gave up the manuscripts they possessed, and in so doing
earned the oppiobrious name of traditores. Diocletian
actually erected -a, monument to comimentorate his des-
truction of the Christian church and struck a medal to
celebrate his destruction of the Seriptures. But the
Scriptures still lived on after his passing! |
During the later Roman Empire the pagan philosophers
again turned their pens to work of déstroying the Word,
but the message of the Bible continued its conquering way
while the philosophies of ancient Rome sank into oblivion.
During the Dark Ages the Roman Catholic Church
sought to keep the Bible out of the hands of the common
people, but not even the threat of death by the vilest tor-
tures could prevent earnest Christians from printing, dis-
tributing, and possessing the Sacred Book.
It was secreted by itinerant Waldensian merchants
in their cases of merchandise. Wycliffe’s men carried his
version throughout the length and breadth of England,
and Bibles from Holland, smuggled by the linen mer-
chants of Edinburgh in packages of sheets, started the
Reformation in Scotland! The Word of God could not be
bound.
In the 18th century the Encyclopedists of France pro-
mised the early doom of Christianity and its Bible. Vol-
taire declared that the Bible would be an unknown book
in less than a hundred years from his time. Hume pre-
dicted the extinction of Christianity within two decades,
and Thomas Paine boasted, when he landed in New York,
that within five years there would not be a Bible in the
United States.
Hume died in 1776, Voltaire in 1778, and Thomas Paine
sank into a dishonored grave in 1809. According to their
prophecies, the Bible should have been a forgotten book
soon after the middle of the nineteenth century. But what
actually happened?
Five years before Paine died the British and Foreign
Bible Society was organised by a group of devoted Chris-
tians in London “to encourage the wider circulation of
the Holy Scriptures without note or comment”. In 1806
the Dublin Bible Society was inaugurated, in 1809 the
Edinburgh Bible Society, and in 1812 the Clasgow Bible
Society. With appropriate irony the first meeting of the
Edinburgh Bible Society convened in the verv room where
Hume died.
Soon Bible Societies began to spring up on the Con-
tinent, beginning with one in St. Petersburg in 1812 and
one in Paris in 1818. The house where Voltaire died was
taken over as a depository by the Geneva Bible Society
and the press on which his infidel publications had been
printed was used to print copies of the Bible.
In America the same story can be told. The Philadel
phia Bible Society was formed as early as 1808, to be
quickly followed by societies in Connecticut, Massachu-
setts, Maine, New York, New Jersey, and other states,
and in 1816 the American Bible Society was established.
As a result of the work of these and many other so-
cieties that came into existence in the nineteenth century,
the entire Bible had been published by the end of 1951
in 195 languages, the complete New Testament in 252
more, and some part of the Bible in no fewer than 1,049
out of the 2,796 languages and dialects of the world.
Contemporary with the rise of the Bible Societies the
great missionary societies came into existence. When
William Carey, the first missionary of the first of the
FEBRUARY, 1954.
modern societies, réached India, his first concern was' to
put the Bible into the language of the peoples of India. -
And all who followed in the noble succession have had as
their prime object the placing of the vernacular Scrip-
tures in the hands of every nation, tribe, and people to
the earth’s far ends, oo
As a consequence of the parallel activities of the Bibie
and the missionary societies, the Bible has been scattered
far and wide in every continent and island, and today is
going swiftly into the last unreached corners of the earth.
Unprecedented Circulation
The American Bible Society reported 1951 as the
greatest in its history, the total of 6,000,000 volumes in
1950 being passed in the first nine months of 195%, and
the production program for 1952 was no less than
14,599,750 Bibles, Testaments and portions.
The British and Foreign Bible Society likewise reported,
in spite of all Britains economic problems, the production
and distribution during 1951 of 3,629,752 Bibles and por-
tions, while almost an equal number were printed for the
society in Australia, Canada, Europe, Cairo, Hong Kong,
and elsewhere.
In the 147 years of its existence this society has circu-
fated 380,000,000 copies of the whole or a part of the
Bible. This works out at 10,000 copies for every day since
1804.
As H. L. Hastings wrote many years ago: “The Bible
is a book which has been refuted, demolished, overthrown,
and exploded more times than any other book you ever
heard of. “Every little while somebody starts up and
upsets this book; and it is like upsetting a solid cube of
granite. It is just as big one way as the other; and when
you have upset it, it is right side up, and when you oves-
turn it again, it is right side up still. Every little while
somebody blows up the Bible; but when it’ comes down, it
always lights on its feet and runs faster than ever through
the world”. — “Will the Old Book Stand?” p, 11.
In the light of all these facts about the Bible what only
can be our verdict concerning this amazing Book? Can
its contents be regarded as the product of human genius?
Can its effects be parelleled by the influence of any human
composition? Has any other book met such opposition
and survived? The answer in each case must be No.
Then the reason must be that the Bible is derived from
a Source different from all other books. If is because it
is the very word of God.—R. & H.
“Men may be able to repeat with fluency the great
truths brought out with such thoroughness and perfection
in our publications; they may talk fervently and intelli-
gently of the decline of religion in the churches; they may
present the gospel standard before the people in a very
able manner, while the every-day duties of the Christian
life, which require action as well as feeling, are regarded
by them as not among the weightier matters. This is your
danger. Practical religion asserts its claims alike over the
heart, the mind, and the daily life. Our sacred faith does
not consist either in feeling or in action merely, but the
two must be combined in the Christian life. Practical reli-
gion does not exist independent of the operation of the
Holy Spirit. You need this agency, my brother, and so do
all who enter upon the work of labouring to convince
transgressors of their lost condition.—“Testimonies for the
Church,” Vol. 4, p. 372.
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