ULAR ILLUSTRATED REPORT
E BRITISH AND FOREIGN
E society: 1902-1903::

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Gift of the Publishers

THE CONQUESTS OF THE BIBLE

A Street in antioch.
The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. Here also the first Christian mission was organized,
and the earliest translation of the New Testament had its origin.

T

HE CONQUESTS
OF THE BIBLE
A POPULAR ILLUSTRATED REPORT
OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN
BIBLE SOCIETY FOR THE YEAR 1902-3

CAPTAINS AND CONQUERORS LEAVE A LITTLE DUST
AND KINGS A DUBIOUS LEGEND OF THEIR REIGN
THE SWORDS OF CAESAR THEY ARE LESS THAN RUST
THE BIBLE DOTH REMAIN

THE BIBLE HOUSE
146 QUEEN VICTORIA ST. LONDON E.C. 1903

INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Most of the incidents and all the statistics in the
following pages belong to last yea/s record. This period
is reckoned to end — as regards the Society's foreign
work, on December "jist, 1902 — and as regards iis home
ivork, on March j,ist, 1903. The illustrations are repro
duced from photographs, and have been prepared by the
Photochrom Company.
r. H. DARLOW,
The Bible House, Literary Superintendent.
Sept., 1903.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Introductory ...... i
II. The Power of the Book .... 12
III. God's Message in all Tongues . . . .24
IV. The Partner of Missions ... 35
V. The INTERN.4TI0NAL WORD . . . -5°
VI. A Widening Kingdom ... 72
VII. The Witness and the Reconciler . 88
viii. Figures and Finance .... 99
IX. Appendix ...... 107

THE CONQUESTS OF
THE BIBLE

INTRODUCTORY
Fool ! why journeyesi thou wearisomely, in thy antiquarian fervour,
to gaze at the stone pyramids of Geesa, or the clay ones of Sacchara ?
These stand there, as I can tell thee, idle and inert, looking over the
Desert, foolishly enough for the last three thousand years: but canst
thou not open thy Hebrew Bible, then, or even Luther's Version thereof f
— "Sartor Resartus," ii. 8.
The Gospel is like the great mountains, which take new
colours and group themselves into fresh masses and
outlines as we view them from this side or that, in sun
light or starlight or storm. So Christianity reveals itself
in many phases as we gaze at it from different standpoints
and approach it along various avenues of life and ex
perience. To some inquiring minds it glimmers afar off,
as the Eternal Spirit of goodness brooding on the face of
these turbid waters of time. By others it is recognised
as an ancient historic faith, the noblest amid many rivals
and competitors. To others, again, it appears articulated
in its creed, with a definite view of God and the world,
2

2 THE CONQUESTS
which interprets and fulfils the broken, perplexed be
liefs of men. There are many other minds to which
Christianity comes transmitted and embodied in a society,
with its own traditions and institutions and symbols, with
its own way of working and type of character. To others,
again, and pre-eminently to English-speaking folk, Chris
tianity presents itself summed up in its sacred records.
It speaks most authentically in the accents of prophets
and apostles and evangelists. It has its home and head
quarters in the Bible. Of the Christians who will read
this Report, the vast majority feel that religion for them
is inextricably bound up with Holy Scripture. They
might be called " Bible Christians" in the simplest sense
of that name, for it is in the pages of the Bible that
they find themselves face to face with Him who is their
Lover, their Redeemer, their Judge. Beyond any other
means of grace, their inward life draws from the deep
fountains of the .New Testament. Amid the conflict of
ecclesiastical authorities, their hearts pay homage to the
Book of God.
The Book of the Martyrs,
The place held by Holy Scripture in the faith of primi
tive Christians receives striking illustration from a source
which is the more impressive because it is the uncon
scious testimony of their antagonists. The last and
fiercest struggle between the early Church and the pagan
Empire was waged in the persecution under Diocletian.
One most significant feature in that awful confhct
was the organized attempt to capture and destroy all
copies of the Scriptures. The persecutors realized that
it was of little use to kill off the martyrs while, as fast

OF THE BIBLE 3
as they fell, fresh confessors sprang up to take their
places. " The books contained the secret of the Church's
vitality. In them, it was instinctively felt by the
heathen, were the words of eternal life."
The Word in Type,
While we recognise and emphasise this supremacy of
the Bible in Christian history and experience, we are very
far indeed from implying that men cannot be Christians
unless they are also Bible-readers. For century after
century the art df reading remained a rare accomplish
ment throughout Christendom, while written books were
scarce and costly and the Scriptures practically did not
exist in the vulgar tongue. Yet while God tolerated the
times of this ignorance. He never left Himself without
living epistles, and the long succession of His saints kept
faith alive through ages of ignorance and superstition.
And in that fifteenth century when so many old things
were passing away, when the lamp that had flamed or
flickered for a thousand years by the Bosphorus was
quenched at last, and the scattered scholars from Con
stantinople fled westward for refuge, carrying with them
the relics of ancient learning, then surely it was no acci
dent that before many months were over the first printing
press had begun its work in the Rhineland, and Guten
berg's Latin Bible appeared as the harbinger of a new
sunrise. By the miracle of type, truth was multiplied so
that it became the heritage of gentle and simple alike ; it
belonged henceforth to peasants as well as to nobles and
clerics. We who live in the twentieth century can
but dimly realize how wonderful a revolution was thus
inaugurated without sound of trumpet, how profound

4 THE CONQUESTS
and far-reaching have been its effects through each
succeeding generation.
Far and wide, North and South, East and West, have dominion
O'er thought, ivingcd wonder, O Word! Traverse world
In sun-flash and sphere-ray ! Each beat of thy pinion
Bursts night, beckons day : once Truth's banner unfurled,
Where's falsehood f Sun-smitten, to nothingness hurled 1 '
The Rediscovery of the Bible,
Before the sixteenth century closed nearly every country
in Europe possessed the message of Christ's love and
redemption in its vernacular language. In one of Mr.
Kipling's most powerful ballads he sneers at the man who
' took God from a printed book.' Yet it is simple matter
of history that the New Testament, printed in men's
familiar speech, did prove the bringing in of a better
hope for the Church and for the world. When once
plain people could read it in their own mother-tongue,
they found themselves carried back behind tradition to
the original source and well-spring of Christianity. By
unanimous impulse they claimed to learn for themselves
that Gospel which appeals so naturally and directly and
fearlessly to the common judgment and conscience of
mankind. We may say indeed that the Reformation
resulted from the rediscovery of the Bible. Under this
new searchlight, the corruptions of medieval Christen
dom shrivelled and withered and began to vanish away.
There came to pass then what has often happened, and
never fails to happen— Christianity was purified and
revivified, as it was confronted with Christ Himself in
the Scriptures. ' R. Browning, Fust and his Friends.

OF THE BIBLE 5
The Reformers and the Scriptures,
The strength of the Reformers lay in their spiritual
understanding and use of the Bible. They discovered
there nothing else but God's living Gospel, and in their
hands the Book became a well-nigh irresistible weapon.
Their mighty hold on the secret of Scripture has been
excellently expressed by a great modern scholar, who on
this point at least revived their original teaching. " If I
am asked why I receive Scripture as the Word of God,
and as the only perfect rule of faith and life, I answer
with all the fathers of the Protestant Church, Because ihe
Bible is the only record of ihe redeeming love of God, because
in the Bible alone I find God drawing near to man in Christ
Jesus, and declaring to us in Him His will for our salvation.
And this record I know to be true by the witness of His Spirit
in my heart, whereby I am assured that none other than
God Himself is able to speak such words to my soid."
It is this spiritual authority of the Bible which has
established it as the supreme and abiding standard
of the Church, by which Christians must school and
test themselves alike in doctrine and devotion, in creed
and conduct. For even "things ordained by General
Councils as necessary to salvation have neither strength
nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be
taken out of Holy Scripture." But to say this much is not
sufficient. The Book refuses to be treated merely as a
record of origins, as the most venerable monument
of the Christian past. Its place is among the living.
Power and energy belong to its very essence. It moves
in the midst of men, armed with strange unearthly forces
and virtues. It is ever working the works of Him who
sent it to be the vital implement and agent of His pur-

6 THE CONQUESTS
pose of redeeming love. We may say of the New Testa
ment, in the phrases of a present-day teacher, that it is
always judging and always making war. It has eyes like
a flame of fire, and on its head are many crowns. " And
no matter how it may be bound, it is clothed with a
vesture dipped in blood. No picture or rood can speak
to us so plainly of the Cross of Jesus Christ as the New
Testament.""Christianity without the Bible,"
It is true indeed that the Reformation proved to be
partial and imperfect. The largest fragment of modern
Christendom continues its fatal, inveterate poUcy of
exalting tradition against Scripture, and in most countries
still resists the free circulation of the open Bible. The
Bishop of Worcester has publicly lamented " the deplor
able, the disastrous reluctance of the Roman Church to
give their people the Scriptures in their own languages."
Something will be said, later, about the bitter fruits of
this policy as seen in nations. A distinguished English
novelist, who was certainly no Protestant bigot, has given
us a sketch of its effects on an individual character. The
late Mr. J. H. Shorthouse, in his remarkable romance, Jo/ni
Inglesant, depicts the peculiar form which Christianity
assumed in his hero's mind : " It was similar in many
respects to that which prevails in the present day in most
Roman Catholic countries, and may be described as
Christianity without the Bible. It is doubtful whether,
except perhaps once or twice in College Chapel, Inglesant
had ever read a chapter of the Bible himself in his life.
Certainly he never possessed a Bible himself : of its
contents, excepting those portions which are read in

OF THE BIBLE 7
Church and those contained in ttie Prayer Book, he was
profoundly ignorant. ... It had not been included in the
course of studies set him by the Jesuit." As we follow
that fascinating story, we realize how John Inglesant's
chequered career betrays the ethical and spiritual defects
of a faith which is divorced from the Scriptures. Had he
been as familiar with the New Testament as he was with
Plato, his worst lapses would have become impossible,
and his ardour of devotion might have been cleansed from
worldliness and redeemed into constancy.
The Book of Revivals.
When we consider those seasons of spiritual quickening
which God sends to reanimate and restore His Church,
we become aware of one infallible sign and token of such
a time. A genuine revival of Christianity goes hand in
hand with a fresh reverence and regard for the Scriptures,
a fresh desire to possess them, a new and deeper sense of
their meaning and their power. So it was in the age
when Puritanism arose "to triumph over many kings
and to civilize many continents." During Elizabeth's
reign more than 120 editions of the Bible or New Testa
ment in the vulgar tongue were published in England.
The result has been described by a modern historian in
often-quoted words, which will bear quoting again :—
"No greater moral change ever passed over a nation
than passed over England during the years which parted
the middle of the reign of Elizabeth from the meeting of
the Long Parliament. England became the people of a
book, and that book was the Bible. It was as yet the
one English book which was familiar to every English
man ; it was read at churches and read at home, and

8 THE CONQUESTS
everywhere its words, as they fell on ears which custom
had not deadened to their force and beauty, kindled a
startling enthusiasm. . . . Sunday after Sunday, day after
day, the crowds that gathered round Bonner's Bibles in
the nave of St. Paul's, or the family group that hung on
the words of the Geneva Bible in the devotional exer
cises at home, were leavened with a new literature. . . .
Elizabeth might tune her pulpits ; but it was impossible
for her to silence or tune the great preachers of justice
and mercy and truth which she had again opened for her
people. . . . And its effect was simply amazing. The
whole temper of the nation was changed. A new con
ception of life and of man superseded the old. A new
moral and religious impulse spread through every class.
. . . The whole nation became, in fact, a Church." ^
The same connection between a revival of religion
and the study of the Scriptures was witnessed when the
eighteenth century dawned in Germany, and the Pietist
movement within and beyond the Lutheran Church was
awakening fresh spiritual life, which became the mother
of new missionary enterprise. Forthwith we find at
Halle the Canstein Bible Institution, founded in 1710,
inspired and directed by Francke, who had already
originated his famous Halle Orphanage. In ninety-five
years, this Canstein Institution issued over three
millions of Bibles and Testaments printed in various
languages and dispersed through many countries.
A New Demand for the Scriptures,
When the eighteenth century ended, the same cause
and effect were seen in our own land. Profound Chris-
' J. R. Green, A Short History of ihe English People, viii. i.

OF THE BIBLE 9
tian thinkers like Bishop Butler had almost despaired of
the future of English religion, just as the hidden fire
of faith was being rekindled in the hearts and homes
of the poor. The Methodist and the Evangelical revivals
stirred up their converts everywhere to pore over the
Gospel page. It was because men and women had once
more grown hungry for the Scriptures that copies of the
Scriptures became scarce. Tlie new demand outran the
old supply. After various attempts, more or less in
effectual, had been made to cope with this necessity,
there was founded, ninety-nine years ago, the Society
which has proved itself the greatest organ and instrument
for disseminating the Bible which the Christian Church
has ever known.
The Birth of the Bible Society,
It is curious to read how the formation of the Bible
Society was reported in The Gentleman's Magazine for
1804 : " Wednesday, March 7th.
" At a numerous and respectable meeting of persons of
various denominations, held this day at the London Tavern :
" Granville Sharpe, esq. in the Chair
" A Society was formed for the circulation of the Holy
Scriptures ; whose object is grand and simple ; to promote
the circulation of the Holy Scriptures in the principal living
languages. In such an object all sincere Christians, of every
description, may cordially unite. The Society looks, there
fore, with confidence for liberal support, both at home and
abroad. In pursuance of the broad and extensive scale on
which the Society is formed and which commenced with
a very liberal subscription, three secretaries of different
denominations have been appointed, viz., the Rev. Josiah
Pratt, Lecturer of the united parishes of St. Mary Woolnoth,

10 THE CONQUESTS
and St. Mary Woolchurch ; the Rev. Joseph Hughes, Dis
senting Minister at Battersea ; and the Rev. Charles Frederick
Steinkopff, Minister of the Lutheran Church in the Savoy."
Amid our preparations to celebrate the Society's Cen
tenary we read with interest that on the morning of its
birth the weather was "fair", without frost. But what
lowering storm-clouds darkened the political sky may be
imagined from two ominous details. On that day in the
City three per cent. Consols stood at 56J ; and the same
evening in the House of Commons Mr. Fox and Mr.
Canning took part in a heated debate on "the insurrection
in Ireland". In truth, the national outlook could hardly
have been more gloomy and menacing. As the year
opened. Napoleon had proclaimed himself Emperor ot
the French, and his grand army for the invasion of
England lay encamped within sight of the Kentish
coast. The country seemed on the brink of ruin. Our
trade was half-paralysed ; our poor were half-starving.
Wordsworth had just written the sonnet which begins :
These times touch monied Worldlings with dismay ;
Even rich men, brave by nature, taint the air
With words of apprehension and despair.
Yet in the climax of such distress and perplexity and
peril, amid wars and rumours of wars, the fathers of the
Bible Society had faith to launch their new venture,
which undertook to publish among all nations the Gospel
of peace.
The Society's Creed,
From its first foundation the Bible Society has been
catholic in the best sense of the word. Its members
and managers have been drawn from every Reformed

OF THE BIBLE ii
communion. Again and again it has received most
valuable countenance and support from the ancient
Churches in the East and in Russia. Its friends and
officials in England have never pretended to agree on
many grave theological and ecclesiastical questions. But
they have believed enthusiastically in ,the power and
preciousness of Holy Scripture. They have been as
one man in their conviction that it is most good and
needful for every human being who can read that he
should possess God's message in his own mother tongue.
The Bible Society has existed for that sole and simple
object. Since its first birthday it has spent nearly
fourteen millions sterling, and it has circulated more
than 180,000,000 copies of the Scriptures in 370 different
languages and dialects. During this past year its ex
penditure has exceeded a quarter of a million pounds,
and its circulation has approached six millions of Bibles,
Testaments, and Portions in all the great vernaculars of
the world. The chapters which follow will endeavour
to show how the Society has not laboured in vain, or
spent its strength for nought.

12 THE CONQUESTS

11
THE POWER OF THE BOOK
The chief proof, after all, thai the Bible is good food, is Ihe eating
of it : the healing efficacy of ihe medicine, when it is used, is a
demonstration that it is good. — General Gordon.
In media3val legends we hear of magic books, by virtue
of which wizards like Merlin and Prospero could work
enchantment and exercise superhuman powers. And
behind these stories we may recognise some dim primi
tive sense of the mystery of language and the strange
spell of written words. The Bible itself, like other sacred
writings, has been sometimes treated as a fetish. It has
been used, as the .^Eneid was used, for purposes of divina
tion, and degraded, as the relics of saints were degraded,
into a material charm. Only last year, for example, a
woman in Brabant bought St. John's Gospel from one
of our Colporteurs, and then strongly advised her neigh
bours to buy copies also, declaring that this was the
best ' prayer ' to expel rats, mice, and moles. Such
superstitions are the opaque shadows cast by brilliant
light. The fact is incontestable that the Bible does
exercise a unique and unearthly potency of its own.
This Book goes on proving its inspiration and authority
year after year and day after day, by the mighty

Reproduced frorn The Queen's Empire, by per^Jiission of

Cassell a- Co. . Ltd. Photo by l-F. % Tapley, Ottawa.

Ottawa and its River.
In British North America the Bible Society has twelve Auxiliaries with 1,100 Branches, whose Free Contributions last year amounted to ;£6,272.

OF THE BIBLE 13
spiritual power which it exerts upon the hearts and
lives of multitudes in all quarters of the world. When
Christians call their Bible "the Word of God," they
are naturally thinking about those parts of it in which
they have heard God speaking to their own souls, and
giving them life and pardon and joy. For the "Word
of God is nothing else than the personal expression to
us of God and His Will for our salvation. And the end
and object of Scripture are to convey to us this message
of redeeming love, which the witness of the Spirit attests
to be God's infallible Word."
The Witness of Experience,
What is the proof that the Bible possesses such a
power ? " There is no proof," it has been said, " that a
thing is visible but that men have seen it." And there
can be no satisfactory proof of this dynamic moral
energy which resides in the Scriptures, except that men
of all races and in all generations have felt it and yielded
to it and known themselves transformed in character as
its result. The whole range of Christian biography, the
whole record of Christian missions, teem with testimonies
to the power of God's Book. The evidence is contained
in the Ada Sanctorum of all the Christian centuries. St.
Augustine tells us how in the garden at Milan he heard
a child's voice saying, Tolle, lege, "Take and read," and
he opened the Epistle to the Romans at that verse which
proved the turning-point in his career. William Wilber
force has related how, on a journey to Nice, he read
through the whole New Testament, and from that single
perusal he became a new creature. We need not multiply
classic examples. Here it will suffice to quote a few among

14 THE CONQUESTS
many recent testimonies to the power of the Book from
letters and reports of the Society's agents in different
parts of the world.
The Treasure of Faith,
Among the throngs of visitors to the Paris Exhibition
in 1900 the Society distributed 400,000 French Gospels.
Last year, in the valley of the Loire, Colporteur Le Dreau
writes : " I met a woman who had received a Gospel
at the Exhibition. 'You can form no idea of the
blessing that book has been to me,' she said. ' I was
a most unhappy woman ; I had doubts about my salva
tion. I made pilgrimages, and went to Lourdes, but my
heart was still empty and restless. I bless God that He
led me to Paris, where in receiving that book I received
a treasure. Here is the book,' she said, 'The words
that did me more good than anything else are these ;
Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole ; go in peace, and
be whole of thy plague. I understand, sir, that they
deceive us who say we must do works in order to be
saved. I believe Jesus Christ has saved me, just as He
saved that woman.' "
The Mirror to Conscience.
Among the medley of races and tongues in the
Austrian Empire, Colporteur Hertelendy, writing from
Temesvar, in Hungary, tells of a town he visited which
has been changed by the power of the Gospel, where
priest and people meet together for prayer, every one of
them carrying his Testament with him. In this place he
spoke with an uncouth-looking Servian who had dived
deep into the Scriptures : " The Bible," said he, " is as

OF THE BIBLE 15
the mirror in my hand; I see what I am, and I see
what I ought to be."
The Antidote to the Tavern.
Listen to these three peasant women talking as they
stand round the Colporteur's pack in a country town
in Servia. The first says, "You should buy books
like these for your husbands. Yesterday my husband
bought one, and stayed at home instead of going to the
tavern." The second replies, "Books won't do any
good ; my husband has lots of books, but it's all no use,
he goes there just as much." The third, however, con
tradicts her, saying, " There is a great deal of difference
between one book and another. My father used to be
always haunting taverns, but quite lately I hear that he
reads his Bible and does not go inside a public-house.
You buy one of these books."
The New Testament In India.
From the ancient peoples of the East comes similar
testimony. Dr. H. U. Weitbrecht, C.M.S. missionary in
the Panjab and chief reviser of the Urdu New Testament,
declared last year, from the pulpit of Lahore Cathedral :
" If I were to mention the most valued of my helpers
in the Gospel, 1 should give the names of men whose
conversion began, and made progress, through the
simple study of the New Testament. One of these was
a Mohammedan, who received the New Testament first
from his village matdvi to enable him to become a
Moslem controversialist. He is with us still, as a
minister of the Church. The other was a Flindu, who
received the New Testament from his guru (himself in

i6 THE CONQUESTS
search of religious truth), and was first convinced of sin
by reading the words : ' Blessed are the pure in heart.'
Some years ago he died after a life of bright Christian
service, happy despite the loss of wife and friends and
property, and left the few rupees he possessed, part to
the poor and part to the Bible Society for the distri
bution of those Scriptures that had brought light and
peace to him."
" Oh, how I listen I "
We can understand that the New Testament in its
simplicity may often be less remote from an Eastern
mind than the Europeanised version of its message on
a missionary's lips. At the Ranaghat Medical Mission
near Calcutta, a woman who was invited to buy a
Gospel said she had one already : " I can't read, but my
boy is always saying, ' Come, let us read,' and then we
all sit down and he reads, and I listen — oh, how I
listen!" At a post.'statlon In Siberia,
The following bit of autobiography is written by a
Commissary of Rural Police in Siberia : " One of our
chiefs was passing on his way to Irkutsk, and through
some accident, I had unexpectedly to spend two days
and a half waiting to meet him at a solitary post-
station. I had nothing to read or to do, and was
at my wit's end to know how to kill time. Lying
under the Ikon I saw a copy of the Russian New
Testament, which is to be found placed at each post-
station, thanks to your Society. I had seen the same
thing hundreds of times, and now I said to myself.

