A Cause Most Splendid: The Battle for the Bible

If the past teaches anything, its lesson is that religious freedom isn't always free, and some men and women must risk all to preserve this freedom.

The year is 1777.

"Yours is a cause most splendid," Robert Aitken is told. Despite the threat of prison or the hangman's noose if caught, Congressional Journal and Common Sense publisher Aitken is determined to print much-needed Bibles for American colonial troops, churches, and families.

The Royal Family alone has publishing rights to God's Word, the British say, and any unauthorized printing of the King James Bible is not only illegal but a personal slap-in-the-face to the Sovereign. The penalty? The worst.

Aitken's response: "My King is the King of kings. To Him only will I answer."

And so, history is made.