[402]When that time should arrive, what was to be expected?  Jehovah answers:  “Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased”.  (Daniel 12:4) From and shortly after 1799, the date of the beginning of “the time of the end”, we should expect to find an increase of knowledge, particularly with reference to the Bible.  Prior to that time the people had been kept in ignorance of the Bible.  It was the practice of the Papacy to forbid any one aside from the clergy class to have access to the Bible; in fact, it was made a crime under the Roman law, subjecting the offender to heavy penalties for having in possession a copy of the Bible.  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.  The people began to learn that God is no respecter of persons; that kings and popes, priests and the common people alike must all render their account to the Lord and not to man.

[404]From that time forward there has been a great corresponding increase of knowledge in all the sciences; and in fact, in all lines of learning.  The common school, always opposed by the Papacy, has afforded a means of general education and increase of knowledge for people in all walks of life.  Colleges and universities have sprung up throughout the world.  With the increase of knowledge on various lines have come the numerous inventions that man now has, time-and labor-saving machines, etc.