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 A Paper prepared for the Ecumenical 
 Conference on Foreign Missions held 
 in New York* April 21—May 1, 1900* 
 
 BY EDWARD W. GILMAN, D.D., 
 
 one of the Secretaries of the American Bible 
 
 Society. 
 
 T HE Nineteenth Century pre¬ 
 sents to the Twentieth printed 
 copies of the Holy Scriptures 
 in about four hundred languages 
 as a part of the equipment with 
 which the work of evangelization 
 is to be carried on in the years to 
 come. Of these volumes 111 con¬ 
 tain the Old and New Testaments 
 entire ; 91 are New Testaments, and 
 the remainder, less comprehensive as 
 yet, indicate both a beginning and 
 progress on more extensive lines.* 
 It is estimated that about one-tenth 
 of these had been printed before 
 
 * J. Gordon Watt’s “ Four Hundred Tongues,” 
 dated Easter, 1899, enumerates four hundred and six 
 languages and dialects in which versions of the Scrip¬ 
 tures have been published by nil the societies and 
 agencies at work. 
 
2 
 
 1800 ; the remainder may be taken 
 as the product of Christian study 
 and labor in the present century. 
 As this enumeration refers only to 
 distinct languages and dialects in 
 which some part of the Bible has 
 been published, it is important to 
 add that in many of these languages 
 there are two or more versions of the 
 same book, or elaborate revisions 
 embodying results of modern re¬ 
 search and scholarship and forming 
 an important part of the contribu¬ 
 tion of the present age to its 
 successor. The greatness of this 
 achievement becomes more evident 
 if we note that a large number of 
 these languages have no recorded 
 history or literature, being princi¬ 
 pally rude and unwritten, and only 
 in these later years and by slow de¬ 
 grees reduced to writing and made 
 available for the expression of Chris¬ 
 tian truth. In the year 1468 Bert- 
 hold, Archbishop of Mayence, issued 
 a decree prohibiting the dissemina¬ 
 tion among the people of religious 
 works in the vernacular, on the 
 ground that “ the German language 
 was incapable of expressing the deep 
 truths of religion.”* What would 
 he have thought of any attempt to 
 spiritualize the speech of the Zulu or 
 
 * Herzog, Theol. Ency., Vol. I. 398. 
 
3 
 
 the Waganda? It was, says Dean 
 Trench,* a new discovery of the six¬ 
 teenth century that “ not the Latin 
 only, but also the newly formed 
 languages of Europe were vessels 
 capable of containing the precious 
 wine of G-od’s truth and all other 
 thoughts which were worth the 
 thinking and preserving.” 
 
 In preceding centuries slow prog¬ 
 ress had been made in popularizing 
 and circulating the Holy Scriptures. 
 A theory that the Bible is a book for 
 the clergy alone blocks every scheme 
 for translating it into the tongue of 
 the unlearned, and hides it from 
 their sight if translated and printed. 
 A theory that Christian people alone 
 have any interest in the Scriptures 
 and any right to own and read them, 
 gives no stimulus to the effort to 
 reproduce them in modern vernacu¬ 
 lars. Not until the Bible is recog¬ 
 nized as a book for all mankind, 
 radiant with truth and power, and 
 adapted to the ignorant and sinful 
 of every land, do men ask how its 
 message of peace and good-will can 
 be reproduced in such a way that the 
 Holy Spirit shall speak as effectively 
 in modern lands as he did of old in 
 Palestine and Egypt. 
 
 The multiplication of Bible versions 
 
 * Mediaeval Church History, page 279. 
 
4 
 
 in the Nineteenth Century is due to 
 the deep and widespread conviction 
 that “ the Scriptures principally 
 teach what man is to believe con¬ 
 cerning God, and what duty God 
 requires of man,” and'that we can 
 find no better text-book for the race 
 than that which God himself has 
 given us in the Bible as it has come 
 down to us from the earliest centu¬ 
 ries of the Christian era. 
 
