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.