THE BIBLE 
 
 AN 
 
 HISTORICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY 
 
 IN THE 
 
 UNITED STATES CENTENNIAL. 
 
 1 8 7 IL 
 
OUR TREASURE AND OUR TRUST: 
 
 OK, 
 
 in iljc 
 
 0 
 
 AN 
 
 HISTORICAL'DISCOURSE 
 
 FOK THE 
 
 BIBLE SOCIETY 
 
 IN THE UNITED STATES CENTENNIAL, 
 
 1776 — 1876 . 
 
 DELIVERED AT ITS SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY, IN THE FIFTH AVENUE 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, NEW A’ORK, MAY 7, 187G, AND IN 
 THE ARCH STREET METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 
 PHILADELPHIA, MAY 14, 1876, 
 
 BY WILLIAM J. R. TAY'LOR, D. D., 
 
 PASTOR OF THE CLINTON AVENUE REFORMED CHURCH, NEWARK N. J. 
 
 KENY YORK: 
 
 AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY, 
 
 INSTITUTED IN THE YEAR MDCCCXVI. 
 
 1876. 
 
[from the minutes of the committee on anniversaries, novem;eer Sd, 1875.1 
 
 In view of the fact that in the year 1876 the attention of the nation 
 will be largely directed to its development and progress during the 
 last century, the Committee deem it advisable that a Historical Dis¬ 
 course, reviewing the results accomplished through the agency of this 
 Society in translating, publishing, and circulating the word of God, 
 should be prepared by some distinguished clergyman, and jireached 
 in this city and Philadelphia. 
 
 Resolved^ That Rev. W. J. R. Taylor, D.D., be invited to perform 
 this service. 
 
 [from the minutes of the society, may 11, 1876.J 
 
 At the Annual Meeting of the American Bible Society, held at 
 the Bible House this day, the following resolution was offered by 
 Rev. M. S. Hutton, D.D., and unanimously adopted: 
 
 Resolved, That the thanks of this Society be tendered to the Rev. 
 William J. R. Tajdor, D.D., for the very valuable and interesting 
 Historical Discourse delivered by him in this city on Sunday evening 
 last, and that a copy be requested for publication. 
 
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THE BIBLE 
 
 IN THE LAST ONE HUNDRED YEARS. 
 
 Pagan Oracles. 
 
 Romans iii. 1, 2. —“ What advantage then hath the Jew? or what 
 profit is there of circumcision ? Much every way: chiefly, because 
 that unto them were committed the oracles of God.’’ 
 
 The Apostle declares that the chief advantage of the 
 Jew over the Gentile was that to him were entrusted “ the 
 oracles of God.” The Eoinan Christians knew how the 
 pagan oracles were revered by the heathen among whom 
 they dwelt. It mattered not how ambiguous 
 the Deli)hic Pythoness might be, as she sat 
 over the intoxicating vapours that rose from the fissured 
 rock on wliich her tripod rested, or how uncertain were the 
 responses of the wily iiriest who spake for the gods beneath 
 the great oak of Dodona. For ages no great thing was 
 done without first consulting the oracle. Princes and 
 kings sent their embassies and gifts; and costly sacrifices 
 and imx)licit devotion attested the faith of rulers and 
 people in this method of ascertaining the will of their 
 deities. 
 
 But far more j^recious to the Jew were those “oracles 
 of God” by which Jehovah s^fake to the fathers and their 
 children in audible voices, by Uriui and Thummim, from 
 the Shekinah, at the burning bush, on the 
 thundering mountain, out of the ifillar of 
 cloud and of fire, and from the Holy of 
 holies. Greater still were those written revelations, “the 
 
6 
 
 HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms,” which made them 
 first among’ the nations,” the covenant people, the x)os- 
 sessors of the only true religion, the worshippers of the 
 only true God, and the trustees of the inspired word for 
 themselves and for the world. That trust they have faith¬ 
 fully discharged, and for it the world is their everlasting 
 debtor. 
 
 But God, who at sundry times and in divers manners 
 si)ake in times past unto the fathers by the x^i'ophets, hath • 
 in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” Ax)ostles 
 and Evangelists have given us “the words of the Lord 
 Jesus,” and the Holy Ghost has sent forth in imperishable 
 forms that IS'ew Testament which comidetes “ the oracles 
 of God.” 
 
 They speak to us of Him and for Him; they teach us 
 how to speak to Him in the endless dialogue between God 
 and man. They speak in language so simple, in revela¬ 
 tions so many and in thoughts so great that “ he may run 
 that readeth.” Whatever may be obscure, however deep 
 “ the mystery of God,” no faltering voices leave us uncer¬ 
 tain as to our duty and our destiny, our ruin and our 
 redemption. The Bible carries with it the promise of the 
 X)ower and “demonstration of the Spirit.” It is “the reve¬ 
 lation of Jesus Christ” by the Holy Comforter. It is the 
 inspiration of the Eternal Spirit acting upon human spirits 
 in all ages, lands, and races. It is the written word, filled 
 with “the thoughts of God” towards us, enlightening, 
 renewing, reforming, purifying, saving men, and so lifting 
 up the nations into the x^lane of the highest Christian 
 civilization. It is this commingling of the divine and the 
 human in the written word and in Christ Jesus, “ the Word 
 [who] was made fiesh and dwelt among us,” which makes 
 the whole Bible the Book for mankind. And so, what was 
 once the possession of a single little nation on the eastern 
 coast of the Mediterranean Sea, “has gone out into all 
 the earth” from that ancient centre of x^opulation and 
 of power, until now many nations have this treasure in 
 their own keex)ing. 
 
HISTOBICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 7 
 
 In this Centennial year of onr history as a separate and 
 independent nationality, and amid the many contrasts 
 of our International Exhibition, thoughtful men may well 
 ask, “ What advantage then hath ” the Amer¬ 
 ican ? “or what profit is there” in constitii- 
 tional government and in republican insti¬ 
 tutions ! If this Centenary is to end only in the x^roud 
 boastings of self-comxdacent political atheism, our ruin 
 may be as near as that of the doomed king, when he 
 said, “Is not this great Babylon which I have built?” 
 But if we are to be lifted above the shame which has 
 dimmed our glory, and to find out “a more excellent 
 way,” we must follow those x^i'i^iciples and providences 
 by which God has made us one people and has set us to 
 work out the vast experiments of freedom, law, and faith. 
 With a continent for our domain, we are living ux3on our 
 inheritance from past ages and from lands beyond the seas. 
 And that we may know our “time of visitation,” let us 
 consult “the oracles of God.” I therefore ask you to 
 consider 
 
 OUR TREASURE AND OUR TRUST, 
 
 holding to show you how completely the Bible, as a 
 X)riceless gift and as a sacred deposit, is inwrought with 
 our national origin, history, character, and destiny; and 
 how cousxncuous is the x>lace to which it is entitled amid 
 the memorials of our Centennial celebration. 
 
 ’I. OUR TREASURE. 
 
 Our chief treasure is not the gold of California, nor 
 the silver of Nevada, nor the vast coal measures that belt 
 the States, nor all of our material wealth, nor yet the 
 enterprise of our x^eoxhe, the commerce of our waters, the 
 traffic of our railways, the harvests of our soil, the manu¬ 
 factures of industry and skill, and the colossal fortunes of 
 our millionaires. The red men once owned more of this 
 continent than we do now. Mexico and Peru are richer 
 in the precious metals than our mining regions. Brazil 
 
8 
 
 HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 equals if she does not exceed us in territory. What has 
 made us to differ? “What advantage, then,” have we? 
 
 “Much, every way: chiefly, because that unto us were 
 committed the oracles of God.” That is the answer of 
 our history and liberty. It were as easy to tear up Mount 
 Sinai from its wilderness, or to take out the laws of Moses 
 from the civil polity of the Hebrews, or to dissever the 
 temple from their history, as to eliminate the Bible from 
 our American annals, our historical character, and our 
 national distinction. 
 