 The invention of printing from 
 movable type ushered in a new era in 
 Europe, and its first costly product, 
 the Mazarin Bible, appeared about 
 1450. German Bibles followed in 
 1466, and then Italian, Flemish, 
 French, Dutch, Bohemian, and He¬ 
 brew, but seventy-five years elapsed 
 after the first Latin Bible before the 
 English had even a printed New 
 Testament in their own language, 
 and that was imported from the con¬ 
 tinent. In 1536 the English clergy 
 were ordered to put an English 
 Bible and a Latin Bible in the choir 
 of every parish church, that every 
 man who chose might read therein ; 
 but not until some years later did 
 any Englishman or Scotchman hear 
 the Bible read in his own tongue as 
 part of the public service of parish 
 church or cathedral. 
 
 The reproduction of books by the 
 
5 
 
 printing-press did not secure the 
 immediate distribution of the Bible 
 among the nations. Luther’s trans¬ 
 lation in German appeared in 1522, 
 but it was two hundred years after 
 that before any version of the Bible 
 was ready for the millions dwelling 
 in the valleys of the Indus and the 
 Ganges, and still another hundred 
 years before any similar work was 
 accomplished for the hundreds of 
 millions which swarmed upon the 
 banks of the Hoang-Ho and the 
 Yang-tse Kiang. It is some mark 
 of progress then to say that the 
 closing century passes on to its 
 successor the Bible complete in 
 one hundred and eleven different 
 tongues, and announces that pre¬ 
 liminary steps have been taken to 
 supply the Scriptures in three hun¬ 
 dred more of the living languages of 
 to-day. It is not claimed that these 
 are all of equal value as a means of 
 evangelization; some are of little 
 worth, and their publication was of 
 doubtful expediency ; some are pos¬ 
 sibly more interesting to the philolo¬ 
 gist than the missionary; many of 
 them are tentative and not final; 
 but as a whole they represent the 
 best attainable effort to bring the 
 gospel of our salvation into direct 
 relations with the hearts and lives of 
 
0 
 
 men who otherwise had no knowl¬ 
 edge of eternal life. 
 
 II. The Nineteenth Century pre¬ 
 sents to the Twentieth a large 
 accumulation of historical material 
 relating to the history of modern 
 versions, and to the vast work yet 
 to be accomplished in giving the 
 Holy Scriptures to all tribes and 
 people and tongues. The biogra¬ 
 phies of translators, the journals of 
 missionary boards, the annual re¬ 
 ports of Bible societies, the archives 
 of correspondence extending over a 
 century, supply an enormous amount 
 of literature which ought to be util¬ 
 ized at an early day in the interests 
 of wise economy of labor and money, 
 and the avoidance at the outset of 
 mistakes due to ignorance and inex¬ 
 perience. The initial cost of making 
 a version is too great to be over¬ 
 looked by those who are called on to 
 inaugurate and superintend it. Not 
 every missionary has gifts which 
 qualify him to undertake it or par¬ 
 ticipate in it. Not every spoken 
 dialect is worthy of being perpetu¬ 
 ated by such a book as the Bible. 
 The confusion of tongues is a curse 
 and a barrier, and not a few of the 
 existing forms of speech are destined 
 to become extinct. Something has 
 been done, and well done, for the 
 
aborigines of the United States, but 
 only for the Sioux Indians has the 
 entire Bible been translated and 
 printed, and all of the Indian 
 tongues are moribund. It is right 
 to give bread to the perishing, but 
 is it desirable for a population not 
 exceeding two hundred and fifty 
 thousand souls, to perpetuate seven 
 different versions of the Scriptures, 
 with a total circulation of three or 
 four hundred volumes a year ? And 
 is it to be assumed or desired that 
 these forms of speech should survive 
 while modern civilization is crowd¬ 
 ing in on every side, with English as 
 the language of daily life, of news¬ 
 papers and magazines and litera¬ 
 ture ? 
 
 There are many Indian dialects in 
 Mexico, still spoken in homes and 
 villages, some of which were printed 
 more than a hundred years ago, but 
 the Spanish is the dominant lan¬ 
 guage of the Republic, and all mis¬ 
 sionary instruction and preaching is 
 practically limited to that. The ad¬ 
 vance of empire in uncivilized lands 
 leads now and then to compulsory 
 restrictions looking to the enforced 
 use of French or German, as in cer¬ 
 tain parts of Western Africa, not 
 perhaps interfering with the circula¬ 
 tion of books in Benga or Mpongwe, 
 
