, 1880-03-18
An Old Bible.

WlJuClSpOOH' S'''H1NS ., .r.-4T , ,
Witherspoon, one Of the sighets Of the
declaration Of independence. The doc
tor was en- educated gentleman, and
Urned me, if | ever came IN, the region
of Greensboro, Ala, to"Ba sure to call
on him, and heEould show mq his won,
derful Bible. | was not slow to accept
his invitation, and rode2 on horseback
some dozen miles out Of my way to SIC,
the greatest wonder OF the age, Of this
kind of book. arn', @l ..lr'il
[ found the venerable doctor living
elegantly on broad acres, and with the
slaves about him, for e,did not seem to
think there was anything in his Bible
against slavery, though his grandfather
signed the declaration, that f'alll men are
created equal The book wss soon
brought out from a careful keeping, and
sure enough, though I had seen for years
the great Van.Ess library, with Bibles
having a, ,chaiu attached that once held
them to pulpit, and the Bible of Philip
Melanctsn with his autograph, I had
never seen any such Bible as this
1 took it in my hand with awe, for it
was written in the days of King Alfred,
and by a monk Of Cornwall, England,
who worked at it forty years-almost a
lifetime-and was evidently on the finest
of parchment, little inferior to satin.
How such finish could be put upon
the skin of any beast in the days so long
ago, when the binding of the book was
IN oak boards, tied with buckskin
thongs, was mystery and almost a con
tradiction. ..I .,.
But more wonderful yet was the writ
ing within. The pages were all ruled
with great accuracy and written as uni
tormly in the lines as print, which was
not then invented, for some 500 years
lay between that old monk and Faust
and Gutenberg, The, style was Ger
man text hand, and was an abbreviation
from the Vulgate of Jerome made in the
fourth century. o L..,i .,, !,
The first chapter Of every book was
written with, a large capital, of inimit-
able beauty and splendidly illuminated
with red, blue and black ink, still in
vivid letters, with no two Of the capital
letters precisely alike Here was indeed
q Dore before him of our age Each
chapter is divided into verses by dot
Of red ink, though L do not remember
when "the venerable Bede" made his
division Of Scriptures into chapters and
verses This dot of the Bible / speak
of may have been the work Of subse-
quent age.
As toYthe size of the book, it was
about that of an old Ainsworth Latin
Electromagnetic kind that was mistaken
for Bible once by family in Alabama,
and brought out at the request of cal
porteur, who wished to see their Bible
This manuscript Bible of Witherspoon's
contained all the books Of the Old Testa-
ment except the Psalms and the Apocry-
pha. Two chapters, the last of Leviticus
and the first Of Numbers, containing the
most splendid capital letters in the
book, had been recently wantonly ab-
stracted or cut out, in the house of DIR.
Witherspoon, by some Biblio-maniac,
who did not dare steal the whole book.
1t contains, also, the whole Of the New
Teatament, except the chapter where
the disputed text occurs, about the
three who bear record in Heaven",T
In regard to the history of this Bible,
the doctor told me that it was found by
a friend of his father among)a lot of old
books bought at lauction for song
some twenty shillings-and taken to a
clergyman, Rev. DIR. McCalla, Of South
Carolina, as a book that the purchaser
could not make head nor tail of, and
which might be Of value to some hook
learned man. The clergyman readily
gave him some half dozen books for it
from his library, such as could be easily
"understanded by the people" and Inc
man was happy in the exchange. Dr.
Mccall certainly was, for he had driven
a sharp bargain, and had a book that
was worth, wien first written, $4,000,
and would be worth that now to any old
book worm-who desireth not new books
any more than new wine, "for he saith
tho old is better"
This heirloom barely escaped getting
out of the family line, for it was once
loaned by DIR. Witherspoon,. but he had
the forethought to put the borrower un.
der written bonls to return it, and the
man dying, the book was lent by his
widow to some third person, and finally
found its way, as rare treasure, into
some college, Harvard, 4 think, whence
it was recovered under threat Of a suit