\

THERE

/ III//////
RI/V^ER

1905-1906
A POPULAR ILLUSTRATED REPORT
OF THE
SH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY

MM B77&

I30Si06

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Gift of the Publishers

THERE IS A RIVER

A KOREAN family READING THE SCRIPTURES.
Photo copyiight. Underwood and Underwood, London.

There is a
River

A POPULAR ILLUSTRATED
REPORT OF THE BRITISH 1 1 1
AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY
FOR THE YEAR 1905-6

' EVERY THING SHALL LIVE WTHITHER THE RIVER COMETH '
—Ezekiel xlvii. 9

THE BIBLE HOUSE,
146, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, LONDON, E.C.
1906

East the forefront of habitations holy
Gleamed to Engedi, shone to Eneglaim:
Softly thereout and from thereunder slowly
Wandered the waters, and delayed, and came.
Then the great stream, which having seen he showeth,
Hid from the wise but manifest to him,
Flowed and arose, as when Euphrates floweth,
Rose from the ankles till a man might swim.
Even with so soft a surge and an increasing,
Drunk of the sand and thwarted of the clod,
Stilled and astir and checked and never-ceasing
Spreadeth the great wave of the grace of God;
Bears to the marishes and bitter places.
Healing for hurt and for their poisons balm,
Isle after isle in infinite embraces
Floods and enfolds and fringes with the palm,
F. W. H. MYERS.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Except where otherwise stated the incidents and statistics
in the following pages belong to last year's record. It should
be noted that this period is reckoned to end, as regards the
Bible Society's foreign work, on December ^ist, 1905 / and
as regards its home work, on March 315^, 1906.
T. H. DARLOW,
The Bible House, Literary Superintendent.
August, 1906.

CONTENTS

PAGE

The Sign of Aquarius .

I

Ad Pontes .....

9

To Water the Earth ....

. 24

The Art of Irrigation ....

. 41

Dry and Thirsty Lands

. 68

Waters of Healing ....

. 8s

Gifts and Gratitude ....

. 92

Appendix .....

• 99

THERE IS A RIVER

THE SIGN OF AQUARIUS
When Pindar called water the best of things, the old
Greek poet had a glimpse of the same idea which our
English angler expressed in his own quaint phrasing.
"The water," wrote Izaak Walton, " is the eldest daughter
of the creation, the element upon which the Spirit of
God did first move, the element which God commanded
to bring forth living creatures abundantly. . . . The
water is more productive than the earth. Nay, the earth
hath no fruitfulness without showers or dews ; for all the
herbs, and flowers, and fruit, are produced and thrive by
the water." ^ This elemental gift of God reaches man
variously, now dropping down from the bosom of the
clouds, now welling up from a cleft in the rocks. But
when we distinguish water in the mountain torrent or
the stagnant pool from water which flows along a
channel between banks, we use the word river.
What is there in nature more fascinating to watch
than a great river ? Here is the one object on the face
of the earth which seems stable and enduring while
' The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation ;
Chap, I, I B

THERE IS A RIVER
every moment its very substance melts and glides
away under your gaze. Year after year the river
flows on, showing " the same giddy succession of silent
power, the same whirling, irresistible labyrinth of rush
ing lines and twisted eddies, coiling themselves in
serpentine race in omne volubilis cevum." And with this
mysterious strength of moving water there blends all the
beauty of changeful colours and lights. Daily the brim
ming mirror reflects and repeats from the sky each mood
of cloud or sunshine ; and lies in the darkness " all
Danae to the stars." Who can wonder that primitive
men here felt themselves in the presence of some mighty
living being — terrible in flood-time, beneficent in seasons
of drought, — whom they worshipped as the god or genius
of the river ?
Civilaation and Rivers.
No student can fail to observe that the history of
human civilization has been determined and controlled
by great rivers. Throughout antiquity and down to
recent times, they formed the main arteries of travel and
traffic. Along these waterways traders spread their sails
and plied their oars. On river banks or estuaries the
earliest, stateliest cities have grown up. Names of im
memorial streams like Tigris and Tiber, Arno and Rhine
and Thames, carry magic in their syllables and evoke
visions of earth-subduing empires. But in a still deeper
sense, we may say that rivers have created civilization.
In torrid lands under the pitiless sun all vegetation
withers and dies, apart from continual supplies of
moisture. And in regions where the rains are scanty or
intermittent, the soil becomes fertile only in so far as it
is intersected and irrigated by rivers and streams. Thus
2

THERE IS A RIVER
in Bengal, for example, fenormous areas wouldjbe sun
baked and barren for half the year, but for the
Ganges and her daughter-tributaries. Hence in the East,
where man's most imperious need is water, nomad tribes-
have contended for the possession of wells and springs as
" diamonds of the desert '' ; and human civilization found
its first home in the two great river-basins of the
Euphrates and the Nile. The Bible itself opens with
a picture of man's primeval paradise where the four-fold
river existed to water the thornless garden of God.
Although the Holy Land embraces within its borders
remarkable contrasts of climate, the country, as a whole,
is by no means destitute of water. The annual rainfall in
Jerusalem is still not much less than the annual rain-fall
in London. And besides mountain torrents, Palestine
has copious springs and fountains, welling up among the
limestone hills. Its only genuine river, however, is
quite abnormal in character. The Jordan hurries in
tortuous course along an extraordinary fissure, lying
below the level of the sea, and is useless alike for
navigation and for irrigation. When the Jews spoke of
a river, their thoughts turned naturally to the mightiest
stream known to the ancient world, whose sacred flood
fertilized the land of Egypt. We are apt to forget how
naturally Egypt became a kind of background to Pales
tine — Egypt, which has been described as "the tutress
of Moses, the hostess of Christ." The actual distance, as
a bird flies, between Jerusalem and Cairo is not greater
than the distance between London and Newcastle-on-
Tyne. If the kings of Israel went down to Egypt for
help, the imagination of Israel easily and innocently
followed along the same track. To interpret many of
those references to a river which occur in the Psalms
3

THERE IS A RIVER
and the Prophets of the Old Testament, we must realize
the singular way in which Egypt is created and sustained
by its river : the land of the Pharaohs is literally " the
gift of the Nile."
The River of Egypt.
No other river on earth has appealed so vividly to the
wonder and curiosity of mankind. The cause of its
yearly overflow, the mystery which shrouded its distant
sources, astonished and baffled successive generations
of the past. Only within living memory have men
explored the true fountains of the Nile. But from the
beginning a fair green, fertile strip of land has stretched
along the banks of this life-giving stream, bounded on each
side by bare sandy desert. Herodotus, the father of history,
cites an oracle which defined Egypt as " the entire tract
of country which the Nile overspreads and irrigates," and
the Egyptians as " the people who live below Elephanta
and drink the waters of that river." An English pilgrim
in the fourteenth century. Sir John Maundeville, wrote
down the result of his own observations and inquiries as
he journeyed to the Holy Sepulchre : —
" Egypt is a long country, but it is narrow, because they
may not enlarge it towards the desert for want of water.
And the country is situated along the river Nile ; so that that
river, when it flows, may spread abroad through the country.
For it raineth but little in that country, and for that cause
they have no water, unless it be by the overflowing of that
river."' Modern travellers and officials in Egypt have depicted
this vital function of the Nile, which is as indispensable
' The Book of Sir John Maundeville, Chap. I.
4-

THERE IS A RIVER
to-day, under the regime of Lord Cromer, as it was under
the earliest dynasty of the Pharaohs.
"Above the brown and blue waters of the broad, calm,
lake-like river rises a thick, black bank of clod or mud,
mostly in terraces. Green — unutterably green — at the top
of these banks, though sometimes creeping down to the
water's edge, lies the Land of Egypt. Green — unbroken,
save by the mud villages which here and there lie in the
midst of the verdure, like the marks of a soiled foot on a rich
carpet ; or by the dykes and channels which convey the life-
giving waters through the thirsty land. . . . We ride through
green fields — green with corn and clover — avenues of tama
risk, fig-trees and acacia ; along causeways raised high above
the floods of the summer inundations. At every turn there
is the grateful sound of little rills of living water, worked by
water-wheels, and falling in gentle murmurs down into the
fields or the canals. Beyond is the green again, and close
upon that rise the yellow hills of the hazy desert."'
When you climb to the top of the Great Pyramid, from
its summit you can see a sharply-defined line, where the
verdure ends and the bare sand begins. That line marks
the precise limit of irrigation — according as it is written :
Every thing shall live whither the river cometh.
Living Water.
The Bible compares the grace of God again and again
to living water. In our humid climate we miss the
intense meaning which belongs to such a metaphor under
the flaming Eastern sky, where man's most imperious
necessity is chosen as a figure for God's redeeming love.
Nothing exists which is more elemental than water. It
cannot be manufactured by art ; it comes to us as the
" Stanley : Sinai and Palestine, pp. xxxiv,, xxxvi.
5

