OFIME A POPULAR ILLUSTRATED REPORT OF THEBRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY IQ06-IQ07 YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Gift of the Publish ers THE LEAVES OF THE TREE The Oldest Surviving Cedar on Mount Lebanon. Phuto by Dr. Van Dyck. Berrout. THE LEAVES OF THE TREE A POPULAR ILLUSTRATEDREPORT OF THE pRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY FOR THE YEAR MDCCCCVI-VII THE BIBLE HOUSE QUEEN VICTORIA STREET LONDON 6 710. INTRODUCTORY NOTE. Except where otherwise stated the incidents and statistics in the following pages belong to last years record. It should be noted that this period is reckoned to end on December ¦^ist, 1906, as regards the 'Bible Society's foreign work; and as regards its home vpork, on March 21 St, 1907. T. H, DARLOW, Literary Superintendent. The Bible House, August, igoy. CONTENTS. PAGE I Proem . , . ...... Tongues in Trees , . . . . . . 6 In Vallombrosa ,,..... 20 The Wearin' of the Green . .... 38 The Wind among the Branches . . . . 60 For the Healing of the Nations . ... 66 Ardens sed Vivens ....... 86 Fairy Gold .,..,,.. 96 Appendix ....... .107 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE. PROEM. " The green book of the earth is open, and the four winds are turning the leaves." — E. B, Browning, In one of his characteristic moods the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table confessed to his friends that he had a most intense and passionate fondness for noble trees, and went on to relate how he had pilgrimaged to visit a certain giant elm in New England : "All at once I saw a great green cloud swelling on the horizon, so vast, so symmetrical, of such Olympian majesty and imperial supremacy among the lesser forest-growths, that my heart stopped short. ' ' Many of us can sympathise with Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes in his emotion. There is something awe-inspiring about such a tree. Hardly any travel-pictures produce deeper impressions than those which give us glimpses of the towering eucalyptus in Victoria, or the enormous baobab in Senegal, or those mammoth Californian pines whose hoary age is counted THE LEAVES OF THE TREE not by centuries but by milleniums. Trees like those must be the oldest things alive in the world. We can understand our English poet when he venerates the Father of the Forest : — " What years are thine, not mine to guess! The stars look youthful, thou being by. Youthful the sun's glad-heartedness, Witless of age the unageing sky." Balzac has described in magical words the haunting, subduing influence of a forest. Even in this northern island we have explored "the savour and shade of old-world pine-forests, where the wet hill-winds weep." We have discovered, when "the woods were around us, heaped and dim," that we were standing unawares in the heart of things. And we have caught sight of the reason why primitive men gathered to worship in these glimmering aisles, and built their altars and listened for their oracles, under some immemorial tree. The mythology of our Norse forefathers made much of Yggdrasill, the mystic Tree of the Universe, which seemed to embody the life-bearing forces of nature ; its spreading foliage blended with the solemn clouds of heaven, and the Eddas pointed to the stars as fruit which hung on the mighty boughs of Yggdrasill. Kin dred ideas and images recur in the legends and folk-lore of primeval races. We find a mysterious sacred tree figured among the most ancient emblems and sculptures of Egypt and Assyria, as well as in the remoter East. Nor can it be irreverent to consider these as unconscious illustrations of the symbolism of Scripture — where the Tree of Life stands in the midst of man's first Paradise, and stands also on the banks of that pure river which makes glad the heavenly City of God. THE LEAVES OF THE TREE The Function of Leaves. Wise men tell us that in every plant the leaf is the most distinctive and essential part. For it is by means of their leaves that plants are able alike to exhale and to absorb — to effect that subtle interchange which is implied in all organic life. If we take the definition of a master among botanists, it appears that, physiologically, leaves are green expansions borne by the stem, outspread to the air and light, in which assimilation and the processes connected with it are carried on. Vege table assimilation — the most essential function of plants, being the conversion of inorganic into organic matter — takes place in all ordinary vegetation only in the green parts, and in these when exposed to the light of the sun. Thus foliage is "an adaptation for largely increas ing the green surface." Plainly, therefore, nothing connected with a tree is more vital than the royal wealth of foliage which it flings out to meet the radiant energy of the sunshine. Indeed — as Goethe, with the insight of genius, was the first to discern — branch and flower and fruit have all originated as developments of the leaf. Not only the firmament, but the foliage also showeth God's handiwork. Where, for instance, in all His manifold creation, shall we find more strangely varied shapes than among the leaves? "Star-shaped, heart-shaped, spear-shaped, arrow-shaped, fretted, fringed, furrowed, serrated, sinuated ; in whorls, in tufts, in spires, in wreaths, endlessly expressive, deceptive, fantastic, never the same from foot of stalk to blossom ; they seem perpetually to tempt our watchfulness and take delight in outstripping our wonder." Perhaps it is partly on this account that in the course of ages men have taken certain distinctive leaves as types to enshrine noble memories or express lofty ideals. Thus, the THE LEAVES OF THE TREE ancient poet was garlanded with bay-leaves and the conquering hero wore his wreath of laurel. In more recent days the shamrock stands for Ireland, and the maple-leaf has been adopted as the emblem of the great Canadian Dominion ; while, all the world over, the olive-branch is the eloquent symbol of peace. " A Green Thought in a Green Shade." And beyond this amazing variety of leaf-forms, we find a no less bewildering complexity about the foliage of an English oak or lime or chestnut. Who can count those innumerable translucent leaves which clothe a great beech with its summer garments of praise ? What artist can do justice to their living masses and multi tudes, as they lift themselves high above him into the balmy air ? "The leaves then at the extremities become as fine as dust, a mere confusion of points and lines between you and the sky, a confusion which you might as well hope to draw sea-sand particle by particle, as to imitate leaf for leaf. This, as it comes down into the body of the tree, gets closer, but never opaque ; it is always transparent, with crumbling lights in it letting you through to the sky; then, out of this, come, heavier and heavier, the masses of illumined foliage, all dazzling and inextricable, save here and there a single leaf on the extremities ; then, under these, you get deep passages of broken, irregular gloom, passing into transparent, green- lighted, misty hollows ; the twisted stems glancing through them in their pale and entangled infinity, and the shafted sunbeams, rained from above, running along the lustrous leaves for an instant ; then lost, then caught again on some emerald bank or knotted root, to be sent up again with a faint reflex on the white under-sides of dim groups of droop ing foliage, the shadows of the upper boughs running in grey network down the glossy stems, and resting in quiet checkers u V) ^ I i - I o .: < d z Z < o Q Z z THE LEAVES OF THE TREE upon the glittering earth ; but all penetrable and transparent, and, in proportion, inextricable and incomprehensible, ex cept where across the labyrinth and the mystery of the dazzling light and dream-like shadow, falls, close to us, some solitary spray, some wreath of two or three motionless large leaves, the type and embodying of all that in the rest we feel and imagine, but can never see."