OF THE BIBLE 17
'What's the use of wasting time reading fables ?' I felt
great reluctance even to take the book in my hand.
However, this frightful idleness made me open it, and
I began reading from the first chapter of St. Matthew.
As I read on, my attention grew. This was the book of
fables and nonsense ! No book had ever awakened
such tender feelings, or touched me like this. I did not
notice that my candles were burning out until they
spluttered, and then I got fresh ones and sat on, reading
until the dawn. I read the book right through from
cover to cover, and since that night I have thanked God
over and over again for your Society, which places the
New Testament even in such out-of-the-way post-stations."
The Gospel in Korea,
Early in 1900, one of our Korean Colporteurs induced
a man living in Pung-lok to buy a copy of St. Luke.
A few weeks later, the man said that if copies were left
at his house he would recommend his friends to buy
them. In this way Gospels were purchased by two men
living at Yong-chen. The man who sold these books
is still a heathen, but the two purchasers are now
Christians. After their own conversion they began to
work for the conversion of their families and neighbours.
And in their district there is now a Christian Church,
formed as the direct result of the sale of these few
Gospels which had been left by a Colporteur at a heathen
Korean's house.
Among Italians in Brazil,
In Brazil our Sub-agent, in the course of a journey
of 2,000 miles through the Rio Grande, spent Sunday
3

i8 THE CONQUESTS
in a settlement of Italian colonists at Bento Gonpalvez,
At the close of a mission service- a farmer came to him
and said : " Twelve months ago I was bitterly opposed
to these people, but your Colporteur persuaded me to
buy a Bible, and now through reading it I am, by the
grace of God, a new man. I trust we shall meet above
where we shall all speak one tongue." In that district
there are at least 60,000 scattered Italians, and the
Italian evangelist reported that in his rounds he
frequently came across from four to six, and in one
case twenty families who were in the habit of meeting
together for prayer^ through having bought and read the
Scriptures, without having had any one to instruct them.
A New Guinea Chief,
One of the wisest and most successful missionaries in
British New Guinea, the Rev. C. W. Abel, of Kwato, has
translated two Gospels into Tavara, which the Society
has published. He writes : " The new Tavara St.
Mark has been keenly appreciated. One old chief,
lokobo, of Higabai, was so anxious to read it, and was
so envious of the children in his village who could, that
he has, in the space of six months, actually learnt to read
it for himself. The people told me last week that he
takes his copy of St. Mark into his gardens, and reads it
there \yhile he rests ; that he cuts little sticks of dry
wood, and at night time lights these, one by one, while
he sits and pores over the words of Christ."
A Penitent Anarchist,
Not the least notable testimony to the power of the
Book comes from that Church which too often refuses to

OF THE BIBLE

19

trust its people with an open Bible. The CathoUc Times
for May 29, 1903, published a letter from San Francisco,
signed Kenelm Vaughan, giving particulars of a popular
edition of the New Testament which the writer had
circulated in Spain.
" The good that this precious Book is doing is immense.
To give you a striking instance : you remember that five
years ago the notorious Anarchist,' Jose Ascheri, who came
from Marseilles, committed the horrible deed of throwing a
dynamite bombshell in the midst of the Corpus Christi
procession in Barcelona, and was seized, imprisoned, and
condemned to death. About that time I happened to have
been in Barcelona to meet the arrival of this fresh stock of
New Testaments. By apparent chance I called at the
Jesuit College in that city and presented the Father Rector
with the first copy. Thanking me for, it, he hurriedly put it
into his pocket, saying that he was suddenly called off to the
city prison to prepare Ascheri for death. When he reached
the prisoner's cell he did his utmost to convert the Anarchist
to God, but in vain. He proved obdurate of heart, incor
rigibly impenitent 1 Seeing, then, that he could made no
impression on the condemned prisoner, he took out of his
pocket the New Testament that I had given him, and giving
it to Ascheri, told him to read it.
" Ten days afterwards he returned to visit him and found
him a changed man. He had been reading the New
Testament, which proved to him to be a vehicle of the
merciful grace of his conversion. There and then he made
a contrite confession of his crimes, and died in the dispo
sition of a true penitent, leaving as a legacy to his mother
the copy of the New Testament that had been the instrument
of his repentance, as the most precious thing that he possessed."
The Bible in National Life,
The power of the Bible extends beyond individuals, and
penetrates the ffibric of society. It moulds ancj informs

20

THE CONQUESTS

and judges the character of a whole country. Among any
people where God's Book is a household volume, there
cannot but exist a loftier ethical standard, a purer moral
atmosphere, a clearer vision of the great White Throne.
The condition of the Latin nations of Europe to-day has
been described as " a chaos of disintegrated convictions."
And correspondingly in those countries there has grown
up a literature which is brilliant and powerful indeed,
but materialistic and not seldom profligate. We may well
believe that the deeper moral seriousness of German and
English literature is due to the acquaintance of their
peoples with the Scriptures. " The presence of the Book
of God in any land, far and wide, gives at least a hush of
awe and the sanctity of a great ideal — so that when a
certain point of corruption has been reached the whole
community cries out indignantly at last, ' We have read
Christ's Word. Christ's voice is upon the air. No more
uf this.' " ^
The Book In South America,
Indeed, as Coleridge says, when we reflect how large a
part of our present knowledge and civilisation is owing
directly or indirectly to the Bible, we are compelled to
admit as a fact of history that the Bible has been the
main lever by which moral and intellectual character has
been raised to its present height.^ Only last j^ear the
chief statesman in the Argentine Republic bore impressive
public testimony to the influence of the Scriptures.
Comparing South America with North, President Roca
¦ The Archbishop of Arm.igh : Sermon fot ihe Bible Society in
Westminster Abbey.
, '' S. T. Coleridge : The Statesman's Manual.

Among the 14,300,000 inhabitants of this i

ON A BIBLE SELLING TOUR IN BRAZIL.

mmense republic, ^^ e circulated last vear

year 93,600 copies of Scripture.

OF THE BIBLE 21
declared that the immense superiority of the latter was
due to the Bibles which the Pilgrim Fathers carried with
them when they landed on Plymouth Rock, whereas the
conquerors of South America "had absolute faith in
force and violence."
It is appropriate to mention here that during the past
year the Bible Society has devoted greatly increased
attention and effort to this huge neglected continent of
South America, where a population about equal to that
of the United Kingdom is scattered over a vast area more
than half as large again as Europe.
A new Agency for the Republics of the Andes has
recently been established at Callao, to supply the Scrip
tures to Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. The Agency
at Rio has been reorganized and strengthened, so that
our circulation in Brazil doubled last year ; while an
arrangement has just been made with the American
Bible Society for a delimitation of territory in this
enormous region
From the Argentine Agency Colporteur Rohrsetzer
made a long and perilous but successful pioneer journey
into Bolivia — the remote republic among the mountains
¦ — where the New Testament is almost unknown, and
where Christianity exists only in a mournfully corrupt
and degener'ate form.
" Without Note or Comment."
The objection has been frequently urged against the
Bible Society, that the Scriptures "without note or
comment " are unintelligible, and may become mis
leading. Yet the New Testament was certainly addressed
at first to plain people, unskilled in theological and meta-

22 THE CONQUESTS
physical subtleties. And multitudes of unlettered Chris
tians in every age have proved that this Book was able to
make them wise unto salvation, even though it left them
ignorant about everything else beside. The experience of
the Church as a whole abundantly ratifies St. Augustine's
verdict : " Like a familiar friend, the Bible communicates
simply to the heart of the unlearned its deep meaning." '
To quote a modern prelate, "All its leaves, like one
great sunflower, turn to Christ the Light." In one of
his famous homilies = St. Chrysostom has dealt with this
very question. Describing the Apostles, he says : —
" Having been endued through the mercy of God with the
grace of the Spirit, they wrote not after the manner of the
Gentiles, for the sake of vainglory, but for the salvation of
souls. As the common teachers of the whole world they set
forth their doctrines clearly and simply to all, that any one
might be able to understand them of himself, by merely
reading them, and this should come to pass which liad been
foretold by the prophet, ' they shall be all taught of God, and
they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, saying,
Know the Lord ; for they shall all know Me, from the least of
them unto the greatest of them.' . . . For to whom are not all
things in the Gospel manifest ? Who is there, when he
heareth the words, ' Blessed are the merciful,' ' blessed are
the pure in heart,' and other such sayings, hath need of a
human teacher to explain the words ?
"Again ye say that the things concerning the signs and
the miracles are not clear and manifest to every one. This is
a mere excuse and cloak for sloth. How should ye ever
understand the things contained in the Scriptures when ye
will not so much as slightly look into them ? Take the Bible
in your hands, read the whole story, and bearing in mind the
things which are clear, peruse again and again those which
' August. Epist. 137.
' Chrys. Opera, torn. i. pp. 903, 904. Ed. Montfaucon, Patis, 18 J4.

OF THE BIBLE 23
are dark and difficult ; and if after frequent reading ye find
not the sense of a passage, go to a brother more learned than
yourselves ; seek the teacher and talk of it with him ; show
an earnest desire for knowledge, and if God perceive in you
such great zeal He will not slight your watchfulness and
care ; and should no man open to you that which ye seek,
God Himself will surely reveal it unto you."
The Divine Interpreter,
" Seek the teacher and talk of it with him." Let us
frankly admit that " a living book is not complete without
a living teacher " ^ ; and that " if the Bible is God's
Word, the Church is God's institution." 2 We recognise
the limitation of the Society's mission. It offers the
sacred volume : it does not presume to supply the
comment and interpretation. That task it leaves to
those to whom it belongs as their special duty. Never
theless collective Christian experience testifies that the
New Testament is the only sufficient commentary on
the Old ; and the Old Testament is the only sufficient
commentary on the New. And the final truth remains,
that God is His own Interpreter. The great Writer
would have us consult Him as we read. " In the
Word," said Luther, " thou shouldst hear nothing else
but thy God speaking to thee." Nay, one chief use of
His Book is to make us feel how near He is to every
one of us. His Holy Spirit delights to make contact
with our spirits through the medium of Holy Scripture.
In the words of General Gordon, " The secret of reading
the Bible is abiding in Him who is the Way, the Truth,
and the Life."
¦ Bishop Lightfoot. ' Bishop Westcott.

24 THE CONQUESTS

III
god's message in all tongues
WJien the Word went forth from Sinai, it became seven voices, and
from Ihe seven voices was divided into seventy tongues. As sparks leap
from the anvil, there came a great host of proclaiming voices. —
Hebrew Midrash on Ps. Ixviii. ii.
Ever since its first proclamation, the Gospel of Jesus
Christ has proved that it could break through those
barriers of language which divide the families of man
kind. The experience of the Day of Pentecost was a
symbol and a prophecy of the victories which God's
message would win, despite the world's confusion of
tongues. Few persons, unless they have wandered like
Ulysses in many lands, can measure how much the curse
of Babel involves, how dreadful a schism it creates
between those whom the gift of speech is surely meant
to unite and not to set asunder. The more we know
about human languages and their bewildering variety and
complexity, the more wonderful it appears that God's
Word can speak effectually in them all. It is forbidden
to Moslems to translate their Koran from its sacred Arabic
into any "profane" speech. Just after the invention of
printing. Archbishop Berthold, of Maintz, prohibited
religious books in the vernacular on the ground that

Ruins of the tower of babel at birs nimrud, on the Euphrates.
The Bible, or -^ome part of it, is now being" read in 436 JiiTerent lang"uag"es and dlalects^of whicli 370 appear on the Bible SoL'iet\'s List.

OF THE BIBLE 25
German was incapable of expressing the deep truths of
Christianity. Only a hundred years ago distinguished
authorities like Sir William Jones, the learned author of
Asiatic Researches, declared that the character of the
Chinese language was such as "not to admit of any
translation being made into it." To-day the missionary
is not satisfied until each humblest, rudest dialect has
learnt the vocabulary of heaven.
All Languages the Vehicles of Grace,
The Gospel claims all languages as the vehicles of
grace, and transforms every one of them into a chalice
for the living water. It is not merely that the form
of Hebrew and the idiom of Hellenistic Greek 'lend
themselves with curious felicity to the purposes of trans
lation,' The Bible is more primitive than grammar and
syntax. This Book belongs to the category of things
which are elemental and universal — like sunshine, and
mother's milk, and the grave. It is part of the common
need, the common heritage of humanity. And one seal
of the dominion of the Bible consists in this — that it is
capable of being rendered into the multitudinous dialects
of mankind, without losing its majesty and tenderness
and power. For many years a syndicate of scholars
has been translating into English the sacred books of the
East — a work invaluable to the student of comparative
religion. Yet Dr. McLaren confesses that nothing more
unhomelike can be conceived than the aspect of these
poor books dressed in their foreign garb. "But if you
take the Bible, into whatsoever barbarous tongue you
put it, it seems to fit the tongue as if it had been
made for it-. // was made for it." And so even an

26 THE CONQUESTS
imperfect rendering of the Gospel, in some uncouth
dialect never before reduced to writing, can still speak
in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.
The early Moravian missionaries to Greenland had
toiled on for years, as it seemed, in vain, without
winning a single convert among the dull-witted Eskimo.
One day four natives drew near to watch a missionary
who was translating the Gospel. "Tell us what you
write," they asked. So he read aloud the account of
the Agony in the Garden, As he read, the Spirit of
the Lord fell on his hearers. They covered their mouths
with their hands in sign of wonder, and one man cried
out, "Tell me that again, for I also vs^ould be saved,"
He became the first Christian Eskimo,
The Difficulties of the Translator,
What we have said does not in the least underrate
the enormous difficulties of turning even a single Gospel
into the speech of some savage tribe. By years of
familiar intercourse with the savages their speech must
be mastered to begin with. Next it must be reduced
to writing and grammar. Then comes the most trying
task of all — to discover what terms will convey to their
untutored minds the meaning of great Christian watch
words like faith and love and forgiveness and atonement
and salvation.
The Bishop of St, Albans has illustrated the immense
difficulty of rendering into the language, say of an
island of cannibals in the Pacific, the words. Therefore
being justified by faith, we have peace with God. "There
would probably be no idea of sequence amongst the
people, and so no word for ' therefore.' ' Faith ' would

OF THE BIBLE 27
be a hopeless word, for they would have no idea at all
like it ; suspicion is the normal condition of life in such
a place. Their only idea of peace, would probably be a
truce from actual warfare. Animistic religions have, no
real idea of God ; while ' justified ' would drive a trans
lator into despair," The first necessity is patiently to
teach the ideas before attempting to find names for them.
Just as the first Apostles took common Greek words,
and purged them of their baser contents and allusions
and filled them with new spiritual meaning, so in every
tongue on earth the same process must go on. The
Bible is " like a bank where soiled paper money is
exchanged for the pure gold of the eternal kingdom,"
Christianity possesses a power by which it enters con
tinually into new forms of speech and converts them
to its use, and purifies and redeems them by its touch,
and lifts them towards its own level, until the dialects
of barbarous races are baptized and transfigured into
servants and friends of God,
The Bible Ennobles a Language,
"Translate the Bible into any language, and you do
two things to that language — you raise it as a vehicle
of spiritual expression, and to a large extent you fix it
and make it permanent," The Slavonic alphabet was
originally invented for the purpose of putting the Scrip
tures into what was then an unwritten jargon ; and
scores and scores of other languages have been reduced
to written form for this express purpose, so that the Bible
has been to their peoples, in all senses, the first of books,
the beginning of letters as well as of faith. No one
has sufficiently analysed the influence which the early

28 THE CONQUESTS
vernacular versions exerted in creating and ennobling
the Teutonic languages. Luther's Bible was the matrix
and source of modern German, and our own Authorized
Version, reproducing Tindale and Coverdale, became
the standard of the English tongue. The music of the
Bible is sounding on to-day through modern European
literature. It stands absolutely alone among sacred
books in this strange capacity to conquer and conse
crate human speech.
One Book in many Tongues,
When the Bible Society was founded, the Bible, or in
some cases the New Testament, was current in about
forty living languages, which were spoken by perhaps
two-tenths of the population of the world. To-day,
if we accept the figures given by Mr. Eugene Stock, ^
some part of the Bible is being read in no fewer
than 436 languages and dialects ; and we may safely say
that these are understood by more than seven-tenths of
mankind. It appears, therefore, that during the past
hundred years the Gospel message has been printed
and published for the first time in the tongues of
above half the human race. And it is not too much to
claim that the chief factor in this wonderful result has
been the work of the British and Foreign Bible Society.
Its Historical Table now includes the names of 370
" To the sixth of the new supplementary volumes of the Encyclo
paedia Britannica, Mr. Eugene Stock has contributed an important
article on " Missions." Under the heading of " Missionary Bible
Translations," he enumerates the following: — Translations of the
whole Bible, 99; of the New Testament, 121 ; of Portions, 236;
making a total of 456. Adding " transliteral " versions, 20, and
deducting "obsolete" versions, 40, he arrives at a total of 436
"versions in usf,''

OF THE BIBLE

29

different languages and dialects in which it has promoted
the translation, the revision, or the circulation of the
Scriptures — -generally all three. We note that of these
370 languages the complete Bible now exists in 97 ;
the complete New Testament in 93 others ; and some
part of the New Testament in 180 others. To print so
many versions, over fifty distinct alphabets and syllabaries
have to be employed, in some of which the lines read
from left to right, in others from right to left, and in
others from top to bottom of the page. And in order to
make each version legible or intelligible to all classes and
races of readers, no less than fifty of these languages must
be printed, each in two or more different sets of
characters. Versions of other Books.
We may pause for a moment to compare these results
with the versions which have been published of some of
the masterpieces of literature. Homer has been called
"the Bible of the Athenians." Yet though scholars
and poets have rendered the Iliad into the leading
languages of Europe, this was not with any idea of
winning new worshippers for the deities of Olympus.
The Shakespeare Memorial Library at Birmingham,
which is one of the most complete in existence, con
tains editions of the prince of English poets in twenty-
seven different languages. According to the R.T.S. the
Pilgrim's Progress has been translated into a hundred
languages ; and the British Museum Catalogue enume
rates forty different versions of the Imitatio Christi. It
need hardly be pointed out that both the last-named
books are really spiritual transcripts of the New Testa-