8 
 
 but aiming at the ultimate extinction 
 of the native forms of speech and 
 the substitution of the European. 
 Cases have occurred where the trans¬ 
 lator has selected a dialect of a lim¬ 
 ited range, and eventually other 
 tribes of similar origin demand that 
 changes, radical or slight, may be 
 made to adapt the version to their 
 use. It is a very interesting mark 
 of progress to register the acces¬ 
 sion of a new version, or some 
 new language, to the list of Bible 
 translations, but it is a serious ques¬ 
 tion whether such a production is 
 not likely to be still-born unless 
 some missionary is at hand to use 
 the printed text-book as a manual 
 from which to preach and expound 
 the gospel of Christ. At the Mis¬ 
 sionary Conference of 1888, one well 
 qualified to speak laid it down as 
 a fundamental principle that “no 
 Bible can be permanent that does 
 not spring out of the actual necessi¬ 
 ties of a living church.”* There is 
 something pathetic in Pilkington’s 
 appeal for the assignment of compe¬ 
 tent men to the work of translation, 
 and for their education at home with 
 special reference to such service as 
 their life work. The translation of 
 
 * Prebendary Edmonds, Report of the Missionary 
 Conference, Vol. II. 295. 
 
9 
 
 the entire Bible from the Hebrew 
 and Greek into a barbarous tongue 
 is the work of a life-time, and few 
 individuals have been able to accom¬ 
 plish it, and so it becomes a ques¬ 
 tion of great practical importance 
 whether to entrust such work to 
 one or two, or to rely upon the joint 
 labors of a committee to no one of 
 whom the language is vernacular. 
 It may indeed be assumed that all 
 work at the outset is tentative and 
 open to the revision of native schol¬ 
 ars when such shall have been 
 trained up for the service, but mean¬ 
 time the usage of the first version 
 has come to have its firm hold on 
 Christian thought, and even its 
 errors may be almost ineradicable. 
 The poverty of many a barbarian 
 speech is appalling when one at¬ 
 tempts to translate the Bible, word 
 for word, with perhaps no lexicon 
 or grammar besides those which he 
 has himself compiled. How shall 
 one fitly present the Bible idea of 
 love , when the mental conception 
 of the savage has never called for 
 such a term ? or of sin, when a thou¬ 
 sand sins may have separate names 
 without any one term to represent 
 the abstract idea ? Or in material 
 things, how shall one convey the 
 idea of a mountain to the inhabitant 
 
 Nineteenth, &c. 
 
10 
 
 of a low coral island ; or of a flock 
 of sheep to one who has never seen 
 a four-footed creature ? What terms 
 shall one invent for the musical in¬ 
 struments whose names roll so trip¬ 
 pingly from our tongues when we 
 read in Daniel of “ cornet, flute, 
 harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulci¬ 
 mer,” or for the precious stones un¬ 
 derlying the walls of the heavenly 
 city ? How easy to fall into the 
 error of the translator in China who 
 took the wrong word for the palm 
 tree, and represented the multitudes 
 who went out to meet our Lord on 
 Mount Olivet as casting in the* path¬ 
 way before him branches of a thorn 
 tree ? or of the novice in Africa 
 whose version of the parable of the 
 sower represented carniverous birds 
 as coming down to devour the seeds 
 that fell by the wayside 1 Or that 
 more serious error of the Telugu 
 translator who selected a phrase 
 which made the atonement appear 
 to be something designed to placate 
 an evil deity ? 
 
 On questions like these light is to be 
 found in the recorded experience of 
 those who have struggled with these 
 intricate problems and have left rec¬ 
 ords of their methods and results. 
 