 How did we get this Treasure ? Our forefathers 
 brought it with their families, schools, and churches. It 
 
 came with Puritan and Cavalier, with Hu¬ 
 guenot, Walloon, and Hollander; with Swede 
 and Dane and German. It came in merchant 
 vessels and in shii)s-of-war, with discoverers and adventur¬ 
 ers, with soldiers and sailors, with colonists, travellers, and 
 traders. It came with Sir Walter Ealeigh, and Governor 
 Winslow, and Hendrick Hudson, and Peter Stuyvesant, 
 and William Penn, and Eoger Williams. It came with the 
 Independent, the Presbyterian, the Quaker, the Baptist, 
 the Church of England, and the Eeforined Church of the 
 
 How the Treas¬ 
 ure came. 
 
 Continent. It came with liberty and law, with the love of 
 God and the love of man, and with the compact made by 
 the Pilgrims in the cabin of the Mayflower—“For the 
 glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith, 
 and honour of their king and country, to plant the first 
 colony.” It brought with it that first, that typical Ameri¬ 
 can Sabbath which those colonists kept so holy on the 
 wintry coast, before they had a hut or a tent in which 
 to dwell. It came when 
 
 “ Amici the storm they sang, 
 
 And the stars heard, and the sea. 
 
 And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang ' 
 
 With the anthem of the free.” 
 
 It was their only rule of faith, the inspiration of their 
 freedom, the principle of their laws, the foundation of their 
 local governments, the one book which shaped their char- 
 
HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 9 
 
 acter, their worship, and their citizenship. It had produced 
 the Reformation; it had revolutionized Europe; it had 
 kindled the flames of civil and religious liberty; and, more 
 than any other thing, it sent hither those who sought a 
 faith’s pure shrine,” and in that faith laid the foundations 
 of this Christian republic. 
 
 When did it come ? The Protestant Anglo-Saxon colo¬ 
 nization of this laud began just after the 
 X)resent Authorized Version of our English When the Treas- 
 
 ^ ® ure came. 
 
 Bible had been published. The Continental 
 immigrants brought with them those versions of the sacred 
 Scriptures with which the Reformation had made its way 
 against the empire of Charles the Fifth, the tyranny of the 
 Grand Mouarque,” through the blood of St. Bartholo¬ 
 mew’s day, and the revolt of the ^Netherlands against 
 Philip the Second and the Inquisition. Then and so came 
 to us “the glorious gospel of the blessed God,” red-lettered 
 with the blood of the witnesses and illuminated by the 
 fires of x)ersecutiou. It came, too, while Britain was yet 
 aglow with the splendors of that golden age which gave 
 us Shakspeare, Bacon, and Milton, and which fixed the 
 standard of our English tongue by our English Bible. 
 
 Yet it is a memorable fact, that every Bible in the 
 English language which America possessed before the 
 revolutionary war, had been brought across the x\tlantic 
 ocean. John Eliot had indeed translated the Dependence on 
 entire Scriptures into the language of the the Mother 
 Massachusetts Indians, and published editions Country, 
 in 1GG3 and 1G85, and three editions of Martin Luther’s ver¬ 
 sion had been published (1743,17G2,177G,) at Germantown, 
 near Philadelphia; but so oppressive was the monopoly 
 which the government of England held over the word of 
 God, that it never did give any authority to publish it out¬ 
 side of her seagirt isle. As early as 1G88, AVilliam Brad¬ 
 ford, of Philadelphia, issued proposals to publish “ a large 
 house Bible,” but it never was done. The first English 
 Bible which appeared on this side of the ocean was 
 published by Robert Aitken of Philadelphia, in 1782, his 
 
10 
 
 HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 proposals for its issue being dated in 1781, and its actual 
 publication being after the battle of Yorktown and before 
 the X 3 eace of 1783. It was our Biblical Declaration of 
 The Word of Independence—one of the firstfruits of the 
 
 God no longer Eevolution—and bears upon its fly-leaf the 
 Bound. resolution by which the first Congress, offici¬ 
 
 ally, “recommended this edition of the Bible to the 
 inhabitants of the United States.” The same hands that 
 broke the fetters of the colonies struck off the chains from 
 the Bible, and from that day “ the word of God has not 
 been bound” in these United States.* 
 
 insert the action of Congress, as a memorial of this Centennial 
 period:— 
 
 By the United States, in Congress Assehbeed : 
 
 September 12, 1782. 
 
 The'Committee to whom was referred a Memorial of Robert Aitken, 
 printer, dated 21st January, 1781, respecting an edition of the Holy 
 Scriptures, report: That Mr. Aitken has, at a great expense, now 
 fiuished an American edition of the Holy Scriptures in English; that 
 the Committee have from time to time attended to his jirogress in the 
 work; that they also recommended it to the two chaplains of Con¬ 
 gress to examine and give their opinion of the execution, who have 
 accordingly reported thereon; the recommendation and report being 
 as follows: 
 
 Philadelphia, 1st September^ 1782. 
 
 Reverend Gentlemen : 
 
 Our knowledge of your .piety and public spirit leads us without 
 apology to recommend to your particular attention the edition of the 
 Holy Scriptures publishing by Mr. Aitken. He undertook this expen¬ 
 sive work at a time when, from the circumstances of the war, an 
 English edition of the Bible could not be imported, nor any opinion 
 formed how long the obstruction might continue. On this account 
 particularly, he desires applause and encouragement. We therefore 
 wish you, reverend gentlemen, to examine the execution of the work, 
 and if approved, to give it the sanction of your judgment and the 
 weight of your recommendation. 
 
 We are, with very great respect, your most obedient humble 
 servants, 
 
 [Signed,] James Duane, Chairman, 
 
 in behalf of a Committee of Congress 
 
 on Mr. Aitken’s Memorial. 
 
 Reverend Doctor White and Reverend Mr. Dnffield, 
 
 Chaplains of the United States in Congress Assembled. 
 
HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 11 
 
 But previous to tliiSj in 1777, upon the memorial of Dr. 
 Patrick Allison, a distinguislied Presb^derian minister of 
 Baltimore, to the Continental Congress, then in session in 
 that city, a recommendation was reported by 
 a committee of that body, to import twenty ^con^reL^^ 
 thousand Bibles from Holland, Scotland, or 
 elsewhere, to supply the public destitution of the Scriptures 
 occasioned by the war. It is not certain that this recom¬ 
 mendation was ever carried into effect. But these two 
 interesting facts in the biblical history of that period show 
 how great a hold the Scriptures had upon the hearts of 
 the people and upon their rejjresentatives during the prog¬ 
 ress and at the close of the struggle for independence. 
 Here the action of the government properly ceased, and 
 
 Report. 
 
 Gentlemen: 
 
 Agreeably to your desire, we have paid attention to Mr. Robert 
 Aitken’s impression of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testa¬ 
 ment. Having selected and examined a variety of passages through¬ 
 out the work, we are of opinion that it is executed with great accu¬ 
 racy as to the sense, and with as few grammatical and typographical 
 errors as could be expected in an undertaking of such magnitude. 
 Being ourselves witnesses of the demand for this invaluable book, we 
 rejoice in the present xwospect of a supply; hoping that it will prove as 
 advantageous as it is honourable to the gentleman who has exerted 
 himself to furnish it at the evident risk of jDrivate fortune. 
 
 We are, gentlemen, your very respectful and humble servants, 
 
 [Signed,] William White, 
 
 George Duffield. 
 
 Philadelphia^ Sept. 10, 1782. 
 
 Honourable James Duane, Esquire, Chairman, 
 
 and the other honoui'able gentlemen of the Committee of 
 
 Congress on Mr. Aitken’s Memorial. 
 
 Whereupon, Resolved, That the United States in Congress assem¬ 
 bled, highly ajiprove the j)ious and laudable undertaking of Mr. 
 Aitken, as subservient to the interest of religion, as well as an 
 instance of the progress of arts in this country, and being satisfied 
 from the above report of his care and accuracy in the execution of 
 the work, they recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabit¬ 
 ants of the United States, and hereby authorize him to xiublish this 
 recommendation in the manner he shall think proper. 
 
 Chas. Thomson, Secretary. 
 
12 
 
 HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 the circulation of the Scriptures was left entirely to the 
 people. 
 