30 THE CONQUESTS
ment. Among living authors probably the most popular
is Count Leo Tolstoy ; and according to Dragonoff's
new Russian bibliography, books by Tolstoy have now
been printed in forty-five different languages and dialects.
Yet all these added together hardly amount to half the
versions of the many-languaged Bible.
New Translations and Revisions,
The great task of translating and revising the Scrip
tures never ceases. Week by week it is carried on steadily
and patiently in many different countries, where scores of
committees of representative missionaries, scholars, and
native linguists are at work under the Society's auspices,
and mainly at its expense. Its payments made last
year to translators and revisers alone amounted to over
;^4,ooo. During the past twelve-month questions for
consideration came before its Editorial Sub-Committee
relating to more than 130 different languages and dialects.
Among the new editions completed last year the
following may be mentioned : — ¦
The first complete Bible for Mare, one of the French
Loyalty Islands. The first Bible with references for Uganda.
A Pocket Bible in Persian. St. John in Carib, for the S.P.G.
Mission in British Honduras. A revised translation of Isaiah
in Labrador Eskimo, for the Moravian Mission. St. Mark and
St. John in Mongo, for the Kongo Balolo Mission. The Four
Gospels in Bashkir Turki, for a tribe near the Urals. The
same in Mer, revised, for Murray Island, Torres Straits. The
same in SwahiU (Mombasa), for the C.M.S. in East Africa.
The Four Gospels and Acts in Wedau, for the Bishop of New
Guinea ; and in Nyoro, for the C.M.S. Mission in Toro. For
one Mission in French Kongo, the Pentateuch in Galwa ; for
another, St. Matthew and St. Mark in Pahouin ; for a third,
St, Matthew in Fang, The New Testament in Ndgnga, for

OF THE BIBLE 31
Che Finnish Mission in Ovamboland. Revised editions of the
New Testament are in the press in Tabele, for the L.M.S. ;
in Kongo, for the B.M.S. ; and in Fanti for the W.M.S.
Revised Icelandic versions of Isaiah and St. John have
appeared. In printing the Psalter in Nyoro, the Society has
been in happy partnership with the S.P.C.K.
The following eight languages appear, or are counted, for
the first time in the Society's List : — The complete Bible in
Fioti.^ for the Sweclish Mission in North Kongoland ; St. John
in Kikuyu, for the C.M.S. in British East Africa ; St. Luke in
Shambala, for the German East African Mission ; St. Matthew
in Karanga, for the Dutch Reformed Church Mission in
Mashonaland ; St. John in Nogogu, for the Presbyterian
Mission in Santo, New Hebrides ; St. John in Lcevo, for S.W.
Epi, New Hebrides ; the Four Gospels and Acts in Baffin's
Land Eskimo, for the C.M.S. in Blacklead Island, Cumberland
Sound ; and Madurese, for South Malaysia. Five names on
the Society's List have been removed, for various reasons, so
that the number of separate languages enumerated in our
Historical Table now stands at 370.
Editions for the Society's Centenary,
In view of the Society's coming Centenary, the English
Revised Version has just been issued in a more popular
form than ever before — the Bible at lod., and the New
Testament at 4d. Amended Welsh Bibles are in the
press which will reproduce the references and alternative
readings and renderings of the English Revision. Our
new resultant text of the Greek Testament is making
progress under Dr. Nestle. Segond's popular version
of the French Bible is being corrected and improved.
The American Bible Society has agreed to co-operate
in a new Portuguese version for Brazil. We are near-
ing the goal of much discussion as to the best system
on which to provide new embossed Scriptures for the

32 THE CONQUESTS
Eastern blind. A revised and enlarged edition is already
in print of The Gospel in Many Tongues.
The Task still Incomplete,
This brief survey of the conquests of the Bible over
the world's languages must fill us with wonder and praise.
Yet while we thank God for so splendid an achievement,
we dare not forget how much still remains undone. The
enterprises and triumphs of the missionary create so many
new and imperious claims upon the Bible Society. Each
fresh tribe evangelized, each new country opened up to
the Gospel, appeals for fresh translations to be printed
and spread abroad. Thus, some part of the New Testa
ment has already been published in over one hundred
of the languages of Africa, but this list must go on
enlarging year by year. Within the borders of our
Indian Empire alone, no versions of the Scriptures exist
as yet in a hundred and eight languages, in use by no
fewer than 74,000,000 of souls. In the islands of Poly
nesia and Malaysia, and on the upper waters of the
Amazon, there are hundreds of languages and dialects
in which the Scriptures have never yet spoken ; and
though many of these are local and probably evanescent,
yet scores of them remain in which the Gospel must still
learn to speak.
Again, muHitudes of imperfect Bibles need to be
supplemented or completed. Out of 77 European
languages on our list only 36 possess the whole Bible ;
in Asia the list contains 133 languages, only 35 of which
include both Testaments complete ; while in Africa the
proportion is far smaller still. Yet to tribes in all stages
of civilization and moral progress, each part of the

OF THE BIBLE

33

Scripture has a message of its own. Think how niiuch
our own spiritual life would lose if it were not nurtured
by the Psalms and by the Prophets, The hope of
Foreign Missions centres round their native evangelists ;
but how shall these evangelists be duly trained, so long
as they can read in their own tongue only a portion of
the revelation of God ?
Besides fresh translations, there is a constant demand
for revisions of translations already made. From the
nature of the case, a missionary version must always be
tentative : it cries out for correction and re-correction as
years go by. And no pains must be grudged, no expense
must be stinted, in order that God's message may speak
to all men as clearly and simply as possible, in accents not
unworthy of its Divine import. We dare not rest con
tent with versions which are either crude and imperfect,
or antiquated and half obsolete. Thus it comes to pass
that — to take one great example — in China, after many
decades of labour, revisions of all the chief versions are
still in progress — revisions, let us remember, which are for
the use of a quarter of the whole human race. Only
those who share it can realize how much sacred drudgery
is involved in such a task. Yet verily these Christian
scholars have their own exceeding great reward. "What
do I not owe to the Lord," wrote Henry Martyn, " for
permitting me to take a part in the translation of His
Word ? Never did I see such wonders and wisdom and
love in this blessed Book, as since I have been obliged
to study every expression." And where is the philan
thropist who blesses his race with richer and more
enduring benefactions than the translator of the Scrip
tures ? One native helper, who assisted Dr. Goodell in
4

34 THE CONQUESTS
the Armeno-Turki version of the Bible, said as he was
nearing death, "I have been permitted to dig a well
at which millions may drink."
*****
In his essay on The Muiabiliiy of Literature Washington
Irving describes his visit to an ancient monastic library,
which he " could not but consider as a kind of literary
catacomb, where authors, like mummies, are piously
entombed, and left to blacken and moulder in dusty
oblivion." But when we stand in the Library of the
Bible House, amid streaming London's central roar, and
gaze at its unsurpassed collection of versions of one
Book, we realize how their rule has gone out through
all the earth and their words to the end of the world.
Nay, we have vision of a "spiritual multitude which no
man can number, of all nations and kindreds and
peoples and tongues, who cry with a loud voice, saying :
Salvation unto our God which sitteth upon the throne, and
unto the Lamb.

O 0
DC i
— n
0 "
- .0
^ t
_i 3>
0 ?
DQ .3 >.
z »
Iil 5
-I .&
u f
I- "a
Z t
0 f.

I

OF THE BIBLE 35

IV
THE PARTNER OF MISSIONS
We adore Thee, O Christ, in all Thy Churches which are in all the
world, and we bless Thee because by Thy holy Cross Thou hast redeemed
the world. — Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.
The object of Christian Missions was crystallized into a
sentence b^ President Washburn when he said, "The
aim of Missions is to make Jesus Christ known to the
world." And our Lord's messengers among men have
found from the beginning that in publishing this saving
knowledge they possess no auxiliary so powerful, so
indispensable as the New Testament. The ideal evange
list has been pictured in those lines from the Pilgrim's
Progress which stand chiselled on the pedestal of John
Bunyan's statue at Bedford : — " It had eyes lifted up to
Heaven, the best of Books in his hand, the law of truth
was written upon his lips, the world was behind his back ;
it stood as if it pleaded with men." So the man and the
Book must fare forth as inseparable comrades and allies,
repeating the same everlasting message until the wilder
ness and the solitary place shall be glad for them and
the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. In
truth Christ's missionary command applies to the Scrip
tures as well as to the Church : both together must go

36 THE CONQUESTS
into all the world, and both together must preach the
Gospel to every creature.
Missions without Vernacular Scriptures.
So far as we know, the earliest translations of the New
Testament proceeded not from the formal decree of any
council, but from the missionary instinct of the primitive
Church. The need, and the duty, appeared too obvious
to be discussed. Just as it never crosses the minds of
statesmen that they must justify the existence of the
national mint, so Christ's evangelists have, for the most
part, assumed as a tacit postulate that they must turn the
golden treasure of God's truth into current coin for each
country. And it is a most striking and significant fact
that the permanence of the Church's conquests should be
so closely connected with the possession and diffusion
of Scriptures in the vulgar tongue. No calamity in the
history of Christendom is more tragic and more perplex
ing than the ruin of the Church in North Africa — the
great Church of Tertullian and Cyprian and Augustine —
which was practically obliterated by its Moslem invaders.
What made such destruction possible is not easy for us
now to determine. But one hypothesis, says Bishop
Montgomery, is at least worth considering. "North
Africa possessed no Scriptures in the vernacular. No
African Church possessing the Scriptures in its own
language has fallen wholly into Mohammedanism or
paganism." '' Another example may be found in the
Mission of the Dutch Reformed Church in Formosa two
centuries ago, which, though it prospered for a time,
" See Foreign Missions, by Bishop Montgomery, Secretary of the
S.P.G.

OF THE BIBLE

37

has vanished and left no trace behind. Was it not
because those missionaries failed to give their converts
a vernacular version of the Bible ? On the other hand,
we know how the native Church in Madagascar survived
a generation of furious persecution, and emerged stronger
than before, because when every foreign teacher was
expelled from the island, the Malagasy Christians pos
sessed the Scriptures in their own tongue, and the
persecutors strove in vain to rob them of the Book,
which the Bible Society had helped to supply. The same
history has been repeated during the recent persecutions
in China. Writing a few months ago from Kirin, the
Rev. A. R. Crawford, of the United Free Church of
Scotland's Mission to Manchuria, says : —
" Whilst our stocks of Scriptures were destroyed every
where by the Boxers, the terrible experiences endured by the
Christians have only increased their love for the sacred Book.
At the little town of Kuan-kai, where lives a small Christian
community, I recently found one of the families still using
the Testament and hymn-books which they had buried when
they fled into the mountains. The father told me how he
had enjoined on all the children to note carefully the spot,
for should the parents be killed (as they feared was probable)
the children would have this only chance of maintaining their
knowledge of the true God."
The Defect of fesult Missions,
While we pay homage to the personal devotion of
Francis Xavier and not a few of his followers, it ap
pears painfully uncertain whether the Missions of the
Society of Jesus must not be characterized as a blight
rather than a blessing, in their total effect on the peoples
among whom they have been carried on. Even so

38 THE CONQUESTS
sympathetic a critic as Dr. R. F. Littledale could form
no more lenient judgment.^ And it must be noted that
where the Jesuit Fathers made versions of Scripture
for philological and other purposes, they emphatically
refused to put the New Testament into the hands of their
converts. They settled in China in the sixteenth century,
when printing was in common use. But, though they
concerned themselves with translating works on meta
physics and mathematics, they issued no Chinese version
of the Word of God. That honour was reserved early in
the nineteenth century for the English missionaries,
Morrison at Canton and Marshman at Serampore, both
of whom in carrying out their work were lavishly sub
sidized by the Bible Society.
A Prophecy from fhe Gold Coast,
Some few years ago the Society's Agent in West Africa
reported a striking confession, made by a heathen chief
to one of the Basel missionaries on the Gold Coast.
The Bible in the Accra language was just beginning
to be circulated, and the chief said : " Now we are
afraid of you. Before, when you came with the Bible
in a foreign tongue, we feared you not. The axe was
good, but the handle was not strong enough to hew
down our fetish trees. Now you have a handle made
of the country's wood, and our sacred trees will be cut
down and our groves destroyed."
A commentary on the chief's prediction is supplied by
the following touching letter which reached the Secre
taries last year from West Africa : —
' See his article, "Jesuits," in the Encyclopadia Britannica,
9th ed.

native Bridge over the Mongo River, Cameroons.
Our A\'est AfViean Ayenc> slietches fnini the Gambia to the Coii^o, and eirculales tlie Scriptures Jii 26 difFeront nall\e lang'iiag'es.

OF THE BIBLE 39
" My heart is full of thanks. This induces me to write
to you, my dear Sirs, to express our gratitude. It is about
our Twi {i.e., Otshi) Bibles. They were in the past years
sold with dear price, but now they are sold with cheap price
that even the poorest parents can supply their children with
the precious Book. Though you do not send missionaries
as the Missionary Societies do, however, you encourage us
to preach the Word of God to our numerous heathens
scattered here and there on the Gold Coast. As one cannot
bush without a cutlass, so also without your aid of sending
Bibles and Testaments to our missioners we would hardly be
led to Christ. I am a native Catechist in the Basel Mission
on the Gold Coast, and a native of Abetifi, Quahu. May the
most High God bless you and your work for the propagation
of His Kingdom. — Your unknown servant,
" R. E. Abeng."

" The Arsenal of the Church's Weapons,"
In the last issue of that admirable new quarterly, which
has been brought out by the S.P.G., entitled East and
West, Mr. A. G. Madan, of the Universities' Mission to
Central Africa, contributes a suggestive article on " Lay
men in Foreign Missionary Work, " in the course of
which he describes the British and Foreign Bible Society
as "the Woolwich Arsenal of the Church's weapons."
It is the high privilege of the Society to act as Christ's
steward in discharging this vital service ; and it fulfils
its function with no niggardly hand. To most British
Missions — as well as to not a few Continental and
American Missions — representing every communion of
the Reformed faith, the Society sends out all the
Scriptures which they ask for to carry on their work
abroad. These books are despatched carriage paid to the
ends of the earth, and are supplied on such terms that they

40 THE CONQUESTS
practically cost 7iothing to the Missions which receive and
distribute them. Any balance from the proceeds of sales
in the foreign field is returned to the Bible House ; but
such returns can only cover a fraction of the Society's
original expenditure in preparing, producing and for
warding the Scriptures in so many languages. It may be
added that the Society has never refused the request of
any Mission to print and publish a properly authenticated
version of the Scriptures in a new tongue.
In truth the partnership was never more intimate and
more cordial than it is to-day between the Bible Society
and the missionaries of every Reformed Church, In
non-Christian lands they become our most effective
distributors as well as our ablest translators. When
they return home, they act as our warmest advocates,
claiming the Bible Society everywhere as their great
indispensable, inseparable friend and ally. With one
voice they endorse the dictum which Bishop Steere
pronounced when the Society gladly and freely printed
his Swahili New Testament : " Our work must be all
unsound without a vernacular Bible."
The Bible in Central Africa,
Let us take an example from the wonderful C.M.S.
Mission at the fountain-head of the river Nile. Writing
from Mengo last February, the Bishop of Uganda says :
" In celebrating its Centenary, the British and Foreign
Bible Society can look back upon no more hallowed or
blessed page in its God-guided history than that which records
the unwearied and unstinted assistance rendered to the mis
sionaries in Uganda in their devoted efforts to place the Bible
in the vernacular in the hands of the people.

Bv permission of SURVEYING FOR THE UGANDA RAILWAY,
NEAR LAMORU, 350 MILES WEST OF MOMBASA.

H.M. Foreign Office.

Since the opening of this Raihvay, a Bible Committee has been formed at Uganda, with the Bishop as
Its President, to supervise the translation and circulation of the Scriptures.

OF THE BIBLE 41
"The Bible in Uganda and the Mission in Uganda are
almost synonymous terms. It is almost as difficult to think of
Uganda without the Bible as without the Mission, so closely
is the one thought interwoven with the other. . . . The
Bible has done in Uganda what all who believe in it as the
Word of the Living God would look for and expect.
Through the power of the Spirit, it has changed the hearts
and lives of multitudes. It has given freedom to the slave,
hope to the hopeless, comfort to the sorrowing, health to the
sick, and life to the dying. It has permeated the whole life
of the people, effecting a moral reformation in the great mass
of those who have come under its power and teaching. In a
word, upon the ' impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture ' a
living Church, numbering some 40,000 baptized souls, has
been, and is being, built up. This Church, imbued with a
missionai-y spirit, as every Church must be which has been so
founded, is going forth into the regions beyond, ' conquering
and to conquer,' "
The Bible Society has now printed altogether 200,000
copies of the Ganda Scriptures — including 16,000 Bibles,
and 52,000 New Testaments. These books are sold by
the C.M.S. missionaries at prices fi.xed by themselves. Of
the Society's total outlay in printing and transporting
these books, about two-fifths have come back to it as the
result of such sales. Since January i, 1903, the distribu
tion of Scriptures in Uganda has passed into the
hands of a Bible Committee, of which Bishop Tucker is
president. To this Committee there has just been made
a fresh grant of 10,000 Ganda New Testaments.
North-west of Uganda lie Toro and Nyoro, moun
tainous regions which were once tributary to the Baganda
but now have their own rulers and are more or less
independent, under British protection. These countries
are being evangelized mainly by native Christian teachers

42 THE CONQUESTS
sent out from the Uganda Church, and the Four
Gospels and Acts in Nyoro are now pubhshed by the
Bible Society. It must have been a moving scene when
King Daudi, of Toro, on a visit to the British Resident
in Nyoro, was present at a mass prayer-meeting in that
country, and himself offered prayer. A native teacher
from Uganda stood up with an open Bible in his hand,
and exhorted the Bunyoro to read it: "We came to
you in the old days with spear and shield : now we
come with God's Book, which has made us so happy;
read it, and you will be happy too."
For a Mission of the Russian Church.
Readers of Tolstoy's dramatic story. What shall it Profit
a Man f will recollect his vivid picture of the Bashkirs,
living in pastoral fashion on the steppe, milking their
herds of mares, but ploughing no land, eating no bread,
and speaking no Russian. These dark-skinned folk are
a relic of the Tatars who overran Russia in the thirteenth
century under the grandson of the dreaded Jenghis Khan.
They inhabit the slopes of the Southern Urals, and speak
a Turanian tongue. The Bible Society issued last year
through the press at Kazan the first translation ever pub
lished of the Four Gospels in the Bashkir language.
The tribe is partly pagan, partly Mohammedan ; but the
missionaries of the Orthodox Russian Church have
begun work among them, and will use the book im
mediately in the schools which are being opened.
The First New Testament for the Philippines.
Although Spanish priests and friars have held un
disputed spiritual sway in the Philippines for more than

OF THE BIBLE 43
three centuries, yet they rendered the Scriptures into
none of the native tongues. Since these islands were
opened by the American conquest in 1898, parts of the
New Testament have been published in seven Filipino
vernaculars. In July, 1902, the Bible Society issued
for the first time the complete New Testament in
Tagalog — the dominant language of the Archipelago ;
and it is noteworthy that before the year ended 6,000
of these Testaments had been disposed of. In addition
to the great success achieved by our friends of the
American Bible Society, our own Society's total circu
lation from Manila during 1902 amounted to over 64,000
copies. The annual meeting of American Presbyterian
missionaries at Manila, on January 6, 1903, adopted a
most cordial resolution, "recognising the generous help
afforded by the British and Foreign Bible Society during
the past year, and the thoroughness of their work in the
circulation of the Word of God, which in this as in all
countries must needs be the ploughing for the missionaries'
sowing."
Ploughing and Reaping In Korea,
Our next chapter will describe the work of the
Society's Colporteurs. But here we may emphasize one
most important result which they achieve. In heathen
lands they act as pioneers who prepare the way for the
missionary. This is conspicuously the case in Korea,
the land which has been for centuries, and may be
again, the battlefield of the Far East.
Missions were begun in Korea in 1885, and to-day
there are 40,000 Christians — 10,000 of them communi
cants. This rapid success is, more largely than in other

44 THE CONQUESTS
countries, due to the Bible Society. Before the first
missionaries reached Korea a converted Korean had
been sent from Mukden to carry the Scriptures to his
own people. Chinese Colporteurs followed, and to-day
it is where those men worked that converts are so
numerous. To give one recent instance, the Rev. C. T. Collyer,
of the Methodist Episcopal Mission, Songdo, writes at
the close of 1902 : "We have just completed five years
here — prior to which this was absolutely unevangelized
territory — and have to report a total of 307 members and
probationers. Of this number I do not hesitate to say
that at least 70 per cent, are the direct result of the work
of your Colporteurs. Such a return is surely gratifying
to you. I praise God for what these earnest men are
doing." Colportage and Missions in China.
From the accounts of the Society's 350 native Chinese
Colporteurs we can only select two or three examples.
Writing from An-Huei, the Rev. W. Remfry Hunt reports :
" The more I see of colportage under its improved con
ditions the more I am impressed with the high place
this form of evangelization occupies. Every Mission
station should have its Colporteurs. The advantages that
accrue to the central station are inestimable. They are
the 'intelligence department' of the outlying country.
Our Colporteurs have been fine 'scouts.'" Rev. J. Bender
writes from Chehkiang: "By the kind help of the Bible
Society a great many places are reached which other
wise would not have the Gospel, As our district is very
mountainous, travelling is difficult, but our Colporteur

Native Colporteurs at Mukden, Manchuria.
Our cireiilation in the Chinese Empire last > car re.-iehed tlie record fig-iire of S7i,(10'l eopies —more than double tlie previous year's total.

