CURRENT NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 307, 28 December 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

CURRENT NOTES.

Mr. William David Ross, who has been elected provost of Oriel College, Oxford, is an active Presbyterian elder at St. Columbus Church, Oxford. The great Oriental scholar, Dr. Moses Gaster, late Chief Rabbi of the Sephardic Communities, in commemoration of the British and Foi'eign Bible Socety's 125 th birthday, presented to the Bible House Library a valuable manuscript, containing a copy of the famous Sam* aratin Pentateuch. The original from which this copy was made bears the following inscription: "I, Slialmak, son of Amram, son of Zebi, have written this scroll in the year 1322 of the Rule of Ishmaelites, I thank thee, Lord." The Samaratins claim direct descent from Moses, also that they have the true "Law of Moses" on a precious scroll written in gold. The Samaratin community now consists of a few families, the total number being about 200 people. •

.A large legacy is about to fall to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The amount is likely to prove as much as £100,000. In agreement with the known wishes of the late Mrs. Greene, the testatrix, and of her relatives, the legacy, will be invested, and the interest used annually. • Such a sum thrown in at strategic points in dioceses which use S.P.G. as their home partner can give just the extra touch that means advance: to buy necessary land, provide or extend a building, to lift some work to a place where its sta" can get larger results from their faithful effort. That will be the sphere of the "Lucy Greene" fund.

The decision of the Government of Turkey to abolish the use of the difficult Arabic characters and substitute the simple Roman alphabet was not overlooked by the British and Foreign Bible Society. From the first of January, 1929, all works in Turkish had to appear in the new characters, and, to be prepared for the occasion, the Bible Society felt that, as the Turks prefer the Book of Proverbs to any other portion of the Bible, it would be advisable to begin with its publication first, and that it would greatly assist the readers if it were in Arabic on one page and in Roman characters on the other, Another edition was also printed in. the new characters only.