 AYhen a pagan ambassador asked Queen Victoria the 
 reason of the pre-eminence of her realm over that of his 
 monarch, she gave him a Bible, saying, ^^This is the 
 secret of Britain’s greatness.” Our International Exi^osi- 
 tion would be criminally incomj)lete, did it 
 ^^Expositron^^ include the Holy Bible, in its many lan- 
 anaaes and forms. In those vast buildings 
 
 there is nothing so great, nothing so x>ure, nothing so 
 creative, nothing so i^reservative, nothing so insj)iring, 
 nothing so enduring, as this Book of books. Those 
 multitudes of material things are ^^of the earth, earthy”— 
 this is from heaven; those are the productions of human 
 genius and skill—this is from God. Those things are 
 made—this is revealed, inspired, supernatural, miracu¬ 
 lous. Those things are the pride of nations—this is their 
 salvation. There “ the ends of the earth ” come together, 
 bringing from “ the gorgeous East,” “ the wealth of 
 Ormus or of Ind,” barbaric i)earl and gold,” and treas¬ 
 ures from almost every land and clime. Here, more 
 precious than fine gold ” are the laws of God, the visions 
 of i3rophecy, the sweet gospel of Jesus Christ, the revela¬ 
 tions of “ the new heavens and the new earth; ” and all 
 printed in type fitly named of “agate” and “pearl” and 
 “ ruby ” and “ diamond.” Merely as specimens of skill 
 in the art of book-making, and as illustrations of the 
 learning and the linguistic advances of our times, in con¬ 
 
 trast with the old black-letter tomes and the illuminated 
 manuscripts of ancient days, those Bibles, standing in the 
 centre of the department assigned to the literature of the 
 world, declare their relation to all of the best achievements 
 of the human mind. But surrounded as they are by the 
 almost endless varieties of the material products of modern 
 civilization, they remind us that our greatness lies not 
 merely in the arts and sciences and industries of the age, 
 not in the outward forms of our civic advancement, not 
 even in the national prowess and progress which are so 
 
HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 13 
 
 splendidly illustrated the government of the United 
 States in its great building wbicli shows to the world 
 that 
 
 “Peace hath her victories 
 Not less renowned than war:”— 
 
 but in the providence and goodness of Him whose “ gentle¬ 
 ness hath made us great.” Apart from this, all else in that 
 wonder-land is but the vain show of our mortal state, 
 “ the fashion of the world which passeth away.” But for 
 that Book, this greatest of the world’s Exhibitions would 
 have been impossible. It could not take place in Mexico, 
 nor in Asia, nor in any other country that has not a high 
 Christian civilization and an open Bible, and that freedom 
 which gives full scoi^e to the “ wisdom ” which “ dwells 
 with prudence, and findeth out knowledge of witty inven¬ 
 tions.”—(Prov. viii. 12.) Better still, here is the inspira¬ 
 tion of 
 
 “ That Shepherd who first taught the chosen seed, 
 
 In the beginning, how the heavens and earth 
 Rose out of chaos.” 
 
 And above all the noises of that complicated machinery, 
 and the discords of those human tongues, we hear the 
 rii)pling music of 
 
 “ Siloa’s brook that flowed 
 Fast by the oracle of God.” 
 
 II. OUR TRUST. 
 
 What have we done with it for our own country and 
 for the world ! 
 
 We may answer this question chiefly by the contrasts 
 of the last sixty and one hundred years—periods which 
 respectively cover the history of the American Bible So¬ 
 ciety and of the United States. I shall speak 
 
 Fikst;— Of the Bible in our oivn country. 
 
 Sixty years ago, sixty American gentlemen, represent¬ 
 ing thirty-five local Bible societies in eleven States and the 
 
14 
 
 HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 District of Columbia, met in convention, in the consistory 
 o.o.P room of the old Eeformed Dutch Church in 
 
 May b-11, 1816. 
 
 Garden Street, New York, and after careful 
 deliberation, unanimousl}^ adopted the constitution of the 
 American Bible Societj^, and issued it Avith a x>owerful 
 “Address to the People of the United States.” The 
 idea of forming such an organization was doubtless 
 caught from the formation of the British and Foreign 
 Bible Society, in 1804. It gradually extended itself to the 
 minds of a few Christian men. It Avas suggested in 1800 
 
 and 1807; but no actual movement was 
 First Bible soci- until in December, 1808, the first Bible 
 
 society on this continent was formed at Phil¬ 
 adelphia, taking first the name of that city and afterward 
 of Pennsylvania. Connecticut followed this good example 
 in May, 1809; Massachusetts in July; and New Jersey, at 
 Princeton, in the fall of the same year; and New York 
 City in 1810. In 1810 there were some fifty or sixty socie¬ 
 ties scattered OA^er the States, but they worked separately 
 and alone, and with many hindrances in their limited 
 spheres, Avith no central power, and no visible bond of 
 union except the Bible itself. 
 
 But, as in the history of great discoA^eries, like that of 
 the iilanet Neptune, and of great inventions, like the 
 steam engine and the electric telegraph, so in great 
 beneA'olent and religious movements, it often ai)pears that 
 the same essential princijAles, ends, and methods were 
 simultaneously working in the minds of different men 
 unbeknown to each other. It is God’s way of preparing 
 the Avorld and the church for their best things. Thus 
 
 there is good evidence to proA^e that the 
 necessity of a national society for publishing 
 and circulating the Avord of God was moAung 
 the souls of a few good men like the celebrated Samuel J. 
 Mills and the Eev. Dr. Jedediah Morse, and that eminent 
 statesman Dr. Elias Boudinot, for several years prior to 
 the organization of the American Bible Society. But the 
 project AAxxs doubted and discouraged by some and rejected 
 
 A National Soci¬ 
 ety Needed. 
 
JIISTOEICAL DISCOURSE, 
 
 15 
 
 by others, until public sentiment was concentrated in the 
 Convention of 181G, which was called by the venerable 
 President of the Bible Society of INTew Jersey, Dr. Boudi- 
 not, who, as the President of the Congress of the United. 
 States in 1783, had signed the treaty of i^eace with Great 
 Britain, which secured the independence of this nation. 
 It was, indeed, fitting that this illustrious man should 
 become the instrument of divine Providence for founding 
 this institution, after so many years of preparation. Sick¬ 
 ness alone prevented his presence at the Convention which 
 he had called, but the Society honoured itself by honouring 
 him, by its unanimous voice, as its first President, an office 
 which he dignified and blessed until his death, which 
 occurred five vears later. 
 
 In that Convention there were revolutionary patriots, 
 soldiers, and statesmen; judges, lawyers, 
 merchants, authors, clergymen; presidents ^of Mav^sTBie^ 
 and professors of colleges and theological 
 seminaries; the most eminent surgeon of his generation; 
 and plain, untitled citizens. There were Presbyterians, 
 Episcoi)alians, Baptists, Eeformed Dutch, Congregational- 
 ists. Friends; and Dr. Morse, who was a member, says, 
 ‘^Eoman Catholics among the rest.”* But among them 
 all there was not a dissenting voice; and so great was 
 the Christian harmony and love, that “ some of those 
 least affected could not help crying out, ^ This is none 
 other than the work of God.’” Like the union of these 
 States, it was not of man, but of God. It was not of 
 the churches, but it was the irresistible overflow of the 
 hearts of noble minded Christian men, whom God had 
 trained and prepared and drawn together by his word and 
 Spirit to begin on this continent that new era of biblical 
 diffusion which then first among us took national propor¬ 
 tions for our country and the w^orld. It was not an acci¬ 
 dent ; it was a new birth. It was not made. It was like 
 that “vine out of Egyi)t” for which God cast out the 
 
 ^See Bible Society Eecord, January 21,1875, Vol. xx., No. 1, p 
 
IG 
 
 HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 beatlieii “aud xdanted it. He i^repared room before it, and 
 caused it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The 
 hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs 
 thereof were like the goodly cedars.”—(Psalm Ixxx. 8-10.) 
 
 Now marie some of the instructive contrasts tvliich are 
 illustrated hij the worlz of this Society^ for, as it has been 
 truly said, “ There are no contrasts like those of 
 Christianity.” 
 
