"But think of the time it must have taken to make them by hand!" speculated Paul.
"Time was no object in those days," smiled his father. "There was nothing to hurry about. A monk would toil at a single manuscript day after day, month after month; sometimes year after year. It must have been a sleepy, tiresome business to write out even a short manuscript so carefully, to say nothing of a long one like the Bible. What wonder that the patient workers were so glad when their tedious task was done that they inscribed at the end of it a little song of thanksgiving. I remember seeing one old book in a European museum at the end of which was written:
"'This book was illuminated, bound, and perfected by Henry Cremer, vicar of the Collegiate Church of Saint Stephen in Metz, on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, in the year of our Lord 1456.
"'Thanks be to God, Hallelujah!'
"No doubt the pious Henry Cremer was thankful for many other things besides the completion of his manuscript, but I am sure he must have been human enough to draw a sigh of relief when he put the last stroke to such a tedious piece of work. Don't you think so?"
"I'll bet he was," agreed Paul.
"Can't you see those patient monks alone in their dimly lighted cells, silently writing day after day?" continued Mr. Cameron. "Many a poor fellow who drudged so mechanically at his task copied the errors in the text quite as faithfully as the rest of it. In consequence, it at last became imperative to demand that the scribes work with more intelligence, and therefore at the end of a manuscript would be such an admonition as this:
"'I adjure thee who shall transcribe this book by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by His glorious coming to judge the quick and the dead, that thou compare what thou transcribest and correct it carefully according to the copy from which thou transcribest, and that thou also annex a copy of this adjuration to what thou hast written.'
"Thus, you see, was the copyist forced to study his text and pass the caution against mistakes on to others. Nevertheless, solemn and reverent as was this warning, it did not prevent errors from slipping into the old illuminated manuscripts, and many a one is marred by misspelling or miswording."
"I don't wonder it is," exclaimed Paul. "Why, the very thought that I must not make a mistake would cause me to make one. Besides, I should get so sleepy after I had written for hours that I should not know what I was doing."