pictures, hung with silver lamps, and enriched with costly offerings.

The convent has its library in a large, plain apartment, rarely visited by the monks, and, on account of their jealous suspicions, usually closed against strangers. It is this ancient library which has turned the eyes of the world of scholars with such marked interest towards this decaying, and almost deserted, monastery. For it has furnished a more precious contribution to Scripture learning than the proudest and wealthiest capital of Europe could make. Its preservation of one book through so many centuries is a service to Christianity of such value as to inspire grateful recognition of the Providence which buried it so securely from the perils of the past, and has disentombed it so signally in our day.

In the year 1814, Constantine Tischendorf, a young German scholar, made a journey into the East to discover ancient Scriptures, which might be reposing unknown in its dilapidated monasteries. In the course of his explorations, he visited this ancient convent at the base of Mount Sinai, and was hospitably received by the monks, who even admitted him to their neglected library. In the middle of the room was a large waste basket heaped with torn pages and fragments of old parchment. While Tischendorf was looking them over, he was told that the contents were worthless, having been gathered to be burned. But in that basket he discovered 120 leaves from one of the most ancient Greek Bibles he had ever beheld. He asked for them, but was allowed to keep only forty-three;

and notes have been written, are noticeable among the evidences of the antiquity of the original writing.

The first fuc-similes of the Sinai Bible had hardly been issued when a curious attack was made upon it. A certain wily Greek, named Simonides, declared that the book, so far from being a relic of extreme antiquity, was merely a piece of his own handiwork. He said he had written it between November, 1839, and August, 1840, for his uncle, then Superior of a monastery, on Mt. Athos. It was to be a copy from a Moscow Bible, in antique style and uncial letters, and upon vellum. He afterwards gave it to the archbishop of Sinai, who had sent it to the Sinai convent, where he himself had since seen it twice.

This extravagant story was at once tested more rigorously than its author relished. Simonides was proved to be a perjurer and a forger in some of his previous exploits. He could produce no living witness in behalf of his tale. Both the archbishop and the "uncle," whose names he had made use of, had conveniently died before the Greek concocted his narrative. The librarian and brethren at Mt. Sinai testified that Simonides had never been seen at the convent, and declared that the Bible had certainly been in the convent throughout their memory, and that its title stood duly entered in all the ancient catalogues. Further examination showed that the story of the Greek involved the curious improbability that this pretended copying took place at a time when, according to his own previous statements, he could have been only fifteen years old. A little calculation showed that this precocious boy must have written at the rate of 20,000 large, separate uncial characters (which are peculiarly slow of construction) every successive day for nine months. When this difficulty was brought to light, Simonides took refuge in the perfectly safe offer to do the same task for the trifling sum of $50,000, which he knew was not likely to be raised. It was noticed, however, that he did not consent to prove his ability by sitting down, in the presence of competent examiners, and doing one day's copying at the rate at which he pre

tended to have written the whole. Finally, a critical examination of the Sinai Bible, the worn and decayed appearance of the volume, the fading of the inks in some places even to indistinctness, the many interlineations by different hands, and in the styles of writing characteristic of different ages, and even the peculiar blunders of the scribe and the marked similarity of readings to those of the few other ancient bibles which are extant, made it perfectly certain that the Greek's extravagant claim was utterly false. The one useful result of his preposterous attack was to turn the attention of scholars so strongly upon the abundant proofs of the great age of the Sinai Bible, that its position and value were thenceforth impregnably established in the world of letters.

It is an interesting fact that each of the three great divisions of the Christian church possesses one of the three most ancient and valuable Bibles in existence. The Roman church holds the Vatican Bible; the Greek church has secured the Sinai Bible; and the leading Protestant nation, the English people, are using the Alexandrian Bible. Such a division of these three important Scriptures will be regarded by many as a mere coincidence, but by some as a Providence.

The name of the Vatican Bible recalls its long and close seclusion in its splendid palatial tomb; that of the Sinai Bible, its strange recovery from the crumbling convent at the foot of the mount of God; while the Alexandrian is associated with the thoughts of scholarly use, with the open doors, the frequented halls, and the silent but ceaseless industries of scholarship in the British Museum. Within these walls students are gathered from all parts of the world. Germans and Italians, French and Americans, Greeks, Persians and Hindoos all are welcomed and afforded the amplest facilities for work in the grandest scientific, historic and literary collection on the globe. Such an experience there as that of the writer of these lines, deserves grateful mention. He was cordially received, introduced to the ancient manuscript department, provided freely with the services of competent assistants, and