by Charles Carleton Coffin
originally published in 1879
paperback; 404 pages
In this extraordinary volume, the author traces the story of Liberty through five centuries in a captivating and easy-to-read narrative of “the march of the human race from Slavery to Freedom.” Beginning in June 1215, we read of King John Lackland’s signing of Magna Charta at Runnymeade, England. Next the reader is introduced to John Wycliffe, who believed, contrary to the decree of the Pope, that the Bible should be accessible to the common man to read and understand for himself. Wycliffe’s mantle is passed to John Huss, who eventually paid with his life for the conviction that men’s consciences are to be bound by the Word of God and not by the decrees of popes or bishops. Coffin tells how, while carving his children’s name on a tree one quiet afternoon in Haerlem, Holland, Laurence Coster conceived of carving alphabet blocks and tying them together with string to make words. It is not long before the very first pamphlet is printed in 1423. Coster’s idea is improved upon by John Guttenburg, who invents a method of casting metal type and the first type-set edition of the Bible is printed in 1450. The reader will learn how the love of a king for one woman rends the Roman Catholic world in two, resulting in the establishment of the Church of England, how the determination of one man to prove that the earth is not flat leads to the discovery of Liberty’s future home in distant lands, and how the spark of freedom which had flickered in the heart of John Wycliffe so long ago grows into the raging fire of the Protestant Reformation, melting forever the chains with which tyrants have always sought to fetter the consciences of men. Finally, Coffin’s narrative ends with the story of the Pilgrims as they seek to implant the lofty principles of Liberty in the New World.
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