OF THE BIBLE 45
enjoys the work, and comes back each time joyful
because he has found open doors and hearts. We have
now an out-station, where years ago a few books had
been bought from the Colporteur and those seeking the
truth had found it," Dr, H. T, Witney writes from
Foochow: "As the result of one Colporteur's efforts, I
started this year in a new village an entirely self-support
ing work, with chapel, preacher, and school, and over
thirty inquirers,"
The China Inland Mission.
A number of European and native workers of the
China Inland Mission in the Ningpo district met last
year in conference, and sent a touching resolufion " to
express to the Bible Society our gratitude for the many
favours bestowed on us. By the Society's kindness we
can buy the Bible — Old and New Testament — at a price
within the reach of all. , . . We are grateful and full of
praise, . . . We cannot hope to reward the Bible Society
for its work for our country and ourselves ; we can only
send a letter of thanks,"
The Indian Missionary Conference.
Let us cite the testimony of the entire body of Indian
missionaries. The number of Protestant missionaries in
India, reckoning in the wives of those who are married,
is about 2,000. The following resolution was passed in
December, 1902, at the Fourth Decennial Missionary
Conference held in Madras — a most comprehensive,
harmonious, and hopeful assembly — representing all the
Protestant Missions working in India : —
"The Conference extends its congratulations to the

46 THE CONQUESTS
British and Foreign Bible Society on the near approach
of its one hundredth anniversary, with grateful acknow
ledgment of its generous aid, alike in translation,
publication, and circulation of the Scriptures in more
than sixty Indian languages and dialects. Without this
aid it would have been impossible to have reached the
results which are given in the statistical review of the
decade," during which the number of native Christians
in India has increased by 30 per cent.
The Bible and Indian Missions.
It may be well to add here some details as to the
methods actually employed by the Bible Society in
India. The entire field is conveniently parcelled^ out
according to the political divisions of the Empire,
and in each of these the Society has established its
headquarters. Thus at Calcutta, at Madras, at Bombay,
at Allahabad, at Lahore, at Bangalore, and at Rangoon
we find the Society's storehouses, whence the mission
aries obtain their supplies at such liberal rates that the
books can be sold at prices which the poorest natives can
afford to pay. The committee of each Auxiliary com
prises representatives of the various Missions working
within that area. These committees themselves regulate
the prices and discounts at which Scriptures are supphed
to Missions and the general public. Open the report of
any of our great Missions at the section dealing with
India ; read carefully the accounts of conversions there
described, and note how frequently occur phrases such
as "the reading of a portion of the Scriptures led him
to come to us for further instruction," or "he had
been studying the New Testament, and now qarne ex-

OF THE BIBLE 47
pressing his belief in Jesus and his desire for baptism " ;
and then remember that it was the Bible Society which
supplied the missionary with the books which bore such
abundant fruit, and supplied them to him at prices so
much below their cost that even the poorest could afford
to buy them.
In every one of the great languages of India a Gospel
can now be purchased for a farthing ; the number of
these Gospels sold every year by the missionaries amounts
to hundreds of thousands of copies, each of which costs
the Bible Society at least a penny to produce. The
loss incurred by the Society on larger books, such as
Bibles and Testaments, though proportionately smaller,
amounts in the aggregate to very much more ; while
if the Missions had to publish the Scriptures for them
selves, the cost per copy would be greatly increased,
because very much smaller editions would have to be
produced. Nor is even this the whole case. Who
can properly estimate how great a relief the army of
one hundred and forty Colporteurs and four hundred
native Christian Biblewomen brings to the Missions
in India ? For it must be remembered that in almost
every case these workers, though supported by the Bible
Society, work under the direction of missionaries, whose
evangelistic force is thereby most materially increased.
In the Islands of the Pacific.
We have only space to give a few details which
indicate how the Society is aiding the Missions which
are at work among the scattered islands of the Western
Pacific. Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia to-day
contain 300,000 native Evangelical Christians, besides

48 THE CONQUESTS
70,000 native Roman Catholics. The Bible Society has
circulated the Gospel in forty-six languages current in
this polyglot field, and the following are some examples
of the grants which it made last year.
To Samoa, grants of Samoan Bibles, making a total
of 7,000 in all — to the value of ^1,089 — have been sent
out to the L.M.S. Mission. For the Hervey Islands, 500
Rarotonga Bibles — to the value of ;^i32 — have been
sent out to the L.M.S. Mission. For Fiji, grants amount
ing to 4,000 copies of Fiji Scriptures — to the value of
;^i,i28 — have been sent out to the W.M.S. Mission.
For the Solomon Islands the Society granted 470 Gospels
in Bugotu to the Melanesian Mission for the natives of
Ysabel Island. Regarding these, the Bishop of Melanesia
writes : " Will you give my hearty thanks to the Society
for undertaking and so beautifully carrying through this
work for the Melanesian Mission ? "
For New Guinea the following grants have been sent
out to the L.M.S. Mission : 975 Tavara Gospels ; 2,250
Toaripi Gospels ; 400 Mabuiag Four Gospels for Daru,
British New Guinea ; and 900 Suau Portions, for South
Cape of New Guinea. The Society has also just printed
1,000 copies of the Four Gospels in Mer and 1,000
copies of the Four Gospels in Wedau. The Rev. E. B.
Riley, of the L.M.S. Mission at Daru, writes : " When
it became known on the island of Mabuiag that the
books were on the vsssel in the harbour, there was much
rejoicing and cheering among the people. Will you
kindly send us another consignment of 400 copies?"
These additional copies have also been granted.
From Tahiti the Rev. F. Vernier, of the Paris
Missionary Society, writes from Papeete, January 16,

OF THE BIBLE 49
1903, reporting that last year he had disposed of 468
Tahiti Bibles, i English Bible, and 12 French New
Testaments. The proceeds of these sales, deducting
expenses, amounted to fr. 1,692, a draft for which has
been duly received at the Bible House.
In the New Hebrides,
This chapter may conclude with the words in which
Dr, John G. Paton, the Nestor among living apostles,
has repeated only last year his emphatic testimony to
the indispensable partnership between the messenger
and the Book. In the New Hebrides, he writes, " we
obtained no satisfactory spiritual results till we had a
portion of the Holy Scriptures translated and printed,
'and until the people had been taught to read it in their
own tongue. For I hold that in and with the Bible
there is a living, latent power, which shows its fruits in
the marvellous change that its study produces in the
lives and conduct of all who believe in and obey its
teaching. They indeed become new creatures, loving
and living for our dear Lord Jesus Christ.
" In our New Hebrides Mission we now have the
Bible, or the New Testament, or books of it, translated
into, and read by the natives in twenty-four different
languages, and nearly all those versions have been
printed and published for us by the British and Foreign
Bible Society. Not one of these languages had been
reduced to a written form when our Mission began.
But now, by the teaching of our Lord in these books
of Holy Scripture, He has given our Mission from
16,000 to 18,000 converts, of whom some 330 are native
teachers and preachers in their own languages,"
S

50 THE CONQUESTS

V
THE INTERNATIONAL WORD
Ye that from south to north.
Ye that from east to west.
Stretch hands of longing forth.
And keep your eyes from rest,
Lo, when ye will, we bring you gifts of what is best.
Swinburne, A Marching Song. .
It is more than half a century since the Great Inter
national Exhibition in Hyde Park — the pioneer in a long
series — brought vividly before men's imaginations the
fact that commerce and science and art have no natural
frontiers, but belong to all nations alike. Twenty years
afterwards "The International" had become a term of
menace in the ears of kings and statesmen. Some of us
can recollect what lurid visions that name conjured up
of a vast league of workmen in all civilized countries,
banded together to destroy " the tyranny of capital," and
overturn the pillars of society. Every revolutionary
movement in Europe was credited to the International.
For a short time its affiliations actually extended from
Hungary to San Francisco ; and before it dissolved
and disappeared, it had impressed men with a new idea
of the solidarity of labour among all industrial nations.
In more recent days we have seen how the deep sense of

OF THE BIBLE 51
human unity underlying all antipathies of race and
differences of development has inaugurated a Tribunal
of International Arbitration,
Yet this truth after all is no modern discovery. It
was born at Bethlehem, It is implied in the fact of
the Incarnation, and expressed in the chosen title of
the Son of Man, The Church of Jesus Christ dare not
be narrower than cosmopolitan. The Gospel is a dream
unless it belongs by right to every nation. In the
New Jerusalem all kindreds and peoples can claim their
inheritance and their franchise. In truth, no other book
deserves to be called international except the Bible, And
however the term may have been perverted, "inter
national " is no unworthy epithet. As Maurice has
declared, "that word recognises the distinctness of the
bodies which hold fellowship with each other : it excludes
the imperialism in which nations are lost." ^ At the very
time when an imperial tyrant was trampling across Europe
and obliterating its ancient divisions and boundaries, the
Bible Society came into being — according to the defini
tion of its founders — "the first institution which ever
emanated from one of the nations of Europe for the
express purpose of doing good to all the rest." One
detail will illustrate how those founders conceived of
the mission of the international Book. During the
ten stormy years which elapsed between Trafalgar and
Waterloo, the Society gave away nearly 50,000 Bibles and
Testaments in their own languages to the foreign soldiers
and sailors who were detained in this country as prisoners
of war. ' F. D. Maurice, Social Morality, p. 369.

52 THE CONQUESTS
The Message for Every Land,
The history of the Bible Society supplies a century of
comment on the truth that " no Scripture is of any private
interpretation." In a previous chapter we have described
how God's Book has power to enter into all languages,
how it can subdue them to its use and ennoble them in
its service. Wonderful it is that the Word of redemption
and resurrection can speak in all the idioms of mankind,
from sonorous Spanish and liquid Italian to guttural
Chuana and those strange dialects of Indo-China which
have been compared to the twitterings of birds. But in
no less universal a fashion the Divine message arrests
and captivates and renews rnen of all races and colours,
men in every zone of climate and every stage of civiliza
tion. The meeting which assembled in the Queen's Hall
last March to inaugurate our Centenary Celebrations,
formed perhaps the most impressive popular demonstra
tion ever held in London on behalf of the Bible Society.
And the speeches at that meeting resolved themselves into
a cumulative series of testimonies to the power of the
Scriptures, given by men who had spent their lives on the
river plains of the teeming East, and in the islands of the
Southern Ocean, and on the fringe of the frozen North,
Witness after witness celebrated the victories of God's
Book among Hindus and Mongols, among Eskimos in
ice-bound Rupertsland, and among cannibals under the
palms of Fiji. After all, what else should we expect ?
Have we a single chapter in the Bible written by a
European ? The real marvel is that for so long a
period Christianity should have been chiefly confined to
the white peoples ; but its message is to all mankind,
and the fact remains, though Englishmen seldom grasp

OF THE BIBLE 53
it, that " mankind is not in any large proportion
white." The Society without a Frontier.
Now from one point of view the Bible Society is cha
racteristically British, and we may regard it, as the Duke
of Connaught declared that he regarded it, as "thoroughly
national." Yet we can never forget that this Society ac
knowledges no frontier. Its mission is as oecumenical as
the Book which it exists to circulate. Either through its
own agencies, or aided by those kindred societies which
have more or less directly sprung from its side, it occupies
every country in the world. Indeed, the Society is
organized on international lines. Of the three dozen
laymen who form its controlling Committee, six must
always be foreigners residing in or near London.
Among its chief agents abroad we find to-day a French
man in Paris, a Piedmontese in Florence, an Ulsterman
in Berlin, a Scotchman in Alexandria, a New Zealander
in Persia, a Spaniard in British Honduras, a Walden
sian in Buenos Ayres, and an American in Allahabad.
And if we reckon up the members of the Society's
staff in all countries, the vast majority of them are
foreigners. Nearly the whole of our 850 Colporteurs
and our 650 Biblewomen are natives of those lands in
which they do service. These men and women live
and work among folk of their own nationality, and
speak their own mother-tongue.
Sheep that are Scattered.
Before God's message can penetrate and possess the
heart of a people, it must not merely be translated and

54 THE CONQUESTS
printed and published and exposed for sale at dep6ts in
the chief cities. The great populations of the world — in
Russia, in India, and in China — are not congested into
huge masses, but dispersed among countless villages and
rural towns. And so the Book must be taken to them
across the thinly-peopled countryside, and offered from
door to door in village and hamlet and lonely homestead,
to the multitudes who live scattered in the wilderness
and ignorant of the Shepherd of souls. To accomplish
this all-important task, the Society has developed and
organized its system of colportage. Moving along the
highways and byways of the world you may meet the
man with the Book, who carries his pack-load of cheap
vernacular Gospels and Testaments and Bibles, and talks
about them in the homely local speech which is native to
his lips, and commends them with the fervour and con
viction of his own Christian experience, and sells them
at prices which the poorest peasant can pay.
The Wandering Bibleman,
The verb " to conquer," according to its derivation,
means literally " to seek out," " to go in quest of." And
assuredly our 850 Colporteurs go far and wide in quest of
success. The record of their wanderings would make a
picturesque and variegated romance. During this past
year we hear of them in the marble quarries of Carrara
and in the caf^s of Andalusia ; among the factories of the
German black country, and at the zavods, or iron-smelting
works, in Siberia ; in the " Alfama," which means the
Whitechapel, of Lisbon, and at Buddhist festivals in
Japan ; in the jungle of Upper Burma and in the opium-
dens of Selangor ; in Peruvian market-places and in

OF THE BIBLE 55
Cossack barrack-rooms, and in Alpine custom-houses
along the Swiss frontier ; winning their way among the
silver-miners in the Andes and the gold-miners in the
Urals, and the Arabs of the Soudan — but everywhere and
always carrying and commending and circulating that
one Book which has power to make the whole world kin.
The Bible-seller's methods of locomotion are as various
as his nationality. As a rule he tramps along ' the
footpath way.' But we see him cycling across the
great plain of Lombardy and along the valley of the
Loire, and even in the Philippines. We hear of a
colportage tour of 400 miles by cycle in Korea. One
Colporteur in the west of France travels in his own
motor-car. Over the mountain passes of Bolivia the
books are carried on mule-back. In Malaysia the Col
porteur uses a bullock-cart, and in Siberia a sledge.
Among the nomad tribes of Mongolia our Sub-agent
must journey with a caravan of camels and ponies
across the great desert of Gobi.
For his success the Colporteur plainly needs two indis
pensable qualifications. First he must have a whole
hearted devotion to his work, to battle through its trials
and disappointments ; and then he requires Christian
common sense to surmount its practical difficulties. His
business is not to rouse hostility, nor in Christian
countries to make proselytes. He himself may belong
to various communions — the Lutheran, for example, or
the Russian, or the Waldensian ; and he receives strict
instructions to avoid religious controversy. He has only
one duty : he offers all men the Book in which he has
found for himself the Gospel of salvation. And our
reports supply many a proof of the tact and shrewdness

56 THE CONQUESTS
with which these simple-minded " Bible-messengers," as
the Germans call them, carry on their mission.
Christian Common Sense,
In Central France, for example, we find Debenest, a
former non-commissioned officer in the army, who
shows much wisdom in dealing with people who ask
him whether they must change their religion. "Read
with a straightforward heart this book which you have
bought," he says, " ask God to enlighten you, and after
you have humbled your heart before the Almighty,
His Spirit will teach you so to walk as to please Him."
Early last year our Siberian Colporteur, Platon
Petrenko, was travelling by sledge among the villages
outside Barnaul. Writing from Tekor he says : " You
have no idea of the number of sects in this village.
One of the peasants met me in the street and asked me
if I would discuss religion with him in the evening.
I replied that my mission was simply to sell the Scriptures;
questions of doctrine or dogma were not in my line — in
fact, my instructions forbade me touching upon such
matters. Notwithstanding this, about thirty peasants
came to my lodging that evening. 1 did not send them
away, but read passages from the Scriptures, and extracts
from the abridged report in Russian of the Society's work
in different parts of the world. At the close one of the
peasants, belonging to the ' Old Believers,' stood up and
thanked me for a very profitable evening, adding, 'The
truth as laid down in the Gospels is the sure guide to
salvation 1 ' He also exhorted his fellow-villagers to buy
the books 1 was selling.'' Before leaving that small
village Platon sold forty New Testaments,

OF THE BIBLE 57
In a Peruvian market-place some one asked our
Colporteur, "Have you a song-book or La vida de
Charlemagne f " No," replied the Colporteur, " I am a
Christian, and only circulate the sacred Scriptures. My
desire is to put it in the hands of all, that they may know
Jesus Christ as their Saviour, and through Him inherit
eternal life."
His First Shirt.
At Rennes, famous for the trial of Dreyfus, Colporteur
Desbiot has the gift of a ready tongue. " ' Will you buy
a book on religion ? ' a woman asked her husband, as 1
opened my pack. ' I care for religion,' was the answer,
'just as much as I care for my first shirt.' 'My dear
friend,' said I, ' I know well enough the reason why you
do not care for your first shirt, and I also know what
makes you indifferent to religion. Your first shirt
would be much too short for you to-day, and the religion
with which you are acquainted is not sufficient to clothe
your soul,' The man listened attentively, and I read him
various passages from the Bible. As he began to realize
that there was a difference between the religion he
rejected and that of Jesus Christ, he bought a New
Testament." The gist of the matter is contained in the words of a
new recruit in the Pyrenees, who turned his back on a
good position in order to become a Colporteur : " To
address the people without injuring the cause, we need
the wisdom and tact given by the Author of the Bible
Himself. However busy or miserable a man may be,
does he not always welcome the postman who brings
him news from a friend ? Oh, that we might only make

58 THE CONQUESTS
it clear to every one that we come in the name of a
Friend ! "
A Polyglot Business,
Let us realize once more the complexity of this poly
glot business of colportage. Our Biblemen must sell
the Scriptures in more than twenty languages in the
Empire of Austria, in more than fifty in the Empire of
Russia. Last year 3,360 vessels threaded their way
through the water-gate of the East at Port Said. In
spite of rigorous quarantine restrictions from which that
harbour was free for only six weeks out of fifty-two, our
Colporteur visited more than half these vessels, on which
he sold 4,378 copies of the Scripture in twenty-eight
different languages. Our Egyptian Agency, stretching
from Antioch to Uganda, supplies the Gospel in fifty-
three tongues — twenty-six of them European, fourteen
Asiatic, and thirteen African. And among this Babel
of dialects British colonists and emigrants are not for
gotten. Colportage was carried on last year among
shepherds in the bush of New South Wales ; among
prospectors and miners in South Australia ; among
the farmsteads of scattered settlers in Tasmania and
New Zealand ; in the rural districts of Prince Edward
Island and Nova Scotia ; among the lonely lumber
camps in the valley of the St. Lawrence, and the fisher
men in the bays of Newfoundland and the rivers of
British Columbia. Our new Agency at Johannesburg is
supplying Scriptures for the Orange River Colony, the
Transvaal, Rhodesia, and the regions beyond ; nothing
but lack of funds hinders us from undertaking systematic
colportage at the mines and on the veldt.