THERE IS A RIVER
unbought bounty of heaven. This idea gains added
emphasis from more than one striking passage of Scrip
ture. The earthly Jerusalem of the Old Testament was a
mountain city, standing nearly as high above the sea as
the summit of Cader Idris, and far from any river. It
depended for its water supply on pools like Siloam and,
Bethesda, on the brook Kidron, and on Solomon's aque
ducts. All the more vivid is the imagery of that vision
where Ezekiel saw a river pouring forth from under the
Temple threshold, and flowing down in healing streams
to sweeten the Dead Sea. Such a supernatural river
symbolizes the miracle of Divine grace, quite as clearly
as the corresponding imagery of the Apocalypse — where
the Christian seer beheld in the New Jerusalem a pure
river of water of life, gleaming as crystal, proceeding out
of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
The Sacred Channel.
And, further, we may say that the Bible itself is one
chief channel along which this living water flows to bless
mankind. In the torrent of Ezekiel's vision Thomas
Aquinas recognizes a picture of the flood of grace which
burst forth from Calvary. Athanasius tells us that the
rivers of God are the Gospels, filled with the promises of
God and sent out to fertilize the earth. It is noteworthy
that the first edition of the Douay Old Testament (1609-10)
bears on its title-page these words : — " Havrietis acqvas in
gaudio de fontibus Saluatoris. Isaice 12. You shal draw
waters in toy out of the Sauiour's fountaines," In Holy
Scripture we have given to us a wonderful, inexhaustible
river, unlike all other streams, rolling past our dwelling-
places, rolling through the whole area of our life and
experience, brimming with grace and truth.
6

THERE IS A RIVER
" Think of the responsibility of having such a river 1
It is given to us : it flows past our feet : shall we let it
pass, and die of thirst ? " Do we always remember that
Bible-circulation must begin at home ? No spiritual
life can be really rich and strong and enduring which
does not draw deep, constant nourishment from God's
Book. On the other hand, a Roman Catholic like Faber
exclaims, " See what giants of holiness they were, whose
daily food was the mysterious siAiplicity of the sacred
Scriptures ! " The humble, Bible-loving Christian is he
that was spoken of by the ancient prophet : He shall be as
a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots
by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her
leaf shall be green ; and shall not be careful in the year
of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
Rooted by the Water-courses
What is true for individual believers holds true also
with regard to Christian Churches. No Church can
properly fulfil the function of a keeper of Holy Writ
which does not repeat the Psalmist's testimony, Thy
Word have I hid in mine heart. Chrysostom's confession
is constantly being fulfilled : " Here is the source of all
our ills, that we are ignorant of the Scriptures." The
Church Universal would be reformed and revivified at
once, its heresies would be ended and its divisions healed,
if all Christians became children of the New Testament.
And there is spiritual springtime in store for any Church,
however blighted and barren it may appear, if only its
members will stoop to drink of the river of God. There
is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout
again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.
Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the
7

THERE IS A RIVER
stock thereof die in the ground : yet through the scent of
water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.

If an astrologer were to search among the stars for
some constellation as the emblem of the Bible Society,
he might perchance discover it in that sign of the Zodiac
which still goes by the name Aquarius — the mythical
bearer and distributor of water. Divine providence has
manifestly assigned to the Bible Society a correspond
ing office in the economy of modern Christendom — to
serve as the Church's steward for translating and pub
lishing and dispersing, in all tongues and in all lands,
the one Book which all Christians accept as containing
the glorious Gospel of the blessed God. The pages
which follow will give glimpses of how this high and
sacred function is being fulfilled in practice — how the
water of the river is being stored up and conveyed by
many channels and distributed abroad to the thirsty
places of the earth.

THERE IS A RIVER

AD PONTES
Before the Bible can convey its proper message and
impart its healing grace to any people, it must cease to be
a stranger and foreigner in their midst. It must, so to
speak, take out letters of naturalization in every land. It
must become, in St. Paul's phrase, all things to all men — a
negro with the negroes, a redskin among the redskins,
a Mongol to the Mongolians, a Hindu to the Hindus.
Only thus can the children of God, who are severed and
scattered in the cloudy and dark day, learn their Father's
message as though it had been spoken direct to them at
the first.
" The Scriptures," cried Erasmus, " should be trans
lated into all languages." How, otherwise, can they speak
to every man's conscience and heart ? Nothing less than
this is involved in the Church's missionary duty to make
disciples of all nations. And this side of the great
Commission, though very far from accomplished, has not
been altogether neglected and forgotten. We can praise
God to-day in wonder and thankfulness, because some
part at least of His Book lies open in over five hundred
different languages of the world, which are understood
by quite seven-tenths of mankind.
The Feast of the Translation of the Bible.
A quaint old Puritan author ^ has excellently expressed
' William Gurnall : The Christian in Complete Armour, p. 58S.
9

THERE IS A RIVER
the gratitude which every Christian ought to feel as often
as he opens the Bible in his mother-tongue.
"Bless God for the translation of the Scriptures. The
Word is our sword ; by being translated this sword has
been drawn out of its scabbard. What use could a poor
Christian, that hath but one tongue in his head (that under
stands but one language I mean, which his mother taught
him) make of this sword when presented to him as it is
sheathed in Hebrew and Greek ? Truly he might even fall a-
weeping with John at the sight of the sealed book, because
he could not read it. O bless God, who hath sent men
furnished, by the blessing of God on their labours and studies,
with abilities to roll away the stone from the mouth of this
fountain ! And were it not sad to see the water of life
brought to you with the expense of their spirits and strength,
wasted in the work, to be spilled on the ground, and basely
undervalued by you so as hardly to be in the catalogue of
the mercies you praise God for ? O, God forbid. It cannot
be, if ever you had the sweetness of any one promise in it
milked out unto you, or the power of one of its divine truths
impressed on your hearts. Melchior Adam tells us that
Bugenhagius, whose assistance Luther had, with others, in
translating the Bible, when the work was brought to a happy
conclusion, was so affected with the incomparable mercy
therein to the Churches of Christ in Germany, that every
year he invited his friends to a solemn feast that day whereon
the work was finished, which they called The Feast of the
Translation of the Bible."
The Task of the Bible Society.
In accomplishing such results the Bible Society is the
chief modern agent and instrument. The list of versions
in which it has already helped to translate, print, or dis
tribute the Scriptures includes as many as four hundred
different forms of human speech. A hundred and two
of these languages now possess the complete Bible. And
lO

Pholn hyl

A COUNTRY ROAD IN THE PHILIPPINES.

IS./iuu-s ,,n,l ISin,i;liu,ii.

THERE IS A RIVER
to-day the Society is more deeply engaged than ever in
its sacred enterprise. Translations and revisions of
Holy Writ are being carried on at the present time
in scores of languages, by the aid of scholars and
linguists in all quarters of the world, organized for the
most part under the Society's auspices and largely at its
expense. The magnitude and the cost of such undfertak-
ings will appear from a few examples out of many which
might be cited, did our space permit. Yet surely time
and toil and money can be lavished on no worthier
object than this — that God's Word shall speak with full
clearness and sweetness and simplicity to each kindred
and tribe among men.
Eager for the Bible.
The publication last year of the Old Testament in
Tagalog, which is spoken by about two million people in
the Philippines, marks the completion of the first entire
Bible issued in any vernacular of this archipelago. The
volume received an extraordinary welcome at Manila.
A deaconess at the training school writes : " My pupils
danced for joy as they hugged the books." The Philip
pine Christian Advocate, the organ of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, thus describes the arrival of the
edition : —
" The volume is attractive in shape and binding, and sells
at the astonishingly low price of thirty-five cents. . . . The
first shipment of a thousand copies is all sold. Two or three
times that number could have been sold in Manila alone
within a week of their arrival, and the provinces would still
remain untouched. At our Book-room the demand has been
far beyond the supply. Some wanted five, some ten, and
several wanted a hundred copies, and were insistent in their
II

THERE IS A RIVER
requests. In order to distribute the books as widely as
possible we refused to sell more than five copies to any
one person. It will take many thousands of copies before
this thirst for the Word of God may be even partially
quenched. To those who have always had an open Bible
and have seen the Bible treated with indifference by so
many, the sight of these people, feverishly eager to secure
these first copies of the Old Testament in their mother-
tongue, is truly pathetic."
The Hindi Old Testament.
The new translation of the Hindi Old Testament, the
printing of which was completed in November, 1905,
was initiated by the Society as long ago as 1893 by means
of a commission, consisting of three expert linguists
representing different Missions in North India. The first
draft was completed at the close of 1898. The next
year was given to a careful revision, and the new version
was put to press early in 1900. Finally the whole
underwent a further careful revision from 1902 to 1905, in
order that nothing should be left undone which reverent
and consecrated scholarship could accomplish. The
immense importance of this work becomes apparent
when we remember that Hindi, in one or other of
its many forms, is the mother-tongue of more than
87,000,000 of the people of India.
The Mandarin New Testament.
To meet the needs created by divergences of speech
in China, the Bible, or some part of it, has been already
issued in over twenty different versions. Of these by
far the most important is the Mandarin version, which
appeals to as many as 200,000,000 people. A committee
12