 III. A part of the gift which the 
 Nineteenth Century passes on to the 
 
11 
 
 Twentieth as a help to the evangel¬ 
 ization of the world, is a greatly 
 improved apparatus for work, accu¬ 
 mulated during the past one hundred 
 years. We are not informed what 
 critical equipment Cary had when 
 he started as a pioneer to supply the 
 people of India with the Scriptures 
 in multitudinous forms of speech, 
 but his library must have been most 
 restricted and meager. He went to 
 a field which, as Canon Edmonds 
 describes it, was then as unexplored 
 as an Indian jungle, while now 
 “ the subject of Indian languages is 
 mapped out with all the accuracy of 
 an ordnance survey.”* The fruits 
 of modern scholarship, so largely 
 devoted to linguistic study, are avail¬ 
 able for the translator and inter¬ 
 preter of the Bible. Studies of He¬ 
 brew and Greek and cognate tongues 
 throw light on the meaning of every 
 page. Ancient versions help to elu¬ 
 cidate the meaning of the writers. 
 Archaeological investigations, coins, 
 manuscripts, inscriptions, papyri, 
 lend their aid. Researches in Ori¬ 
 ental lands clear up doubtful pas¬ 
 sages. Every new translation is a 
 commentary embodying the conclu¬ 
 sions of a scholar. Then the estab- 
 
 * Report of the Missionary Conference, 1888, Vol. 
 II. 295. 
 
12 
 
 lishment of museums and libraries, 
 the modern processes of reproduction 
 by photography and electrotyping, 
 by lithography and mimeographing, 
 the wide diffusion of discoveries, and 
 the free, uninterrupted communica¬ 
 tion between all civilized nations, 
 make the translation of any book of 
 the Bible a very different thing from 
 what it was when Judson toiled 
 over his Burmese version, or Bing¬ 
 ham and his associates were trans¬ 
 lating the Scriptures into Hawaiian. 
 Such things may not make the work 
 of the translator easy, but they cer¬ 
 tainly aid his great purpose to be 
 exact and faithful. 
 
 IV. The Christianity of the Nine¬ 
 teenth Century transmits also its 
 profound and abiding conviction 
 that the Bible has come to the earth 
 to stay, not an obsolete book, or one 
 of waning power and merely historic 
 interest, but a mighty force which 
 Cod has appointed for the use of his 
 Church in the discharge of its duty 
 to the world. 
 
 The conservatism of Christian 
 thought, so profoundly impressive, 
 is perhaps in no respect more 
 marked than in the history of Bible 
 versions. Generation after genera¬ 
 tion clings to the old beliefs, formu¬ 
 las, phrases, and words. Revision, 
 
13 
 
 substitution, change, encounter op¬ 
 position and meet with scant favor. 
 It is Luther’s Bible that, with slight 
 revision, holds its own among the 
 Germans after nearly four hundred 
 years. The Spanish version of Cas- 
 siodoro de Reina, printed in 1569, 
 with some modifications introduced 
 by Valera in 1602, though confess¬ 
 edly antiquated and often obscure, 
 is still held in high honor as against 
 modern competitors. The author¬ 
 ized English version, prepared un¬ 
 der the auspices of King James in 
 1611, remains “the version in com¬ 
 mon use ” among English-speaking- 
 people all around the world. In¬ 
 dividual scholars without number 
 have shown how it might be bet¬ 
 tered by more exact renderings, by 
 the removal of archaisms, by con¬ 
 formity to a better text, by obvious 
 and unquestioned improvements. 
 Companies of devout and gifted 
 scholars on both sides of the Atlan¬ 
 tic, after devoting years to a work 
 of critical revision, challenge the 
 world to accept their changes, but 
 the conservatism of the age is shown 
 by the unwillingness of the people 
 to have the new supplant the old. 
 It is not the Bible Societies that have 
 stood in the way, but the profound 
 attachment of the people to the 
 
14 
 
 identical phrases which they have 
 heard from infancy and which are 
 wrought into the literature of three 
 centuries. The dominant influence 
 in the United States forty years ago 
 would not allow the American Bible 
 Society to change the headings of 
 King James’ version or alter the 
 spelling of a word. It was even 
 constrained by public opinion to re¬ 
 cede from some slight improvements 
 which it had introduced, and to put 
 back Noe for Noah in Matt. 24. 37, 
 Canaanite for Cananite in Matt. 
 10. 4, and church for bride in the 
 margin of the Song of Solomon, and 
 to remove a comma after the word 
 slain in Bev. 13. 8. It is perhaps 
 still more remarkable that one im¬ 
 portant branch of the Christian 
 Church retains in its liturgy a ver¬ 
 sion of the Psalter which was made 
 long before the publication of the 
 authorized version and has been in 
 daily use since 1549. Such attach¬ 
 ment to a form of sound words illus¬ 
 trates a deep-seated reverence for 
 the book itself, and is proof of a con¬ 
 viction that an inheritance so valua¬ 
 ble should not only be transmitted 
 to our posterity, but imparted as 
 speedily as may be to all the world.* 
 
 * “ If for Wales.” said the Rev. John Hughes, one 
 of the Secretaries of the Religious Tract Society, 
 “ why not for the world ?” 
 