* Surely we are using no forced or unnatural comparison when we liken the Scriptures to the evergreen leaves of the Tree of Life, which are for the healing of the nations. For the wonder and glory of the Bible grow more and more unsearchable in proportion as we brood and ponder over its pages — just as the leaves of a mighty tree refuse to be counted or defined, and the greatest painter can only suggest their mystery and loveliness. And as foliage is "an adaptation for largely increasing the green surface" by which a tree exhales and absorbs and assimi lates, so the power of God's revelation becomes multiplied over the face of the earth, as His Gospel is adapted by translators into all the varied forms of human speech and spread abroad by distributors among all the scattered families of mankind. We need spend no more words in justifying the title which we have taken for this brief survey of the work of the Bible Society, which exists simply to put within each man's reach God's Message to him, printed in his own mother-tongue. * MoJeni Painters L : 2 : vi. : i THE LEAVES OF THE TREE TONGUES IN TREES. To rescue souls forlorn and lost, The troubled, tempted, tempest-tost , To heal, to comfort, and to teach ; The fiery tongues of Pentecost His symbols were, that they should preach In every foi'm of human speech. Longfellow. We have grown accustomed to hear of discoveries among the tombs and temples of ancient Egypt bearing on the dynasties of forgotten Pharaohs. It has been reserved for this last decade to unearth fresh testimony as to the language of the New Testament, out of what are described as heaps of waste paper and broken pottery, buried in the Egyptian sands and dating back to the centuries at the very beginning of the Christian era. The value of this new linguistic evidence may be best explained in the words of the eminent scholar who has done so much to make it available in English. The Greek of the Bible. " The Greek papyri of Egypt are in themselves nothing novel ; but their importance for the historical study of the language did not begin to be realised until, within the last decade or so, the explorers began to enrich us with an output of treasure which has been perpetually fruitful in surprises. The attention of the classical world has been busy with the lost treatise of Aristotle and the new poets Bacchylides and THE LEAVES OF THE TREE Herodas, while theologians everywhere have eagerly dis cussed new ' Sayings of Jesus.' But even these last must yield in importance to the spoil which has been gathered from the wills, official reports, private letters, petitions, accounts, and other trivial survivals from the rubbish heaps of antiquity. Lexical researches in the papyri and the later inscrip tions proved that hundreds of words, hitherto assumed to be ' Biblical ' — technical words, as it were, called into existence or minted afresh by the language of Jewish religion — were in reality normal first-century spoken Greek, excluded from literature by the nice canons of Atticising taste. "The new linguistic facts now in evidence show with startling clearness that we have at last before us the language in which the Apostles and Evangelists wrote. The papyri exhibit in their writers a variety of literary education e/en wider than that observable in the New Testament, and we can match each sacred author with documents that in respect of Greek stand on about the same planes. The conclusion is that ' Biblical ' Greek, except where it is translation Greek, was simply the vernacular of daily life. Men who aspired to literary fame wrote in an artificial dialect, a would-be revival of the language of Athens in her prime, much as educated Greeks of the present day profess to do. The New Testament writers had little idea that they were writing literature. The Holy Ghost spoke absolutely in the language of the people, as we might surely have expected He would. The writings inspired of Him were those Which he may read that binds the sheaf, Or builds the house, or digs the grave, And those wild eyes that watch the wave In roarings round the coral reef. The very grammar and dictionary cry out against men who would allow the Scriptures to appear in any other form than that ' understanded of the people,' " * * A Grammar of New Testament Greek, by James Hope Moulton. Vol. L (Prolegomena), 2nd edition, T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh. THE LEAVES OF THE TREE In the Vulgar Tongue. Who could have predicted that the very dust-heaps of the past would rise up and bear such convincing witness to the principles and the policy of the Bible Society? During this last twelvemonth the Society has recast its Rules for the Guidance of Translators and Revisers, and published them in an amended shape, laying fresh emphasis on the duty of rendering God's Book in the simplest, clearest, most familiar form of each of the languages of mankind. The Authorised Version of the English Bible is often described as being " in the vulgar tongue " — intelligible, as far as possible, to every English-speaking man, woman, and child, simple or learned. The Bible Society desires and endeavours that each of its versions shall be in "the vulgar tongue ' ' — having the supreme merit that they speak in homely words so as to be understood by common people. The pages which follow will illustrate the difficulties which beset such an enterprise, and the extent to which by God's help these difficulties are being overcome. Four Hundred and Nine Languages. When we consider the bewildering confusion of tongues, it appears wonderful that the Bible Society's list of versions now includes the names of 409 distinct forms of speech. The Society has helped to provide the complete Bible in 103 different languages ; the complete New Testament in 98 more languages ; and at least one book of Scripture in 208 languages besides. During the past year eight new names have been added to this catalogue of tongues which are thus subdued to the service of the Gospel. The names are : — Nag- puriya, Dimasa, Hwa Miao, Bontoc-Igorot, Tunisian 8 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE Colloquial Arabic, Ila, Tasariki, and Paama. To most readers, however, such unfamiliar names convey little meaning, and it will be of interest to explain briefly among what kindreds and tribes these strange languages are current. It may be said here that they represent translations needed for tribes among whom missionaries connnected with the following organizations are already at work : the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the China Inland Mission, the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Mission, the New Hebrides Presbyterian Mission, the North Africa Mission, the American Protestant Episcopal Mission, Gossner's Evangelical Lutheran Mission, the Bible Christian Mission, and the Primitive Methodist Mission. Nagpuriya. This language is spoken to the west and south-west of Chhota Nagpur in the Bengal Presidency. It is des cribed as a sub-dialect of Bhojpuri — a language which belongs to the same group as Bengali, the speech of Bengal, and Asami, the speech of Assam. Nagpuriya is the mother-tongue of about 600,000 people ; but in asmuch as it differs to no great extent from Bhojpuri, this version will probably reach a very large number of the twenty million people who use this latter language. These folk form one of the fighting nations of India. They played a prominent part in the mutiny of 1857, and they still supply many recruits to our Indian army. They migrate to all parts of India, and many of them are found in the British Colonies. The great im portance of making a version of the Gospel in this tongue is also shown by the fact that people in the same district who speak entirely different languages are now beginning to give up their own speech and are adopt ing Nagpuriya instead. THE LEAVES OF THE TREE The Gospel of St. Matthew has been translated into this language by the Rev. P. Eidnaes, of Gossner's Evangelical Lutheran Mission, in co-operation with the Rev. E. H. Whitley, of the S.P.G. This Gospel is a first instalment of the complete New Testament, and it illustrates our Society's policy of giving the Scrip tures to every man in his mother-tongue. The Hindi Bible can indeed be used in this part of Chhota Nagpur, but only by educated people ; it conveys little meaning to the ordinary villager. The Bible Society has therefore seized the opportunity of giving to these poor unedu cated folk the Word of God in Nagpuriya, the language of their hearths and homes. Dimasa. The word Di.nasa is said to mean tJie people of the Great River. It is the name of a tribe inhabiting the hills of Assam, between the Khasi and Jaintia hills and the hills of Manipur. The "Great River" spoken of in this name may be the Brahmaputra ; if so, it prob ably shows that these people of the Great River had their original home on the