THERE IS A RIVER
of scholars, appointed by the Conference of Protestant
Missions in China, has been engaged for years in the
task of producing a Union version in Mandarin, and
expects to complete the New Testament during the
summer of 1906. The main expense of this undertaking
is defrayed jointly by the B.F.B.S., the N.B.S.S., and the
A.B.S. The Accra Bible.
To give some idea of the cost which a revision of the
text entails, we may mention that the Accra Bible — which
is used by the Basel and the Wesleyan Missions on the
Gold Coast — has been revised during the last three
years. Although the Basel Mission defrayed certain
charges, this work has cost the Bible Society ;^i,i76,
quite apart from expenses of printing and publication.
Revised New Testaments are now ready in Urdu, and
in the Zanzibar form of Swahili. Other revisions, as
important as they are difficult, are in progress. They
include such various tongues as Icelandic, for Lutheran
subjects of Denmark ; Sloven and Portuguese, for Roman
Catholics in Austria and in Brazil ; Bulgarian, for Slavs ;
Bengali and Kanarese, for Hindus ; Burmese and Chinese,
for Buddhists and Confucianists ; Chuana and Kafir for
natives of South Africa.
In Greek, Syriac and Hebrew.
Nor have the ancient versions and the original texts of
Scripture been forgotten. The Greek Testament, edited
by Dr. Nestle for the Society in 1904, has passed into a
third edition, and wins wide acceptance : we hear, for
example, that copies were purchased last year at our
depot in Smyrna by the Principal of the Theological
13

THERE IS A RIVER
School which the Orthodox Greek Church maintains on
the island of Patmos. The Four Gospels in the ancient
Peshitta Syriac, as edited for the Delegates of the
Clarendon Press by the late Mr. Pusey and Mr. GwilHam,
are now issued by the Society in cheap, convenient form.
And last, but not least, the learned and venerable Dr.
Ginsburg has placed at the Society's service the results
of his further collation of the Massorah during the last
twelve years — in order that it may publish, under his
editorship, a Hebrew Old Testament, which will exhibit
the latest known alternative readings of importance.
Eleven New Languages.
During the year ending March 31, 1906, eleven new
languages were added to the Bible Society's list. Four
of them belong to Asia, three to Africa, three to Oceania,
and one to America. The names of these strange tongues
are Singpho, Kuliviu, Mech (or Kachari), Zigula, Ladakhl,
Laotian, Saa, Bemba, Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, East
Santo, and Bribri. How many of our readers can say
off-hand where more than one of these are spokeri ? A
brief account of the peoples for whom th«se new versions
are intended will illustrate the nature of the Bible
Society's linguistic function, and the vital service which
it renders to Missions in every corner of the earth.
Singpho. Singpho is the northern dialect of the language which
is often known as Kachin (or Kakhyen). The people
speaking it, whose number has not been ascertained,
reside in the hills to the far east of Assam, on the
upper waters of the Irawadi, near and on the further
side of the Chinese frontier. In 1896 the late Robert
14

THERE IS A RIVER
Arthington sent out two missionaries to take up work
among these people. One missionary, Mr. T. M. John
son, began to translate the Gospels into their language ;
and since his departure from Assam, his version of St.
Luke, St. John, and the Acts has been carefully revised
by a native Christian. These three books are now in
course of publication by the Bible Society, and the
Arthington Trustees have agreed to defray the cost.
Mech. Mech (or Kachari) is a dialect understood by about
a quarter of a million people, living on the plains of
North Assam, at the foot of the hills. St. Mark has been
translated into this tongue by the Rev. W. Bechtold, of
the Church of Scotland Mission, who began his study
of the language thirty-six years ago and is the only man
at present able to make such a version. The greater
number of the Mechis live in the Goalpara district, where
American and English Baptists are proposing also to
commence operations. With Assami-speaking people on
the one side and Bengali-speaking people on the other,
the Mechis are familiar with Bengali characters, so the
Gospel will be produced in these, instead of in Roman
characters to which the people are strangers. It is pro
posed to print an edition of i,ooo copies, to be sold
at one pice (^d.) per copy. According to Sir Richard
Temple '^ the Kacharis, who only understand barter, have
such rudimentary ideas of relative value that the British
courts in Assam have drawn up a scale of fines and
incomes in terms of the domesticated animals kept by
these people : e.g., a man's income is assessed not at
Rs.iQ but at a big buffalo, and a fine is fixed at a cock
and two small hens.
' Lecture on the Evolution of Currency and Coinage.
IS

THERE IS A RIVER
Zigula. The Zigula people, for whom our Society has under
taken to print St. Matthew's Gospel, live in German East
Africa, and cover a large area of the hinterland opposite
and north of the island of Zanzibar. Missionary work
was first begun among them in 1891 by Bishop Smythies,
of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, who built
a station at Korogwe, about thirty miles from Magila
in the Bondei country. When the Bishop first visited
the region and saw so populous a district without a
single Christian missionary, he determined to open work
there as soon as possible. A plot of ground was given
by the chiefs, and then a few mud houses with a school
and church were quickly built. Great progress has been
made, and now a district some seventy miles east by
west, and forty miles south by north, is under the
influence of the missionaries, who have already twenty-
three mission schools and about nine hundred scholars.
It is difficult to estimate the total population, but large
villages of from one to two thousand people are common.
St. Matthew's Gospel has been translated into Zigula by
the Rev. W. H. Kisbey, of the U.M.C.A.,who has worked
among this tribe for the last ten years.
Laotian. St. Matthew and St. John have been translated into
Laotian by M. Gabriel Contesse, a Swiss missionary at
Song-Khone, Annam. From that centre he works
among the tribes who occupy south-central Siam and
spread eastward into the interior of French Indo-China.
At Song-Khone probably half the people can read. The
Laotian alphabet possesses twenty-six consonants and
fourteen vowels. The characters in which this alphabet
16

THERE IS A RIVER
is written are peculiar to the South Laotian people, who
use them for ordinary literature and correspondence.
Special matrices, therefore, had to be made, from designs
supplied by native scribes, and from these the needed
Laotian type has been cast. It is thus possible to print
the two Gospels which are ready, and M. Contesse will
read the proofs during his furlough in Europe. This
Laos character is somewhat akin to the Shan character,
though in the latter language there is no fixed standard
of calligraphy ; authors who write in Shan usually preface
their books with a specimen of the alphabet they propose
to employ.
Kuliviu. Among the many languages current in the New
Hebrides Kuliviu is spoken in one of the Maskelyne
Islets, which lie at the south-east corner of Malekula,
about sixteen miles from Aulua. The Rev. J. Watt
Leggatt, of the Presbyterian Mission, who has prepared
the translation of St. Mark's Gospel, writes : —
" This has been in hand for two years, done on my visits
to Kuliviu, assisted by the lads who were at Aulua for instruc
tion last year. It was revised finally by the teachers and by
a lad named Assumb-leh-leh, who has lived for three years at
Aulua, and knows that language as well as his mother-tongue.
As to payment, these people are but a small flock, and the
absence of fresh water on their island renders it difficult for
them to make arrowroot (their chief article of commerce).
But although payment may be spread over a number of
years, the Society will not suffer loss. I mention this more
to save our self-respect than to influence the Bible Society,
which has never failed to help us."
Other New Languages.
Ladakhl is spoken on the borders of Western Tibet by
17 c

THERE IS A RIVER
natives of Leh and the surrounding snowy region, who
live at an altitude of 11,200 feet above the sea. St. Mark's
Gospel has been translated into this tongue by the Rev.
A. H. Francke, one of the Moravian missionaries at Leh.
Bemba is the speech of the Awemba, a tribe to the north
east of Lake Bangweolo, which is associated with the
name of Livingstone. A version of St. Mark has been
prepared by L.M.S. missionaries in British Central
Africa. St. Luke's Gospel is being prepared in Colloquial
Arabic for the unlettered Egyptians who do not under
stand the classical form of that language. On the island
of Mwala, in the British Solomon Group, Saa is the
name of one of four mutually unintelligible dialects
used among the thirty thousand inhabitants. The four
Gospels and Acts in Saa, translated by the Rev. W. G.
Ivens, have been printed for the Melanesian Mission.
East Santo, another tongue current in the polyglot
New .Hebrides, is the English name for the dialect of the
Sakau district of the island of Espiritu Santo, in which
St. Mark's Gospel has now been printed for the Presby
terian Mission. Bribri is the name of an Indian tribe of
Central America, near the Isthmus of Panama. In their
language beri means " brave," and Bri-bri is a contraction
of Beri-beri, signifying " very brave." For this tribe the
Society has translated and printed St. John's Gospel.
E pluribus Unum.
In barbarous regions we often find the population spht
up into hostile fragments as a result of long-standing
tribal feuds. Each township lives aloof from its neigh
bours, and holds hardly any intercourse with outside folk.
Hence in each district a separate and distinct dialect
grows up, and men find it difficult to understand each
18

