other ancient Sanscrit works, and I saw the Koran and various Persian works beautifully illuminated. Royal Library. Sanscrit Manuscripts.I was also shown the MSS. of Luther's translation of the Bible, and Guttenberg's Bible in parchment of 1460,—one of the first works printed on moveable types. Various copies of the Bible with corrections and annotations in Luther's handwriting are kept here.
The Germans are deservedly proud of the noble invention of printing, and still more proud of having swept away a gross form of superstition and given to the free and vigorous nations of Europe a healthy form of Christianity. They are no less proud of having expounded to modern Europe for the first time through the immortal Copernicus a correct notion of the world we live in and the worlds around us. The Germans as pioneers of modern civilization.The contributions of the German race to modern civilization and modern thought are thus of a very high order,—and if we can believe patriotic German historians, modern civilization and modern history are German civilization and German history! After the fall of Rome, and when Europe remained sunk in the weakness and demoralization which follow upon subjection, it was the Germans who infused fresh life to the continent and made progress possible. It was the German Franks who introduced new life in Gall, it was the German Anglo-Saxons who introduced fresh life into Britain, it was the German Visogoths who conquered Spain and checked and in time drove back the Moors. It was the Germans who conquered everywhere