banks of the Brahmaputra in the Valley of Assam, before they climbed the hills to their present habitat. Another name for this Dimasa language is Hills Kachari — to distinguish it from Plains Kachari or Bodo, the language of the lowland folk, in which the Bible Society published two Gospels in 1906. The Dimasa and the Bodo peoples both sprang from the same stock, but their languages now differ very considerably. St. Mark's Gospel in Dimasa has been translated by the Rev. J. H. Williams, of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Mission. The Dimasa people possessed no native alphabet of their own. But to the west of them 10 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE in Khassi, and to the East in Manipuri, the Scriptures have already been printed in the roman character, and therefore the same character has been adopted for Dimasa.Hwa Miao. One signal proof, if proof were needed, of the divine origin of the Gospel lies in its power to speak to the needs of all sorts and conditions of men, from the most cultured to the most debased. Seldom has this power been more clearly demonstrated than in the recent revival among the Miao tribes of South-West China ; and more especially among the Hwa Miao, or Flowery Miao tribe. A few years ago these aboriginal tribes were sunk in heathenism, gross and degraded, without a ray of spiritual light. Now, in connection with the China Inland Mission alone, there are nearly 2,000 baptized communicants, besides thousands under instruction who will shortly be gathered into the Christian fold. The Miao tribes, who were in China long before the Chinese, now live mainly in the province of Kweichau. Before 1896 some attempts had been made to reach these aborigines, and in 1898 the first candidates for baptism were enrolled. In 1900 the C. I.M. missionaries had large numbers of inquirers : but the Boxer movement broke up the work, and when the missionaries returned in 1 90 1, they found that only a few scores had remained faithful. Thenceforward, however, the tide began to rise. Those who had heard and believed felt constrained to tell others. Said an old man of the Hwa Miao, " It is not good for us to keep such good news to ourselves ; let us go and tell our kinsmen at Lan-long-ch'iao." The villagers of Lan-long-ch'iao took the good news on to Weiling-chau, where dwell more than 40,000 of the Miao. 1 1 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE Everywhere this evangelistic zeal is burning, and everywhere the eternal Message finds a welcome. Personal testimony has done much in producing such results : but the Bible has done more. Many of the Miao men and some of the women understand Mandarin — the most widely-used form of Chinese — in which the Society has published the whole Bible. Many Miao can now read the New Testament, and others possess Mandarin Gospels. Mr. Curtis Waters writes : — "St. John is a favourite Gospel, and many of the men know chapters of this book by heart. Just imagine you hear them repeating: 'He came unto His own. He came unto His own, He came unto His own. , . , His own received Him. not. ... As many as received Him ... to them gave he power ... to become the sons of God, sons of God, sons of God.' Just think of it! These people, so despised, so oppressed, so poor in this world's goods, to them such a rich manifestation of God's sovereign grace ! " Nevertheless, Mandarin is not the mother-tongue of the Miao, nor do they all understand it. The Rev. S. Pollard, of the Bible Christian Mission, who is also working energetically among the Hwa Miao and has already baptized 1,200 converts, has translated St. Mark into their own aboriginal speech. The Bible Society has agreed to publish this Gospel, and an edition of 5,000 copies has been printed in a special form of syllables, based on those in use in the North- West of Canada, and adapted by Mr. Pollard to the sounds of Hwa Miao. It is hoped, however, that it will ultimately be possible to find some romanized system which will adequately represent the 'tones' of the Hwa Miao speech. When he returns home during 1907 Mr. Pollard will take counsel with our Society about the publication of other Gospels. 12 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE Bontoc-Igorot. In Luzon, the largest of the Philippine Islands, the Igorots inhabit the central mountain country. The name Igorot means mountain-dwellers, and the word Bontoc is a Spanish corruption oi fun-tak, the common Igorot word for mountain. The chief of the American Ethno logical Survey at Manila recently published an elaborate study of the Bontoc-Igorot, from which we summarize the following description : — "He is a clean-limbed, well-built, dark-brown man of medium height and fine physique ; an industrious tiller of the soil ; courageous, intelligent, and willing to learn. In his agriculture he employs an elaborate system of irrigation. His social institutions, however, are primitive, though not radically opposed to civilization. The recreation which he enjoys and prizes most is head-hunting. His religion is based on animism, or spirit-belief, but he has grasped the idea of one God, and in a way has made this belief a part of his life." The Bontoc-Igorot people are now being successfully evangelized by missionaries of the American Protestant Episcopal Church. The Gospel of St. Mark has been translated into their tongue by the Rev. W. C. Clapp, who was the first to learn the language, to reduce it to writing, and to use it for preaching to the Bontoc-Igorot people. This Gospel, we trust, is destined to become a spiritual weapon for bringing these primitive savages under the sway of Christ. Tunisian Colloquial Arabic. All along the north coast of Africa educated men are able to read the Arabic Bible ; but to the uneducated it is practically unintelligible. In Tunis, St. Luke's Gospel is being produced in a colloquial form of Arabic, 13 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE to supply the needs of the illiterate, and especially of women. But although this Gospel is for the uneducated, the Society takes special pains to provide, even for these, a thoroughly good version. The original MS. has therefore been submitted for careful revision to a committee of missionaries well acquainted with the Tunisian vernacular. In every case the Society does its utmost to secure a translation which shall really express the mind of the sacred writers, and shall itself be free from vulgarity, even though couched in the simple speech of ordinary home life. Ila. Rhodesia is one of those regions of Africa most recently brought within the British Empire. It is also being steadily brought within the realm of Christ ; and, one after another, its languages are being subdued to the service of the Gospel. For the dwellers in Rhodesia, our Society has already published some parts of the Bible in the following tongues : — to the south, in Tabele ; to the north, in Shona and Karanga ; to the west of Tabele, in Kalaiia ; and now, for the north-west of Rhodesia, a translation of St. Mark has been made in the Ila language by the Rev. E. W. Smith and the Rev. W. Chapman, of the Primitive Methodist Mission, about two hundred miles north of the Victoria Falls on the Zambesi. This tongue has only recently been reduced to writing ; but already Mr. Smith has published a grammar, and it is expected that the version will be available not only for the Ba-Ila, but also for the Ba-Tonga people, who are their near neighbours and whose dialect differs but little from Ila. All this varied Bible work in Rhodesia which includes the complete New Testament in Tabele and in Shona, illustrates the importance of gaining a 14 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE sure foot-hold for the Scriptures before the advent of the trader. There is no better method of fore-arming a people against those evils which so frequently accompany the introduction of commerce among primitive races. Tasariki and Paama. The death of the venerable Dr. John G. Paton has removed one whose apostolic labours in the New Hebrides have been enshrined in the most vivid mission ary autobigraphy of our time. Here we will make no attempt to commemorate his labours and triumphs, except so far as they concern the Bible Society. He was among its most ardent and enthusiastic supporters, joining the ranks of its Vice-Presidents in 1901. Not many months ago he collected information for us with regard to the translation of the