OF THE BIBLE 59
Greedy for the Gospels,
Scattered along part of the valley of the Volga lie the
villages of the Chuvash, a Tatar tribe who number half
a million, and form a mission-field of the Orthodox
Russian Church. The Gospels were first published in
their language by the Bible Society some twelve years
ago. At the end of 1901 the Society issued a new edition
of the Four Gospels with the Book of Acts, and also a
Chuvash Psalter, and Colporteur Savin spent the summer
of 1902 travelling among the Chuvash villages, where he
was received with the greatest eagerness. He tells
how in one place after another, when it was known
that he had the new editions of the Holy Scriptures
in Chuvash, the people crowded round him, greedy for
the books. They paid for them without any bargain
ing, twenty-five kopecks (=6d.) for the Four Gospels and
fifteen kopecks for the Psalter — prices which amount only
to about three-quarters of the mere cost of printing these
books to the Bible Society, but which were judged to be
the utmost that could be charged. The Colporteur
mentions that he was sometimes troubled by the weight
of money in his possession. Payments were made in
silver, and one week-end, when his load of silver was to
the value of ;£45, he felt anxious during his homeward
journey. Both editions, each of 6,000 copies, were
speedily exhausted, and before the summer ended we
had not a copy of either book to give to the Chuvash
who were asking for more.
Enduring Hardness.
The Dhu Heartach lighthouse looks insignificant
enough in the midst of the Atlantic, whose wrinkled

6o THE CONQUESTS
surface its ray can sweep for scores of miles. And
if you met a wandering pack-man by the roadside, he
might appear a very humble, unheroic figure, until you
realised how he was steadily and patiently spreading
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. Often
indeed the Bible-seller must endure hardness in his
vocation, and in countries not a few his daily round
of duty is beset with perils and snares. Look at this
picture from Colporteur Michailoff's journal of what
it means to travel along unbeaten tracks in Siberia ;
" In the village of Alexanderova 1 had very good
sales ; the people there are thirsting after the Word
of God. In their low earth-built huts, cattle, pigs
and poultry are all under the same roof. I have to
sleep on a straw pallet, but I am happy." During
the winter, in frightful frost, Michailoff and a comrade
crossed the steppe from Troitzk to Koostanai, a distance
of 115 miles : "A blizzard began after we started, and
the temperature dropped to about 40° below zero, Faren-
heit. We were not able to do more than thirteen miles
a day, walking by the sledge most of the way to keep
our feet from freezing."
Off the coast of Central America, Colporteur W. W.
James had a narrow escape when returning from
Yucatan : the vessel foundered, but happily he was
rescued by some passing craft. Yet perils of waters
are less to be dreaded than perils of robbers and
perils among false brethren. During this last year
one of our Colporteurs was robbed and beaten by
highwaymen in Persia. Two others were arrested
and imprisoned in the Balkans, but finally released
through the good offices of the British Ambassador at

Yakuts going to Market.
In 1900 the Bible Soeiety published the Four Gospels In Yakut for this Siberian tribe on the banks of the Lena.
Our circulation last year in tlie Russian Empire was 555,000 copies, in over 50 different lang^uae'es.

OF THE BIBLE 6i
Constantinople. Another suffered violence at the hands
of monks in Bohvia. An English Sub-agent and his
family in China met with a murderous night-attack by
river pirates, in which he was wounded. An aged
Chinese Colporteur was cut to pieces by a mob in
Szechuan. A converted Moor employed in colportage
was done to death in the open street by Moslem fanatics
in Morocco. These are thelatest recruits to the army of
martyrs from the ranks of the Bible Society.
A Winter among the Yakuts.
As an example of that pioneer work which is the
Society's peculiar mission, we may point to what was
done last year by Colporteur Sizooiev in the dreariest
region of Siberia, where the population amounts to one
person in every ten square miles. To Sizooiev belongs
the honour of being the first Colporteur who has win
tered among the Yakuts, a race of semi-pagan hun
ters and fishers, numbering a quarter of a million,
in whose language the Society recently published the
Four Gospels. From his headquarters at Yakutsk, which
is reckoned the coldest city in the world, Sizooiev was
able to make sleigh journeys far inland, visiting the
Yakut huts and spending the long Arctic nights in
converse about the things pertaining to God's Kingdom.
The privations endured on these journeys were many :
the discomforts of the Yakut wigwams, the dearth of
food, and, above all, the habits of the people, would — as
Sizooiev himself writes — "have made the most uncouth
suffer." Their settlements consist of four, five, or six
dwellings ; a large settlement has ten or twelve. The
Russian priests regularly took our Colporteur in for the

62 THE CONQUESTS
night, giving him food and assisting him in selling the
Scriptures, The Yakuts were also most hospitable. " I
spent a night last week," Sizooiev writes, " with a well-to-
do Yakut, His hut was solidly built, the floors covered
with furs. He was quite indignant when I offered to pay
for my lodging. Not a single member of the family,
including the host, was able to read.
The Kindness of the Priests.
" The priests, both in the settlements of Khajohsitskaya
and Bajandaeskaya, were exceedingly kind to me ; seldom
have I met their equal. In the second settlement the
priest introduced me to the deacon and schoolmistress.
The latter persuaded her pupils, who were terribly poor,
to purchase my books ; many of them gave the only
coppers they had for the Four Gospels in Yakut. In
Tatinski the priest gave me a good dinner ; after that
meal I had to go thirty-six hours fasting. The food
obtainable from the Yakuts is so dirty that my appetite dis
appears when I see the dish cooked 1" On February 26th
Sizooiev writes from Amgi : " The people here have
been very good to me; the village scribe summoned a
mass meeting of the villagers, and laid before them the
aim and object of my visit. The priests here gave metwo
roubles for the Society, and also purchased Scriptures for
free distribution among their parishioners." Although
there are schools in this far-off region, most of them have
an average attendance of six to eight scholars only, as the
population is so sparse. The bishop and clergy in the
town of Yakutsk gave our Colporteur every assistance,
the Brotherhood — Bratsivo — also purchased books from
him several times. His sales for the year were 1,957
copies, of which 345 were in Yakut.

A BriJj^i; on ihc line

By RArL Across the Andes.
riiii IJihli; Sociutj- h;is recently toundoJ ;i new Ayency

NL'piiblics of the Andes,

OF THE BIBLE 63
Checksand Hindrances.
Though the area of its liberty widens, we cannot yet
say that God's Book has free course in all places of His
dominion. An embargo is still laid on introducing
Persian Bibles into Persia, and on issuing the Gospels
and Psalter in the national character of Albania. While
we hardly wonder at restrictions in Moslem lands, it is
melancholy to find the Modern Greek Testament a for
bidden book in Greece. Licenses are refused to our
Colporteurs not only in districts of Mesopotamia, but
throughout Upper and Lower Austria and the Tyrol. In
the great city of Vienna it is a criminal offence to sell a
newspaper in the street or to sell a Bible at a man's
door. The French colony of Annam was closed in 1899
against the English servants of the Society. But the
new Governor of Indo-China has allowed our French
Colporteur, M. Charles Bonnet, to recommence Bible
work in Annam, where he landed last November and
received a friendly welcome. In the Soudan, on the
other hand, the British authorities were unable to permit
our Colporteur on the Blue Nile to undertake a journey
into Kordofan.
On the Highest Railway in the World.
In the Peruvian Andes Senor Espinoza has been
visiting the silver-mining villages on the heights of the
Oroya Railway with good success. Leaving the terminus
he crossed the elevated puna to Janja, where many young
men have shown real interest in his mission. Here he
was called to the Sub-Prefect's office and informed that
the sale of the Bible was prohibited in that jurisdiction,
Espinoza respectfully maintained that sales were per-

64 THE CONQUESTS
mitted by law and referred him to the Agent's circular
to local authorities, which shows that we are determined
to maintain the measure of liberty which has been
acquired for our work in Peru, He writes : " By the
help of God I have been able to do a good deal here,
many having bought Bibles. The real opponents have
been the priests, who have preached against me, saying
that 'they should stone me and burn the books, or Janja
would be ruined like Martinique,' "
Christian Superstitions.
The variegated experiences of these men in many
lands make us realize with pathetic force how much
superstition still darkens not a few Christian countries.
In Moravia a Colporteur was sadly hindered by the
activity of a firm of dealers in religious pictures, who
promised to say masses for all who bought their coloured
prints. When it finally transpired that the firm was
Jewish, the people were in terror lest a Rabbi should be
reading masses for them. At Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle)
Colporteur Gallmeister mixed with the tens of thousands
of pilgrims arriving from all parts of Germany to adore the
"great relics" kept in the ancient cathedral — the chapel
and the sepulchre of Charles the Great. Each day from the
9lh to the 24th of July the relics were exposed — a cotton
dress which the Virgin wore ; the swaddling cloth from
the manger at Bethlehem ; the cloth in which John the
Baptist's head was wrapped after it had been severed
from his body ; the cloth which covered our Lord's loins
as He hung on the Cross. To see these "great relics"
Aachen swarmed with surging throngs for a fortnight,
and the pilgrims brought their sick and dying to lift

OF THE BIBLE 65
fading eyes to the tower of the Cathedral where the
relics were hung out to view. At Lourdes, the shrine and
centre of the modern cult of the Madonna, Colporteur
Rouveirol rejoices that among the crowds of pilgrims
who carry away beads and scapulars and medals, some
take home with them copies of the Gospel,
Burning the Bible,
In not a few countries Bible-burning is still painfully
common. Our reports tell of it last year in Baden and
Franconia and Danzig and Cologne, in Spain and in the
Argentine ; while public bonfires of the Scriptures
occurred in Carniola, in Pernambuco, in Peru, and in
Fiji — all under the unhappy inspiration of the one
Church which bans the open Bible,
Help from many Hands,
In spite of such hindrances as these, the inter
national note in the Society's mission and the catholic
spirit in which that mission is carried on win
recognition and support in all quarters of the world.
For instance, when gifts of Russian New Testaments were
forwarded to the military hospitals at Mukden, at New-
chang, and at Port Arthur, the following acknow
ledgment was received from the Director of the
Russian Red Cross Hospitals in Manchuria : " It is
from the bottom of my heart that 1 thank you for
your kindness towards our patients. I feel deeply
your attention in choosing the New Testament, as the
unique book which unites all nationalities and ah
Christians in one great family, as the only book valued
equally by every Christian and every sufferer."
6

66 THE CONQUESTS
Official Encouragement,
We have no space to enumerate the many instances of
official encouragement which were recorded last year.
In the great tropical archipelago of Malaysia, where in
the island of Java alone the Dutch rule more subjects
than the total population of the Turkish Empire, and
where the Society circulated last year over 120,000 copies,
our hearty thanks are due to the Netherlands India
Government Railway and the private Railway Company in
Java for free passes over their lines, and to the Koninklijke
Paketvaart Maatschappij for carrying all our Scriptures
by their steamers free to all parts of the Dutch East
Indies, Along the northern coast of the RepubHc of
Honduras means of communication are very limited, and
twice last year we were permitted to ship our Bibles
from Puerto Cortes to Truxillo, La Ceiba, Ruatan, &c.,
by the Hondurerian man-of-war Tatumla, through the
courtesy and generosity of the Commodore.
We are also indebted for renewed generous con
cessions to the Demerara Railway Company, the Costa
Rica Railway, the Buenos Ayres and Rosario Railway,
the Ferro-Carril Central del Uruguay, and the North
western Railway in the Panjab ; as well as to the Royal
Mail Steam Packet Company of London, and the
Spronston's Steamboat Company of British Guiana. Our
Colporteurs are exempted from certain taxes in the
Argentine. The most illustrious among the annual sub
scribers to the Society is the German Emperor.
Privileges in Russia,
The work of the Bible Society has commended itself
in many regards to the high authorities of the Russian

OF THE BIBLE 67
Empire, and has been signally furthered by various
valuable privileges. We have free carriage for our
books on all the railways of the Empire — both State
and private railways. From whatever country a con
signment comes to us, when once it crosses the frontier
and is put upon Russian lines, there is no further charge,
though the books should be conveyed from Poland to
Vladivostock. This is the greater boon, as our con
signments are heavy. More than one railway, in meeting
the ordinary demands of our work, carries for us not less
than a hundred tons of Scriptures in a year.
Another privilege is that we have ten free tickets from
the State railways for the use of our Colporteurs, valid
anywhere and always upon the particular lines. Four
free passes have also been granted on the Russo-Chinese
railway in Manchuria, In the Customs Department we
enjoy exemption from the tax of one and a half roubles
per pood (about 3s. per 36 lbs.) on bound books im
ported into Russia ; and thus our large imports of
German and other Scriptures are admitted duty-free.
And still further, on the establishment a few years ago of
a Trade and Industrial Tax, the depots and the employes
of the Society were recognized by the Finance Minister
as exempt.
Characteristic Russian Generosity,
In supporting the Society's work the ordinary com
mercial carrying companies of Russia have also worthily
borne their part. The carriage of goods freight free, and
the carrying of Colporteurs passage free, this is the story
that is to be told of Shipping Companies in the White Sea
and the Black Sea and on rivers like the Dnieper, the Don,

68 THE CONQUESTS
the Volga, and the Amur. In a number of towns the
Tramway Companies give free tickets to the Colporteurs.
This corresponds also with the official attitude in Russia
towards the Society's work. Our Colporteur in the
Crimea received special permission to visit the warships
of the Black Sea fleet in Sebastopol harbour.
The Mysterious East,
We cannot close this chapter without glancing at the
effect of colportage in the immense Eastern Empires
which contain between them so large a portion of man
kind. When Lord Auckland was Governor-General of
India, he used to say, as matter for strange thoughts, that
the Emperor of China and himself ruled half the human
race and still found time for breakfast. Half the Bible
Society's staff of Colporteurs is made up of brown men
in Hindustan and yellow men in Cathay.
The Book in India,
India alone is a continent swarming with scores of
races and creeds, including every stage of civilization and
barbarism, and sheltering every form of belief, or mis
belief, from the most degraded demon-worship to the
subtlest theosophical dreams. And this vast cup of life
is seething with the decay of old faiths and the ferment
of new ideas. No man can certainly predict the issue.
But amid the vast secular change which we dimly perceive
to be proceeding in modern India, English Christians must
feel themselves doubly bound to communicate the means
of grace and the hope of glory which are bound up with
the Bible. Last year a hundred and forty Colporteurs

Til Lhi; Inai.-in KmpiiL; tlic^ Hii

HINDU TEMPLES AT TRICHINOPOLY.
,¦ So.:iL^iy L-irL-iilateJ Ja.st year consltlL;r.-ibly ovi^r h.-JC a m

OF THE BIBLE 69
were dispersing the Scriptures among our fellow-subjects
in this huge dependency.
Colportage, How do the Colporteurs work ? Go to any important
Indian railway station, and you will find the man with
the books moving quietly among the dense crowds of
natives, as they sit waiting sometimes for hours together,
offering them the Guide Book for the journey of life.
Go to the great heathen festivals, and there among the
throng of idol-worshippers is the Colporteur diffusing
the knowledge of the God who dwelleth not in temples
made with hands. Go to many an outlying village,
never reached by a missionary, and you will find in one
house or another some portion of the Word of God : the
Colporteur has visited these " regions beyond," and has
left behind him seed in the spiritual wilderness. The
sales effected last year by our Colporteurs up and down
India reached a total of nearly 178,000 copies,^ in all
the great vernaculars of that polyglot peninsula. They
scatter among the Indian people the Book which
makes each man responsible for his own evil, and
which teaches men that ignorance is not the real
curse and burden, but only sin. Among a people so
divided one from another, sundered into cruel castes
and isolated from the rest of mankind, they scatter the
Book which says ' blood is not important ; only charac
ter.' Character can be universal and international,
and this Book alone can unite India within itself, and
also unite India with the rest of the world, 2
' The Society's total circulation in India last year amounted to
the record total of 562,000 copies. " The Rev. H. Haigh.

70 THE CONQUESTS
The Book in China,
Turning to the still vaster and more bewildering
problem which is presented by the innumerable multi
tudes of Chinese, we note that it is entirely in keeping
with their ideas to propagate morals and religion by
means of books, Confucianism never had a preacher,
and has no preacher to-day. Books have been the
means of preserving and diffusing the great sage's
teaching, and to distribute the Scriptures is the most
natural and effective way of reaching the Chinese mind.
Throughout 1902 the Society supported about 240
native Colporteurs in China, who sold the unprecedented
number of 728,000 books. It is curious to get glimpses
of these men, to hear how one before his conversion
had been a professional beggar — how another in the
city of Hai-cheng is an ex-Buddhist priest, who was
rich as an ecclesiastic but lost all for Christ, and now
earns an ordinary wage of eleven shillings a month,
selling Gospels, The Rev, John Hedley, of the English
Methodist New Connexion Mission in Tientsin, writes
as follows concerning one of the six Colporteurs he
superintends for us : —
" Mr. Wang is a man not much over thirty, who for some
years acted as a master-mason for the Imperial Chinese
Railways. He was accustomed to undertake large con
tracts, and consequently was making much more money
than can ever fall to a Colporteur. But to my surprise he
offered his services and pleaded to be appointed. I had a
long, careful interview with him, endeavouring to get at the
reasons for his request. He assured me that he had counted
all the cost ; admitted that for a Christian it was difficult to
retain his integrity in such a position as he had been filling ,
and declared that he was willing to make whatever sacrifices

OF THE BIBLE 71
might be involved, and in this way to work for the Lord. I
at once engaged him as your representative, and a right
worthy man he has proved himself to be."
The Dawn of a New Day,
Perhaps the most remarkable portent in the renascence
which is taking place in China is the fact that last year
our Depot at Shanghai issued more than a million books,i
and even then failed to keep pace with the extraordinary
demand. News comes that our issues during the first
nine months of 1903 will exceed 1,431,000 copies —
comjprising 31,800 Bibles and Old Testaments ; 54,800
New Testaments, and 1,344,000 Portions. There seems
a possibility that the issues of our China Agency for
1903 will reach two million copies of the Scriptures.
The Chinese Protestant Church has trebled its member
ship during the last twelve years. Surely the time is at
hand when "China shall arise and go to its Father — at
once the oldest child of Adam and the youngest child of
God." • The National Bible Society of Scotland also circulated 562,000
copies in China last year.

72 THE CONQUESTS

VI
A WIDENING KINGDOM
The boundless and invisible thought that goes
Free throughout time, as north or south wind blows, .
Far throughout space, as east or west sea flows.
And all dark things before it are made bright.
Swinburne, A Year's Burden.
History teaches us that all great spiritual conquests are
achieved gently, without striving or crying. So it was that
the literature and ideas of Greece insensibly dominated
her Roman masters. So that wonderful thing which we
call Roman law permeated and subdued the barbarian
conquerors of the Empire until it is ruUng to-day in
the jurisprudence of modern Europe. We may say
indeed that just because the Scripture works subtly, it
works potently. Nothing which the heart of man values
is so secret : nothing is so mighty. " Shyer than gravi
tation, less to be counted than the fluxions on sundials,
stealthier than the growth of a forest " are the footsteps
of the Bible in the world.
Through Closed Doors,
One chief element in the power of the Bible is the way
in which it passes through doors which are closed against
every other influence, and preaches where no other wit-

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OF THE BIBLE 73
ness is heard. There remain great countries like Afghani
stan and Nepal and Tibet, which no missionary is
permitted to enter. But the Scriptures can penetrate
where the Christian teacher is barred out. The Pashtu
Bible finds its way across the mountains on the Panjab
frontier to Kandahar and Kabul. Native traders from
Nepal are constantly crossing the border, carrying back
home with them the Nepalese New Testament. The
revised Tibetan Testament has just been printed by
Christian Tibetans at the native press in Ghoom, above
Darjeeling ; and Mr. Edward Amundsen, who super
intended its completion, is now returning as the Society's
Sub-agent to the west of China, where the caravans of
yaks laden with tea have already conveyed many a copy
of the Tibetan Gospels 900 miles across the snowy passes
to Lhassa, the mysterious, forbidden city.
Accra, again, is a centre of the West Africa trade, and
Moslem traders who come down to the coast will not
seldom carry back with them to the inaccessible hinter
lands a Hausa Gospel or an Arabic Testament. Although
no foreign mission is established within the ancient
realm of Abyssinia, yet the Scriptures in Ethiopic and
Amharic, and Tigr6 and Galla which we provide for the
Mission of the Swedish Evangelical Society at Eritrea,
are steadily percolating into the dominions of the
Emperor Menelik, who would also receive last year
the Society's gift of five hundred Ethiopic New Testa
ments, which were conveyed to Adis Abeba by Abuna,
Archbishop Matteos, of the Church of Ethiopia.
The Silent Missionary,
But even in those vast heathen countries where Chris-

74 THE CONQUESTS
tian missionaries are admitted to settle and labour, they
themselves vividly realise what a scanty band they are
in the midst of such multitudes of the untaught and the
unbelieving. The strongest mission staff in the foreign
field must be all inadequate for its overwhelming task.
Now one function of the Scriptures is to supplement this
inadequacy, " Since I have been in India," wrote Bishop
Welldon, " I have seen more and more how, amid the
paucity of Mission workers, both men and women, as
compared with the population of three hundred million
souls, the Bible is the one silent, universal and irresistible
missionary, upon whose influence the Church can always
and everywhere depend," When the first edition of the
Bengali New Testament was about to be issued from the
Mission Press at Serampore, Wilham Ward exclaimed, in
his exultation : "We are nowsending out two thousand mis
sionaries, of whose success I dare not doubt," " If I were a
missionary," said a leading Hindu, " I would not argue ;
I would, give the people the New Testament and say.
Read that." At least it is certain that for dim myriads of
heathen folk " the Four Evangelists are and must be the
only evangelists " ; across immense areas of the wilder
ness no other voice but theirs calls men to God.
For Secluded Women in the East
By immemorial custom Indian women of the better
classes must live in rigorous seclusion. Behind the
curtains of the zanana they are cut off from Christian
teaching, and for the most part from education as well,
and spend their cramped and darkened lives in a con
dition of ignorance and illiteracy which is difficult for
English women to realize. To remedy the results of

¦^1

NATIVE CHRISTIAN BIBLEWOMEN IN BENGAL.
Tlio SoL-itrty supports (.50 N:.livo Christi;in 1 1 ihli;womcn, workiny in connection with over forty dil-tV-rcnt mis^

rj- oryaniz.itions ni the East.