 Sixty years ago the x)opulation of the United States 
 was only eight millions; the country was exhausted 
 
 by the second war with Great Britain; west 
 The Former Da>s. Allcghanics and the Ohio there 
 
 was but a sparse settlement, and beyond the Mississippi 
 there lay an almost unbroken wilderness. Excepting the 
 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 
 which was formed in 1810, there was no national Christian 
 institution which offered a basis for union and co-opera¬ 
 tion for the work of home and foreign evangelization. 
 Each religious denomination took its own way amid many 
 difficulties. All of our great benevolent Christian enter- 
 l^rises date from a later period. Shortly after the estab¬ 
 lishment of the first depot of this Society in a small room 
 in Hanover Street, I^ew York, near the present custom¬ 
 house, a member of the Board astonished his friend by 
 exclaiming, “ I verily believe that I shall live to see all the 
 shelves in this room filled with Bibles and Testaments.” 
 He lived a half century longer, to see our great Bible 
 House in the centre of the metroi)olis, sending forth 
 Bibles and Testaments by the million, and sheltering 
 within its walls the representatives of many of the great 
 charities and evangelizing institutions which have siming 
 up around it—a proper tyx)e of the Book and of the work 
 for which it exists. 
 
 One hundred years ago the cheapest English Bible in 
 this country cost not less than two dollars, and sixty years 
 r,,, ^ the price was little less, and the styles 
 
 ecos o 1 es. ^ 
 
 general circulation, i^ow the Bible is the cheai^est of 
 
HISTORICAL DISCO URSE. 
 
 17 
 
 books, and of every form that necessity, convenience, and 
 taste may demand. 
 
 At the beginning' of tbe century the whole number of 
 Bibles in the world was not much more than 
 
 1 1 T 1 . Number of Bibles. 
 
 tour millions; and this included the book in 
 
 all lands and languages since the invention of the art of 
 
 lirinting. Now the number of editions is past counting, 
 and there are more copies of it in the English language 
 than in all other human tongues together. Bible societies 
 alone have imblished over one hundred and forty-one 
 millions of volumes since 1804, of which the British and 
 Foreign Bible Society, in its seventy-two years, have 
 issued seventy-six millions four hundred thousand copies, 
 and the American Bible Society, in its threescore years, 
 thirty-three millions, one hundred and twenty-five thou¬ 
 sand, seven hundred and thirty-six copies. The total 
 issues of these two societies alone have been one hundred 
 and nine millions, five hundred and twenty-five thousand, 
 seven hundred and thirty-six volumes of the word of God. 
 
 In the first year of our Society’s existence its receipts 
 were $37,799 35, which included the princely gift of 
 $10,000 by its great founder, the first President. The 
 aggregate sum of its receipts from all sources has been 
 $17,229,142 31. 
 
 Before its organization, in 1816, the distribution of 
 the Scriptures throughout our country had 
 been made at first by individuals, families, 
 ministers, and churches. Then followed the 
 active efforts of the few local Bible societies whose forma¬ 
 tion we have noticed, and whose efforts develox)ed the 
 destitutions which they could onlj" partially suppl^^ 
 
 The most remarkable work of this kind of which record 
 is made, was done by the Eev. Messrs. Samuel J. Mills 
 and Daniel Smith, in the years 1814 and 1815, in the val¬ 
 leys of the Ohio and Mississippi, from Pittsburg to New 
 Orleans and other parts of Louisiana. It seems strange at 
 this day to read from their report how the door of their 
 dwelling in New Orleans, on a Sabbath day, from ten 
 
 9 
 
18 
 
 HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 Provision for 
 lmini'j;rant8. 
 
 to one o’clock, was thronged with from fifty to one hun¬ 
 dred i)ersons, of all ages and colours, and literally clam¬ 
 orous in their solicitations for the Testament. Such an 
 assembly for such a purpose was never before witnessed 
 in Louisiana.” Thousands of French Testaments were 
 circulated by these pioneer Bible men among the lloman 
 Catholics in the French settlements in that great territory. 
 I have specified this noble voluntary mission because it 
 tired the soul of the sainted Mills with his ceaseless zeal 
 for the formation of a national Bible society, and was one 
 of the i^rovidential iireparations which we have noticed for 
 the establishment of this institution. 
 
 Threescore years ago, when the tides of foreign immi¬ 
 gration were setting in larger billows upon our shores, there 
 
 was no i)rovision for furnishing the word 
 of God to the incoming strangers. But for 
 many years past scarcely a vessel has left 
 or entered our ports to whose officers, crew, and iiassen- 
 gers the Bible has not been offered in their native tongues; 
 and it has followed the pilgrims wherever they have 
 settled or roved. 
 
 In those early days, when Sabbath schools were ne\v 
 and the public school system was in its infancy, few 
 
 of the children of America possessed any 
 Bibles or Testaments of their own. But 
 education has i)roduced a ceaseless demand 
 for School Bibles and School Testaments for reading, 
 study, rewards, and home use. The Bible, more than any 
 other thing, has always awakened a thirst for knowl¬ 
 edge and has made education a public necessity; while 
 education, in its turn, has created a demand for the culti¬ 
 vation of the moral and religious nature by the precepts 
 and examples of the word of God. It is to the honour of 
 the American Bible Society that it has done what it could, 
 by its almost unlimited circulation in the cheapest forms, 
 to keep the Bible in the schools, where the children of 
 America are trained for citizenship, and to frustrate the 
 ecclesiastico-political conspiracy which now boldly aims 
 
 The Bible for 
 Schools. 
 
HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 19 
 
 not only to drive out the Bible from the schools of which 
 it lias been tlie cliief creator, but to destroy the public 
 scliool system itself. And now that the international Sun¬ 
 day scliool lessons have become almost universal, new and 
 continual supplies of the word are more than ever required 
 to meet these auspicious wants of the age. 
 
 When this Society began its course there was not in all 
 the world a sentence of Holy Writ printed in 
 raised letters for the blind. It is only thirty mhiT 
 years since the whole New Testament was 
 imblished, in four volumes, through the efforts of that dis¬ 
 tinguished philanthropist, the late Hr. Samuel G. Howe, of 
 Boston, and by the united contributions of the Massachu¬ 
 setts and New York Female Bible Societies, supplemented 
 by the aid of this institution. The Psalms w^ere issued in 
 1839, and the entire Bible in eight aifd sixteen volumes, 
 folio, was ffnally i:)ublished in 1845. Thousands of new 
 readers, of a class which was previously shut out, except 
 by hearing, from the word of God, have been developed 
 by this munificent work. More than eleven thousand 
 volumes have been issued, most of which have been given 
 away to pupils educated in the asylums of thirtj^-one 
 States of the Union. It also marks the beginning of a 
 new era in missions that we have conferred this priceless 
 
 i 
 
 boon, in parts of the Scriptures, upon the sightless readers 
 of Syria and Egypt and others of the Arabic-speaking 
 races. 
 
 AVhen this Society was formed, the world was at i^eace, 
 and it seemed almost as if the last battle had been fought 
 
 when the foremost inonarchs and princes of Euroi>e “ were 
 gathering their fairest honours from spreading abroad the 
 oracles of the Lord our God.” But it was only the truce 
 before a half century of more fearful conflicts 
 in which the friends of the Bible found new 
 opportunities. While the Mexican war was in 
 progress, the word of God was freely given to our soldiers 
 and sailors, and to Mexicans and Spaniards. It followed 
 in the wake of the armies, and one result of that work was 
 
 The Bible for 
 Soldiers. 
 
20 
 
 HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 the Bible agency in Mexico and a sowing of the seed in 
 that hard soil which has never ceased in the past thirty 
 years. 
 
 AVhen the Crimea was in the flames which were kindled 
 at the gates of the church of the Holy Sepulchre and were 
 quenched in the carnage of the Malakoft", our devoted 
 Agent in the Levant (the late Eev. Chester Eighter), 
 with the representatives of the British and Foreign Society, 
 carried the word of life to English, French, Sardinian, 
 German, Italian, Polish, and Eussian soldiers, in camps, 
 prisons, and hospitals. 
 
