Quiet Miracles

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry:
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears the human soul!

Emily Dickinson is clever in her description of a book. I love books. They are like good friends who come to visit but are taken for granted. I collect books, all kinds. They line my book shelf quietly waiting for attention. The fact that most of us can read is really a miracle since for most of mankind's history only a select few have been able to read and write.

How is it that we can read, write and own books? Because a man named Johannes Gutenberg (1400-1468) invented the printing press. Visiting the Crandall Museum taught me just how important his invention was and how he changed the world. Until Gutenberg came along, books were hand written, very labor intensive, and expensive. One book would have cost the equivalent of four months wages in the Middle Ages. It took 11 years to produce one copy of the bible. Often books were chained to shelves to prevent theft.

Gutenberg was truly an inspired man. For 436 years no one was able to improve his invention! His formula for printer's metal is still used today, 80% lead, 13% Antimony, and 7% tin. He not only figured out how to make a printing press out of an olive press, he figured out how to make the removable lead-based letters, and a new kind of ink made from boiled linseed oil and soot. Because he set up six printing presses and taught others his secret, thousands of books, especially the Bible, were printed within a relatively short time and became available to the general public.

It is very interesting that the printing press was invented when it was because something happened shortly after in 1492. What? Columbus sailed the ocean blue...and America was discovered. Religious immigrants brought their Bibles to the New World. Joseph Smith's family had one and read it constantly. It shaped him, giving him a strong foundation of Christian faith that was vital to the restoration of the gospel.

After translating the gold plates Joseph Smith came in contact with a man named E.B. Grandin who just happened to own a printing press. And it just so happened that the Erie Canal, which was recently finished, passed right by Palmyra, New York, making it possible for a printing press to be easily transported there. And it just so happened that the first edition of the Book of Mormon, 5,000 copies of it (an unprecedented amount), was printed by E.B. Grandin in a very miraculous way. But that is another story. The restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ could not have taken place without Gutenberg's printing press. Some would call all these interesting developments just a coincidence. What do you think?