THERE IS A RIVER
other though they live only twenty or thirty miles apart.
To take an extreme instance : in Malekula, a small island
of the New Hebrides, so many different dialects are
spoken that no fewer than five different versions of the
Gospel have been found necessary. One practical func
tion of the Bible Society is to unify as far as possible
these local varieties of speech, which have little philo
logical value and only perpetuate old quarrels and
divisions. In the early stages of missionary enterprise tentative
versions in similar neighbouring dialects cannot be
avoided. Thus, in Nigeria, translations are already pub
lished in three different varieties of Ibo. The complete
Bible is now issued in Niger or Upper Ibo, for the
C.M.S. Mission at Onitsha. Parts of the New Testa
ment have been printed in Isuama or Lower Ibo, for
use in the Delta Pastorate. A Gospel in a third Ibo
dialect spoken at Ungwana, on the Cross River, has
also been published by the U.F. Church of Scotland
Mission. The Bible Society has just undertaken to
prepare, if possible, and publish one unified Bible for
the whole of the I bo-speaking people in Southern
Nigeria, and has arranged — at a cost of ;£75o — that
Archdeacon Dennis, of the C.M.S. Niger Mission,
shall supervise this difficult task, for which no other
linguist possesses such pre-eminent qualifications.
Prayer and Pains.
The complete Bible in a heathen tongue ! Do we
realize what a world of consecrated toil this represents ?
Behind the finished Book lie its earlier sections, the New
Testament or the Psalter or one or two Gospels ; behind
these, again, lie the first attempts at the Lord's Prayer
19

THERE IS A RIVER
and a few scattered texts, and behind all lie the reduction
of the language to writing and the preparation of grammar
and dictionary. The Bible learns to utter God's thoughts
in a new tongue as a child learns to talk. First in broken
words which gradually gain shape and distinctness ; then
in sentences which, though disjointed at first, grow more
and more closely connected, till ultimately the child's
words become a moderately complete vehicle of his
thoughts. Such was the life-history of the first complete
Bible in a heathen tongue, prepared by the earliest
Protestant missionary, John Eliot, one of the Pilgrim
Fathers. He began to study the Massachusetts language
about 1643, with the help of an Indian living with Mr.
Richard Calicott, of Dorchester, who was taken in the
Pequott wars. Soon the infant Massachusetts Bible
began to learn its new lesson, and growing day by day,
stood forth before the world in 1663 in all the dignity of
complete manhood. At the end of his Indian grammar
Eliot lifts the veil from the history of this Bible and tells
us a little of what it cost.
" I have now finished what I shall do at present ; And in a
word or two to satisfie the prudent Enquirer how I found
out these new wayes of Grammar, which no other Learned
Language (so far as I know) useth ; I thus inform him : God
first put into my heart a compassion over their poor Souls,
and a desire to teach them to know Christ, and to bring
them into his Kingdome. Then presently I found out (by
Gods wise providence) a pregnant witted young man, who
had been a Servant in an English house, who pretty well
understood our Language, better than he could speak it, and
well understood his own Language, and hath a clear pro
nunciation : Him I made my Interpreter. By his help I
translated the Commandments, the Lords Pi-ayer, and many
Texts of Scripture : also I compiled both Exhortations and
20

THERE IS A RIVER
Prayers by his help. I diligently marked the difference of
their Grammar from ours : When I found the way of them,
I would pursue a Word, a Noun, a Verb, through all varia
tions I could think of. And thus I came at it. We must not
sit still, and look for Miracles : Up, and be doing, and the
Lord will be with thee. Prayer and Pains, through Faith in
Jesus Christ, will do any thing."
John Eliot's experience has been reproduced in the
lives of many subsequent translators, whose prayers and
pains, coupled with their faith, have removed moun
tains of difficulty and opened out a way for the voice of
God to hearts hitherto unconscious of its loving tones.
This noble self-sacrifice and heroic drudgery of the
translators, coupled with the magnificent devotion of
those who have carried the Book in their hands and
the generosity of those who have provided the funds,
make the work of the Bible Society incomparably sacred.
Such gifts are indeed sanctified by the altar.
In Search of a Word.
What this task of translation sometimes involves may
be best illustrated by a practical example. An American
missionary in East Africa, the Rev. W. R. Hotchkiss, has
just published a volume. Sketches from the Dark Continent.
For years he was engaged in reducing to written form the
language of the tribe among whom he laboured, and he
thus describes one of his difficulties and triumphs : —
" For two years and a half I was baffled in my effort to
obtain one all-important word. But it was the word that has
belted the world with praise ; the word that brings order out
of the chaos of man's vain search after God ; the sweetest
word ever spoken by human tongue ; the word which is yet
destined to make dark Africa light in the Lord. That word
21

THERE IS A RIVER
was ' Saviour.' In mountain-like proportions it loomed up
before me in my thoughts by day and in my dreams by night.
" Brother Kreiger — labouring in another tribe — had been
badly torn by a lion some weeks before this, and Kikuvi, being
v/ith him at the time, was the means of his rescue. I felt that
the word inust come now, and two years and a half of
disappointment were put into the eager attention with which
I followed his story of the encounter. But he went through the
whole scene most eloquently, and concluded, even to his having
frightened the lion away, without using a word which I could
construe to be the one sought after. Finally, however, just
as I was about to give up again in despair, in a modest sort of
way he remarked, Bwana nukuthaniiua na Kikuvi (The master
was saved by Kikuvi). I could have leaped for very exuber
ance of joy ; but, being afraid of losing my precious possession,
I immediately changed the verb from the passive to the active
form, and said, Ukuthania Bwana f (You saved the master ? )
This proving correct, I said, ' Why, Kikuvi, this is the word
I've been trying to get you to tell me these many days,
because I wanted to tell you that Jesus, the Son of God,
came  ' ' Oh yes,' he interrupted, and the black face lit up
as in the lurid hght of the camp fire he turned to me, ' I see it
now, I understand ! Jesus came to kulhania (save) us from
our sins, and to deliver us from the hand of Muiinu (Satan).'
" Never did sweeter words fall from mortal lips. The
treasure had been discovered at last, and weary prospector,
lighting suddenly upon rich gold reef, never felt keener
emotions than did the lonely missionary when, for the first
time, he was able to frame that matchless word ' Saviour '
in a new tongue."
The Lotos-flowers are not the Nile.
This line of thought leads us to a further and final
position of the utmost importance. Even crude and
imperfect versions of Scripture prove vehicles of spiritual
grace and truth. God's eternal message can come home

THERE IS A RIVER
to men's hearts in spite of defects in its literary medium.
We may appeal here to the witness of the eloquent and
venerable Primate of Ireland ^ : —
" One thing is certain. It is not by their style that the Four
Gospels do their work ; not even St. Luke's Gospel, with its
undeniable superiority in this respect. It has been repeatedly
said of late that the Gospels (in common with other parts of
Scripture) enjoy what may be called an unfair advantage
in the simple majesty and noble rhythm of our English
Authorised Version. Bat it cannot be supposed that all other
languages have been in a spontaneous conspiracy to elevate
the sacred books beyond their proper level in the opinion of
civilized humanity. Yet, as far as one can judge, no fainter
impression of the work and character of Jesus Christ is made
upon the people of other lands by their inferior versions.
The majesty and beauty of the Man is not a sum-total pro
portioned to the sum-total of the majesty and beauty of the
style in which His earthly life is described. The spiritual
nobility of the first is absolutely incommensurable with the
intellectual nobility of the second. It is the image of Jesus
which tinges, which radiates through, the wrappings of style,
as the sunset through a swathe of clouds. Infinite love and
wisdom struggle through words which not seldom are poor
and broken enough. It is not human genius masquerading,
playing at Divinity in divinely beautiful language. It is
Divinity condescending to veil itself partially in ordinary
speech for its own high ends. Our belief in tlie truth of the
narratives is more entire when they are told with such sacred
negligence of rhetorical and literary embellishment. In the
Gospels Christ comes to us, and we may go to Him, almost
as in His sacrament. In the great words of the old mart^'r
Tertullian, whose broken Greek has sometimes such singular
power — ' We fly for refuge to the Gospel, as to the flesh of
Jesus.' "
¦ Leading Ideas of the Gospels, by ike Archbishop of Armagh, pp. lS~
j-p. Edition i8g2, 23

THERE IS A RIVER

TO WATER THE EARTH
When we claim the Bible as the Charter of Christian
Missions, we do not base that claim merely on certain
familiar commandments and promises — immortal though
they be. We imply rather, as the Bishop of Birmingham
has expressed it, that there is nothing more integral to
the New Testament than the doctrine that every race of
mankind must be brought within the scope of the Gospel.
Christianity has its being as a propaganda ; it corrupts
whenever it stagnates into a tradition. The living water
must flow onward in perpetual streams, to vivify and
fertilize the waste places of the world. Only in so far as
Christianity has become Catholic, in this wide sense,
have its great results and meanings emerged, and its
latent energies and possibilities disclosed themselves.
Only the Missionary Church, going out into the wilder
ness to bring home lost sheep, can properly realize or
represent the Eternal Shepherd.
British — ¦
In the spring of this present year a Blue Book
appeared for the first time containing a " Census of the
British Empire." No modern document can be more
significant and impressive to British readers. The facts
and figures which it sets forth bewilder the imagination.
24