OF THE BIBLE 75
this baneful system, native Christian Biblewomen visit
the zananas where no male missionary may enter, and not
only read the Gospel to their jealously guarded sisters,
but teach them to read the Book for themselves. Ex
perience has amply demonstrated the value of this form
of women's mission to women in the East. In India,
Burma, and Ceylon alone the Bible Society maintained
last year over five hundred native Biblewomen, who have
worked under the auspices and superintendence of aU
the chief English, Scotch, Colonial, American, German
and Danish Missions. An old Tamil proverb tells us
that As is the thread, so is the cloth ; as is the mother, so is
the child. And the influence of such work on mothers,
and through them on their children, can never be tabu
lated. A non-Christian Indian paper declares that the
Biblewoman —
" Has been the evangelist of education to hundreds and
thousands of Hindu homes. Simple, neat, and kindly, she
has won her way to the recesses of orthodoxy, overcoming
a strength and bitterness of prejudice of which few out
siders can have an adequated conception. As these
sentences are being written, there rises before the mind's
eye the picture of scores of tidy, gentle girls, trudging hot
and dusty streets, barefooted, under a scorching sun, to
carry the light of knowledge to homes where they will not
be admitted beyond the ante-chamber, and where they
cannot get a glass of water without humiliation, yet never
complaining, ever patient. To these brave and devoted
women, wherever they are, friends of education all over the
country will heartily wish ' God-speed.' "
Earthquakes and Revolutions,
An immense organization like the Bible Society, which
stretches out its hands to the four corners of the earth,

76 THE CONQUESTS
cannot but be sensitive to world-movements of every
kind. In its brief chronicles we catch reflections of
those events and changes which are busy transforming
the future. Physical calamities make room for its benevo
lence, political conflicts hinder or assist its mission.
Early last year it sent a liberal gift of the Scriptures to
St. Vincent for the sufferers from the terrible volcanic
eruption. Two subsequent journeys of our Agent to
Guatemala proved fruitless, because they coincided with
visitations of earthquake, A Russian Sub-agent in
Central Asia also describes two serious earthquakes last
year, " both of which will affect our work and our sales,
as the people in these districts have been ruined by the
disasters," During the latest revolution in Panama our
Agent witnessed a sea-fight between ships of the Govern
ment and of the insurgents, A consignment of Scriptures
for Haiti, sent to Port-au-Prince "got no further than
Cap d'Haiti owing to the revolution," In San Domingo,
where 300 copies were disposed of, "revolutions have
been rife and still prevail," Among such turbulent
peoples, how difficult, and yet how necessary, to publish
the Gospel of peace I
Bibles for Emigrants.
With each new discovery of science our planet seems
to contract, and the ends of the earth are drawn together
more closely. The explorer, the trader, the engineer, are
all preparing a way for the Bible, As travel becomes
cheap and easy and rapid, so emigration grows more and
more common. The restless movements of population
increase year by year. For example, it is calculated
that since i860 six millions of Italians have settled in

OF THE BIBLE 77
foreign countries. Where do they all go ? The answer
is — everywhere. One gracious function of the Bible
Society is to supply the emigrant with the Scriptures in
his own tongue in the land where he is a stranger. A
grant of Italian Gospels has just been sent out to a
missionary at Victoria Falls on the Zambesi, for several
hundreds of navvies who have arrived there to work at the
trans-African railway. The main currents of emigration
from Central Europe flow through Hamburg, Bremen,
and Antwerp, and at each of those ports our Colporteurs
are busy selling, or giving, the Scriptures. Among these
throngs of polyglot pilgrims who have set their faces
to the New World, thousands are bound for South
America, Our Agent in Brazil reports sales in Portu
guese, Italian, German, English, French, Arabic, Polish,
and Syriac. No other country, with the exception of
Argentina, is receiving such swarms of Europe's surplus
population as Brazil, In the beautiful climate of Rio
Grande do Sui, a State three times the size of England,
there are very large German and Italian colonies, and
our Colporteur speaks both German and Portuguese.
In the States of Santa Catharina and Parana Poles
abound, in the adjoining State of San Paulo there are
vast numbers of Italians, while Syrians from around
Beyrout are found all over Brazil.
Dispersed Children of the East,
Not only the eager West, but the immemorial East,
" the still home of an endless yesterday," is stirred by the
modern emigrant spirit. Already there are scores of
thousands of coolies in South Africa. Our Depots at
Bombay and Allahabad despatch Scriptures in Indian

78 THE CONQUESTS
languages to Fiji, where a missionary writes that 18,000
coolies from the north of l3elhi have come to work on
the plantations. At the last anniversary of our Mauritius
Auxiliary, speeches were made in Tamil and Hindi, as
well as in English and French, In the Malay Peninsula
nearly a million Chinese are mixed with numerous
Tamils from South India, and the Moslem natives find
themselves among the shrines of an alien creed. In
British Guiana Gospels are sold to the coolies in several
Indian languages ; and our Berbice Auxiliary employs a
Hindustani Colporteur. Arabic Bibles are provided for
the Syrians in Johannesburg, and the Syrians in Jamaica.
In many out-of-the-way places in Jamaica, "where small
shops are opened by Chinamen and East Indians, the
demand for English Bibles induces these strangers, most
of whom cannot read, to keep a small supply for sale. In
outlying districts it sometimes happens that the only
person offering the Scriptures for sale is a Chinaman or a
coolie." In Canada our Auxiliaries have supplied New Testa
ments in their own tongues to Finns and Hungarians in
Quebec, to Swedes and Norwegians in Manitoba. Our
Upper Canada Auxiliary employs a Mennonite Colporteur
among the Mennonite settlers in Southern Manitoba, and
a Russian Colporteur among the Dukobors and Galicians
in Assiniboia. Scriptures are provided for the Icelandic
Synod of the Lutheran Church at Winnipeg, and for a
Chinese Sunday School in Halifax. Two French Bible-
women and one Italian visit their fellow-countrywomen,
who are numerous in Montreal. And two French Col
porteurs work successfully among the French-speaking
population of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Buddhist Temple at Pahang, Malay Peninsula.
In Malaysia, including- the Philippines, we circulated last year over 133,000 copies, among- 35,000,000 people.

OF THE BIBLE 79
The Spread of Education,
Another silent but mighty ally of the Bible is the spread
of education. Even the best of books remains dumb and
impotent until it reaches those who are able to read it.
Now in all civilized and semi-civilized countries the pro
portion of readers and the corresponding influence of the
printed page have risen amazingly in recent years, and
will go on rising faster still. Although even in kingdoms
like Italy, Spain, and Portugal more than a third of the
people still remains illiterate, nevertheless the school
master is abroad in the world as he never was before.
The new Indian census shows that in Bengal, the most
advanced of the provinces in education, only one male in
ten and one female in two hundred can read and write.
Yet in India 760 vernacular newspapers are published,
in twenty different tongues, and over a million new
readers are leaving the schools every year. Above four
million children are attending the State schools in Japan.
Even from Guatemala, remote and retrograde, word
comes concerning the aborigines that " in many of the
towns the younger generation of Indians can read and
write, and are extremely curious to learn." Again, how
singular and striking is the paradox that Egypt can boast
of twenty-six daily newspapers — eight in Arabic, eight in
French, three in Italian, six in Greek, and one in
English — as compared with twenty-five daily papers
published in Scotland and Wales together ; while in
Egypt 94 per cent, of the population are illiterate. We
are reminded that in the East each single newspaper,
and also each single Testament, in the hands of a
reader will serve to instruct a coterie of listeners clustered
round him.

So THE CONQUESTS
Yet it must never be forgotten that this modern power
of the press works for evil as well as for good. The
" penny dreadful " generally becomes far more dreadful
and deadly in a foreign tongue, Zola's novels circulate
in Bengali, Hindus have their own anti-Christian tract
societies which reproduce cheap English secularist
pamphlets. At great Indian fairs the bookstalls teem
with demoralizing literature in the venacular. From
Central America comes a protest against the importation
of pernicious fiction. The Diario de San Salvador in a
recent article laments that " the unwholesome literatures
of the Old Continent, in reaching hither, have maddened
and wasted our youth ; they have poisoned our minds,
and our manners also have been corrupted,"
Students in India and China,
The free interchange of ideas in the East is producing
extraordinary effects through what is called " Higher
Education." Tens of thousands of young natives in India
are at present struggling to gain those coveted degrees
which mean so much more to them than to an English
student. The Bible Society seizes its opportunity among
these Indian students, for whom it has done more than
any other single missionary agency. Each man, when he
enters college, is offered a copy of the Four Gospels and
Acts in English ; half-way through his course he is asked
to accept the complete New Testament ; and when he
has graduated, the Society endeavours to arrange that he
shall go forth with the complete Bible in his hands.
During 1902, nearly 7,000 volumes were thus distributed
as gifts among the rising students of India.
To understand competitive examinations in excelsis we.

OF THE BIBLE 8i
must go to China, where these constitute the tests not
only for degrees but for official appointments. The
examination for what we should call an M.A. degree is
held in the capital city of each Province once every three
years. The Examination Halls are huge enclosures con
taining hundreds of rows of little cells, with narrow
passage-ways between the rows, a separate cell being
allotted to each candidate. At the close of the exami
nation, which lasts ten days, the students are let out in
companies of about 2,000 at a time. Bands of mission
aries. Colporteurs, and native Christians are waiting at
the several gates and doors with Chinese Scriptures to
distribute. These generally bear round them a little strip
of paper, on which is printed a brief statement of what
the books are, with a courteous invitation to accept them
and take them home to read. The Bible Society pro
vided 20,000 copies for this purpose last year. By thus
distributing the Scriptures among the scholars of China,
the most influential section of the nation can be reached,
as in no other way. Many of the literati who have joined
the Church in China owe their first interest in Christianity
to the books which they received after an examination.
Free Distribution,
To give away the Scriptures, broadcast and indiscrimi
nately to all comers, is certainly the cheapest method of
disposing of a large number of books in a short space of
time. But the wisest and most successful Christian
workers at home and abroad are practically agreed that
the Bible Society's normal method — which is to sell
copies at a low, or even a nominal price — produces in
the long run far more effective and enduring results.
7

82 THE CONQUESTS
This policy is the result of nearly a century's experience
of circulating God's Word in all parts of the world. It
is ratified by the experience and practice of the great
Bible Societies in other Protestant countries, such as
Scotland, Germany, and America, and is, moreover,
sanctioned by the verdict of the immense majority of
missionaries and evangelists abroad.
We recognise one elementary and notorious fact in
human nature : people everywhere — white men and
brown men, red men and black men — will value and
preserve that which they have paid even a small coin to
secure. Our great object is not simply that a Spaniard
shall have a Spanish New Testament somewhere in his
house, but that he shall be enough interested in it to read
it. We find that this end is best secured by charging a
price for the Scriptures, and by taking pains to induce
people to buy for themselves. This price in foreign
countries is so low that the Book in its cheaper editions
is brought within reach of the poorest. Each Agent and
Colporteur has instructions that whenever he finds any
one who really desires a copy but is too destitute to pay
the price, to present the book to him as a free gift. And
in all cases of exceptional necessity, for the sick in hos
pitals, for criminals in prisons, for children in orphanages,
for visitors at exhibitions, and especially for the inhabi
tants of provinces stricken by famine or pestilence or
persecution, the Society at once relaxes its normal rule
and gives the Scriptures freely and generously to those
who so sorely need their consolation.
The Price of a Bible,
This brings us to consider what a Bible costs, or

OF THE BIBLE 83
rather at what price it can be sold. It may be
interesting to collect a few figures. Throughout the
Middle Ages manuscript books were scarce and costly.
It has been calculated that to have the Old and New
Testaments copied out to-day at a law stationer's in
Chancery Lane would cost over ;^7o. In the fifteenth
century a Wycliffe New Testament in MS. cost 5 marks — ¦
about ;^40 in our present money. Tindale's earliest printed
English Testaments sold for between 3s. and 4s. — over
f^i to-day. When the " Great Bible " was published and
Henry VIII. ordered a copy to be placed in every parish
church, the Book was priced at 12s. — equivalent to about
seven guineas jiow. In Charles I.'s reign the popular
quarto Geneva Bibles cost 7s, unbound, i.e., about ^^i los.
Although printing improved and materials cheapened, yet
right on down to the beginning of the last century the
Scriptures still remained expensive and far from plenti
ful. When the Bible Society was founded the cheapest
English Bible was sold at 4s. 6d., and the cheapest
Testament at is. 8d.
To-day we issue an English Bible at 6d. ; and we have
printed nearly eight millions of the English penny Testa
ment. We have published a Dutch Bible at 6d., which is
the cheapest book in South Africa. A Bible in Spanish
is sold at 7|d. ; in Portuguese at 8^d. ; in Welsh, in
French, and in Italian at lod. ; in Arabic, in Armenian,
and in German at iid, ; in Bohemian and in Malagasi at
IS. At Calcutta, a Bengah Gospel which costs a penny to
print is sold for a farthing, and about half of that farthing
is swallowed up in charges for carriage. Our cheapest
Chinese New Testament, which costs about 4jd. to print,
is offered throughout China by our Colporteurs for just

84 THE CONQUESTS
over 2d. In the Exhibition being held during this pre
sent summer at Osaka — which has been described as the
Manchester and the Venice of Japan — our Sub-agent in a
single day has sold 22,000 Gospels, each for a sen, i.e., less
than a Jd. A new edition has been prepared of 50,000
Japanese Testaments which cost ifd. each for paper and
printing, and which we sell at the Exhibition for ijd.
How little the Bible Society trades for profit may be
gauged by this fact : out of what it spent in producing
and distributing nearly six milhon copies of the Scrip
tures last year, only about 40 per cent, came back as the
proceeds of sales.
Socialists and the Scriptures.
One grave hindrance which besets our European Col
porteurs is the ominous growth of Socialism. For in
Continental countries that word means far more than
the coUectivist theories of economics, which are advo
cated by eminent English Christians. Outside England,
Socialism implies, as a rule, a bitter materialist creed,
which denies and denounces all standards and ideals of
life except the secular. Such is the goal to which
millions of working men are being driven by social misery
and the terrible weight of the military system. To-day
the Social Democrat is multiplying, not only in great
centres like Berlin and Barcelona and Milan and in
manufacturing regions like Westphalia, but in the agricul
tural provinces of Italy and Austria-Hungary ; and every
where he rejects the Bible with scorn and contempt. Yet
when our Colporteurs disclose the grinding poverty which
they witness ; when, for instance, we hear of labourers in
south-eastern Bohemia whose daily wage is 70 heller —

OF THE BIBLE 85
about 7d. — without any perquisites ; when we are told of
districts in Galicia and the Bukowina where a man's pay
has sunk so incredibly low as from 10 to 14 kreutzer — 2d.
to 2jd. — per day ; can we marvel at a savage spirit of re
volt against the established order in all its forms ? When
the SociaHsts in Trieste railed at " the pomp and luxury
of priests while honest working men were starving,"
our Colporteur could only teU them of the great High
Priest who on earth had not where to lay His head.
A Roman Catholic Bible Society,
In earlier pages of this Report references have been
made to the attitude which the Roman Church assumes
towards the free circulation of the Bible in the vulgar
tongue. In this respect it practically stands alone
among the great divisions of Christendom. By the
Orthodox Church in Russia, by Greek bishops and priests
in Servia and Rumania and the Islands of the .^gean,
by Coptic Christians in Egypt, by Assyrian Christians in
Mesopotamia, by Nestorian Christians in Malabar, the
Bible Society is encouraged in its efforts to put the
vernacular Scriptures into the hands of the people. The
printing houses of the Holy Synod in St. Petersburg and
Moscow themselves carry on a very considerable circula
tion of Russian and Slavonic Scriptures by commission
agents and Colporteurs of their own. But the fatal policy
which the Roman Church has pursued since the Council of
Trent, in most countries where it is powerful, still makes
its priests too often the enemies instead of the friends of
our Agents, and still keeps its people in ignorance of the
Book of God. It would be painful to quote instances of
the fierce ecclesiastical hostility which our Colporteurs

86 THE CONQUESTS
often encounter, but we may give one appeahng example
of popular ignorance.
In the Heart of Brazil,
Last year a most important and successful colportage
expedition was made across country, right into the centre
of Brazil. Leaving the railway, a journey of one thousand
miles on mule-back brought our Bible-sellers to Cuyaba,
the capital of Matto Grosso, in the very heart of the
continent, distant more than 3,600 miles by water from
Rio. Throughout their tour the travellers met with a
most encouraging willingness on the part of the people
to purchase the Scriptures. Often the people did not
know what they were buying, as it was the first time
that they had ever heard of the Bible, though reared in
the Roman Church. "All the way across we did not
meet a single person who possessed the Bible or any part of
it." Can any one call it a needless or intrusive mission
to spread the Bible in Brazil ?
The New Italian Gospels,
In view of these facts, therefore, we rejoice the more
profoundly that in Italy the Roman Church has made a
new departure. The recently formed "Pious Society of
St. Jerome for the Dissemination of the Holy Gospels " has
been allowed to issue, from the Vatican Press itself, a
neat little volume containing a new Italian translation
of the Four Gospels and the Acts, and to disseminate
it as widely as possible among the people at the low
price of 2d. per copy. In this new version the text is
accompanied by notes, but Protestant controversy is
generally avoided, and in many instances a perfectly

OF THE BIBLE 87
evangelical comment on our Lord's teaching is given.
In the preface the long-continued efforts of the Bible
Society in Italy are described as " a similar propaganda
which our separated Protestant brethren have for some
time been carrying on with great activity." We learn
on reliable authority that 170,000 copies of this 20 centime
edition of the Four Gospels and Acts have been issued
already. We are also informed that the translation of
the remainder of the New Testament is taken in hand,
while a halfpenny edition of St. Matthew is already
published. At the end of each volume is a list of about
150 "Diocesan Correspondents" from whom the little
book may be obtained, while every priest can have a
stock for sale among his parishioners.
We praise God with all our hearts for this auspicious
event. We pray that it may prove a herald and harbinger
of the widening dominion of the Bible in every country
where the Roman Church prevails.

THE CONQUESTS

VII
THE WITNESS AND THE RECONCILER
After all, they are happy who hold fast to one knot of the fringe
of ihe seamless robe.
In the foregoing chapters we have tried to illustrate and
exemplify, out of the Bible Society's experience last year,
the way in which the Book itself is steadily widening its
conquests in the world. When we come to gather up
conclusions from this fragmentary mass of particulars,
two shining truths emerge, clear and convincing and
irresistible. The Vitality of the Bible,
First and foremost we recognise the miraculous vitality
of the Bible. It is difficult to appreciate the meaning of
its enormous circulation. To be told about so many
millions of copies produces only a vague impression on
the mind. Nevertheless we often read of the wonderful
sales attained by certain works of fiction and the great
number of editions through which they have run. But
the literary columns of newspapers say little about the
one Book which is always in constant demand and
which outsells every other volume published. One of

OF THE BIBLE 89
the first booksellers in New York recently declared :
"You may talk about your multitudinous editions of
popular novels, but the Bible leads them all, year in and
year out. It is probably issued in more editions and got
up in more styles and shapes than any other book in the
world." Out of the myriads of new works poured forth
by the English press last year, hardly one in three
reached a second edition. The average life of a newly-
published book is not more than four or five years :
after that, it is " dead " — and it has no resurrection. Yet
at the end of so many centuries the Bible to-day in our
modern world is multiplied more abundantly, and is
read more widely, and is prevailing more mightily
than ever.
Nee tamen consumebatur,
For a hundred years this Book has attracted fiercer
and more sustained criticism than all other books put
together. Some of the keenest intellects in Europe have
spent their strength in efforts to discredit and destroy it.
But, in spite of them all, it thrives and flourishes with the
power of an endless life. Germany, for example, has
been commonly considered the fortress and citadel of
modern unbelief. Yet the circulation of the Scriptures
in Germany last year through all channels exceeded a
million copies. Twenty years ago the circulation
amounted to ten copies per thousand of the population ;
last year it amounted to eighteen copies per thousand.
That is to say, while learned men have discussed, and
doubted, and even denied, the German people are buying
nearly twice as many copies of God's Book as they
bought twenty years ago.

go THE CONQUESTS
Lessons from Criticism.
Many of us believe indeed that the Bible has gained
more from criticism than it can ever lose. We would
repeat the words which the Prime Minister, Mr. A. J.
Balfour, uttered at our Inaugural Centenary Meeting at
the Mansion House last March : " These researches [by
critics] make the Bible far more a living record of the
Revelation of God to mankind than it ever was or ever
could be to those who, from the nature of the case, had
no adequate conception of the circumstances under which
that Revelation occurred, or the peoples to whom it was
revealed. And I most truly think that not only is the
Bible now what it has always been to the unlearned, a
source of consolation, of hope, of instruction, but it is
to those who are more learned— but not probably nearer
the kingdom of heaven — it is to them augmented in
interest and not diminished, a more valuable source of
spiritual life now than it could ever have been in the
pre-critical days,"
The Book which is above every Book.
Nevertheless, when all has been said, these questions of
literary criticism remain for the most part irrelevant.
They do not touch the real problems presented to men's
hearts and lives by the Gospel, They lie outside those
passionate facts of human experience, the remorses and
exultations and agonies, with which the Gospel deals.
And the final answer of simple-minded Christians to
learned discussions about the documents of Scripture
lies in the miraculous, inextinguishable vitality of the
Book itself.

