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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA sion appeared in 1478, and the entire Bible in 1488; at Cutrie in 1498. A Polish edition, with the ap probation of the Pope, appeared in 1556, 1577, 1599 and 1619. An Ethiopian version was printed in Rome in 1548. English Bibles. The Rheims Bible was printed in 1582. This was the first printed Bible, but many manuscript copies of the Bible were in circulation long before Wyck- liffe’s. It may not be amiss to say that the first printed book appeared in 1454. But it is claimed that during what is called the Dark Ages the people knew nothing of the Bible. A deliberate effort was made to teach the people of this error, for the Book of Homilies of the Anglican Protestant Establishment, which in the reigns of Ed ward VI, Elizabeth and James I, was ordered to be read every Sunday in every parish church in England, declared: “Laity and Clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects and degrees of men, women and chil dren of whole Christendom, had been altogether drowned in damnable idolatry and that for the space of eight hundred years or more.” This solemn dec laration, of course, implies that these poor people could not have had the Bible; it likewise disposes of the theory, so dear to the hearts of some of the members of the Established Church, the continuity of the Established with the Catholic Church. Cranmer, whose testimony ought to be of great value, as he was a most bitter enemy of the Catholic Church, says in his preface to the authorized version of 1540: “The Holy Bible was translated and read in the Saxon tongue, which at that time was our mother tongue, and when this language waxed old and out of common usage, because folk should not lack the fruit of reading, it was gaain translated to the newer language.” Dr. Maitland, a Protestant, in his “Essay on the Dark Ages,” p. 470, says: “The writings of the Dark Ages are, if I may use the expression, made of Scrip tures. I do not merely mean that the writers con stantly quoted the Scriptures and appealed to them as authorities on all occasions—though they did this, and it is strong proof of their familiarity with them but I mean that they thought and spoke the thoughts and words and phrases of the Bible, and that they did this constantly and habitually as the natural mode of expressing themselves.” And in the same work (pp. 220, 221) he says: “I have not found any thing in the history of those times about the arts and engines of hostility, the blind hatred of half barbarian kings, the fanatical fury of their subjects, or the reck less antipathy of the Popes. I know of nothing which should lead me to suspect that any human craft or power was exercised to prevent the reading the mul tiplication, the diffusion of the Word of God.” Rev. Dr. Cutts, a Protestant minister, in a work published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, says: “There is a good deal of popular misapprehension about the way in which the Bible Was regarded in the Middle Ages. Some people think it was very little read, even by the clergy; whereas the fact is that the sermons of the medieval preachers 1 1 are more full of Scriptural quotations and allusions than any sermon these days, and the writers on other subjects are so full of Scriptural allusions that it is evident their minds were saturated with Scriptural diction. Another common error is that the clergy were unwilling that the laity should read the Bible for themselves, and carefully kept it in an unknown tongue that the people might not be able to read it. The truth is that most people who could read at all could read Latin and would certainly prefer to read the authorized version to ajny vernacular version. But it is true that translations into the vernacular were made. And we have the authority of Sir Thomas More for saying that the whole Bible was, long be fore Wyckliffe’s time, by virtuous and well-learned men, translated into the English tongue, and by good and godly people, with devotion and soberness, well and reverently read. (Dial. Ill-14.)” The Quarterly Review (October, 1879), in review of Goulburn’s Life of Bishop Herbert di Losinga, says: “The notion that people in the Middle Ages did not read their Bibles is probably exploded, except among the most ignorant of controversialists. But a glance at this volume is enough to show that the notion is not simply a mistake; it is one of the most ludicrous and grotesque of blunders. If having the Bible at their fingers’ ends could have saved the Middle Age teachers from abuse and false doctrines, they were certainly well equipped. They had their minds as saturated with the language and association of the sacred text as the Puritans of the seventeenth cen tury.” The writer of this was a Protestant. I submit that I have furnished abundant evidence that the Reformation was not brought about by the “fortuitous discovery” of the Holy Scriptures, and that the Bible was known, reverenced and read for centuries before the Reformation. DEATH OF MR. TOALE. As we go to press word comes of the death of Mr. George E. Toale, of Augusta, one of the founders of the Catholic Laymen’s Association, and a leader in the business affairs of his city. The end came after a short illness. Mr. Toale was one of the nine men who attended the meeting in Augusta at which the Catholic Lay men’s League plan was launched. He was present at the first convention in 1916, and has been a delegate to every one since. The funeral was held from Sacred Heart Church Thursday, December 30th, and men prominent in the business life of Augusta acted as pallbearers. Inter ment was at Charleston, S. C., where Mr. Toale lived before coming to Augusta. The Association extends its deepest sympathy to Mr. Toale’s wife and relatives. December 21, 1920, was the forty-seventh anniver sary of the ordination of Bishop Keiley to the priest hood. The laymen of the Diocese of Savannah join in heartiest congratulations and the prayer that he will be spared many years as the shepherd of the faithful in Georgia.