In 1799 the beastly power of Rome, predominated by the Papal
system, received a deadly wound. The people had been taught to believe
in the divine right of kings to rule and the divine right of the clergy
to dominate the conscience of the people. When Napoleon took the Pope a
prisoner and carried him away to France, and when later he refused to
permit the Pope to crown him as king, but put the crown on himself and
treated the Papal claimed authority with contempt, this began to open
the eyes of the peoples of earth, kings as well as people, to the fact
that Papacy did not possess the divine right it claimed.
[403]A short time thereafter the first Bible societies that ever existed
were organized. The British and Foreign Bible Society was established in
1803; the New York Bible Society in 1804; the Berlin-Prussian Bible
Society in 1805; the Philadelphia Bible Society in 1808; and the
American Bible Society in 1817. The Bible was translated and published
in many different languages and sold at such low prices that the poor
could have access to it, and within a short time millions of Bibles were
in the hands of the people. The Papal system denounced these Bible
societies as "pestiferous Bible societies". The time had come, however,
for an increase of knowledge and the Lord was fulfilling his promise by
putting it within the reach of those who were hungry for truth.
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