THERE IS A RIVER
The name " British " now covers nearly a hundred times
the area of the United Kingdom, and our fellow-subjects
include a quarter of the whole human race. King
Edward VII rules over four hundred millions of man
kind, only a small minority of whom are white. Of
these enormous multitudes more than one-half profess
the Hindu faith, almost one-fourth are Moslems, and
hardly one man in seven can be classed as even nomi
nally Christian.
Such overwhelming numbers bring home to us a
solemn sense of God's calling and election, which have
thus entrusted to Britain the headship and guidance- of
so huge a fraction of the world. Surely it must humble
us profoundly to feel this burden laid upon our people.
Surely we who are Christians are doubly bound to send
the Gospel to our own fellow-citizens.
And Foreign.
Yet again, if " British " means much, " Foreign "
means far more. The Bible Society's title proclaims
that its enterprise can recognize no frontier. Its mission
is oecumenical and universal — like the Book which it
exists to carry into all countries and kingdoms. And
that mission will be fulfilled when in every land God's
redeeming Love speaks to every man in his own tongue
in which he was born.
The Bible Society exists as the great indispensable
partner of all Foreign Missions. It provides them
with nearly all the versions and editions which they use
in their varied work ; and it does this on such terms that
the books practically entail no expense to the Boards
and Committees of the Missions which obtain them.
With each new baptism of missionary zeal, each forward
25

THERE IS A RIVER
movement in missionary progress, the Bible Society is
bound to expand and advance. Every fresh tribe
evangelized, every fresh convert won, implies a new
demand on the resources of the Bible House — where,
be it said, no properly authenticated request to print a
version of the Scriptures has ever yet been refused. On
the other hand we heartily acknowledge that the
missionaries of every Reformed communion, in happy
reciprocity, furnish the Society with many of its most
accomplished translators, its most effective distributors,
and its most convinced and convincing advocates.
The Witness of Esperience.
Those who have longest and widest experience of the
problem declare most emphatically that for a Christian
Mission to succeed it must possess and popularize the
vernacular Scriptures. To the vital service which the
Bible Society renders in this respect, the chorus of
testimony deepens every year. We need cite only a
few out of many recent witnesses. After forty-three years'
labour for the S.P.G. in Burma Dr. Marks could say at
our last Exeter Hall Anniversary :
" The Bible Society gives me Bibles in Burmese, in
English, in Chinese, in Japanese, in Hindostani, in Tamil,
and in Karen. If we are the soldiers of the Cross, if we are
to go out into all lands, in accordance with our Master's
command, surely this Bible Society is the arsenal at home
from which we are to draw our ammunition, if I may use
the word, from which we are to draw our resources, and
those who are in command of this arsenal have been most
liberal to us."
Mr. Montagu Beauchamp was one of the " Cambridge
Seven" who volunteered together for foreign service
26

THERE IS A RIVER
in 1885, and proved the instruments of a memorable
revival of missionary zeal. After twenty years' service
in connection with the C.I.M. he writes : "It is a great
joy to the China Inland Mission to be so closely allied
with the work of the Bible Society ; indeed, one Society
could hardly exist without the other."
In April, 1906, the missionaries of the South Africa
General Mission, labouring in Swaziland, Natal, Zulu-
land, Pondoland, Bomvanaland, Terabuland, and British
Central Africa, met in conference, and at the suggestion
of their chairman, the venerable and beloved Dr. Andrew
Murray, unanimously expressed "their high appreciation
of the consistently generous help received from the Bible
Society, more especially in reference to the liberal inter
pretation of its own principle of sale, in preference to a
system of gratuitous distribution."
In July, 1906, a conference, representing seven different
Missions at work in Rhodesia, was loud in its confession
of indebtedness for the generous assistance the Bible
Society had always given, and unanimously recommended
that an annual collection for the Society's funds should
be made at all the central mission stations in Rhodesia.
At a recent meeting the Synod of the Presbyterian
Church of England agreed to record their thanks to the
Bible Society for its generous help rendered to the
Synod's Mission work in China and Formosa, by putting
under the superintendence of their missionaries colpor
teurs whose salaries and expenses are met by the Bible
Society. Speaking at Port-au-Prince in May, 1906, the Bishop of
Trinidad repeated the testimony that apart from the
Bible Society the missionary work of the Anglican
Church would be impossible. 27

THERE IS A RIVER
For the U.M.C.A.
Writing in Central Africa, the monthly magazine of the
Universities' Mission, the Bishop of Zanzibar describes a
recent journey he took in the mainland portion of his
diocese, and speaks of visiting for the first time a new
station in the Usambara Hills called Kigongoi.
" Here I spent a quiet ten days in a beautiful climate and
in a beautiful country. On the Sunday I saw all the classes
of hearers and catechumens. It is a district where several
different tribes meet, and in one room a class of some twenty-
five was being taught in the Shainbala language ; in the next
room a class nearly as large was being taught in the Taieta
language ; in a third another class of Digo people were having
instruction in Swahili, and some Bondei catechumens were
being taught in their own tongue. The services in church
are in Swahili."
Such a polyglot station vividly illustrates the indis
pensable aid rendered to the missionary by the Bible
Society. The Bible Society has published St. Luke's
Gospel in Shambala, three Gospels in Bondei, and the
complete Bible, translated by Bishop Steere and his
helpers, in Swahili.
For the C.M.S.
The C.M.S. has drawn from the Bible House versions
of Scripture in no fewer than 104 different languages.
Writing of the C.M.S. Mission at Onitsha, Northern
Nigeria — for which the Bible Society last year published
a complete Ibo Bible — Archdeacon Dennis describes the
rule that all candidates shall learn to read the Scriptures
in their own tongue before being accepted for baptism,
unless they are excused on account of age or infirmity.

THERE IS A RIVER
" We have been selling the Ibo New Testaments at is. 6d.
apiece, which is the cost price. This represents two days'
wages for a labourer, or one week's food allowance for boys.
Yet the price is always most cheerfully paid, the buyer being
generally as profuse in his thanks as if he had received the
book as a present. Many who had not the money have
gladly gone a distance of thirty or more miles to fetch a load
of 60 lbs. weight, so as to earn a New Testament. Others
have gathered large quantities of firewood to give in ex
change for a book. Though the Testament is somewhat
bulky, it is never omitted from the baggage when a journey
has to be taken — although in that country every load has to
be carried on the head, and the road is often rough and long,
and the sun hot. And whenever there is a halt for rest or a
few minutes to spare, out comes the New Testament for
perusal." Pioneering for Pioneers.
From a strategical standpoint the most interesting
missionary advance last year was the C.M.S. pioneer
expedition sent out in October, by invitation of Lord
Cromer, into the Egyptian Sudan. The Mission has now
established itself on the Nile — more than 1,000 miles
south of Khartum, and about mid-way between that
city and the capital of Uganda — in the midst of the
Dinka country. It is not often remembered that as
early as 1848 Jesuit missionaries had penetrated to Khar
tum, and a year later had planted a station at Gondokoro.
Through intercourse with these Jesuits, an Austrian
scholar became so keenly interested in the Dinka
language that with their assistance he made a Dinka
version of St. Luke's Gospel, which was printed forty
years ago as a philological essay. The Jesuit Mission
became extinct. Bui: this Dinka Gospel was quite
recently revised by the Bible Society's late Agent at
29

THERE IS A RIVER
Alexandria, aided by the solitary native Dinka in
England, and was published by the Society in time to
present copies to the C.M.S. Gordon Memorial Mission
to the Sudan before it set out.
We learn with peculiar pleasure that the members
of the expedition derive important assistance from this
Dinka version of St. Luke. To quote from their letters
written last May : —
" We have found the Dinka Gospel published by the
Bible Society of considerable assistance to us in learning
the language. It has naturally been our ground-work, and
as such has been invaluable. . . . God has been opening His
way before us, and we have been really heartily welcomed
by the Dinkas. Already I think the natives begin to under
stand why we have come, and we are just beginning with
very stammering lips to tell them the Old, Old Story. . . .
We have found the version of very considerable help in our
work, as, barring dialectical variations, I should think ninety
per cent, of the words are understood here. . . God has
greatly blessed us in our efforts to come into sympathetic touch
with the people, and, thanks to the Bible Society's version,
we are getting our mouths open in Dinka, and telling the
Gospel story."
In Madagascar,
In this great island, which is larger than France,
Bible distribution is carried on by Committees, repre
senting all the Protestant Missions — the L.M.S., the
S.P.G., the Friends', the Norwegian, and the American
Lutheran — which are at work there. During 1905 the
Bible Society granted 17,400 copies of Malagasi Scrip
tures, whose cost amounted to ^359. The books are
sent out free, and carriage paid, to the Committees,
who sell the copies at prices which they themselves
30

THERE IS A RIVER
fix, and remit to the Bible Society any proceeds from
copies sold, after defraying expenses of circulation. For
example, a Malagasi Bible of fair size and clear print
can be purchased in the island for is., but its total
cost to the Society is more than 2s. The Malagasi New
Testament is sold at 4d., though it cannot cost the
Society less than 8d. At best, only a fraction of what
the Society expends on the preparation and delivery of
these missionary versions can ever come back to it as
the result of such sales.
Among the Votyaks.
In the valley of the great river Volga, not far from the
city of Kazan, dwells a semi-pagan tribe now being
evangelized by the Russian Church. One of the Bible
Society's colporteurs spent about a month last year
travelling among these Votyaks, carrying to them the
first edition of the Four Gospels in their own tongue
published for them by the Bible Society. No gift could
have been more timely and opportune. These folk, who
can hardly understand the Russian language, are being
brought out of heathenism, and it is necessary that they
should drink from the pure spring of the Gospel. The
colporteur spent a Sunday in one of their villages, where
he attended church. The liturgy was said in Slavonic
and Votyak, and then the Russian missionary priest
delivered a long Votyak sermon, often opening the
Gospels and quoting from them. The colporteur was
able to sell some 200 Votyak books on this journey ; and
the circulation of the Four Gospels in Votyak during last
year was 500 copies.
The Missionary Opportunity.
Since modern missions began, there has been no
31

