THE BIBLE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 208, 3 August 1937, Page 8

THE BIBLE.

It was announced recently that the British and Foreign Bible Socicety was completing its 999th and lOOOtli translations from the Scriptures into the tongues of two obscure tribes of the Belgian Congo. This simple statement tells of a jgreat work that goes steadily on year after year in a quiet way, the fulfilment of a task which commenced in 1804 to “encourage a wider circulation of the Holy Scriptures without note or comment.” To-day more than 500,000,000 Bibles have been issued and over 700 translations have been made, industry and scholarship on a scale that arrests attention and should create pride in a wonderful achievement. The Society’s work is carried on wherever it can promote a knowledge of the Scriptures, and it is on record that even in some countries where entry is barred the Word has been circulated. In other countries the work is hampered, but its agents have a greater resolution to overcome these difficulties. One of the hindrances to its operations is found in the large number of Communist tracts distributed in the native tongues over a large part of Asia. In other parts of the world natives are influenced against Christian civilisation by a disgraceful type of film. But the Society is proving with abundant force that these difficulties can be overcome, and the fact that it is completing its 1000th translation is full warrant for this statement. It is a matter of supreme interest that at the moment of his Coronation King ‘George put aside his sceptre and orb to receive a copy of the Bible, which the Archbishop of Canterbury described to him as the most valuable thing this world can offer. “Here is wisdom, this is the Royal law; these are the lively oracles of God,” added the Archbishop. It has been commented that the Bible, which has done so much to mould British character and to make British people freedom-lov-ing and peace-loving, is for many people of Britain a closed book. Recognising the truth of this statement the Society not long ago undertook a campaign to “bring British people back to the Bible and the Bible back to the people.” It is indeed a fact that while the Society prepares translations for people who have not known the Word, Bibles are provided for people who have had them in their own tongues for several hundred years.