15 
 
 V. The Nineteenth Century as¬ 
 sures the Twentieth of its firm con- 
 viction that the Bible is to be more 
 than ever a factor in the world’s life 
 and a help to the evangelization of 
 the nations, the overthrow of false 
 religions and the building up of the 
 kingdom of Christ. 
 
 In the early part of the century 
 the attempt was made by some to 
 show that “the circulation of the 
 Bible without the Book of Common 
 Prayer would do harm.” Others 
 expressed the fear that it might en¬ 
 gender fanaticism. Missionaries in 
 China objected to sending the book 
 among the heathen as simply 6 ‘ cast¬ 
 ing pearls before swine.” Such fears 
 find little expression at this day and 
 the trend is the other way. Now 
 education is the law of procedure 
 in Protestant mission work. The 
 school is fundamental. Reading is 
 everywhere encouraged. The print¬ 
 ing-press is a means of evangeliza¬ 
 tion. The Bible often goes in ad¬ 
 vance of living teachers, and men 
 and women, assembling to read and 
 hear it, wait and pray for the com¬ 
 ing of some minister of the gospel 
 to explain the way more perfectly. 
 In some lands even the Roman 
 Catholics seem to be yielding to the 
 same conviction, and are giving the 
 
16 
 
 Scriptures at least to their adher¬ 
 ents, printing the Bible in Arabic, 
 and parts of the New Testament for 
 the Chinese, the Japanese, and the 
 Gilbert Islanders.* 
 
 The limits allotted to this paper 
 do not allow the writer to point out 
 the large results traceable to the cir¬ 
 culation of God’s word among the 
 nations, and it belongs to the mis¬ 
 sionaries, rather, to show what obli¬ 
 gations they owe to the Scriptures 
 as an agency accompanying all their 
 work and essential to its success. 
 But one can hardly question the 
 statement that in Christian lands 
 the Scriptures are to-day more care¬ 
 fully studied than ever before in the 
 world’s history. The multiplication 
 of “ teachers’ helps,” the flood of 
 commentaries, minute and extended, 
 on separate books and on the entire 
 Bible, and above all the circulation 
 of the book itself, not by Bible So¬ 
 cieties alone, but by many publish¬ 
 ers and book-sellers, with added 
 attractions of maps and pictures and 
 devices for arresting attention by 
 re-arrangements of parts and para¬ 
 graphs, by new translations and by 
 rainbow hues to illustrate modern 
 theories of the origin of the sacred 
 
 * See Bible Society Record , March, 1895; September, 
 1896: March, 1897. 
 
17 
 
 writings—such things carry convic¬ 
 tion that it is believed to be and 
 that it is indeed the book of the 
 people. 
 
 VI. Still another conviction which 
 is to cross the border line between 
 the centuries is that the contents of 
 the book are more valuable than the 
 vessel which holds them, and that 
 the book itself transcends in im¬ 
 portance and value the various spec¬ 
 ulations of men about them, the 
 interpretations which different ages 
 have given them and all reconstruc¬ 
 tion of the truth in theological sys¬ 
 tems and formulas and creeds. Cur¬ 
 rent interpretations of many texts 
 differ greatly from those promul¬ 
 gated in the times of our fathers. 
 From precisely the same passages 
 of Scripture men deduce views re¬ 
 specting truth and duty in direct 
 antagonism to others no less learned 
 and devout than they. The Bible 
 Society platform allows the largest 
 liberty of individual speculation and 
 inquiry, but provides that its ad¬ 
 herents agree in their estimate of its 
 immeasurable importance to man¬ 
 kind, and the need of encouraging 
 its wider circulation in intelligible 
 forms of speech. When Ezra would 
 have the people comprehend the law 
 which was uttered in their hearing, he 
 