THERE IS A RIVER
moment more manifestly marked out by the hand of
Providence for missionary extension than the present.
For the first time, and in a fresh and new way, the ideas
and civilization of Western Christendom are penetrating
and permeating great countries and races which are not
yet Christian. Great seams and rifts of disintegration
appear, running through heathen systems and societies.
Moreover, during this past year gigantic events have
taken place in the Far East, which both in themselves
and in their results must make the year supremely
memorable. For the first time in modern history
an Asiatic nation after a tremendous conflict has
beaten down a European nation. It is too soon to
forecast the ultimate effect of the Japanese triumph.
One immediate consequence is to bring Japan into closer
intercourse with Europe and especially with England.
Japan and Christianity.
Never before, perhaps, since the days when the early
Church came into contact with the civilizations of Greece
and Rome, has Christianity been set the task of winnin"
a gifted and cultivated heathen nation, already possessin^^
world-wide influence. Never before, perhaps, has any
nation shown such a natural aptitude for not a few
Christian virtues. Japan to-day probably stands nearer
to agnosticism than to any definite religious faith. Yet it
was surely significant that in the hour of victory the
Japanese treated their prisoners of war in accordance
with Christian ideas, and deliberately chose Christian
nurses for the wounded. We rejoice that among these
remarkable people, nearly all of whom can read, the
Scriptures are being bought and read far beyond all
former precedent. The two British Bible Societies sold
32

THERE IS A RIVER
last year in Japan 204,000 books — double the sales in
1904 — notwithstanding that they had given away 300,000
books to Japanese soldiers and sailors during the war.
The Outlook in India.
One picturesque event of the year 1905-6, has been the
royal progress through the Indian Empire made by the
Prince and Princess of Wales, who were welcomed at
every point of their journey with enthusiastic loyalty.
After their return to England, the Prince himself, in the
eloquent and graphic speech which he delivered in the
Guildhall, emphasized one fundamental aspect of India
which does not readily suggest itself to stay-at-home
Englishmen — its immense and bewildering variety.
India cannot be regarded as one country. It is a
continent as large as Europe without Russia, and this
great continent harbours countlessly varied types of race,
language, religion, and custom. How are we to
penetrate to the heart of it ? The Prince, doubtless with
the utmost truth, urged a wide use of sympathy. This
quality, as the Times remarked, has never been lacking
among the great Englishmen who have left the deepest
impression upon India, and in the future it can hardly
be less potent than in the past. And there is one
simple, practical form of sympathy with India which
the Bible Society continually exemplifies and exhibits.
We may link the East and the West together in spiritual
wedlock, by means of that sacred Book, written by
Orientals, which has inspired the highest faith and
moulded the noblest characters among Western man
kind. The total number of volumes distributed by the Bible
Society in India (excluding Burma) has again, for the
33 D

THERE IS A RIVER
fifth year in succession, exceeded all former precedent,
reaching 666,000 copies. Almost every Mission in
India depends on this source for its supplies. The
variety of versions and editions needed may be inferred
from the current catalogue of Scriptures in Indian ver
naculars issued by our Calcutta depot, which contains 289
different headings, all diverse in language, or type, or
binding. Half a million children are now attending
Sunday Schools in India, where they are taught the
Scriptures in sixty different languages, from versions all
of which are provided by the Bible Society. Never
were the spiritual opportunities so wide, the respon
sibilities so overwhelming. In the words of the late
Sir William Hunter, a most competent observer, "The
uprising of the Indian intellect, the awakening of Indian
thought and aspirations, are such as the world has not
seen since the Revival of Learning in Europe."
A National Missionary Society.
On Christmas Day, 1905, there was held in the historic
library of William Carey, at Serampore, a meeting which
may mark the beginning of a new era in the evangelization
of India. At the invitation of three honoured Indian
Christians, delegates from all parts of the peninsula came
together to form a " National Missionary Society of
India." A hundred millions of people in India live
practically outside the range of all existing missionary
organizations, while of the total population hardly one
per cent, can be classed as even nominally Christian.
Obviously there is not only ample scope, but urgent
need for direct evangelistic effort on the part of
Indian Christians to reach their own fellow-countrymen.
This new movement will be conducted by Indian men,
34

THERE IS A RIVER
supported by Indian money, and controlled by Indian
management, with an advisory board of experienced
foreign missionaries. There is no thought of forming
a fresh denomination. Christians of the same com
munion will, as far as possible, be sent to work
together, in districts contiguous to those already occu
pied by the Church to which they belong. Diffi
culties are involved in carrying out this ideal ; but every
effort will be made to preserve the true spirit of Chris
tian comity. The growth of the movement will be
watched with eager interest and hope by all friends of
Missions and of India.
The Renaissance in China.
The year 1905 will stand out in Chinese records as
the year of the Great Reforms. One result of the
Japanese victories has appeared in the advent of new
energy in the Government, and of new hope among the
people of China. Like the coming of spring in their own
northern provinces, the transformation has been rapid
and complete. Obstructive and unprogressive officials
have been quietly set aside ; new ideas have been
welcomed, and far-reaching reforms have been officially
promoted. More amazing still, this policy of progress
appears to be received with general enthusiasm.
Perhaps the most momentous reform thus inaugu
rated concerns education. For centuries past Official
Examinations based on the Confucian Classics have been
the only gateway to official position or social influence.
The abolition of these Official Literary Examinations has
liberated the Chinese nation from an intellectual bondage
that made progress impossible ; whilst the new educational
policy of the Government is covering the provinces with
35

THERE IS A RIVER
colleges and schools, and carrying enlightenment into
the remotest parts of the Empire. Temples are being
turned into seminaries for the new learning and the
temple revenues devoted to their maintenance. This
one reform contains the promise of a radical change of
thought and a steady national development. Other
reforms — legislative, administrative, and social — follow
naturally, as a matter of course.
The Missionary Prospect.
The outlook from the missionary point of view is full
of hope. If the new knowledge brings with it a spirit of
independence and even a measure of anti-foreign feeling,
it will, in due time, also awaken a new sense of responsi
bility in the ruling classes and release the common people
from many of their degrading superstitions and ignorant
fears. The problem which now confronts the missionary
in China is how to make the best of his immense
opportunities. An intellectual and national awakening
has come. How can a spiritual awakening be brought
about ? The new knowledge needs the leaven of the
Gospel, and the spirit of reform requires to be directed
to the highest ends. How can this be accomplished ?
The Demand for the Bible.
For the Bible Societies, the problem is mainly one of
means and methods. The Book, to whose translation
and circulation their work is consecrated, is pre-eminently
the Book for the times. The Word of God, with its
revelation of the Way, the Truth, and the Life, is the
Word above all others that China's awakening millions
need. We rejoice that this first year of the Renaissance
36

THERE IS A RIVER
has called the British and Foreign Bible Society to print
and issue over one million three hundred thousand volumes
of the Scriptures in China, while more than a million
volumes were actually sold. As the new learning wins
its way and the people see more clearly the insufficiency
of their own ethical and religious literature, we may con
fidently expect an increased desire to read the Bible, and
a more intelligent interest in its Divine message.
The catalogue of Chinese Scriptures issued by our depot at
Shanghai contains 385 entries. It may be worth while to quote
some of the prices at which popular editions are sold. In
High Wenh, a Bible which has cost the Bible Society 2S. to
produce is sold at 6d. ; a New Testament which cost 4d.
is sold at ijd. ; single Gospels which cost 2d. are sold at Jd.
In Easy Wenli, a New Testament which cost 6d. is sold for
i^d. In Mandarin, a New Testament which cost yd. is sold
for ijd.
Missions in China.
Writing in the Contemporary Review for May, 1906,
Dr. Timothy Richard estimates the total population of
China at 400,000,000 — of whom Confucians, Buddhists,
and Taoists together make up 378,000,000, while there
are also 20,000,000 Muhammadans and 2,000,000 Chris
tians. Dr. Richard adds : " There are now 2,000 Pro
testant and 900 Roman Catholic missionaries in China,
counting women as well as men, but not including the
wives of missionaries."
The Centenary Missionary Conference, which will meet
at Shanghai towards the end of April, 1907, promises to
have exceptional importance, in view of the vast new
problems and the fresh conditions and opportunities
which are opening up before Christianity in China.
37

