Special Devotion Prayer Cards

Special holy cards are printed by Catholics to be distributed at funerals; these are "memorial cards", with details of the person whom they commemorate as well as prayers printed on the back. Other specialized holy cards remember baptisms, confirmations, and other religious anniversaries. Others are not customized, and circulate to promote the veneration of the saints and images they bear. At the end of the nineteenth century, some Protestant denominations attempted to answer these Catholic images with similar images of their own. They produced "Bible cards" or "Sunday school cards", with lithographed illustrations depicting Biblical stories and parables, more modern scenes of religious life or prayer, or sometimes just a Biblical text illuminated by calligraphy; these were linked to Biblical passages that related to the image. The reverse typically held a brief sermon instead of a prayer. Imagery here was always the servant of text, and as such these Protestant cards tended to be replaced by tracts that emphasized message instead of imagery, and were illustrated with cartoon-like images if they were illustrated at all.