18 
 
 read in the book distinctly and gave 
 the sense and caused them to under¬ 
 stand the meaning. Had it pleased 
 God to preserve until this day those 
 tables of stone on which the com¬ 
 mandments had been written by his 
 finger, it would be of little use to 
 reproduce them by photography or 
 plaster molds as a sufficient means 
 for making known to men the duties 
 which he requires of them. The 
 categorical imperative has no less 
 power than when Moses came down 
 from the mount, but if it is to re¬ 
 strain from profanity and adultery 
 and murder, it needs to be enunci¬ 
 ated in the mother tongue. The 
 angelic song which one night floated 
 down from the skies above Bethle¬ 
 hem could never be appreciated as 
 a gospel message of peace and good¬ 
 will in Honolulu or Natal or Muscat 
 until it was reproduced with the 
 liquid Hawaiian sounds, or the Zulu 
 click, or the Arabic guttural—for 
 every man in the tongue in which 
 he was born. To help that consum¬ 
 mation has been part of the aim of 
 the Nineteenth Century—to dissem¬ 
 inate the written word in living 
 human tongues, and the duty has 
 not been done away by the fact that 
 the Bible itself has been subjected to 
 the criticism of students and eccle- 
 
19 
 
 siastics. Men’s changing opinions 
 about the contents and structure of 
 the Bible and its various readings do 
 not hinder or arrest its power. The 
 ointment is more precious than the 
 alabaster vase, and if the vase were 
 dashed to fragments, the perfume 
 and aroma would remain to pervade 
 and bless the world. 
 
 VII. Once more there is a profound 
 conviction that the law and the gos¬ 
 pel thus intrusted to the men of the 
 Nineteenth Century, and to those 
 of the Twentieth as well, is seed-like 
 in character, and will assuredly de¬ 
 velop in stem and foliage and flower 
 and fruit in human thought and 
 experience as men ponder the truth 
 and are led by the Holy Spirit to 
 appreciate and understand it. No 
 less now than of old is it part of the 
 whole duty of man to “ search what 
 or what manner of time the Spirit 
 of Christ did point nnto when it 
 testified beforehand of the sufferings 
 of Christ and the glory that should 
 follow them,”* and the Nineteenth 
 Century testifies that such searching 
 is essential for the development of 
 the truth and the harmonizing of 
 the written word with the knowl¬ 
 edge gained by the study of nature 
 and providence as revealed by sci- 
 
 * I. Peter 1.11. R. V. 
 
20 
 
 ence with its irresistible sway over 
 the human intellect. Upon the de¬ 
 parture of the pilgrims from Leyden 
 John Robinson laid on them his 
 solemn and memorable injunction : 
 “The Lord has more truth yet to 
 break forth from his holy word. . . . 
 I beseech you, remember it, it is an 
 article of your church covenant that 
 you be ready to receive whatever 
 truth shall be made known unto you 
 from the written word of God.”* 
 Bishop Butler argued that we are 
 not rashly to suppose that we have 
 arrived at the true meaning of the 
 entire Bible, “ for,” he said, “ it is not 
 at all incredible that a book which 
 has been so long in the possession 
 of mankind should contain many 
 % truths as yet undiscovered; for all 
 the same phenomena and the same 
 faculties of investigation from which 
 such great discoveries in natural 
 knowledge have been made in the 
 present and last age, were equally 
 in the possession of mankind several 
 thousand years before.”! Coperni¬ 
 cus promulgated a theory of the 
 heavens so far astray and subver¬ 
 sive of current belief that in 1616 
 it was condemned by a papal bull. 
 
 * Felt, Eccles. History, Vol. I. 38. 
 
 + Quoted by Henry Rogers in “Reason and Faith,” 
 page 413. See also, R. N. Cust, “Normal Addresses,” 
 page 167. 
 
21 
 
 “Who will venture,” said Calov, 
 fifty years later, “to place the au¬ 
 thority of Copernicus above that of 
 the Holy Spirit ? ” * But the power 
 of the Holy Scriptures to enlighten 
 and sway mankind is no less than 
 it was when King James’ translators 
 set about their task, every one of 
 whom, no doubt, believed that the 
 earth was the center of the solar 
 system and could not be moved. 
 The Bible has no less potency to-day 
 than at the beginning of the Nine¬ 
 teenth Century, when all Christen¬ 
 dom accepted the idea that Moses 
 was to be interpreted as teaching 
 that the world was made in six days 
 of twenty-four hours each. And 
 even to-day, while devout students 
 of sacred history are announcing 
 conclusions at variance with what 
 has been held before and inherited 
 from the fathers, and throwing 
 doubt upon the genuineness and 
 authenticity of accepted texts, they 
 give us to understand that such 
 parts of the several books as they 
 deem most nearly identical with the 
 original seem to them more than 
 ever instinct with life and power. 
 
