IS THE BIBLE READ?

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume L, Issue 16348, 4 February 1924, Page 11

IS THE BIBLE READ?

SALES DURING AIMD SINCE THE WAR. "it is frequently asserted," says the Daiiy Telegraph, "that people nowadays do not read their Ribles as did their forbears." That is; not in accordance with the experience, of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Last year their circulation of BiblUs and Testaments in English and Welsh was 317,000 more than in 1921, the total being 1,101,574. In each of the first three years after the war the English and Welsh circulation fell below 1,000,000. This decrease was regarded as temporary and was not unexpected, for during the war the numbers "went up from 1,7/74,904 in 19l. T > to more than 2,000,000 annually in 1914. 1915, and 1916, and to 1,750,000 in 1917 and 1918. Last year's advance after the temporary set-back Yioints, the society states, "to a revival of Bible-reading in the homeland." Very signitieent of the worldwide influence of the Bible are the society's figures of their issues in all languages for the past oentury and a quarter. The figures are summaries of totals at intervals of twenty-five years, and include Bibles, Testaments, and portions of the Scriptures : 1808—81,157 1883—2,964,636 1833—-536,841 1908—5.688,381 1858—1,602,187 1922-23-8,679,384 Take, too, the test of translation. Homer has been rendered into more than a score of foreign languages and Shakespeare into nearly forty. Both together fall far short of the, translations of the Bible, for the Gospel has been actually printed in more than 700 different forms of human speech, and the Bible Society, as their share of this vast work, has helped to spread tho message in 558 languages and dialects. A London press representative was shown the society's library in Queen Victoria street, which contains more than 16,000 books, all of them having sonic portion of. tlie Scriptures, in 700 languages.