 And when at length our own great agony came upon 
 us during those few dreadful years, this “ glorious gospel 
 of the blessed God” was given, almost without measure, to 
 every army and fleet that could be reached. Before a 
 battle was fought the Board of Managers sounded the 
 
 trumpet to all of its auxiliaries and friends, entreating 
 them to see that every soldier enlisted within their bounds 
 was supplied with a copy of the Scriptures, in whole 
 or in part, and encouraging them to look to the Parent 
 Society for aid to supply their own lack in this service. 
 From that moment the work began in earnest. The 
 machinery flew with unwonted speed; new presses were 
 procured; the sewmrs and binders wrought with nimble 
 fingers; and the precious freight hasted over railways, 
 rivers, lakes, gulfs, and oceans. At one i)eriod the produc¬ 
 tion of FTew Testaments was nine per minute for every 
 hour of the daily working time of the establishment. In 
 
 the first year, the military and naval distri- 
 Tke ciinstian betwecii 650,000 and 700,000 
 
 volumes. The United States Christian Com¬ 
 mission, that marvellous combination of philanthropy and 
 the gospel, through its five thousand delegates, distributed 
 1,466,748 volumes (valued at $179,824 90), all of which 
 were donated to it in trust for the army and navy. At 
 least three millions of volumes were distributed amons: the 
 
 contending forces, of which not less than five hundred 
 thousand volumes were donated and given personally to 
 
HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 21 
 
 Confederate soldiers within their own lines and to those 
 who were prisoners of war. And the total issues of those 
 four years were 5,684/279 volumes. Whatever else was 
 bound by tlie stern laws of war, surely it was not ^Hhe 
 word of God.’’ 
 
 As soon as peace was restored, the Society renewed its 
 work in the South. In one year its ten 
 agents were busy in all but three of the ^ 
 
 once confederated States. The next year the 
 whole field was reoccupied, including the State societies of 
 Maryland and Louisiana, which were in active co-opera¬ 
 tion with the Parent Institution. Scarcely had the smoke 
 of the last battle cleared away, when, in May, 1865, the 
 Managers resolved to do all in their x3ower to give the 
 Bible to the whole population of the South, at the 
 earliest practicable period and in the most efiective way.”"^ 
 
 Connecting this with the Bible work of the war, it 
 is not boasting, but the simple truth, to say that no 
 such organized system of Bible distribution was ever 
 before accomx)lished in all the world as this among the 
 contending hosts on both sides of our great conflict, and in 
 a region that was at once so immense and so prostrate, 
 ^^or is it too much honour for the word of God to claim 
 that this distribution was in the highest interests of 
 national peace and unity and of Christian brotherhood, 
 and of the reunion of long sundered churches. This Cen¬ 
 tennial year would fail of its highest aims did it not 
 streugthen those bonds which the passions of war could 
 not destroy, and which ought to be kept in a peace that 
 can never be broken. 
 
 All essential jiart of this great movement was the 
 supply of the Freedmen with the Scriptures. 
 
 It began with the first refugees who found 
 shelter within the Union military lines, then 
 extended to the coloured troops, and gradually spread over 
 the Southern States. It was made a strict condition of the 
 
 *Aniiual Report, 1865, p. 41. 
 
22 
 
 HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 restoration of the Bible work in every district by our 
 agents and auxiliaries, and in grants of the Scri])tures to 
 missionary, educational, and church boards. The reports 
 of the last twelve years show how extensively and with 
 what charity this work has been promoted. The Gospel 
 by John, and other volumes, have been specially i)ublished 
 in large print for adult readers. Large donations have 
 been cheerfully made, and nothing will be left undone to 
 discharge our Trust of “the oracles of God” for this poor 
 peoxde, whose sudden einancixiation and civil rights de¬ 
 mand all that Christian education and the morals of the 
 Bible can do to lit them for their citizenshij), and to 
 save them from ruin. 
 
 There have been three general efforts made to sux^ply 
 the whole population of the United States with the word 
 
 of God, which were inaugurated in 1829, 
 The whole Coim- x g5G and 18CG. The last was the thank- 
 
 tissGcl, ' 
 
 offering and memorial to God of our Jubilee 
 year, and it has been the most extensive and thorough and 
 X:)rolonged of the Society’s national works. . Within the 
 last decade, 5,454,788 families have been visited, of whom 
 541,569 were found destitute, and 376,257 were supiJied 
 with the Scrix)tures. This never ending work has de¬ 
 manded large grants and i)atient labour. It has quick¬ 
 ened the Christian conscience, evoked great liberality, 
 stimulated religious x)atriotism, and i)romoted Christian 
 union and co-operation. 
 
 But beneath all its statistics and many incidents lies 
 the historical fact that a nation’s destiny is more power¬ 
 fully shaped by its religious faith and condition than by 
 all other causes put together. Many years ago a great 
 statesman, then Governor of New York and afterward 
 Secretary of State throughout our civil war, said, in an 
 anniversary address before this Society, after a striking 
 allusion to the x)urposes of the decennial census of the 
 United States, that he “knew not how long a republican 
 government could flourish among a people who had not 
 the Bible. The exx)eriment had never been tried; but this 
 
HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 23 
 
 ho (lid know, that the existing government of this country 
 could never have had an existence hut for the Bible. And 
 further, he did in his conscience believe that, if at every 
 decade of years a copy of the Bible should be found in 
 every tainily of the laud, its republican institutions would 
 be x)erpetual.”^ 
 
 The reason is i>lain enough. The right of self-govern¬ 
 ment is the x)re-eminent idea of our rej^ubli- 
 can institutions and of this centenary of free- indilpensaWc 
 dom. Bat i)ersonal self-government is essen¬ 
 tial to x)()i)nlar government. The i^ower of Protestant 
 Christianity, which has nursed this rex)ublic from its infancy 
 to its manhood, is in its apxjeal, through the word of God, 
 to the individual conscience. We have had one century of 
 republican liberty because Ave liaA-e had the Bible and the 
 Sabbath. These two cannot be severed. If the efforts that 
 are now making to destroy the Sabbath and its divine law 
 should be successful, the flags of all nations that decorate 
 the buildings of our AYorld’s ExjAOsition Avould droo}A in 
 shame for a x)eoi)le Avho have not the virtue to maintain 
 the day and the book that luwe made their greatness. If 
 we begin this second century by trampling the Bible and 
 the Sabbath into the dust of our Centennial grounds, it 
 needs no i)rox)het to foretell how soon this “government of 
 the x)eople, by the x)eox)le, and for the x)eox^le, would x)erish 
 from the earth.’^ IS'ot only in this faith, but in the full 
 beli(if that “the gosx^el is the x^ower of God unto salva¬ 
 tion to every one that believeth,” it is a (xuestion of 
 political and of spiritual life or death whether or not 
 this x)eox)le shall have the Bible. Had not the Eeformation 
 been crushed out of France by her wicked kings and 
 X)riests, and if the French Bible Society Avhich was formed 
 in London, in concert with Christian men in Paris, in 
 1792, could have had a career like that of Great Britain, 
 she would have had a better history than that of her later 
 pax)al and atheistic centuries. But it was too late. As 
 
 * Hon. Wm. H. Seward, 1839. 
 
24 
 
 HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 the French printer who had been engaged by this Society 
 wrote, a few years later, “We have lived in times which 
 have destroyed everything, overturned everything, and all 
 must begin afresh.’’ And the money which was raised 
 for France furnished English Bibles for Ireland.* 
 
 If the edict of Henry the Eighth, which forbade the 
 Bible to the common people of England, had prevailed 
 until now, would her annals have been better than those 
 of her ante-biblical times! Would these United States 
 have been i^ossible, and can they endure another century, 
 without the word of God! Let history furnish the sure 
 reply. 
 
 Second;— Our Foreign Worlc. 
 
 What have we done for the ivorld in the execution of 
 this Trust! 
 
 The foreign work of the American Bible Society be¬ 
 gan with its beginning. The s^jirit of missions is in 
 the Book, and the great commission involves the duty 
 of translating, publishing, and distributing the Scriptures 
 
 among “ all nations.” The attention of the 
 Managers was soon directed “ to the transla¬ 
 tion of the Scrii)tures into the Indian languages of our 
 country, the x)Dblication of the Si)anish New Testament, 
 and of the Scriptures in French.” There was a singular 
 proi)riety in this selection of the aborigines of America, of 
 the nation of Columbus, Ferdinand and Isabella, and of 
 that generous x)ower which sent us her fleets and armies 
 and her La Fayette, to aid us in getting our indei)end- 
 ence, as the first objects of our Bible work beyond our 
 own x>eox)le. With this movement, too, began our direct 
 co-operation with American missions and with the British 
 and Foreign Bible Society, which donated the stereotype 
 l)lates for the French Bible. 
 
