A Precious Volume.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 8, 20 February 1902, Page 13

A Precious Volume.

Perhaps the most beautiful volume among the five hundred thousand in the Congressional Library at Washington, is a Bible which was transcribed by a monk in the sixteenth century. It could not be matched to-day in the best printing office in the world. The parchment is in perfect preservation. Every one of its one thousand pages is a study. The general lettering is in German text, each letter perfect, and every one of them in coal-black ink, without a scratch or blot from lid to- lid. At the beginning of each chapter the first letter is very large, usually two or three inches long, and is brightly illuminated in blue or red ink. Within each of these initials there is drawn the figure of some saint, or some incident of which the following chapter tells is illustrated. There are two columns on a page, and nowhere is traceable the slightest irregularity of line, space, or formation of the letters. Even under a magnifying glass they seem flawless. The precious volume is kept under a glass case, which is sometimes lifted to show that all the pages are as perfect as the two which lie open. A legend relates that a young man who had sinned deeply became a monk and resolved to do penance for his misdeeds. He determined to copy the Bible, that he might learn every letter of the divine commands he had violated. Every day for years he patiently pursued his task. Each letter was wrought with reverence and love, and the penitent soul found its only companionship in the saintly faces which were portrayed on these pages.