FOR THE SABBATH.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 582, 5 July 1913, Page 7

FOR THE SABBATH.

THE SCRIPTURES IN 450 LANGUAGES THE WORK OP THE BIBLE SOCIETY. "Our Society is charged with one sacred, indispensable function in the economy of modern Christendom. Never has it been enabled to fulfil that service more abundantly. Never in any previous year has it sent out so many copies of Holy Scripture to the ends of the earth." These are the words of with which the annual report of the British and Foreign Bible Society opens. The 109 th Annual meeting was held recently in the Queen's Hall, the Marquess of Northampton presiding over a large gathering. A summary of the report referred to was read by the secretary, the A. Taylor, this showing that the number of languages and dialects in which the Scripture 9 had been translated and circulated by the Society had now reached the remarkable total of 450, ten new versions having been added during the year. The Society's issues now amount to 7,899,562 copies of the Scriptures. In China the circulation of Holy Scriptures had reached the record total of 1,868,000 copies. The expenditure of the Society amounted to £269,312, the receipts being £267,677. "Never at any time in our history," said Mr Taylor, "were we more busy than we are to-day."

The chairman said that the report clearly ihowed year by year that the demand for Bibles was increasing.

THE BIBLE IN THE FAR EAST. A TRAVELLER'S TESTIMONY. "I have jußt come hot-foot from the Far East. I cannot speak of a long residence there, of multiplied experiences, but I have had the great advantage of spending between four and five months in China, in Japan, and in Korea. Anything that I say must ba simply the word of a traveller and of a reporter. 1 have had the opportunity of visiting not only the fringe of these lands, but of travelling through the interior. The journey that I was able to make, a long and toilsome one, from Canton, by road and river, right through the interior to Hankow and Pekin, was one of the most impressive and illuminating experiences of my life. In that journey I had the opportunity of meeting with missionaries of many names and differing nationalities. I met also a few non-missonary people and some antimissionary people, and. on the other hand, I had also the advantage of coming into touch with many classes of the Chinese, from Colporteurs to governors of provinces, and the Vicepresident of the Republic; so that what I say must be accepted simply as the testimony of a man who, deeply sympathetic towards the work of this Bible Society, has tried to usa every opportunity that offered itself for understanding the kind of work that is is doing and the kind of influence that it is gaining. I think 1 never understood until these last few months how widespread Was the interest which has ■ been created in the Far East in the . Word of God. When I was passing through Korea I seemed to be meeting the influence of the Word at every turn. I had the pleasure of visiting a i little country town in Korea —Sen- ' chung—a town that has become famous as the atorm centre of what has been called the great conspiracy case. It is a town of between 5000 and 6000 inhabitants. In that town there are two Christian churches which are packed every Sunday, and which provide accommodation for 2700 people. 1 arrived there just when a great Bible school had concluded its sessions. For several weeks they had had in that little town 1800 men giving the whole of their days to careful and systematic study of the Word of God, and all these men had paid their own expenses, both as to travel and as to food when they got there. But no sooner had the men gone than a similar class of woman came to pursue the same course of study i" that same little town. And every where in Korea it is like that. One of the pictures that I have in my mind is a picture of Pyang on a Sunday morning quite early. It went out from the house where I was staying, and at once I saw on all the hill sides around streams of people dressed in glistening white garments. I said, "Who are these and where are they going? and my companion said, "Why, it is Sunday, do not you know I and all these people are making their way to church." "What," I Baid, "so many?" "Yes," he said, "so many. There are thirteen large churches in this city. One holds 2500 and the smallest will hold 1000, and they vfiU all be packed for the morning service." My Lord, Korea has something to teach this land of ours. 1 we it to the largest church an hour befo: >-■ the service tim«», and there I i found two classes, one a clasß of 450 I men :nd another a claBS of over 150. Old men, middle-aged men, and younjr men were assembled there, and ware spending the first hour of the Sabbath Day in the study of the Word of God. Now, all that has been made possible by the work of the n iasionaries, combined with the work of the Bible Society I felt that ve had a similar prospect in China. The way in which the Bible is circulating there is to me one of the groat satisfactions of my heart.