 One liundred years ago the modern era of biblical 
 translation and difl'usion had not even dawned u^jon Chris- 
 
 * Anderson’s AnnaLs of the English Bible, p. 469. American 
 edition. 
 
HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 25 
 
 tian lands. In the year 1804 the Bible existed only in 
 fifty ancient and modern languages. In 
 1875 the British and Foreign Bible Society ^°”centmy 
 reported that it has had a direct or indirect 
 share in the translation, printing, and distribution of the 
 Scriptures in two hundred and ten languages or dialects, 
 the number of versions thus printed being tw^o hundred 
 and sixty-eight. The American Bible Society has printed 
 the whole Bible or parts of it in thirty-tliree neiv transla¬ 
 tions, besides publishing it in twenty-three others, making 
 together fifty-six difierent languages, in addition to its 
 share in the circulation of many versions published by 
 other societies. In a little tract which it has just issued, 
 there is printed in more than one hundred and fifty differ¬ 
 ent tongues that one verse wliich is the epitome of the 
 gospel for all nations, John iii. 16: “ For God so loved the 
 world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
 believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting 
 life.” It was a grand saying of a devout writer, that 
 “ there are many languages of mortals; there is but one of 
 the immortals.” And as one looks into this little book, it 
 seems as if the tongues which Avere confounded at Babel 
 Avere already blending in the infinite harmonies of this hal¬ 
 lelujah chorus of the Messiah. 
 
 In the x^^vilion erected by the Pennsylvania Bible 
 Society on the grounds of the Centennial Exhibition, the 
 Scriptures are offered for sale and gift in one hundred 
 and four languages, many of Avhich are spoken or read 
 by exhibiters and visiters from many lands. 
 
 The book-case which illustrates the work of the 
 American and of the British and Foreign 
 Bible Societies in the Exx)osition is filled '^^Exposition^^ 
 Avith specimens of the Scrix)tures in tAvo hun¬ 
 dred languages and dialects of the world. On one shelf is 
 a series of bi-lingual volumes, containing, in parallel col¬ 
 umns, the English with the German, Spanish, French, 
 Welsh, Dutch, Portuguese, and Hawaiian languages. Do 
 they not suggest the cloA'eu tongues of Pentecost, and the 
 
26 
 
 HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 relations of our English speech to all other s^jeech of men 
 in the world’s religious progress ? Three shelves are filled 
 with the word in the languages of Euroi^e—God’s answer 
 to the prayer of that “ man of Macedonia” whom Paul, in 
 the vision, heard crying out for the whole continent, 
 “Come over and hel^) us.” Another interesting set of 
 volumes tells what Christians have done to repay the chil¬ 
 dren of Abraham, in books specially prepared for their use, 
 for those “oracles of God” which we Gentiles have received 
 from them complete and uncorrupted. Among them are 
 the Old Testament in English, without note or comment, 
 headings or references, And the Hebrew-Spanish Bible of 
 Dr. Schauffler. 
 
 These open pages are in the soft-toned tongues of 
 the Isles of the Pacific, which for more than eighteen 
 centuries had waited for God’s law. That goodly line 
 of books with their singular intermixture of labials, 
 liquids, consonants, and vowels, tells us of “Ethiopia 
 stretching forth her hands unto God.” These few vol¬ 
 umes show what the largest Christian monarchy and the 
 largest Christian rej)ublic, with the Atlantic rolling be¬ 
 tween them, have contributed to the largest empire of the 
 globe, stretching across two continents, from the Eeval- 
 Esthonians on the Baltic sea-line to the modern Buss 
 dwellers on the Amoor, in Eastern Siberia. “And these 
 from the land of Sinim,” in serried columns, tell what 
 has been done for China’s four hundred millions, in the 
 early versions of Morrison and Marshman, in the later 
 revisions of Bridgman and Culbertson and of the Board 
 of Bevisers, and in the Mandarin Colloquial, of which 
 the New Testament has been translated by English and 
 American missionaries, and the entire Old Testament has 
 just been completed, after fifteen years of labour, by the 
 Bev. Dr. Schereschewsky, of the American Episcoi)al Mis¬ 
 sion, and under the special patronage of this Society. The 
 Manchou, the Mongolian, the Mandarin, the Bomanized 
 Colloquial (or the Chinese in Boman letters), and the vary¬ 
 ing dialects of the great seaports and provincial capitals 
 
HISTORIC A L DISCO URSE. 
 
 27 
 
 arc there. Here, again, are the silent witnesses for the 
 word in the iniiltifarious languages of India, Burmah, 
 Siam, and other Asiatic realms upon which “ the true light 
 now shineth.” 
 
 One other shelf is occupied with translations made in 
 eleven distinct languages for the Indians of North Amer¬ 
 ica. Of these versions this Society has x)ublished nine, 
 including that which is printed in the marvellous Cherokee 
 character, which was invented by one of that nation. 
 What if, in process of time, these Indian Scriptures should 
 become as useless to living men as John Eliot’s great 
 Bible, which he made for his little Natick tribe! Even 
 then they will prove our fidelity to our trust; they 
 w ill have done their blessed wmrk for the red men; and 
 they will but anticipate by a few ages tlie fate of every 
 copy of the Bible which shall be in the wa)rld in that day 
 when “ the earth also and the works that are therein shall 
 be burnt up.” 
 
 Ten years ago, at the Jubilee meeting of this Society, 
 
 it was stated by the then senior Secretary of The Bible amonrc 
 the American Board of Commissioners for the 
 Foreign Missions (Kev. Eufus Anderson, unevaugeiizcn, 
 
 D.D.), that during the preceding half century the entire 
 Bible had been translated into thirry-nine languages 
 outside of Christendom, embracing nearly all the more 
 extensive and important; and the New Testament into 
 thirty-five other tongues; and xmrtions of the Scrix)tures 
 into still forty-eight others;—making one hundred and 
 twenty-tw^o languages in the great field of Christian mis¬ 
 sions that have been enriched and ennobled with portions 
 of the word of God since the American Bible Society com¬ 
 menced its operations. And not a few of these had to be 
 reduced to a written form.” 
 
 Of these actual additions to the written languages of 
 the wmrld, the Hawaiian Scriptures may bo 
 
 , Oil i Hawaiian Bible. 
 
 given the first jilace, as they represent the 
 
 entire system of the vernacular tongues of the Pacific. 
 
 Some of the missionaries are yet living who helped to give 
 
28 
 
 HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 the Hawaiians an alphabet and a written literature with 
 Christian civilization and the gospel of Jesus Christ. It 
 has been the privilege of this Society to furnish them with 
 the whole Bible in family and other forms, and to aid the 
 Hawaiian Board of Missions in sending the word of God 
 to the far distant Micronesian group in four distinct 
 languages. 
 
 Of the entire issues of Bible societies^since 1804, it is 
 safe to say that at least ten millions of copies of the word, in 
 
 whole or in parts, have been distributed amoug 
 ^^^Work^^^ the unevangelized nations. In consequence 
 of its co-operation with missionary socie¬ 
 ties, the foreign distribution of this Society for nearly 
 fifty years was not presented in statistics, which could 
 not then be readily i^rocured. But in the last thirteen 
 years alone it has circulated 2,891,010 copies. Its whole 
 expenditure upon this part of its work has been $1,650,034; 
 and within the last decade $786,437 86, which is nearly 
 equal to the entire cost of its foreign work in its first half 
 century. Was ever so grand a work accomplished at a cost 
 so small I Is not this progress of the Bible among the 
 nations to be reckoned among the wonders of the century ! 
 
 In this service the Society has had the zealous co-opera¬ 
 tion of missionary societies and of missionary scholars 
 
 who were as manifestly raised up for it as 
 Moses and Paul were predestined to fulfil 
 their high callings. The hallowed names of 
 Drs. Goodell, Eli Smith, Eiggs, Schautfler, and Yan Dyck, 
 in the Turkish emj)ire, and of their co-labourers in all quar¬ 
 ters of the globe, have already taken rank with those of 
 Luther, Hiodati, Yalera, and De Sacy on the Continent; of 
 Wicklitfe, Tyndale, and the later translators of our English 
 version; and of Carey, Morrison, Judson, and their com¬ 
 peers in farther Asia, who have given the word of God to 
 tribes and nations and races of mankind. Our own sympa¬ 
 thies kindle with the enthusiasm of Dr. Goodell in finish¬ 
 ing his translation of the Old Testament into the Armeno- 
 Turkish, when he ^‘corrected the last verse” with shoutings, 
 
HISTORIC A L DISCO URSE. 
 