 Indeed it is one of the marvels of 
 this wonderful compilation of writ¬ 
 ings that men may get so much from 
 
 * Herzog, Vol. I. 525. 
 
22 
 
 the storehouse of truth, who do not 
 grasp or understand the whole, or 
 who misapply its non-essential parts. 
 A man may misunderstand the Scrip¬ 
 ture, which says that 44 without con¬ 
 troversy ” the mystery of godliness 
 is great, and yet may believe that 
 Christ is the Son of God, the Re¬ 
 deemer of the world. He may find 
 a true 44 gospel for a world of sin,” 
 and get relief himself from the bur¬ 
 den of guilt, and yet be far astray in 
 his theory as to the way in which 
 sin came into the world. He may 
 misconstrue the word spoken to 
 Noah, 44 My Spirit shall not always 
 strive with man,” and yet be truly 
 regenerate. 
 
 The function of the Bible Societies 
 is not to construct systems or build 
 up churches. As Mr. Oust says : 
 4 4 They are brickmakers, rather than 
 masons, but a good brick is a very 
 important thing.” It is their work 
 to give the Scriptures to men, in the 
 most intelligible and available form, 
 for their enlightenment and salva¬ 
 tion. And not until the earth shall 
 cease to yield its harvest for the 
 support of human life will the Book 
 cease to be available for the mainte¬ 
 nance of spiritual life and for the at¬ 
 tainment of men’s highest welfare. 
 
 VIII. Once more, and finally, the 
 
23 
 
 Nineteenth Century lays upon the 
 Twentieth the injunction to carry 
 on to its completion the work which 
 now has only been begun. 
 
 Not to speak of numerous lan¬ 
 guages and dialects which thus far 
 have never been enriched with any 
 part of the Holy Scriptures, three 
 hundred unfinished versions of these 
 sacred writings are to be re-exam¬ 
 ined, and if found worthy are to be 
 supplemented by that which in each 
 case is lacking. Not one Gospel 
 alone, but the four Gospels; not the 
 four Gospels alone, but the Epistles 
 as well; not the New ^Testament 
 alone, but the things written in the 
 law of Moses and in the prophets 
 and the Psalms, are the property of 
 the nations. These are a part of the 
 Scripture, and all Scripture is profit¬ 
 able to mankind. When our Lord 
 Jesus came back from Paradise to 
 Jerusalem and from the companion¬ 
 ship of the dead to the dear fellow¬ 
 ship of his chosen disciples, he 
 brought them no new disclosures 
 from beyond the bourn, but their 
 hearts burned within them as he 
 unfolded the Hebrew Scriptures and 
 told them how ancient prophecies 
 were fulfilled in his death and resur¬ 
 rection. What Moses and Elijah 
 may have had to say to him in 
 
24 
 
 Hades was of small moment, but it 
 was important for them to under¬ 
 stand the connection between the 
 things which had been told to the 
 fathers through the prophets and 
 those told in later days by the Son ; 
 and from this we learn that the 
 church of the future, the church for 
 which this Conference works and 
 prays, must be “ built upon the 
 foundation of the apostles and 
 prophets, Jesus Christ himself being 
 the chief corner-stone, in whom all 
 the building fitly framed together 
 groweth unto a holy temple in the 
 Lord.” Men may be saved who 
 know no more of Christ and his 
 salvation than did the malefactor 
 on the cross, but the Bible makes 
 provision for a larger upbuild¬ 
 ing in knowledge and wisdom. 
 The Bible work of the Nineteenth 
 Century is but a beginning, and it 
 would be disastrous to suspend it 
 at the point now reached. On the 
 contrary, let the Twentieth Century 
 carry it on to perfection “that the 
 man of God may be perfect, thor¬ 
 oughly furnished unto all good 
 works.” 
 
 Copies of this paper may he obtained on application 
 to the American Bible Society, New York. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I