THERE IS A RIVER
For instance, reports will be presented from the com
mittees engaged for years past in producing " Union "
versions of the Scriptures in the three great forms of Chinese
— High Wenli, Easy Wenli, and Mandarin ; while the
famous " Term " question will also be brought forward with
a view to the adoption, if possible, of one set of Chinese
equivalents for " God " and " Holy Spirit." At this Con
ference the Bible Society will be represented by the Rev.
J. H. Ritson, one of its Secretaries.
Revival and the Scriptures.
Most thankfully do we record that in some provinces
of the mission field — as, for example, in Madagascar, in
Korea, in India, and among the Khasia Hills in Assam —
the kindling of spiritual revival has created a great
new desire for the Scriptures, as was also the case in
Wales. In Korea we were quite unable to supply some
colporteurs with enough books to meet the demand.
From Fianarantsoa, South Madagascar, the Rev. A. S.
Huckett, of the L.M.S., writes :—
" May we not regard the marvellous awakening of spiritual
life and the unprecedented number of new converts we have
had during the past year as due in large measure to the
constant and regular Bible teaching that has been given for
years past in all our schools and churches ? It is interesting
to note that the majority of converts in this revival were
former scholars, who had been instructed in the Word of
God. An encouraging feature has also been the demand
for Bibles. One missionary wrote, when our stock was
exhausted : ' I am simply bewildered : What am I to do ?
Numbers of these new converts are coming to me day after
day for Bibles, and I have not one to sell them — hungering
for the Word of Life, and I am forced with shame to send
them away hungry.' Happily that state of things does not
exist now, as we have received a large fresh consignment "
38

THERE IS A RIVER
At Jerusalem.
This section may fitly close by recording how the
Bible Society opened last September a new depot at
Jerusalem for the supply of Scriptures in Palestine.
The Holy City is still a focus for the Christian interest of
Europe. The Abyssinian and Coptic Churches of Africa
and the Christians of Western Asia look to it as their
religious bourne. Jews reside here in tens of thousands,
aliens in their own land, strangers in their own
metropolis ; while Moslems hold Jerusalem as a shrine
second only in importance to Mecca itself. Here of all
places it cannot be doubted that the Scriptures — Hebrew
and Christian — should be accessible to Jew and Greek of
whatsoever sect or communion.
" The depot stands in an excellent position near the Jaffa
gate, a short distance outside the walls. On its shutters the
Society's name is painted in English, French, and German.
Gospels in the languages most widely known at Jerusalem
are placed in the windows so that they can be read by
passers-by ; and it has frequently inspired us to prayer when
men were heard reading aloud — perhaps for the first time —
the story of the meeting of Christ and Nicodemus.
" In Jerusalem the Moslems are difficult to reach, owing to
the intolerance of Turkish rule. If a Muhammadan were
even to enter the depot, he would do so at the risk of
imprisonment. With the Jews and Christians, who form
the large majority of the population, the case is different.
The depot is daily visited by Jews, and what little colportage
could be done was most successful amongst that race. Most
of the Protestant Missions resort to the depot, and not a few
priests, Roman, Greek, and Armenian, purchased Scriptures
and seemed to appreciate the existence of the shop of the
Holy Book." 39

THERE IS A RIVER
Last year in Jerusalem God's Word was sold in eighteen
different languages and in five diglots, to the number of
i,8ii volumes. The Churches of Christendom, East and
West, drew Scriptures in Greek, Latin, French, Italian,
Russian, Georgikn, and Slavonic, while Syriac, Armenian,
and Ethiopic stand for the demands of smaller ancient
branches of the universal Church. Jewish and German
colonies called for Scriptures in their respective lan
guages. Thousands of pilgrims — Russian, Armenian,
Abyssinian — crowd the Holy City from Christmastide
through Easter and on to Pentecost. For fully seventy
years the Bible Society has endeavoured to have these
pilgrims in remembrance, and while they are surrounded
with tawdry emblems, images, and pictures — the furniture
of vain superstition — to place in their hands the Holy
Scriptures, the living oracles of God. The Anglican
Bishop in Jerusalem wrote last year : " Probably the
most powerful missionary in the Bible Lands is the
Bible Society."

40

Photo by the] [Amei ican Colony. Jerusalem.
•¦TOMORROW IT IS CAST INTO THE OVEN."

THERE IS A RIVER

THE ART OF IRRIGATION
" The Bible must come to m.en, in order that men m.ay come to
the Bible." — Klaus Harms.
Every river in the East becomes the parent of many
artificial streams. By all kinds of contrivances, often by
the crudest waterwheel, or the most primitive lever, the
precious fluid is drawn up out of the river-bed and
lifted over its enclosing banks, and made to flow along
channels and conduits, and thence led away into count
less little rills running to fertilize the fields and moisten
the gardens which otherwise would lie parched and
perishing under a cloudless sky. It is not enough that
there should be a river : there must also be steady,
skilful, watchful irrigation, to spread the water far and
wide over the thirsty ground. Our own lot is cast in a
land which the rain rarely forgets, a land which often
indeed justifies the adjective applied by Carlyle to the
fen country.! And so we scarcely understand how in
vast regions like India and Egypt, the government has
no practical problem more vital and imperious than the
problem of irrigation — none that demands such lavish
expenditure and such ceaseless care.
Now these things are an allegory : they prefigure and
typify how the living water, which is the river of God's
¦ " The country is all Fen . . . and still of a very dropsical
(haracter."^Carlyle's Cromwell, Vol. L, Introduction, Chap. IIL
41

THERE IS A RIVER
revelation and redemption, has been granted to man in
order that it may be spread abroad wherever there are
thirsty souls to drink it in. The special problem which
the Bible Society exists to solve may be likened to
this same problem of irrigation. For it requires that at
least the printed Gospel shall be distributed throughout
every country so that it may reach every man in his
own tongue.
A Man Bearing a Pitcher of Water
" Here is the man who carries God's Book," cried a
child to her mother, in one of the towns of Peru. The
Bible Society maintains 920 of these colporteurs. Christian
men who can bear witness from their own experience to
the Book which they carry along the highways and
byways of the world. They go everywhere, offering
draughts of living water, as cup-bearers of the great
King. During this past year they have put into circula
tion over two and a quarter million copies of Holy
Scripture.
The Native Born.
The Bible Society employs, as far as possible in each
country, native-born colporteurs, who are instinctively at
home among the dialects and customs and ideas of their
own people. All Missions are learning, by slow experi
ence, that we must utilize the natural forces which lie
in similarity of colour, of civilisation, and of thought. If
we try to imagine African or Chinese Christians sent to
diffuse the Gospel in the slums of Manchester or Glasgow,
we begin to realize how grievously even the best and
ablest foreign agents must needs be handicapped, just
because they are foreigners. A Babi in Persia went to
42

THERE IS A RIVER
the root of the matter, when he said to a missionary from
Europe : " You can never speak the language as we do ;
you can never understand the thoughts of the people's
hearts, the ideas which lie behind their words." Bishop
Steere realized the same profound, inherent difficulty ; he
longed passionately to enter into the minds of the Africans
for whom he laboured, and when he saw little black boys
talking in the streets of Zanzibar he used to say, " If
only I knew all that those little boys know, I might hope
to do something."
In selecting, training, and supervising each native
colporteur, the object of the Bible Society is to utilize,
not to suppress, his inbred originality ; to send him out
not as a " whitewashed man," but as a native among
natives — differing only from his fellows in that he
grasps the simple, central Christian verities, and possesses
a regenerated motive-power in the grace of God —
carrying in his hand nothing except that Divine Word
which can speak its own miraculous message to every
human soul.
Here are two recent examples of service which no
European could render. Last year in Japan a converted
Buddhist priest was invited to give a course of lectures
at the famous mountain monastery, Koya San. He is a
good scholar and very well up in Buddhist literature.
On his visit of a fortnight at the monastery he took
with him 500 Bibles, Testaments, and Portions. The
monks received their old member cordially, gave much
attention to his lectures — ^and bought all his books.
Again, at Tachienlu, on the extreme south-west of
China, where the caravans start on their journey over
the snowy passes into Thibet, an ex-lama has done
successful colportage, selling Tibetan Gospels and Testa-
43

THERE IS A RIVER
ments among the traders and merchants who crowd the
inns at this great frontier business centre.
Along such a direction, surely, lies the ultimate prospect
of missionary triumph. The Church will only succeed
on a great scale by means of Indian Christians, Chinese
Christians, negro Christians, sent forth with the ver
nacular Gospel to evangelize their own fellow-country
men.
Seasoned with Salt.
It is refreshing to come across examples of the ready
wit and native ingenuity with which our colporteurs can
disarm an objector or win over an opponent.
At Dunkirk, Colporteur Vanhoucke, has a special gift of
good-humour. " No, I don't want your books," said a
woman, " I don't like reading." " L'appetit vient en mangeant,"
replied Vanhoucke, good-humouredly. " True," said the
woman laughing, and she bought a Testament. " I have
no time to read," said a man to Colporteur Piriou, " I
take a newspaper, but I cannot manage to read it,
though it would be useful in my business." "Yes, but
your newspaper contains both good news and bad news,
while this book contains good news only." Colporteur
Rouveirol at Tarbes was told, " Your books are Protestant."
" Well," he repHed, " they are Protestant books, inasmuch as
they have been printed by Protestants. Suppose I were selling
eggs, and you were told to throw them away because they
had been laid by a Protestant's hen ? "
An Intelligent Donkey.
In Korea, the Rev. F. S. Miller, of the Presbyterian Mission,
finds that Colporteur Yo is not tied by any hard-and-fast
rules in introducing his books, but has various ways of
persuading men to take his leaflets and buy his volumes.
44

THERE IS A RIVER
" On one trip when I accompanied Yo, he had a donkey
named Skylark, which was given him by an American school
teacher. Skylark liked paper, so when a man refused one of
Yo's leaflets, Yo pulled a spoiled and crumpled one out of
his pocket and handed it to Skylark, who ate it like a goat ;
whereupon Yo, turning to the man, said : ' See, the donkey
has more sense than you ; he takes what is offered him.'
The chances were that the man would buy a book before he
said to us, ' Go in peace.'