 29 
 
 Grace, grace unto it! And again, when he adds, “ At 
 the bottom of the page I wrote, ‘ Bless the Lord, O my 
 soul, and forget not all his benefits.’ I then arose and 
 shut up all the books that have been lying open before me 
 these many years, and fell on my knees to ^ give thanks 
 unto the name of the Lord, who hath not dealt with us 
 after our sins; ’ who hath given us his blessed word to be 
 a lamp unto our feet, and whose wondrous love i)erinits us 
 to hold it up ^ to lighten every man that cometh into the 
 world.’ ” 
 
 Arabic Bible. 
 
 From the Bible House at Constantinople, that Pharos 
 of the Orient, “the true light” is now shining 
 
 forth in all the languages spoken in that constenunopit 
 “polyglot city.” Missionaries and colporteurs 
 are carrying it into the provinces of European and Asiatic 
 Turkey, to Greece and the islands of the Hlgean Sea, 
 among the mountains of Syria, over the plains of Persia, 
 and up and down the Danube and the Nile. Turks and 
 Egyx)tians, Armenians,- Nestorians, Syrians, Bulgarians, 
 Persians, Greeks, Copts, Arabs, and Jews read in their 
 “ own tongues the wonderful works of God.” 
 
 The most conspicuous biblical enterprise ever under¬ 
 taken by this Society for another race of 
 men is the Arabic Bible, which occupied its 
 translators. Dr. Eli Smith, who began it, until his decease, 
 and Dr. Cornelius Y. A. Van Dyck, and their co-labourers 
 in its revision, for sixteen years, and which, in its various 
 editions, has received the highest critical commendations of 
 the most eminent Arabic scholars, both Mussulman and 
 Christian. Finished just at the close of the late war, and its 
 publication begun at the beginning of our Jubilee year, it 
 was our i)eace offering and thank offering unto God for the 
 salvation of one hundred and twenty millions of the world 
 who speak that rich and difficult tongue. It is going forth 
 daily alongside of the Koran of Mohammed, challengiug 
 criticism from the learned and disputing the dominion of 
 that narrow, intolerant, exclusive book of one man’s brain, 
 with its infinite variety and unity of truths, with its divine 
 
30 
 
 HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 charity, and its voices of projdiets and kings, evangelists 
 and apostles, and with “ the testimony of Jesus [which] is 
 the spirit of prophecy.” 
 
 I pause here to note one noble proof of the present 
 freedom of the^word of God and of the bonds of union be¬ 
 tween the two great Bible societies of the 
 Rccipiocity. When the electrotype plates of this 
 
 Arabic Bible were finished, in 186G, the Board of Managers 
 signalized the event by furnishing to the British and For¬ 
 eign Bible Society, without charge, duifiicate plates of the 
 various editions that were in course of publication. This 
 gift was officially “ accomj^aiiied by the largest liberty for 
 the free and unrestrained use of these plates, with their 
 own imprint, conditional only that no alteration be made 
 in the plates without the consent of this Society.” In 18C7 
 the British and Foreign Bible Society reciprocated this 
 action, granting to its American sister duplicate plates of 
 all of its vowelled editions of the same great work. 
 
 Tliat Bible House on the Bosphorus and that printing 
 house at Beirut will yet be more than a match for the 
 
 Mosque of St. Sophia and the Church of the 
 Holy Sepulchre. The regime of the harem 
 
 Bible in Turkey. 
 
 cannot always withstand the influences of the Christian 
 girls’ school of Bebek and the biblical training of young 
 men at Kobert College. Every little mission church that 
 now exists in Turkey, with the Bible for its oracle, has in 
 it the germs of a Christian republic. And Christianity 
 lives there by that divine charter which will outlast “ the 
 sick man’s” despotism and the bloody outbreaks of Moslem 
 frenzy.* 
 
 A learned Turk said not long ago to an eminent Chris¬ 
 tian physician in Constantinople, “ We do not fear the 
 
 * Is it not a significant fact, announced by the Grand Vizier to 
 the world, that the late Sultan has just been “dethroned by the uni¬ 
 versal will of the people?” Who knows to what extent that “ voice 
 of the people is the voice of God,” saying, “ I will overturn, overturn, 
 overturn it; and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; 
 and I will give it him ? ”—(Ezekiel xxi. 27.) 
 
HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 31 
 
 Latin Church with its iina<^es, nor the Greek Church with 
 its pictures and its ungainly and empty forms. These can 
 do nothing to shake the hold which the Moslem faith has 
 of the East. But we do fear, because we respect, your 
 simj)le Protestant worship of God without any material 
 i*epresentatiou or medium; and we dread the power and 
 prevalence of your gosj^el, which presents God as love.” * 
 
 The latest new translation of the Bible for a people 
 who have never before had it, is now pro- 
 
 . -T- ,4 . . . . Bible in Japan. 
 
 ceeding in Japan, by American missionaries, 
 under the xiatronage of this Society. Only the four gos- 
 Iiels and the Epistle to the Eomans are as yet in circula¬ 
 tion. The special interest of this work is in the fact 
 that it is for an empire which has never cultivated its 
 own language and literature, and which is making almost 
 incredible advances in the arts, learning, and movements 
 of modern civilization, to which its doors were opened 
 within a quarter of a century. It is the aim of the trans¬ 
 lators to give the Japanese a faithful version of the word 
 of God, and also to make it a standard of their lan¬ 
 guage, as our authorized version has long been for the 
 English-speaking race. It is the precious seed-time of an 
 awakening people in the dawn of a new civilization and of 
 a new faith. Twenty-five years hence the Bible of Japan 
 may be ^‘the Book of books” for a nation which has just 
 now, by imperial authority, adopted the Christian Sabbath 
 as its weekly rest-day. 
 
 Eor many reasons, such as the difficulty of translation 
 into heathen tongues, the opposition of rulers ^ 
 and i)riests, and the power of ignorance and * 
 
 superstition, the progress of the Bible in Pagan lands is 
 slow at first, but when it gets headway it rushes like a tor¬ 
 rent over all barriers. The English East India Company, 
 ill the daj^s of Carey and Marshman and Judson, was as 
 intolerant of missions as the Sultan. The government iier- 
 secuted the native converts in Burmah, and drove out the 
 
 * Thompson’s Holy Land, p, 358. 
 
‘>o 
 
 HISTOBICAL DISCOUJRSE. 
 
 missionaries. It tolerated every form of religion but the 
 Christianity of the Bible; and it even paid annual stipends 
 from its treasury for the maintenance of idolatry. It i)ro- 
 tected Juggernaut, and it put the Cross under its ban. 
 To-day the East India Company lives only in history, and 
 Christianity is rapidly marching on to the conquest of 
 India.* 
 
 Facts like these make their own commentary. We 
 have only to remember the obstructions, x)ersecutions, and 
 martyrdoms through which our own Bible has reached its 
 X)resent i)ower, to show what the enduring word shall yet 
 
 * A striking corroboration of these facts has been received, while 
 this discourse was passing through the press, in the following extract 
 from a letter of Sir Bartle Frere, who accompanied the Prince of 
 Wales during his late tour through India. It was read by the Earl of 
 Shaftesbury at the last anniversary of the British and Foreign Bible 
 Society, of which he is the President, and is worthy of special note as 
 a “sign of the times.” Under date of May 3, 1876, this eminent 
 civilian writes: 
 
 “ At different places, during his royal highness’s tour, the prince 
 received from various bodies copies of translations of the Holy Scrip¬ 
 tures into, I believe, no less than eleven languages, and in, I think, no 
 less than nine cases the translations comprised the whole Bible; and 
 some of the most important portions of both Testaments were pre¬ 
 sented, which had been translated into nine other languages in which 
 no complete translation of the w'hole Bible had yet been finished. 
 This may afford some idea of the number of readers in India to whom 
 the Hol}^ Scriptures are now accessible in their own Indian dialect; 
 and when I mention that of all these versions four only were, I believe, 
 complete when I first went to India, forty-twm years ago, we may have 
 some idea of the great present activity of the Society’s agents, in 
 a great number of Missions, scattered through such a number of 
 nations speaking so many different dialects. 
 
