The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1904-01-30
THE CHURCH AND PRESS.
The Art of Printing in the EARLY
Days in Europe.

Days in Europe.
There are many who are not aware
that the connection between Catholic
truth and the printing press is one
of ancient date and closest intimacy.
1t has become part and parcel of what
may be styled protestant Legend
that, somehow or another, the printing
press was intimately connected with
the so-called Reformation, and an Eng
fish historian is supposed to have
neatly summed up this view by styling
the printing press 1.-THE great hammer
of the Reformers, by which they broke
to. pieces the power of the papacy."
Whatever may be the subsequent
history and character of the art of
printing, in its origin and early his
tory it was an essentially Catholic art
Catholic in invention, Catholic in it's
use, and especially for long exclusively
consecrated to the propa CATION of
Catholic truth. The invention of the
art of printing from movable types
dates from the year 1441, or ~ years
before the birth of Martin Luther, it's
inventor was almost certainly John
Gutenberg, of NIaintz.
1t will be interesting to know with
what sentiments the new invention
was received by the church and her
ministers at the time. The Carthusian
monk, Werner Rolewinck, greets it
in these terms in 1474: "The art of
printing invented at Maintz is the art
Of arts, the science of sciences,
through whose rapid spread the world
has been enriched and enlightened by
a splendid treasure, hitherto hidden, of
knowledge and wisdom. An endless
number Of books which hitherto were
known to only few students in Ath-
ems or Paris or other universities are
now disseminated by this art through
all races, people and nations, and in
every language" The Benedictine his
torian of Westphalia, Berthard White,
monk of Liesborn, speaks of the art
of printing as one ethan which there
hath never been in the world any art
more worthy, more laudable, more use
full, more holy or divine" Another
contemporary, Jacob Manipulating,
wrote: "We Germans can pride our
selves on no other discovery or intel
lectual production so much as that up
on printing, which has raised us up to
be new intellectual carriers of the
teaching Of Christianity, Of all divine
and mundane knowledge, and so to be
benefactors of all mankind" The old
Chronicle of kolhotf contains the fol-
lowing expressions: How many pray
ers and numberless inward aspirations
are drawn from books! What great
profit and happiness are derived by
those who make or help prepare print
ed books!"
The new art was disseminated
throughout Europe with astonishing
rapidity and inexpressible religious en-
thusiasm; not, be it observed, as a
commercial speculation, as the tele-
phone or typewriter in our own days,
but rather as a religious work and
means Of propa eating religious truth.
From 14G2 to 1900 the names of one
thousand printers, mostly of German
origin, have been preserved. In Mainz
itself, during the very infancy of the
art, five printing presses We're estab-
lished, in Ulm six, in Besel sixteen,
in Augsburg twenty, in Cologne twen-
ty-one; i'll Nuremburg up to 1900 five
and twenty printers had been admit
ted to the rights of citizenship. Before
the end of the fifteenth century, over
one hundred German printing presses
had been established in Italy. By the
same date Spain reckoned thirty print
ers, whom the Spanish poet, Lope de
Vego, elegantly entitled "the armour
ers Of civilization" The art reached
BUDAPEST in 1913, London in 1477, Ok
ford in 147S, Denmark in 1882, Stock
holm in 1883 (the year of Luther's
birth), Constantinople in 1890.
Those early printers who went forth
from the birthplace of the new art to
propagate it in various lands, We're
looked upon by their contemporaries
almost with veneration, as new mis-
sionaries and apostles of the truth.
"As formerly the missionaries Of
Christianity" writes the before quoted
Wimpheiling, $50 now the disciples of
the holy art go forth from Germany
into all lands, and these printed books
become, as it were, heralds of the Cos
pei, preachers of the truth and of
knowledge" "How much all classes
of human society,"" wrote in 1S47,
Adolph Deco, physician to the bishop
of Augsburg, nowadays owe to the
art of printing, which, through the
mercy of Almighty God, has been
made known forth to meet her bride
groom, for He hath endowed her to
overlooking with books of heavenly
wisdom