Scriptures into the languages of the New Hebrides. For this polyglot archipelago our Society has published the whole Bible in the language of Aneityum, the complete New Testa ment in Aniwa (translated by Dr. Paton himself) and in Fate, while in nineteen other languages it has printed some portion of the Scriptures. Besides these, the Fate Old Testament and the Eromanga New Testament are in the press. Portions in two fresh dialects have recently been published by the National Bible Society of Scotland, and in yet two more dialects portions have been issued without recourse to any Bible Society. The great majority of these results have been accomplished during the last twenty-five years, and we may safely say that they have been largely the outcome of Dr. Paton's example and influence. The desire of his heart was summed up in the concluding sentence of the pamphlet which he wrote for our Centenary in 1904 : " Oh that by the prayers and gifts and bequests of the Lord's 15 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE people the British and Foreign Bible Society and its kindred institutions may be able to extend the Bible, with all its blessings, to every land and nation and people of the world ! ' ' Our list of versions for the New Hebrides was increased last year by the addition of two fresh translations. Tasariki is the language of the south-western part of the island of Espirito Santo — an island for which the Society has already provided three versions. At first sight it seems most strange that in such a small island so many versions should be needed. But in their heathen state, the various tribes had no intercourse with each other, except at the spear's point ; and so their languages — which are probably referable to one ancient original — were left to develop, each on its own lines, to such an extent that they are now mutually unintelligible. One part of the great task of the Bible in the New Hebrides is to break down such middle walls of partition, by spreading among these disunited tribes the message in their own tongues of the great reconciling love of God. As they are thus brought into the social and spiritual communion of the Christian Church and made members of the one Body, their now distinct dialects will become gradually fused together. In publishing St. John's Gospel in Tasariki and St. Mark's in Paama — which is spoken on a still smaller island — the Society acts upon its principle of not denying even to the least and lowest of men a knowledge of the Gospel of the grace of God. New Revisions, Space fails us to describe how the task of translation or revision is being ceaselessly carried on in scores of other tongues, by hundreds of missionaries, scholars and native linguists in many parts of the world, organized i6 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE under the Bible Society's auspices and frequently at its expense. The year 1906-7 saw finished the revision of the Bible in Hungarian, in Malayalam, and in Chuana ; and the revision of the New Testament in Icelandic, in Sloven, in Kanarese, in Marathi, in High Wenli, and in Mandarin. This last-named is the most popular form of speech in China, and it is amazing to learn that the Mandarin New Testament will appeal to nearly three hundred millions of our fellow-creatures. The Trials of a Translator. The difficulties of translators of the Bible have often been described in general terms. They will be realized most vividly if we quote some actual testimonies given by men now engaged in this sacred, arduous duty. Last year the first version of the New Testament in Shona was brought to completion for the tribes who give their name to Mashonaland. The translator, the Rev. J. White, of the W.M.S. Mission in Rhodesia, gives a graphic picture of the obstacles which beset such a task, A Pioneer in Mashonaland. " The pioneer missionary finds himself in a veritable Babel of confusing sounds ; not a single word of all that meet his ear is familiar. His first despairing wonder is how he shall ever sufficiently understand this jargon to make it the medium of conveying the truths he has set out to declare. Every-day necessities compel him to make a start. He soon acquires the names of familiar objects around him. This is the first and easiest step ; verbs, pre- or post-positions, and all the particles that give life, colour, and exactness to the language, have yet to be learned. Here his sorrows begin. "As his acquaintance with the language improves, he finds that his ideas, too, are almost as foreign as his speech. His 17 C THE LEAVES OF THE TREE native assistant will supply him with a superabundance of words pertaining to sorcery and divination, and yet is puzzled to get sufficiently suitable terms to express some elementary Christian idea. You may take their name for God, but you must give it an entirely new meaning. Yet, hopeless as the task sometimes seems, it may be accomplished. And as the student proceeds, he is again and again surprised at the potential wealth of meaning he discovers in some of the words in most common use. Taking these words, degraded in many instances by association, he puts them to new and nobler uses. 'Missionaries pluck the flowerets of savage speech, and weave them into chaplets for the brow of Christ. ' " Buying Words in the New Hebrides. In the island of Futuna, one of the New Hebrides, the Rev. Dr. Gunn, of the Presbyterian Mission, has laboured for nearly a quarter-of-a-century. He has described some of his trials in mastering the language : — "When 1 first started to translate any portion of the Scripture, 1 found a great difficulty in getting suitable words for certain expressions. After some years in the island, I offered to pay the natives at a fixed rate for every hundred words they brought me. The more intelligent of the younger men would write down lists of words, sometimes getting from the older men words that were not in general use. For all those that were new to me, 1 gave them a present equal to about gd. per hundred words. In this way I added consider ably to my vocabulary. " Of course there were many words we needed in translat ing the Scriptures for which there were no equivalents in the language ; in such a case we used the corresponding English word, and described it by speech or picture. The only animals we have in Futuna are pigs, rats, and dogs ; very few of the people have seen sheep, horses, or cattle. We introduced other English words into the Scriptures for which there is no Futunese equivalent — such as 'city,' 'town,' 'village,' ' wheat,' 'barley,' &c. In Futuna the word 'tent' is rendered i8 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE ' house that is carried about,' There is no single word in the language for 'widow,' which has to be rendered 'a woman whose husband is dead.' Some Perplexities of Grammar. " Some peculiarities in the grammar are perplexing. For instance, there are four numbers in the pronouns — singular, dual, trial, and plural — so that in translating we require to know whether two, three or more are meant ; sometimes it is difficult to know. In Acts xx, 5, 'These going before tarried for us at Troas;' it is uncertain how many are included in the pronoun us, but the plural has been used. Then in the first person dual, trial, and plural, there are two forms, exclusive and inclusive. When a speaker wishes to include the person spoken to, he uses the inclusive form ; if he wishes to exclude the person or persons spoken to, he uses the exclusive form. Thus, in addressing God in prayer, and confessing ' we are sinners,' we use the exclusive form, because we exclude God from the congregation of sinners. In addressing his people, however, the speaker uses the inclusive form, and includes the congregation, because all — he as well as they — are sinners. We found some difficulty in translating certain passages in the New Testament, where it was not quite clear which form should be used. For instance, the words of the disciples to Christ, when they were in the boat in the storm : ' Master, carest Thou not that we perish ? ' (Mark iv. 38). Would the ' we ' in that case include Christ, or simply the men who were speaking ? We eventually used the exclusive form, to convey the fact that in any case our Lord could not perish. In Mark ix. 38, ' Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy name . . . and we forbad him, because he followeth not us,' we is exclusive, as Christ is excluded, but