 “ Then, as to the effect produced, apart from direct and entire con¬ 
 versions from other religions to Christianity, I may mention the fact, 
 which struck me greatly, that I was assured from many quarters that 
 many thousands of Hindoos, who do not make any profession of Chris¬ 
 tianity, habitually use books of the Old and New Testaments as their 
 models in prayer and their standards of morality. I need not trouble you 
 with comments on the fact, but I am sure that all friends of the Bible 
 Society will rejoice to think that the devotional portions of the Bible, 
 and the moral teachings of our Lord and his apostles, are largely read 
 and deeply thought on by great bodies of their fellow-subjects who are 
 still in search of a rule of life. Believe me, my dear sir, 
 
 “ Very faithfully yours, “ H. E. Baktle Frere.” 
 
HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 33 
 
 accomplish in other lands. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts 
 shall perform it.” 
 
 It is an axiom in history that “ a religion that does not 
 propagate itself and its sacred books, is either dying or 
 dead.” But there is not another religion among men that 
 has vitality enough to translate and publish its sacred 
 books for all nations. Does any one in his senses believe 
 that such an enterprise as that of our Arabic Bible could 
 ever be projected by the believers in the Koran or the 
 Vedas, to convert the world to Islamism or to Buddhism ! 
 
 Whatever modern scholars may make out of the new 
 science of comparative religions, it still remains true that 
 a nation cannot rise above its gods, its worship, and its 
 so-called Scriptures.” One of our most eloquent orators 
 has concisely put the argument into this striking form, 
 and I quote him, in substance, because he is not a clergy¬ 
 man but a secular agitator and reformer: * The answer 
 to the Shasters is India; the answer to Confucianism is 
 China; the answer to the Koran is Turkey; the answer to 
 the Bible is the Christian civilization of Protestant Europe 
 and America.” We may add, that the answer to Eoman- 
 ism is Spain and Mexico; and the answer to Atheism is 
 the Eeign of Terror in France and the Commune of Paris 
 in her last siege. Where there is no vision, the people 
 perish.”—(Prov. xxix. 18.) 
 
 It is the shame and the doom of the Eoman Catholic 
 
 missions, that they have never given the Roman catholic 
 Bible to any heathen nation to which they and Protestant 
 have carried the Breviary and the Catechism, Missions, 
 and the Lives of the Saints, images and holy water, the 
 mass and the crucifix. As Boileau said, They have 
 lengthened the creed and shortened the decalogue.” The 
 late Cardinal Wiseman, in his famous Lectures on Eoman 
 Catholic and Protestant Missions, declared of the latter, 
 “that the blessing of heaven is not upon the work, nor his 
 approbation upon the principle—the all-sufficiency of the 
 
 * Wendell Phillips. 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 HISTORICAL DISCOURSE, 
 
 written word.” But it is the glory of Protestant Christian¬ 
 ity in this missionary era, that it has already translated, 
 printed, and circulated the Scriptures, without note or com¬ 
 ment, in so many languages, and has put them in such 
 numbers into the hands of the people of the earth, that 
 the day has long since passed when the Bible could be 
 either suppressed, or destroyed, or effectually hindered by 
 persecuting kings, or priesthoods, or scoffers. Pio Kono 
 himself, like Bunyan’s giant in the cave, looks helplessly 
 from the windows of the Vatican at the modest sign over 
 the door of the Bible Society’s depot; and the British and 
 Foreign Bible Society has lately held a public meeting 
 in Eome, unmolested, unde the shadow of St. Peter’s. 
 ^^The Bible,” said the illustrious Guizot, “has survived, 
 and will ever triumphantly survive, human criticism, and 
 Bible societies are but the instruments of the divine 
 action, which it is not in the power of man to baffle 
 or disturb.” The Eeformation in Catholic Europe was 
 checked by the fact that “the word of God was bound” 
 in those countries. It never reached the common people, 
 as it did in Germany and the British isles. The hopes of 
 Christianity for all iDapal, pagan, and Moslem nations are 
 inseparable from their possession of the word of the Lord 
 by their people in their own homes. 
 
 i .• 
 
 r* 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 This, then, is the “high calling” of this Society—“to 
 encourage a wider circulation of the Scrii^tures without 
 note or comment,” in our own country and in all the 
 world. God has committed his “oracles” chiefly to the 
 trust of the two foremost colonizing, commercial, Protest¬ 
 ant, evangelizing nations of the globe. The language 
 which is most nearly the universal medium of interna¬ 
 tional intercourse is that whose standard of purity and of 
 power has been fixed by our English Bible. The great 
 mechanical forces of modern civilization, coal, steam, elec¬ 
 tricity, and the printing press, are principally Protestant. 
 
HISTORICAL DISCOURSE. 
 
 35 
 
 Civil and religious liberty are distinctively and almost 
 only Protestant. The grandest missionary enterprises of 
 the age are Protestant. The moral forces which are 
 iH)heaving the Turkish empire, China and Jai)an, and 
 that have made Australia and New Zealand and the Sand¬ 
 wich Islands Christian are Protestant. The power that 
 has made Victoria Empress of India” is Protestant. 
 And, as Chillingworth said, ^^The Bible, and the Bible 
 alone, is the religion of Protestants.” 
 
 In this work of preparing and sending forth the pure 
 word of the Lord to all nations, all Protestants stand upon 
 common ground. ^^The Lord gave the word: great was 
 the company of those that published it.”—(Psalm Ixviii. 11.) 
 It is one of the strongest visible bonds of union between 
 all who love the Bible. It is one form of the answer to 
 the xjrayer of Jesus, “ That they all may be one; as thou, 
 Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be 
 one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent 
 me.”—(John xvii. 21.) All minor differences are lost in the 
 oneness and grandeur of this service, in the presence of the 
 abominations of the heathen world. The most brilliant of 
 modern historians. Lord Macaulay, felt this when, after his 
 return from India, he declared, “ I have lived too long in a 
 country where the people worship cows to think much of 
 the differences which part Christians from Christians.” 
 “ Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 
 iii. 17), and there, too, and there only, is “ the unity of the 
 Spirit in the bond of peace.”—(Eph. iv. 3.) 
 
 Never have the friends of the Bible had less to fear, 
 or more to encourage them, than at this good hour. No 
 benevolent institution has a more powerful hold upon the 
 Christian people of this country than this American Bible 
 Society. The dead and the living have honoured it with 
 their ceaseless services, gifts, and prayers. In war and in 
 peace, in financial i)anics, and amid prostrate industries. 
 Providence has led its officers and managers “by a way 
 that they knew not.” Nothing but criminal neglect and 
 treason to its trust can forfeit the confidence which it has 
 
36 
 
 HISTORICAL DISCOURSE, 
 
 enjoyed for tlireescore years. And whenever some new 
 and greater biblical enterprise shall be undertaken, the 
 past may show us how it will be sustained in the future. 
 
 It was fabled of one of the classic oracles, that whoever 
 spent a single night amid the terrific visions of the Cave 
 of Troi)honius never smiled again, such horrors min¬ 
 gle with the memories and forecasts of our national cente¬ 
 nary. These “ lively ” “ oracles of God ” have brought our 
 people to the cross of him who ^^hath borne our griefs 
 and carried our sorrows.” Wherever we may scatter them, 
 and in whatever tongue, the wilderness and the solitary 
 place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice 
 and blossom as the rose.” Let this work still go on, with 
 ever growing power, to the music of David’s Psalms, 
 of Bethlehem’s angels, and of the 'Eew Jerusalem. Let 
 Christian America, exalted to heaven ” by this Bible, 
 send forth the testimony of Jesus, which is ‘Hhe Spirit 
 of prophecy,” until 
 
 ‘^Arabia’s desert ranger 
 
 To him shall bow the knee, 
 
 And Ethiopian stranger 
 His glory come and see.” 
 
 For Christ and his kingdom, for his cross and his 
 crown, for our homes and our schools, for our churches 
 and our charities, for our laws and our liberties, for our 
 country and the world, let us ^‘hold forth the word of 
 life” until ^^the earth shall be filled with the knowledge 
 of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” 
 —(Hab. ii. 14.) 
 

 
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