OF THE BIBLE 91
"The man who hides from himself what Christianity
and the Christian revelation are, takes the parts of it to
pieces, and persuades himself that without divine inter
position he can account for all the pieces. Here is
something from the Jews and something from the Greeks.
Here are miracles that may be partly odd natural events,
partly nervous impressions, and partly gradually growing
legends. Here are books, of which we may say that this
element was contributed by this party, and the other by that,
and the general colouring by people who held partly by both.
In such ways as these Christianity is taken to pieces and
spread over several centuries. But when your operation is
done, the living whole draws itself together again, looks you
in the face, refuses to be conceived in that manner, reclaims
its scattered members from the other centuries to the first,
and re-asserts itself to be a great burst of coherent life and
light, centring in Christ. Just as you might take to pieces a
living tissue, and say there is here only so much nitrogen,
carbon, lime, and so forth ; but the energetic peculiarities of
hfe going on before your eyes would refute you by the
palpable presence of a mystery unaccounted for." "
This energetic life of the New Testament, by which
it can penetrate and convert and subdue and recreate
the inner man, becomes an irresistible proof of its
authority as the wisdom and the power of God.
When criticism has exhausted itself the Bible remains
intact in all that which makes it to be the Bible. " Its
liquid texture can receive no mortal wound." To know
when its documents were composed, and how they
were edited, does not account for their spiritual content,
nor explain their saving power away. We meet God
in those pages as we can meet Him nowhere else.
His revelations of Himself in science, in history, in the
' Principal Rainy.

92 THE CONQUESTS
individual conscience, only confirm and illustrate Scrip
ture. They do not improve upon it or supersede it.
All the thinkers in Christendom have not discovered a
new religious truth of which the apostles were ignorant,
or written a new treatise which deserves to be bound up
with the canon. All the saints together have not been
able to add one single ray to the glory of Jesus Christ.
Weary seekers for ihe best,
We come back laden from out quest
To find that all the sages said
Is in the Book our mothers read.
The Book of all Saints,
Let us call two witnesses from opposite ends of the
earth and opposite schools in the Church. The Bishop
of Oxford writes : " It is an impressive sight that rises
before us as we look back and see the long line of saints,
and mark how all along the Bible has been their book.
The impression grows deeper and more vivid if we come
to know in any way what the Bible is to those who in our
own day keep up the tradition of the saintly character.
This is one of those peculiar and commanding credentials
of the Bible which no change, no shifting of thought can
in the least degree affect. Nothing can deprive it of this
distinction — that in its pages men have found, and still
are finding, the discipline of the Christian character." ^
The Book of Converts,
Writing from the New Hebrides last November, Dr.
John G. Paton says : " We earnestly wish that all who
doubt the Divine origin and power of the Holy Scriptures
' Studies in ihe Christian Character.

Reproduced frojH The Queen's LiiiHrc, by pertmssiau of

A MALAY VILLAGE.

Cassell &¦ Co., Lid. Photo by G. R. Lambert &- Co., Singaiiore.

Our colporteurs in Malaysia last year sold over 111,000 copies, in about 40 Ian

OF THE BIBLE

93

could visit the wild, painted, almost naked savages who
yet remain on the heathen parts of our islands with their
shocking cruelties, and then see the change which the
Bible by its teaching has produced on our native
Christians. If they be reasonable men, such sceptics
would at once become the heartiest supporters of the
Bible Society."
The Book of the Progressive Nations,
Surely it is no chance coincidence that the world's
expanding races, which with all their faults have shown
the greatest colonizing and civilizing energy — the Anglo-
Saxon, the Teuton, and we may add the Slav — are races
which possess and preserve an open Bible, The signi
ficant progress of God's Book among the nations which
make for progress was excellently stated in an article
which the Spectator recently devoted to the Society's
Centenary : —
" Contemplating the ordered progress of the great religions
of the world, what do we see ? Among the hundreds of
millions of God's creatures we watch successive millions
added to the millions having knowledge of a Book believed
by men to have been given to them by God. For the
progress of those milUons, for the continued acceptance of
one Book beyond other books, there must be a reason, ff
there is reason in anything ; must not that reason be the
Creator's set purpose that such a Book, and the Gospel of
Christ which it contains, should at last be the Book of the
world ? . . , The Book of the nations which stand for
progress is not the Koran ; and granted once that progress of
some kind is right and good, that the whole Creation does
move towards ' one, far-off. Divine event,' then the progress
of the knowledge of the Bible with the progress of mankind
cannot be a mere coincidence. If we believe in anything we

94 THE CONQUESTS
must believe that it has been ordered that the energy of the
conquering nations of the world should be directed in the
path mankind was meant to tread, and that path the religion
of Christ as revealed in the Bible . . .
" We know, at least, that more and more of God's creatures
year by year read the Bible and learn the teachings of His
Son, and we cannot but believe that the increasing knowledge
in the world of that Book is part of the great Plan, leading
humanity at last, in Bacon's splendid phrase, to ' the Sabaoth
and port of all men's labours and peregrinations.' "
The Reconciler of Differences,
Besides the testimony which the Bible thus bears to its
own increasing vitality, it exercises another sacred function
as the healer of wounds and the restorer of peace. In
spite of diversities of interpretation there is, after all, only
one Charter for the Church universal, only one Book for
the whole congregation of Christ's flock. The Scriptures
represent the common heritage of Christendom, They
form a catholic possession which can reconcile and
reunite believers whom controversies have set asunder,
" Reunion," cried Canon Liddon, twenty years ago, " all
good men are praying for it." And each Christian who
longs and prays for unity has it in his own hands to
further it and bear witness for it in one very practical way
— by co-operating with his fellow Christians to circulate
the Book which they all agree to accept as the Book
of God,
The Beginnings of Reunion,
Reunion, said Archbishop Benson, may be a star very
low upon the horizon, but it has risen. How is reunion
to be brought about ? " It cannot, in the nature of things,
begin deeper down than the Scriptures : and we may all

OF THE BIBLE

95

of us be quite sure that it will not begin any higher up.
But the Scriptures are a real, sound, true beginning ; and
in the time to come, if it ever pleases God to realize to
our descendants this great vision, people will point back
to the Bible Society as having caught the first ray of that
day-star,"
A Practical Example.
The Bible Society at least does something which is
tangible and practical towards breaking down middle
walls of partition and promoting the spiritual inter
communion of Churches. Its translators and revisers
belong to nearly every school in theology, and to almost
every communion in Christendom. It is able to combine
and co-ordinate the ripest scholars and linguists, so as to
produce in each part of the mission field what becomes
in the end accepted as a standard version of the Bible.
We can hardly exaggerate the immense spiritual gain
which is thus secured in heathen lands by escaping rival
and sectarian versions of Scripture.
The King's Coronation Bible,
In our own country the Bible Society is recognised
as the chief among those religious institutions which
English Christians unite together to support. A pic
turesque illustration of their unity occurred last October.
The King had graciously consented to accept from the
Society an English Bible as a memorial of his Corona
tion, and this volume, bound in the finest style of
art, was placed in His Majesty's hands at a special
audience by our President. On that occasion Lord
Northampton was accompanied by a smaU representative

96 THE CONQUESTS
deputation, which consisted of the venerable Archbishop
Temple ; Dr. Fairbairn, the Congregational theologian ;
Mr. Caleb R. Kemp, of the Society of Friends, the Chair
man of our Committee ; and the Rev. J. H. Ritson, our
Wesleyan Secretary. The deputation itself exemplified
how Christians of different types and Churches draw
together as by natural instinct round the Bible. For that
Book recalls them to the relative proportion between the
things on which they agree and the things on which they
differ : it is a lesson in "the art of measurement " which,
said Plato, " would save the soul."
Bishop Westcott's Prophecy,
On this point we fortify ourselves by the prediction
of that illustrious English prelate, most patient of
scholars and most devout of Christians, who was taken
from us three years ago : —
"There is a reconciUng power in that fellowship which
comes from recognising the common duty of bringing the
whole Bible before all men. I will venture to say that so far
as we can combine in this work we shall find the first-fruits
of the unity for which we look. I hope much from the
deepest, the frankest, the most faithful study of tlie fulness of
the Holy Scripture. I think we may gain through that, as
time goes on, that outward unity which our Lord Himself has
declared shall be the power by which the world shall be
overcome. If we look for that unity, that victory, I think we
shall find it through the Bible."
The preceding pages have shown how this co-operation
between Christians in the duty of spreading abroad the
Bible has acted during the last century as a potent force
in religious and missionary progress. The same unity of

07n Fhofo.^raph by THE DART, WAKATIPU LAKE, NEW ZEALAND. A/uh- &¦ Moodic, Dumdin
Our Free Contribution.s from New Zealand last year amomiLud to £,15>^, Tho Froc Contrilnitions from the Australian Commonwealth exceeded ;^2,400.

OF THE BIBLE

97

«pirit is being manifested as we prepare to keep the
Society's hundredth birthday.
Our Coming Centenary,
One main preoccupation of the year which has closed
has naturally been to make ready for our great Festival
of thanksgiving in the spring of 1904. The Centenary
Grand Committee meeting at Birmingham last October
ratified the provisional plans and arrangements and
endorsed the broad grounds of the Society's appeal
for a Centenary Fund of 250,000 guineas to meet
the imperious needs and claims for extension in every
quarter of the world. Our Auxiliaries in England and
Wales are rising enthusiastically to the occasion, and in
Iiundreds of local centres Standing Committees are
already formed to diffuse information, awaken interest,
collect gifts, and arrange local Centenary plans. All the
great Missionary Societies are joining hands with us in
the most hearty and friendly spirit, for which we cannot
be too grateful. The Centenary is being brought before
every English Ecclesiastical Congress and Conference
during the present year, and resolutions have been
adopted by every body of Christians in the country
promising active co-operation. Among our Continental
and Colonial Auxiliaries a corresponding zeal is mani
festing itself. Special Centenary Deputations are visiting
Australasia, Canada, and Ceylon.
Universal Bible Sunday,
The Centenary Inaugural Meetings in London on
March 6, 1903, proved successful beyond all expecta
tion. Payments and promises to the Centenary Fund

98 THE CONQUESTS
already exceed ;£S5,ooo, and include donations from
H.M. the King and H.R.H. the Prince of Wales.
Universal Bible Sunday, March 6, 1904, will be observed
not only throughout the British Empire, but by many
Reformed Churches on the Continent and in the United
States, and bids fair to become the most unanimous fes
tival ever kept by Christians in modern times. We pray
God to inspire and control these plans and efforts, and
as their result to unite us all more perfectly in fhe spirit
and power of the Bible. What it has done among men
in the past makes us confident concerning what it will
accomplish in the future. The strangest triumph of the
Bible is surely this, that it creates in the souls of its
disciples a presage, nay, a conviction, of its complete and
final victory.

OF THE BIBLE 99

VIII
FIGURES AND FINANCE
Must not a warrtor, then, in addition to his military skill, have a
knowledge of arithm.etic ?
Certainly he must, if he is to have the least understanding of military
tactics, or indeed, I should rather say, if he is to be a man at all. —
Plato : Republic VII.
In this Chapter we exhibit in a summary form the
essential statistics which belong to the story of the Bible
Society's work last year. These figures illuminate the
immense services which the Society renders in its world
wide field of labour, and emphasize afresh its claims
upon all sections of the Christian Church.
The Year's Issues,
The Society's issues — surpassing the record total
reported in 1902 — are as follows : —
1902-1903 compared with 1901-1902.
Bibles  997,720 ... 939,706
New Testaments... 1,491,887 ... 1,364,116
Portions  3,454,168 ... 2,763,599
Totals  5,943,775 — 5.067,421
By comparing these remarkable figures, we find that
complete Bibles have risen 58,000 and Testaments

100 THE CONQUESTS
127,000 above last year's record total, while portions are
over half a million above the highest figure previously
reached. And our total issues during the past year have
been 876,354 copies in advance of the unprecedented total
announced at the Anniversary in 1902. In view of such
results we must indeed thank God and take courage.
Of every 100 books sent out, 16 were Bibles, 25 were
Testaments, and 59 were Portions, chiefly Gospels or
Psalters. The issues from the Bible House in London for the
year ending March 31, 1903, were 1,975,102 copies — a
decrease of 832 on the previous year.
The total issues of the Society since its foundation in
1804 have amounted to 180,982,740 copies.
The Work at Home,
In England and Wales the Society spent over ;^io,ooo
last year, mainly in direct grants of Scriptures — free or at
greatly reduced rates — to the Sunday schools. Day schools,
and Missions of nearly every Christian communion, and
to all the varied agencies of religious and philanthropic
activity. We can only mention a few instances.
The Royal Normal College for the Blind, the Society
for the Home Teaching of the Blind, the Swansea and
South Wales Institute for the Blind, and nearly all other
English and Welsh Institutions for befriending the Blind,
receive the Scriptures they need at half-price, in either
Braille or Moon type.
Students at Theological and Missionary Colleges, who
need such assistance, receive as gifts about four hundred
Testaments in Hebrew or Greek each year. The Society
also presents outgoing missionaries with Bibles or Testa-

OF THE BIBLE

lOI

ments in the vernacular of the field in which they are
about to labour.
The colportage work of such societies as the Missions
to Seamen, and other similar institutions, is assisted by
substantial money grants.
A large annual subsidy is given to the London Bible
and Domestic Female Mission, which employs over 170
Biblewomen and Nurses, who read and sell the Scriptures
in the poorest districts of the metropolis.
Home Issues and Auxiliaries,
Of the year's issues about 1,400,000, or 23-5 per cent.,
were in English or Welsh, and circulated mainly in the
British Empire. Of our English Penny Testaments
283,213 were issued, making the total 7,913,191 since
July, 1884.
The cost of the packing-cases used last year in the
Society's London warehouse amounted to £^$6.
In England and Wales the Society's Auxiliaries,
Branches, and Associations on December 31, 1902,
numbered 5,875 — a net increase of 16 during the
twelvemonth. In many cases these distribute the Scrip
tures in their own neighbourhoods, and so the funds
which they raise locally often considerably exceed their
contributions to the Bible House,
The District Secretaries' returns show that last year
4,369 meetings were held, and 2,372 sermons preached
on the Society's behalf — 41 meetings and 120 sermons
more than in 1901.
Fresh Openings and Reorganization,
A new Agency at Johannesburg supplies Scriptures for

102 THE CONQUESTS
the Orange River Colony, the Transvaal, Rhodesia, and
regions beyond. Annam, closed in 1899 to the English
servants of the Society, has been reopened to one of our
French Colporteurs. Promising pioneer work has been
done in our new Agency for the RepubHcs of the Andes.
In China the results call for deep and devout gratitude
to God. Mission work is being rapidly reorganized.
Our actual circulation has exceeded 872,000 copies, more
than double the figures for the previous year, and the
largest total ever reported for China. Especially remark
able are the unprecedented sales of Bibles and Testa
ments, Though our Depot at Shanghai issued more
than a million books, it failed to keep pace with the
extraordinary demand for the Gospel,
Abroad with the Colporteur.
Our own characteristic agent in circulating the Scrip
tures is the Colporteur, who carries his books into all
latitudes and longitudes where readers dwell. Of these
men the Society has employed an average number of
850 throughout last year, at a cost of ^£43,282, Their
sales reached the wonderful total of 1,830,000 copies —
91,000 above the highest previous record in 1899,
The Task of the Biblewoman,
During last year the Society has supported 658 native
Christian Biblewomen, who work in connection with 40
different Missionary organizations in those Eastern lands
where only women can take the Gospel to their secluded
sisters. They have read the Bible to an average of 38,684
women each week ; they have taught 2,409 women to
read for themselves ; and they have circulated 25,483

OF THE BIBLE 103
copies of Scripture. Almost all these figures show a
cheering increase. The total cost of this department of
our enterprise was ;^4,238.
The Society has also helped to support, more or less
directly, 107 European Biblewomen who were at work
in Malaysia, in Canada, and in London.
Translation and Revision,
The responsible tasks of translation and revision have
gone on steadily and patiently in many different countries,
where hundreds of representative missionaries, scholars,
and native hnguists are at work under the Society's
auspices. Questions regarding versions in over 130
languages came up for consideration last year — eight
of these appearing in the Society's list for the first
time. The payments made to translators, revisers, and
proof-readers during the year amounted to over ;^4,ooo.
Foreign Missions.
The Church of England, with comparatively insignificant
exceptions, obtains almost all the Scriptures required for
its foreign missions from the' British and Foreign Bible
.Society. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts has procured Scriptures from the Bible Society in
^ixty foreign languages ; and the great majority of these
.are not obtainable elsewhere.
The Church Missionary Society uses more than a hundred
different translations, of which over ninety come from
ihe Bible Society.
The same is even more emphatically true of the

104 THE CONQUESTS
Universities' Mission to Central Africa, and the South
American Missionary Society.
Nonconformist Foreign Missions, with some slender
exceptions, obtain the bulk of all the Scriptures they use,.
directly or indirectly, from the Bible Society.
It furnishes the London Missionary Society with the
Scriptures in fifty different languages, and the Wesleyan
Missionary Societies of Great Britain and her Colonies
with over forty versions. Presbyterian Missions throughout
the world use about sixty of its versions. It has published
the Kongo version for the Baptist Missionary Society, and
also supplies many of their stations in China and Jamaica,
The American Baptist Missionary Union has been largely
assisted in printing and circulating Scriptures in Burmese
and Sgau Karen. The China Inland Mission and other
undenominational societies practically obtain all the
Scriptures they ask for.
It must not be forgotten that in many parts of the
foreign field Scriptures are also supplied to Missions of
the Moravian, Lutheran and other Reformed Churches of
the Continent.
Thus, the Bible Society becomes more conspicuous
every year as the indispensable storehouse from which
all British Foreign Missions must draw their necessary
supplies. As a rule. Scriptures for the foreign field
are granted on such terms that they practically cost
nothing to the Missions which receive them. At best,.
only a small fraction of what the Society expends on the
preparation and delivery of these missionary versions can-
ever come back to it as the result of sales. Plainly, each
fresh advance in the mission field becomes a new and
imperious demand on the Bible Society.