us is evidently inclus ive, as the man casting out devils had not followed Christ and the disciples. Another peculiarity of the language is that when two sisters are spoken of there is one word which means 'the elder' and another which means 'the younger.' Now we are not told whether Martha or Mary was the elder of the 19 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE two sisters of Bethany. One had to assume that Martha was the elder, and translate the passage accordingly." Another translator in the New Hebrides, the Rev, T. W. Leggatt, went out to Malekula in 1886. We quote his own experience : — "Of course our first duty was to learn the language, Malekula was a perfectly new field, neither missionary nor teacher having been there before us. We tried all sorts of plans — paying for words, and asking for them ; but when we had become a little proficient we found that the best plan was just to sit down quietly and listen to the native gossip, " Our first translations were very crude ; partly politeness, and partly ignorance of what we were driving at, kept the na tives from correcting us, I found a word which I took to mean 'sacred' or 'holy,' as it was applied to a piece of ground which no one would tread on. I was proceeding joyfully to translate the hymn ' Holy, Holy, Holy,' when I discovered that the word in question meant a grave-yard. Of course every word used in the translation of the Scriptures is care fully tested and submitted to one native after another before being adopted. " Learning a language like this takes us to the roots of things. A man is placated when his heart is 'made smooth,' to kiss is 'to lick,' and to believe is 'to swallow' — a sense not unknown in colloquial English. We speak of 'feeling a pain,' but the Malekulans 'hear' both odours and pains. Although I have been twenty years on the island, there are many words that I do not know yet. We have debated for years as to the proper word for ' a sign,' and are not satisfied yet. Then for ' love ' we have had to use a word which means 'to compassionate,' as it seems to convey the meaning better than the words for 'desire' or 'like.' For ' almsgiving ' we had to use a word which really means ' to fatten a pig by frequent feeding,' It is easy to get the words when the things are there, but in Malekula, as in most heathen countries, the ideas of 'love,' 'forgiveness,' 'self-denial,' etc, are practically unknown," 20 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE On the Upper Nile. The Rev. A. L. Kitching, C.M.S., the translator of the Gospels into Gang, or Acholi, for a tribe on the Upper Nile, was puzzled to find a Gang equivalent for the word repent, and had to be content with a paraphrase meaning to turn the heart. One day, however, when a dog was being thrashed for stealing meat, a young man standing by called out Weke : dong engut, i,e., " Let him be : he has repented now." Mr. Kitching could cry : Eureka ! Here was the long-sought word, which will now be put to a higher use and convey to these dark souls the Gospel which calls men everywhere to repent and turn to God. A Testament for the Upper Kongo. The notorious atrocities perpetrated on the Upper Kongo have aroused the indignation of Christendom. Mr. A. E. Ruskin, of the Kongo Balolo Mission, has been stationed for twelve years at Bongandanga, in the midst of the "rubber region," and has protested with dauntless courage against the inhuman treatment inflict ed upon the natives by traders and officials. Aided by his missionary colleagues Mr. Ruskin has just completed the first translation of the New Testament into the Lolo — or Mongo — language which is used by from three to five million people, and is the most widely spoken language on the Upper Kongo. This book is now being printed at the local Mission Press, by the aid of the Bible Society. Mr. Ruskin thus describes some of his difficulties. " Mission work was started in that region in 1891 and I went there in 1894. At first I found the natives were very unwilling that we should learn their language. They pre ferred to have their secret conversations about us, and they 21 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE would frequently mislead the missionary as to the meaning of words and phrases. I had therefore to be always on the alert in order to gather new words and expressions when they did not know that I was listening, " In time they became more friendly and willing to help us. I used to go about the villages, inquiring the name of every thing and jotting it down. The people soon named me ' The white man who writes in a book,' We found that the best way was to engage a man to teach us — though they have no idea of grammar, and cannot tell the diiference between a noun and a verb. When the natives are asked why they use certain forms of speech, they will merely reply, ' Our forefathers always said that. Why do you ask such questions ? ' " Great care had to be taken in verifying words obtained, because the natives have a disinclination to serious thought, and through sheer laziness will sometimes assent to any question put to them. A few of the more intelligent men aid us, but, as a rule, the most they can do is to give us equiva lents for words. " Sometimes we have to change a metaphor. Instead of saying 'white as snow,' we say 'white as chalk,' as the people have never seen snow, " One of our first difficulties was how best to express Christian truths and ideas which are unknown to the Ba- Mongo. Such words as holiness, righteousness, justification, glory, and many other words are untranslateable. Either a phrase had to be coined, or the nearest word known had to be adopted and raised, by means of teaching, to a higher plane. This has been done with the word Nzakomba, which we use for God," The Bible for Bechuanaland. Among the important revisions finished last year was the Sechuana Bible, originally translated by Dr. Moffat, and first published by the Bible Society in complete 22 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE form half-a-century ago. The Rev. A. J. Wookey, of the L.M.S., has acted as chief reviser and has been engaged for the last twelve years at this task. He is now in England, seeing the revised Bible through the press. Mr. Wookey gives some curious instances of the need for a revision, especially in regard to foreign words which had been inserted in the original translation. " Moffat had introduced the word epistle in the New Testament as the word for a letter. I heard a Bechuana preacher once preach on the Conversion of St, Paul. He vividly described the party at Jerusalem preparing for their journey to Damascus — the horses, the saddling-up, blankets tied on to the saddles, provisions for the road, etc. When all was ready, the leader — Saul — said ' Wait a bit, you men ; I must run up to the chiefs to get the epistles, for we can't go without them.' The word is spelt episetole. The preacher went on ' You know what they are — diespisetole tse — they are those little guns the white people carry in their jacket pockets,' touching his jacket at the side where the pocket would be. Afterwards I asked him why he had given that explanation of the word, as there were other Epistles — to the Romans, Corinthians, etc. ' Well,' he said, ' What are episetole then ?' I said, ' Letters — dikwalo.' ' Then why didn't they say so in the book, instead of calling them pistols ? ' was his answer. " The word lily had also been adopted for the lilies of the field ('which toil not, neither do they spin') and written lilelea. One day I asked what these were, and was promptly told tarantulas — a large spider with long hairy legs, whose bite is said to be poisonous, and whose name in the plural is dilelea. Synagogues, again, were explained as places in the veldt where there were no paths and nothing to guide a traveller as to which way he should go ; this arose from the similarity in the sound of the word used for synagogue to the phrase in Sechuana which would have that meaning." 23 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE "This is my People's Language." During last year, South Africa received from the Bible House the first edition of the Gospels and Acts with three Epistles in Karanga, a language spoken by a large tribe in Mashonaland. Dr. Helm, a missionary of the Dutch Reformed Church, describes the enthusiasm with which this version was received at his station near the Victoria Falls on the Zambesi. Some of these Va-Karanga also work in Johannesburg, where one man came to our depot every day for a whole month to inquire if the books had arrived. He was there to see the first case unpacked : opening a copy, he read a few sentences, and exclaimed: "Yes, this is Karanga, this is my people's language." Then he hurried off to tell the news, and was soon back with a dozen companions, all eager to buy the new book. Now they are asking when they may have the whole New Testament in Karanga. The Bible for the Gurkhas. The Rev. R. Kilgour, of the Church of Scotland Mission, is carrying on the translation of the Naipali Bible at Darjeeling, which is the headquarters of this Mission in the Himalayas. The Naipali New Testa ment, revised by the Rev. A. Turnbull of the same Mission, was published by our Society in 1901. The Rev. Ganga Prasad, a native scholar who aided Mr. Turnbull, is acting as assistant to Mr. Kilgour, and this important version makes steady progress. The popu lation of Nepal is estimated at about five millions, and includes the famous Gurkhas, originally the Rajput conquerors of Nepal, from whom are drawn whole regiments of recruits for the Indian native army. The kingdom of Nepal is one of the independent Indian States, and Christian Missions have hitherto been unable THE LEAVES OF THE TREE to obtain a footing there. But the printed Gospel can often penetrate where Christian teachers are excluded, and this Naipali Bible, besides being needed for Nepalese Christians in Darjeeling and its neighbour hood, will be itself of peculiar value as a missionary pioneer. The Revision of the Vulgate. It is announced from Rome that Pope Pius X. has decided upon a revision of the Vulgate Bible. To carry out this task will probably occupy more than one generation of the Benedictine scholars to whom it is entrusted. The famous Latin translation of the Scrip tures made by St. Jerome fifteen centuries ago has exercised a far wider and deeper influence in Western Europe than any other version. But during the course of the dark ages Jerome's text could not escape cor ruption. When the Council of Trent decreed in 1546 that the Vulgate should be held to be authentic and that no one should dare, on any pretext, to reject it, the Council did not determine what the text of the Vulgate was. Indeed the first official edition was that of Pope Sixtus v., published in 1590: this, however, contained numerous errors, and it was promptly superseded by the edition published in 1592 by Pope Clement VIII., for which Bellarmine wrote a preface. Since that time the Roman Church has issued no official revision of the Vulgate. It will be a real gain if this Bible, which has been canonized as a standard by the largest communion of Christians in the world, is con formed as closely as possible to the original text. Yet we remember that the name "Vulgate," to begin with, meant simply "in common use"; and we cannot help asking this question : If it be so desirable and necessary 25 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE to have God's Word rendered into accurate Latin, which is a dead ecclesiastical language, must it not be still more desirable and necessary for the Roman Church to translate and circulate God's Word in all those living tongues which speak to the hearts of men and women in the world to-day ? In the Original Texts. The Greek Patriarch at Constantinople has promised to supply 10,000 copies of his amended Greek Testa ment in the traditional text, chiefly for circulation by our colporteurs among members of the Orthodox Greek Church in Eastern Europe. The Society's new edition of the Hebrew Old Testament, enriched by Massoretic variants gathered from fifty MSS. and early printed editions, is making good progress through the indefatig able labour of Dr. Ginsburg, and we rejoice that its printing has already begun. For Our Own People. The needs of English-speaking folk have not been forgotten. A new School Bible has just been issued, printed in admirably clear type specially made for this edition, which can be had for is. strongly bound in enamelled cloth, and for is. 4d. in sheep. Our Society has never before published so beautiful and legible a Bible at so low a price. Now that we hear so many warnings of the dangers involved in straining children's eyesight by the use of small or inferior print, there is urgent need that the Bible used in our schools shall be clear and easily legible. The Book of books deserves to be set forth in characters which even a wayfarer can read with comfort. We believe that the time is not distant when the Society's 6d. and lod. English Bibles — which 26 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE are of necessity in small, close type — will be to a great extent superseded by this new shilling School Bible. The Welsh Brevier Reference Bible, in which the marginal matter of the English Revised Version will be added for the first time in Welsh, may be expected in the autumn of 1907. In Esperanto ? In reply to inquiries from various quarters as to whether the Bible Society proposes to issue the Scriptures in Esperanto, our friends are reminded that the Society exists for missionary purposes, and it does not appear that any Esperantist is unable to obtain the Scriptures which are already issued by the Society in his own mother-tongue. A version of St. Matthew's Gospel in Esperanto was published last year in pamphlet form by J. C. Henrichs, of Leipzig. The monthly Esperantist journal La Revuo, edited by Dr. Zamenhof, contained in March, 1907, a translation of the Book of Ecclesiastes — " La Predik- anto ' ' — from the editor's pen. His Mother's Translation. Which is the best version of all ? The leader of a Bible-class had been describing different translations of the Scriptures — such as the Latin Vulgate, and Luther's version, and the various forms of the English Bible. A young man present remarked to a friend : " Perhaps the Revised Version is more scholarly, but for my own part I like the Authorised Version best." His friend smiled : " Well," said he, " as far as I am concerned, I prefer my mother's translation to every other in the world." "Your mother's translation! 27 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE What on earth do you mean?" "I mean that my mother has been translating the Bible for me ever since I was old enough to understand it. She translates clearly, and she gives the whole sense. Her daily life is a version of the Bible such as a child can appreciate. Whatever version of the Bible I study, it is always my mother's translation which solves my doubts and difficulties." 28 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE IN VALLOMBROSA. " Thick as leaves . . . In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades High overarched i'mhower." — Paradise Lost, i : 302, To visit the head-quarters of the Bible Society for the first time, is a somewhat bewildering lesson alike in geography and in statistics. No one can explore the Library and the Warehouse in Queen Victoria Street without realizing that the Society's work is being done literally by millions, and for the sake of millions, of all kindreds and tongues, in the farthest corners of the earth. For the last five years its average annual issues have exceeded five and three-quarter millions of volumes. To multiply printed copies of the Bible, presses are kept busy not merely in London, but in Berlin and Vienna and Budapest and Florence and Madrid and Constan tinople and St. Petersburg, at Calcutta and Madras and Bombay, at Shanghai and Yokohama. The yearly expenditure for binding in London alone exceeds ;^25,ooo. To facilitate the distribution of the printed volumes, the Society maintains depots of its own in about a hundred of the chief cities of the world. Since it was founded in 1804, it has sent out over 204,000,000 copies of one Book — complete or in parts — and has expended altogether nearly ;^I5, 000,000. Its activities exceed 29 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE those of all other kindred organizations combined. Under God's providence this great institution has grown up, to serve as the steward of modern Christendom in the sacred task of translating and distributing the Scriptures. Links of Empire We have recently read many eloquent references to those links which bind together the various portions and provinces of the British Empire. Among such ties we claim a foremost place for the English Bible. To heal