OF THE BIBLE 105
The Year's Finance.
Such results as these have naturally involved a certain
increase in expenditure. General Fund Payments.
The payments for the past year have been : —
1902-1903 compared with 1901-1902.
For Translating, Revising,
Printing, and Binding £ £
Scriptures  121,966 iii,73i
For Grants, Home and
Foreign Agencies, Col
portage, Depots, and all
other charges  132,017 128,998

Totals  ;^253,983 ;g24o,729
These figures show an increase of ^10,235 ^o^ Pi'^-
paring and publishing Scriptures, and under the second
head an increase of ;^3,oi9. The total expenditure,
including Special Funds, amounts to ^^254,204 — the
largest by -^13,154 of any year in the Society's history.
This increase is largely accounted for by the increase in
issues. General Fund Receipts.
The receipts for the past year have been : —
1902-1903 compared with 1901-1902.
Free Income  ^138,781 ;^i43,597
Receipts from Sales ... 93,458 91,700-
Totals  .^232,239 ;^235,297
Among the chief items which make up the " Free
Income," the annual subscriptions and donations paid

io6 THE CONQUESTS OF THE BIBLE
direct to the Bible House were nearly ;£ 17,000 less than
in the previous year (which, however, had included a
special gift of ^20,000 under the Sturge Trust), Legacies,
always a fluctuating item, have increased ^£6,800. The
receipts from sales have risen only ;^i,758, .showing how
largely our increased circulation has been of a missionary
character. The Free Contributions from Auxiliaries at home and
abroad are £']0,},2(i — ;^3,ooo more than in 190 1 ; and
although this apparent growth is mainly due to special
gifts, these Free Contributions, which form the vital index
of public interest in the Society, do exhibit some slight,
though altogether inadequate, elasticity. We cannot
meet the Society's growing needs and claims without an
immediate rise in our Free Contributions of from ^^70,000
to ;^ 1 00,000 a year.
On the whole, the General Fund receipts show a
decrease of only .^3,058 on those of the previous year.
Receipts from Special Funds make the total receipts last
year ;^233,i38. A Deficit of ;^2 1,000.
Comparing this with the total expenditure, we have a
deficit on last year's working of ;^2 1,066. The deficits
announced at the two previous Anniversaries were
^£4,851 and ;^i5,ooo. For the last five years the Society
has had to face serious deficits which have impoverished
our necessary Reserve Fund by ^^59,000. Apart from a
speedy and substantial increase in its normal income, the
Society must perforce deny some of those appeals which
are now reaching it more urgently than ever from all
quarters of the world.

APPENDIX

io8 THE CONQUESTS OF THE BIBLE

NOTICE RESPECTING REMITTANCES.
Subscriptions and Donations are received at the Bible House, 146
Queen Victoria Street, London, E.C. ; also at the Society's Bankers,
Williams Deacon's Bank, Limited, 20, Birchin Lane, E.C. ; — advice
being sent to the Secretaries at the Bible House. Cheques, Bankers'
Drafts, and Post Office Orders [on the General Post Office), should be
made payable to The British and Foreign Bible Society, and sent to-
the Secretaries.

FORM OF A BEQUEST TO THE SOCIETY.

/ bequeath ihe sum of Pounds sterling.,
free of Legacy Duty, io " The British and Foreign Bible
Society," instituted in London in ihe year 1804, io be paid
for ihe purposes of the said Society io the Treasurer for the
time being thereof whose Receipt shall be a good discharge for
the same.

THE SOCIETY'S MAGAZINES, &c.
The Reporter and the Gleanings, issued monthly, price one halfpenny,
contain news from the Society's Agents who superintend Bible work in
its world-wide field — articles describing the Society's operations abroad
— notes of work and news from workers at home — sketches of Veteran
Friends, with portraits — and specially contributed papers on Biblical
subjects. Both Magazines are fully illustrated. The Gleanings, though
still claimed by our younger friends, is also read by many of their elders.
Various illustrated and statistical papers setting forth the aim, methods,
and extent of the Society's work, are supplied free, on application at the
Bible House, 146, Queen Victoria Street, E.C.
A list of Centenary Literature is given at the end of the Appendix,

Telegraphic Address : TESTAMENTS, LONDON.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY 109
President: The Marquis of Northampton.

Vice-Presidents :

1863.1873-
1876. 1877.

1878.1881. 1882.1883.1884.

188S.1886. 1887.1888.1889.

1890. i8gi.

1891.

1893.

1894.

*89S-

The Bishop of Gloucester.
Bishop Mitchinson, D.C.L., D.D.
The Bishop of Manchester.
The Earl of Aberdeen.
Earl Fortesque.
The Rt. Hon. Sir 1. H. Kenna-way,
Bart., C.B., M.P.
The Archbishop of York.
Sir WiUiam Muir, K.C.S.l.
Bishop Perowne, D.D.
The Bishop of St. Andrew's.
Bishop Barry, D.D.
J. Bevan Braithwaite, Esq.
The Bishop of Ripon.
Rev. Alexander McLaren, D.D.
Bishop Biclcersteth, D.D.
The Bishop of Southwell.
The Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Fry, F.R.S.
The Bishop of Gibraltar.
Rev. W. H. Dallinger, LL.D., F.R.S.
Rev. J. Oswald Dykes, D.D.
Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Bart.,
G.C.M.G.
The Archbishop of Canterbury.
Rev. Tames H. Rigg, D.D.
Rev. J. Thain Davidson, D.D.
The Bishop of CarUsle.
W. Schoolcroft Burton, Esq.
Bishop Royston, D.D.
John Cory, Esq.
Rev. Thomas Davies, D.D.
The Earl of Halsbury,
Lord Chancellor.
Lord Brassey, K.C.B.
The Bishop of St. Asaph.
S. W. Silver, Esq.
Lord Kinnaird.
The Dean of -Windsor.
R. N. Gust, Esq., LL.D.
Rev. A. M. Fairbairn, D.D.
The Bishop of Lichlield.
The Archbishop of Montreal.
Aid. Sir Joseph Savory, Bart.
Hon. J. H. Angas.
Rev. A. Maclcennal, D.D.
The Bishop of Sodor and Man.
The Archbishop of Sydney.
Viscount Midleton.
Sir George WiUiams, Kt.
A. McArthur, Esq.
Rev. Chancellor Edmonds, B.D.
Edward Rawlings, Esq.
I. Storrs Fry, Esq.
Bishop Johnson, D.D.
Rev. J. G. Rogers, D.D.
Robert Heath, Esq.
The Archbishop of the West Indies.
Ven. Archdeacon Sinclair, D.D.
The Bishop of Marlborough.
Admiral Sir F. Leopold McClintocIi,
K.C.B.
J. R. HiU, Esq.
"Viscount PeeL
The Bishop of Bath and WeUs.
Victor C. W. Cavendish, Esq., M.P.
Alexander Peclcover, Esq., LL.D.
The Bishop of Chester.
Bishop Goe, D.D.
The Dean of Durham.
Ven. Archdeacon J. Richardson,
D.D.
The Bishop of St. Albans.
Rev. J. Monro Gibson, D.D.

1895. Rev. E. E. Jenlcins, LL.D.
1896. Viscount Hampden.
The Earl of Stamford.
J. Trueman Mills, Esq.
Albert Spicer, Esq.
Rev. J. G. Greenhough.
Rev. Richard Glover, D.D.
The Bishop of Hereford.
Bishop Stuart, D.D.
The Dean of Norwich.
1897. The Bishop of Peterborough,
Hon. J. J. Rogerson.
A. S. Lesiie-MelviUe, Esq.
Lord Radstoclc.
The Bishop of Durham.
Rev. J. Morlais Jones.
1898. Rev. Canon Christopher.
The Bishop of Newcastle, N.S.W.
Rev. Canon Fleming.
Rev. D. MacEwan, D.D.
The Bishop of Wakefield.
T. A. Denny, Esq.
The Rt. Hon. Sir Henry Hartley
Fowler, M.P., G.C.S.I.
Rev. Canon A. R. Fausset, D.D.
1899. The Bishop of St. David's.
The Bishop of Shrewsbury.
Bishop Welldon, D.D.
Viscount Clifden.
Rev. Canon R. B. Girdlestone.
Rev. W. L. Watkinson, D.D.
Robert Barclay, Esq.
Caleb R. Kemp, Esq.
Henry Morris, Esq.
1900. Bishop Ingham, D.D.
The Bishop of Liverpool.
The Master of Trinity.
Rev. F. W. Macdonald.
F. A. Bevan, Esq.
Robert Davies, Esq.
1901. The Earl of Northbrook, G.C.S.I.
The Bishop of Ely.
The Bishop of Winchester
The Bishop of London.
The Bishop of Lucknow.
Sir George Hayter Chubb, Bart.
The Rt. Hon. Sir Samuel J. Way,
Bart.
Lord Alverstone, G.C.M.G.,
Chief Justice of England.
Hon. G. E. Knox.
Rev. Griffith John, D.D.
Rev. J. G. Paton, D.D.
Rev. J. Hudson Taylor.
T. Fowell Buxton, Esq.
1902. The Bishop of Calcutta.
The Bishop of Uganda.
The Bishop of Hokkaido, Japan.
Rev. W. G. Lawes. D.D.
Rev. I. Thorburn McGaw, D.D.
Rev. "W. T. Davison, D.D.
Sir Charles Alfred Elliott, K.C.S.I.
C. E. Tritton, Esq., M.P.
Thomas Hodgkin, Esq., D.CL.
Charles Finch Foster, lisq.
1903. The Bishop of Huron.
The Dean of Westminster.
Rev. C. H. Kelly.
The Rev. John Watson, D.D.
Sir Algernon Coote, Bart
G. W. Macalpine, Esq.
George Spicer, Esq.
Martin John Sutton, Esq.

Lord

no THE CONQUESTS OF THE BIBLE

Treasurer:
Robert Barclay, Esq.

Chairman of Committee
Caleb R. Kemp, Esq.

Committee :
Elected May 6, 1903.
Tlie date after each name records the year when that member first joined the
Committee. Maberly Phillips, Esq.
P. W. Pocock, Esq,

F. F. Belsey, Esq. 1900.
A. Brauen, Esq. 1897.
John Chown, Esq. 1903.
A. J. Crosfield, Esq. 1886.
G. T. Crosfield, Esq. 1901
Th. Duka, Esq., M.D. 1885,
A. R. Fordham, Esq. 1896
S. H. Gladstone, Esq. 1902,
Sir William Godsell. 1903
W. H. Harris, Esq., b.a.,
B.sc. 1886
T. Morgan Harvey, Esq. 1900.
H. Koenigs, Esq. 1897
Williamson Lamplough,
Esq. 1894.
John Marnham, Esq. 1903
H. W. Maynard, Esq. 1898
G. J. McCaul, Esq. 1902
James McLaren, Esq. 1895,
R. Morton Middleton, Esq. 1900

Joseph Pollard, Esq.
Leslie S. Robertson, Esq.
Major - General C. G.
Robinson.
Fr. Schaeffer, Esq.
W. H. Seagram, Esq.
E. J. Sewell, Esq.
Colonel D. V. Shortland.
Colonel E. S. Skinner.
G. F. Sutton, Esq.
Emil Walser, Esq.
F. P. Weaver, Esq., m.d.
G. H. Wedekind, Esq.
I . P. Werner, Esq.
Sir Andrew Wingate
K C I E
P. F. Wood, Esq.
A. W. Young, Esq.

19031902
1890,1901

18981887,
1902,19011900,1903 1897,1887,
189s1884,190318881891

The Committee meet, as a rule, at the Bible House, 146, Queen
Victoria Street, E.C, on the first and third Monday in every Month,
at Half -past Eleven o'clock ; and oftener, as business may require.
Secretaries:
The Rev. Arthur Taylor, m.a. The Rev. John H. Ritson, m.a.
Superintendent of the Translating and Editorial Department and
Consulting Secretary :
The Rev. John Sharp, m.a.
Superintendent of the Literary Department :
The Rev. T. H. Darlow, m.a.
Superintendent of the Home Department :
The Rev. H. A. Raynes, m.a.
Superintendent of the Publishing and Issue Department :
Mr. j. j. Brown.
Assistant Home Secretary : Assistant Foreign Secretary :
Rev. Harry Scott. Mr. T. Ernest Price.

Accountant :
Mr. W. p. Wakelin.
Honorary Solicitors :
Messrs. Hollams, Sons, Coward
and Hawksley,
30, Mincing Lane, London, E.C.

Collector :
Mr. Geo. B. Poole.
Bankers :
Williams Deacon's B.ink, Ltd.,
20, Birchin Lane, London,
E.C.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY

III

Foreign Agents and Secretaries.

Paris — Pastor D. Lortsch
Berlin — Mr. M. A. Morrison
Florence — Sig. Augusto Meille
Madrid— Rev. R. O. Walker, m.a.
St. Petersburg— Rev. W. Kean,
D.D.
Ekaterinburg — Mr. W. Davidson
Constantinople — Rev. T. R.
Hodgson
Alexandria — Rev. A. A. Cooper,
M.A.
Tangier — Mr. W. Summers
Sierra Leone — Mr. Broome P.
Smith
Bushire— Ut. C. E. G. Tisdall
Rangoon — Rev. W. Sherratt

Singapore — Mr. J. Haffenden
Manila — Mr. Percy Graham
Shanghai — Rev. G. H. Bond-
field
Seoul — Mr. A. Kenmure
Yokohama — Mr. F. Parrott
Wanganui, N. 2.— Rev. F. H.
Spencer
Buenos Ayres — Sig. B. A. Pons
Rio de Janeiro — Rev. F. Uttley
Callao— Uv. A. R. Stark
Kingston, Jamaica — Rev. G. O.
Heath
Belize— Rev. F. de P. Castells
Johannesburg — Rev. G. Lowe
{Hon. Corr.)

Madras — Rev. S. W. Organe
Allahabad— Rev. T. S. Wynkoop,
M.A.
Lahore— Ut. W. H. L. Church

Bombay — Mr. C. Douglas Green
Calcutta— Rev. G. W. Olver,
pro tem.
Cape Town — Rev. L. Nuttall

Home District Secretaries and Assistants.

Rev. F. D. Thompson, m.a.,
22, Blenheim Terrace, Leeds.
Rev. James Thomas,
Bible House, London.
Rev. Jelinger E. Symons, f.r.g.s.,
CUeveden, Guildford.
Rev. Edward S. Prout, m.a.,
Summerlea, CravenRd.,Reading.
Rev. J. Cynddylan Jones, d.d.,
Whitchurch, Cardiff.
Rev. W. H. Norman, m.a.,
14, Station Road, Cambridge.
Rev. W. Fisher, m.a.,
Bible House, London.
Rev. W. Monk Jones, m.a.,
Kotagiri, Huyton, Liverpool.
Rev. D. C. Edwards, m.a.,
Llanbedr,R.S.O., Merionethshire,
Rev. W. R. Bowman, B.A.,
Mellendean, Bums Street, Nott
ingham.
Rev. W. G. Jones, b.a.,
26, Malvern Street, Newcastle-
on-Tyne.

Rev. H. C. Moor, m.a.,
18, Carlyle Road, Edgbaston,
Birmingham.
Rev. J. Alston, b.a.,
Woodmancote, Copthorne Road,
Shrewsbury.
Rev. T. Smetham,
18, Powderham Crescent, Exeter.

Rev. J. Percy Treasure,
Eastholme, Alderley Edge, Man
chester.
Rev. T. A. Wolfendale, m.a.,
35, Gordon Terrace, Sunder
land.
Rev. F. Stenton Eardley,
Westbury Park, Bristol.
Rev. Walter Wall,
12, Chestnut Road, Moseley,
Birmingham.
Rev. H. Starmer,
12, Cedar Road, Noiwich.
Mr. Robert F. Crosland,
Oldfieldnook, Cleckheaton.

112 THE CONQUESTS OF THE BIBLE
CONDENSED STATEMENT of the RECEIPTS
for the Year ending

Receipts.

d.

Annual Subscriptions, Donations, and Collections
(paid in London) ...  ... ... 15,361 8 i
Samuel Cocker Fund  1)443 5 8
Biblewomen Fund  1,388 4 6
Legacies (paid in London) ...  ... 42,945 16 5
Dividends on stock, interest, exchange, etc  7,31610 6
Free Contributions from Auxiliary Societies  70)325 13 4

Free Income at the disposal of the Committee ... ;^i38,78o 18 6
Receipts from Sales.
Trade Depots and Auxiliary Societies... 28,126 18 3
Society's Depot in London  5,21411 o
Other Societies  8,367 14 6
Sales in the Society's Foreign Agencies 51,748 19 4
 93.458 3 I
Receipts, General Fund  £2yi,iy) i 7
Special Funds —
Roxburgh Fund, for Colportage in Bengal ... 104 6 o
For preparing, printing, and binding the Scrip-
tires  2^1 g 7
For Fund for Biblewomen  ,00 o o
For Miss Taylor's Trust  21 10 7
Library Catalogue  ^^ jo o
Countess of Effingham's Trust  36 8 8

Marine Insurance Fund

114 16

Total Net Receipts  £233,138 2 5
Extracted from the Audited Cash Account

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY 113
and payments of the BIBLE SOCIETY.
March 31, 1903.

Payments.

s. d.

For paper, printing, and binding the Scriptures in
various languages, including charges for transla
tion and editorial expenses  120,250 13 2
For Depot expenses in various parts of the world,
including salaries and travelling expenses of
foreign Agents, rent, carriage, insurance, etc. ... 51)4^5 12 7
For salaries of Colporteurs, including travelling
expenses, etc  4*5)152 3 0
For grants in money to various Auxiliary and other
Societies, including allowances for Biblewomen at
home and abroad  13)999^5 8
For editing and printing the Annual Reports,
Monthly Reporter, and Gleanings; for stationery,
and books and papers for Auxiliary Societies, etc. ' 5)783 4 ^
For office expenses, taxes, salaries of Secretaries,
District Secretaries, and other officers, together
with travelling expenses of the District Secretaries
and Deputations sanctioned by the Committee ... 16,059 6 9
Payments, Gener.\l Fund  £253,71015 8
Roxburgh Fund, for Colportage in Bengal  200 o o
For preparing Special Editions of the Scriptures ... 272 3 7
Miss Taylor's Trust for Scriptures for Patients in
Hospitals in Manchester and Salford  21 10 7

Total Net Payments  £254,204 9 10
published in the Society's Annual Report.
9

CENTENARY LITERATURE.
Quarterly Pamphlets, 1902-3. {Gratis on application.)
I. " What are we going to Celebrate ? "
2. " How are we going to Celebrate ? " {out of print and not
reprinting).
3. " Hints to Centenary Helpers."
4. "Needs and Claims" {out of print, now issued as envelope pamphlet,
see below).
Monthly Pamphlets, 1903-4. {Gratis on application.)
I. " The Bible in History." Part I. By Rev. Chancellor Edmonds.
2. "The Bible in History." Part II. By Rev. Chancellor Edmonds.
-V " The Bible in the New Hebrides." By Rev. Dr. J. G. Paton.
4. " The Bible in Uganda." By Rev. G. K. Baskerville.
S. " The Bible in India." By Dr. Grierson, C.I.E.
6. " The Bible in Madagascar." By Rev. W. E. Cousins.
7. "The Bible in Russia." By Rev. Dr. Kean.
8. " Our Treasure House.'' By J. J. Brown.
9. " The Bible in China." By Rev. G. H. Bondfield.
(Other Monthly Pamphlets in course of preparation.)
For General Distribution. {Gratis on application.)
" How can I Help ? " 4 pages, Svo.
"The Largest Circulation in the World." 4 pages, sm. Svo.
Reprinted from the "Daily Mail."
"Mothers in Eastern Lands." 16 pages, sm. Svo. For Mothers'
Meetings.
"A Japanese Hunchback and some Welsh Potatoes." For Young
People. 16 pages, 24i-no.

" The Full Price." 8 pages. '\
"Why do I support the Bible Society ?" 2 pages.
" Needs and Claims." 16 pages.
Letter Leaflet. 4 pages.
" The Saying of the Woman." 16 pages.
Advocating Centenary Sales of Work.

Envelope Series.

Short Centenary Statement (single sheet, Svo), the back plain for
local Notices.
Collecting Boxes and Books. {Sample free on application.)
Boxes — Cardboard, Pictorial, with Mechanism.
„ „ without Mechanism.
Cards — Language Pin Cards. With envelope {to collect 365 pennies).
„ „ „ „ {to collect 100 pennies).
Books — A-Penny-a-Language {to collect 30 pennies).
A-Penny-a-Page {to collect 12 pennies).
„ „ {to collect 60 pennies).

' The Lever that Moves the World." By V. Klickmann. 16 pages. Svo.
Reprinted from ihc " Windsor Magazine." Price id.
' What is the Bible Society ? " By William Canton. 32 pages, sm. Svo.
Price id.

The History of the Bible Society
By WILLIAM CANTON
The first two volumes, 1804-1854, are now passing through the Press,
and will be issued in the Autumn by Mr. Murray, Albemarle
Street, W.
Price 15/^ net per volume.
To Subscribers who post their Orders to the Secretaries, 146, Queen
Victoria Street, London, E.C, or to their Booksellers, before November
30, 1903, the price will be 12/- net per volume.

Historical Catalogue of the
Bible House Library
By T. H. DARLOW and H. F. MOULE
Volume I., comprising the English Section, will be published by the
Society early in the Autumn.
Volume II., comprising Foreign Versions, will appear next year.
The Catalogue will be issued in a limited edition of 450 copies for
England and America,
Price 31/6 net for the two volumes,
which will not be sold separately.

The Society's Full Annual Report, 1902-3
Pp. xvi, 485, and Appendix (285)
Paper covers. Price 1/^ to Non.'Subscribers,

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 08837 5986

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