the social divisions which threaten our own nation, to create new bonds of sympathy between class and class, to bring together all sorts and conditions of men into common fellowship, no power exists like that of the Book which our Society has made the cheapest and most accessible book in England to-day. How many hundreds of Sunday schools in the land obtain their Bibles and Testaments at reduced rates, through the Bible Society? How many hospitals and orphanages and asylums and philanthropic agencies of all kinds and all colours draw similar help from the same source of supply? We need only cite two instances among hundreds. Through the prison chaplain at Worm wood Scrubbs the Society offers a New Testament to every youth or lad who is leaving that prison at the expiration of his sentence. A Bible is presented to each emigrant boy or girl sent out from the Barnardo Homes, and kindred institutions, to begin a career in Canada. In our Colonies. Among the children of Greater Britain beyond the seas, the Bible Society fulfils a function of its own, in Croatian Peasants in Gala Dress. I'tigo, Rudiipfst. THE LEAVES OF THE TREE cementing that union of hearts and races which all wise statesmen desire. Across the vast Canadian Dominion the Society's Auxiliaries, from Newfoundland to Van couver, are now federated in common service. From our depots in Canada, the Scriptures go out in sixty different languages. During the first half of 1907, nearly 200,000 immigrants entered the Dominion, including scores of thousands from the Continent of Europe. At the ports where they land and at the chief railway-centres where they disperse, these polyglot crowds of Russians and Serbs, Magyars and Bohemians, Poles and Croats and Galicians and Slovaks and Slovenes are met with copies of the Gospel in their own tongues. To scattered settlers on the prairies and in the back-woods and lumber-camps, the Scriptures are carried by colporteurs. Similarly in Australia and Tasmania and New Zealand, the Society's appointed agents take the Bible to lonely homesteads in the bush and isolated families in the "back-blocks," far beyond the reach of all regular Christian ministrations. In South Africa the Bible Society is proving itself a common bond which unites Dutch and British in one cause. Last year a special Agent was appointed for the first time at Durban, for the "Garden Colony." At Cape Town a new depot has been acquired, at whose dedication the venerable Dr. Andrew Murray, President of our South African Auxiliary, delivered an inspiring address. At Johannesburg a Bible House has also been erected, which was opened last December by the Earl of Selborne, the High Commissioner for South Africa. Of the need for such a depot there can be no more forcible evidence than the fact it has issued the Scriptures to polyglot Johannesburg in sixty-six different forms of speech. 31 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE In India. Nowhere has the Bible Society a wider and more variegated field than in this immense country, whose races and languages bewilder the memory, whose states and provinces are more populous than European kingdoms. For the countless millions of India — "humble toilers on the land, industrial workers in the cities, primitive denizens of the jungle and the hills, hardy boatmen and fishermen who spend their lives on the great rivers and the deep waters of the sea ; all split up again into innumerable groups by caste, by creed, by race, by occupation, by speech" — for all these it is the mission of our Society to provide one Book in forms which they can understand. Last year, through depots and colporteurs and missionaries, 691,000 copies of the Scriptures were circulated in India. In China. The centenary of Robert Morrison's landing in China was celebrated in April, 1907, by the greatest Missionary Conference ever held in the foreign field. Nearly twelve hundred delegates assembled at Shanghai representing the Missions of every Reformed Communion. Of those who attended, a hundred and twenty-two had laboured in China for at least a quarter of a century : the doyen of them all, Dr. Martin, went out as far back as 1850. The dominant features which characterized the Conference were (i) the intense common craving for unity ; (2) the general anticipation of the independence of the Chinese Church ; (3) the confident optimism of all missionaries that China would be won for Christ ; (4) the universal confession that the Bible lies at the foundation of missionary effort. THE LEAVES OF THE TREE At this memorable gathering, Bible work obtained emphatic and gratifying recognition, and it was no small compliment to our own Society that the Conference cabled a special message of congratulation to the Annual Meeting in Exeter Hall. The concern of our Committee for the Gospel in China has never ceased since it first showed its sympathy by grants amounting to ;^io,ooo towards the cost of producing Morrison's Chinese Bible. Now, for the third year in succession, we have sold more than a million volumes in some thirty different forms of speech current among the swarming cities and villages of this huge Empire. Amid many deep-voiced murmurs which are prophetic of fast-coming change in China, we can rejoice that — in the words of a native colporteur — "Truly the sound of peace and harmony is heard, because the people are learning that goodness which the Gospel teaches." In Russia. Across the far-stretching provinces which extend from Warsaw to Vladivostock and from Archangel to Merv, our Society distributes year by year nearly 600,000 copies of the Scriptures in more than three-score different tongues. Elsewhere we shall quote from the experience of the seventy colporteurs employed continuously in Russia. Here we may note — as one single example of distribution — that from our depot in Moscow alone, 74,000 volumes went out last year, including supplies to 35 booksellers in that city and to 78 booksellers in 61 other towns. To carry on its work in the Tsar's dominions cost the Society ;^ 13, 500 last year. Our imagination borrows wings when we read in a report of colportage that the sales of the Scriptures have largely increased in such cities as Tiflis, Baku, Tashkent, and Samarcand. 33 D THE LEAVES OF THE TREE Hie et Ubique. The mission of the Bible Society ramifies into all quarters of the globe. In the most widely contrasted cities, its depots stand open — at Adelaide and Rio and Rangoon, at Alexandria and Benares and Kobe and Barcelona, at Khartum and San Salvador and Singapore. Among the Society's most picturesque centres is the new depot at Jerusalem, outside the Jaffa Gate, where the Scriptures were sold last year in twenty-two different languages. During the pilgrim season this depot was visited every day by Russians, Armenians, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Abyssinians. Sometimes it was crowded with eager pilgrims. Many priests made purchases, and expressed their thanks for the noble work of the Society. The Greek Orthodox Bishop at Jerusalem bought 400 Gospels for free distribution among pupils in his schools, and the Russian Archimandrite purchased Gospels to present to Russian sailors who visited Jerusalem in March, 1906. During the year nearly all the various Missions in Palestine have been supplied from this depot, including those working at Haifa, Tiberias, Jaffa, Nabliis, and Nazareth. A Muhitude of Editions. The Society's London Catalogue describes 390 differ ent English and 78 Welsh editions and bindings — published at all prices from }4d. to £2. The Catalogue of Scriptures in Chinese, issued from the Bible House at Shanghai, enumerates 385 distinct forms of Bibles, Testaments, and separate Scripture Portions, all varying in type, paper, or binding, and in various languages and dialects of China ; they range in price from }id. to 34 Ig^J :^^:^f ,'E^:^^4^*^ Falls on the Loando River. T/ie Rer: H. C. iWilhry THE LEAVES OF THE TREE £i. The Indian Catalogue of vernacular Scriptures similarly describes 289 different editions in the languages of India. The Bible Society has issued altogether 2,400,000 copies of the Scriptures in forms which appeal specially to the Jews — through whom the Bible was first given to the world. And it has helped to issue some part of God's Book in embossed type for the Blind, in more than thirty different languages current in Europe and the East. Cui Bono? Enough has been said to give some idea of the multi farious service which our Society performs in spreading abroad God's Book among the children of His far-spread family. If anyone be tempted to ask what profit there is in so many volumes, we may answer in the words of a noble pioneer. When Morrison and Milne had com pleted their translation in 1819, the latter wrote: — "We now commit the Chinese Bible to the care of Him, whose Spirit dictated its contents ; praying that he may open many channels for its circulation, dispose many millions to read it, and make it the mighty instrument of illumination and eternal life to China," And later, referring to the circulation of the translated books, he added these words which are as apposite at the end of a century of missionary experiences as they were when fresh from the writer's pen : — "We are not so sanguine as to suppose that the copies given away have been all preserved ; or that those preserved have been all read ; or that those read have been all under stood ; or that the parts understood have been all believed ; or that the truths believed are uniformly acted upon. For it must ever be taken into account that a great deal of what is THE LEAVES OF THE TREE spoken and written, will be unproductive ; but may we not also hope that a portion thereof will prove eflFectual for the salvation of men ? The Holy Spirit is omnipresent, and His working with us in one place does not hinder His watering the seed sown elsewhere at the same time. The growth of grain depends not on the presence, or even the life of the sower, but on the genial showers and the warming beams of the sun. So it is here. The good seed may be sown on a passing visit, while the missionary has no time to stay and watch its growth, and the written Word may be sent through his instrumentality to places whither his feet can never travel, and to a people whom his eyes shall never see. He may be called to lie down in the dust and sleep with his fathers before the blade makes its appearance ; but that omnipotent ' Spirit who garnished the heavens ' is the guard ian of divine truth, and will not suffer the Word of the Lord to return to Him void, but cause it to prosper in effecting the gracious purposes of His sovereign will. He who sowed the seed may indeed first learn about the success in eternity ; but other men will ' enter into his labours ' and feel the better for his having gone before them. Of their predecessor they may be ignorant ; but if they find ' the fields white for the harvest' and 'a people prepared for the Lord,' their pro gress will be speedier and the triumphs of the Gospel more glorious. " Living Links. It is recorded that when John Knox lay dying, he called his wife and said, "Go, read me the Scripture where I first cast my anchor." As he listened to the seventeenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, a new life and spirit came into his soul ; he forgot his weakness, and gave his last hours to prayer for the Church of Christ, for the world lying in sin, and for the universal triumph of the Gospel. May we, who have thus cast our anchor on God's unchanging Word, have our hearts quickened 36 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE with a new spirit of compassion and intercession for those multitudes who are tossing on the troubled sea of ignorance and evil, and by our prayers and efforts may we become living links in that golden chain by which the whole round earth is bound about the feet of God ! 61 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE THE WEARIN' OF THE GREEN. ' ' It is true he went to Spain with the colours of that Society in his hat — oh! the blood glows in his veins ! oh ! the marrow wakes in his old bones when he thinks of what he accomplished in Spain in the cause of religion and civilization, with the colours of that Society in his hat and its weapon in his hand — even the sword of the Word of God." George Borrow : The Ro'many Rye. Appendix ii. How to bring the Bible within all men's reach is a complicated problem. To solve that problem it is not enough merely to translate so many versions, and to print so many editions, and to store so many million copies for sale in Bible depots at the great centres of human intercourse. More has still to be done before the Gospel can be put into the hands of the vast majority of mankind, who live dispersed far and wide over the face of the earth. To reach these scattered multitudes the Society employs a special type of agent. Wherever men make their homes, the colporteur can go with his wallet of cheap little Gospels and Testaments — to cottage and chalet and cabin and bungalow, to settlers' log-huts in the backwoods and the fo'c'sles of ships in harbour and the tents of nomads on the steppe. And thus he brings the message of redeeming Love under the eyes of the multitudes who are living destitute of any means of grace and ungladdened by any hope of glory. 38 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE What is a Colporteur? The colporteur, as a rule, is a native of the country over which he travels ; and so he finds himself naturally familiar with the dialects of the people and at home among their customs and prejudices. To select and train and supervise these colporteurs is one important duty of the Society's Agents abroad, who are assisted in heathen countries by experienced missionaries belong ing to many different Churches. A colporteur must be first and foremost a sincere and earnest Christian, who does not seek his appointment simply as a means of livelihood. Moreover, he must know the Book he carries, so as to be able to describe it and commend it from his own experience. And his person and de meanour must be such as to win the regard of his fellow men. To aid and encourage our colporteurs in their difficult mission, conferences and Bible-schools are fre quently held ; for such a duty as theirs demands no small measure of energy and tact, as well as spiritual devotion and a genuine love for souls, if it is to be fulfilled with success. Last year the Society employed over 900 of these wayfaring Bible-men along the highways and byways of the world, offering the Scriptures everywhere at prices which the poorest can afford to pay, and selling no fewer than 2,200,000 volumes of the Word of God. It should be noted that this total of goo represents the average number of the Society's colporteurs who were con tinuously at work through the whole twelvemonth. In China, for instance, nearly 500 different men were employed for longer or shorter periods during last year ; but their united service was only equivalent to the continuous labour of 266 — which is, therefore, reckoned as the number of our colporteurs in China. 39 THE LEAVES OF THE TREE In Asia and Europe. No small proportion of these Bible-men are busy within the borders of the two great Asiatic empires which con tain between them above three-sevenths of the human race. Last year in India, 150 colporteurs sold 222,000 volumes, while in China the sales by colportage reached 969,000 volumes. On the Continent of Europe 250 colporteurs were at work, mainly in countries which are unblessed by the Reformed Faith. Among Christian populations, however, it is no part of the colporteur's business to make proselytes, or to detach converts from any Communion. Almost all our Bible-sellers in Russia and Siberia are themselves devout members of the Holy Orthodox Church. "I will never change my religion," said one man to a colporteur. " But do you practise your religion? Do you go to church ? " " No, never." " Then how can you change your religion, when you have none ? Besides, I am not offering you a religion, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ." Men who Love the Bible. Our Society exists to circulate the Scriptures, without note or comment ; but the men who carry God's Book can commend it with all the fervour and conviction of their own Christian experience. The following sentences written by a young French colporteur will serve to illus trate the earnest missionary spirit in which the Gospel is put into the hands of the people : "I try to beware of repetitions. I wish to retain, as far as possible, when I approach people, the freshness of a first conversation. I delight in the freedom I enjoy when accosting them ; and here, as well as in everything, I feel that the Lord gives me His grace from day to day according to the need of the moment." 40 " «-«*?K^<^-9;-j' 'j^yt^- Copyright Photo by SPADE WORK IN KOREA. Unrler-wood