) ??

He Paid the Price.
On the Blue Nile above Khartum, Colporteur Stephanos
Marquar combines Arab shrewdness with Christian faith.
" In the village of Souk-el-Aish {i.e., the market of bread) I
offered the Tourat {i.e., the Pentateuch) to a sheikh, who,
after reading for a long time, said, ' I thank thee much for this
book.' I replied, ' May God also reward thee for paying me
its price.' Thereupon he smiled, and paid me the money."
This colporteur knows how to give a reason for the hope
that is in him. " At the end of March I arrived at Sennar,
and there I offered the New Testament to a man who said,
' I am a Jew.' Then said I, ' This book is for the Jew.'
Then said he, ' If thou canst tell me where the Messiah is,
I will take thy book.' I answered, ' Christ is in heaven
and on earth, and is also found in my heart and in the
heart of every one who confesses that He is the Saviour
of the world.' He was well pleased with my answer, and
bought four copies of the New Testament, saying, ' I love
every one who without shame confesses the Messiah before

In Answer to Objectors.
What can be more sensible and forcible than the way in
which Colporteur Pinheiro replies to objectors in Portugal.
People often say to him : " We don't want either English
Bibles or EngHsh religion. We have our fathers' religion
45

THERE IS A RIVER
and want no new and false one. Those books are not
true ; if they were, the priests would not say they were false.
What you have there for sale is against all religion — so clear
out of this place ! " Pinheiro's answer is somewhat as
follows : "Well, but I am Portuguese myself, and surely I have
a right to be here in my own country. You don't want
English Bibles ; well, examine these, and you will see that
they are translated by a Portuguese and printed in Portugal.
You don't want an English religion ; neither do I. What I
want is simply the religion of Jesus Christ, pure and true, as
we find it in the Bible, and not the doctrine of men. This
book is neither new nor false. It is what Jesus Christ and
His apostles taught. Bring me one of your Bibles and
compare them, and see whether these books are not
genuine." A village official in Bulgaria bade Colporteur Letshoff take
his books away ; he did not need the Gospel, he knew what
was good for himself. " Listen to this," said the colporteur,
" this is the Gospel for you " ; and he read St. John xiii. 17 :
If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do them. Again, on
one of his tours, Letshoff fell in with a party of students who
assailed the colporteur with many arguments to prove that
Scripture is not in harmony with the teachings of science.
He had only one reply — that the Bible is not astronomj', nor
geology, nor biology, nor zoology : it is God's Book to guide
mankind to God.
The Brook by the Way.
From the reports of the colporteurs we gain frequent
glimpses of a spirit and temper which are admirably
Christian. According to one of the laws of Manu, the
ancient Hindu legislator, every one drawing water is
required to sing. That is like a parable of the gallant,
cheerful mood in which these wayfaring Bible-men, often
amid bitter hardships and obstacles, bring water out of
the wells of salvation. 46

THERE IS A RIVER
From North China the Rev. J. Hedley, of the English
Methodist New Connexion Mission, writes of the three
Chinese colporteurs, whom he superintended last year :
A Cheerful Traveller.
" I can speak of the earnestness and fidelity of the men
employed as colporteurs for the Bible Society, who have sold
5,317 Portions of the Scriptures. I insist always upon the
full price being paid for each copy. One of the three men,
Ch'en Ho-ts'ai, has been the right hand of our preacher at
Yenhoying, the market town into which we secured an en
trance through his labours. He has made at least three trips
outside the Great Wall, travelling each time from 80 to 140
miles. On the last occasion he sold no fewer than 600 Gos
pels in districts where hitherto a colporteur has been all too
rarely seen. You could not wish for a more cheerful man on
the road. The winds may blow their hardest ; the sun may
blaze his fiercest ; you yourself may drag your weary body
along and wish the night with its rest had come. Mr. Ch'en
trudges on quite brightly, and in the evening will spend
most of his time preaching the Gospel in his simple effective
way to other travellers sharing the general k'ang with him."
" We Stand in the Breach."
In truth, our colporteurs embody the brave saying of
William Tindal : " My body is weary, but my spirit is not
faint." One man closes a monthly report with these
lines, written rapidly, in a sort of broken style : " People
do not know about our daily struggle. Were it known,
the world would thank God for His messengers and
Christians would pray for us. We stand in the breach,
and have to sustain the fire every minute. Would you
know what the power of the Spirit means ? Ask those
who depend on Him day after day." The young French
man who wrote those words had to spend a month last
47

THERE IS A RIVER
year on military service with his regiment. During that
month he succeeded in selling thirty-two books, either to
his fellow-soldiers in barracks, or at the houses near
which they halted when on the march. "While my
chums went off to quench their thirst, I slaked the thirst
of the few I could visit with the Word of God."
The Salary of a Colporteur.
Colporteur Rohrsetzer in the Argentine is a man of no
common force and courage. He met a wool-merchant,
who asked whether he would not give up selling Bibles
and enter his service. "No, sir; I have already a Master
who pays me more than all you possess." " How much
does He give you ? " " Ah, sir. He gives me a very big
salary, to which millions can't be compared." "What do
you earn, pray ? " " Eternal life and happiness with
Christ Jesus." "And how do you know that?" "I
know it from God's Word." " But do you believe every
thing the Bible says ? " " Certainly I do ; I believe it
with all my heart, just as if I had seen it with my eyes."
" If you believe like that, happy are you." " Oh yes, sir,
I am happy, and this is why I can speak to you of
happiness. I have God's peace, the greatest treasure
in the world." Whereupon the wool-merchant bought
a Bible.
A Ubiquitous Mission.
Colportage has been compared to the veins through
which blood is carried to all parts and organs of the
human body. No agency is more characteristic of the
Bible Society and its ubiquitous mission. With their
cheap little Testaments and Gospels, the colporteurs
penetrate the most unlikely places and reach the most
48

THERE IS A RIVER
remote people — often unvisited by any other Christian
messenger. We find them, for instance, busy in the
docks of Marseilles, in the bazaars at Bagdad, in the
railway station at Peking. We trace their steps through
the apple-orchards in Tasmania, and among coolies
in the Transvaal mines. Here, they are thrust out of
a fanatical village in Morocco ; here they climb a snowy
pass in the Andes to reach some mining camp, from
which the Indians drive their llamas laden with silver
ore.In Central Europe.
In Central Europe alone the Society has over seventy
of these Bible-messengers. They send good news from
islands in the Northern Sea, from vine-dressers on the
Rhine, from hillsmen in Bavaria, and shepherds high on
Alpine meadows. They tell us of work among the boat
men of the inland waterways, among the coal and iron
men in Westphalia and Silesia, among the wood-hewers
in the Black Forest. We hear of awakening hearts
among the olive-growers on the Dalmatian coast and
among fisher-folk in the sunny islands of the Adriatic.
Swart Serbs among their oak forests praise the Lord for
the gift of the Scriptures, so do bright-eyed Hungarians
on their pushtas, and Poles in Galicia, and Ruthenes in
the remote Bukovina. Slovaks, Rumans, Croats, Czechs,
and how many others — they are all reading in their own
tongues of the wonderful works of God.
On the Blue Danube.
Two colporteurs share the Bulgarian field north of the
Balkans. Both men live on the Danube ; and they
traverse the wide plains and mountain-slopes and valleys
49 E

THERE IS A RIVER
from the frontiers of Servia to the Black Sea. If we take
a month at random from a colporteur's journals we find
a list of seven towns and twenty-eight villages visited
during that period, with sales amounting to 194 copies of
the Scriptures. Another colporteur spends a month in a
town on the Danube, and sells 127 copies. Again we
have a journal recording a day's journey with no sales ;
five villages visited by the way, and three books sold ;
nine villages passed through, where no sales could be
made. One copy left by the way repays a day of toil.
The peasants are often quite uneducated, but they have
the childlike reverence of unlettered folk for God's Book.
" Many of the villagers could not read," writes Colporteur
Athanasoff, " but they asked me if I had the same Book
out of which their priest read in the church. ' What did
he read to you?' I asked. 'About the Vine and the
fruit,' they said. Whereupon I read to them St. John xv.
They were delighted, and many of them bought Testa
ments to take to their homes."
In the Heart of Albania.
Mr. George Kyrias, our depositary at Monastir, made a
tour, under exceptionally favourable circumstances, into
the centre of Albania. He may be said to have reached
the heart of his counti^y in a more intimate sense
than the physical. In the important town of Elbasan,
he says there is not a single house, either Christian or
Moslem, which does not possess one copy at least of
our Albanian Scriptures. The Beys of Elbasan — the
Albanian chiefs — whom he met by invitation, requested
him to urge the Society to print more Albanian Scriptures.
They were left, they said, being Moslems, in the darkness
of ignorance. A Sunday was spent with the hospitable
50

THERE IS A RIVER
chief of an Albanian village. Mr. Kyrias proposed to
read the Bible to these Moslems, when his host produced
a Book of Psalms and invited him to read out of that.
Later in the day, people from the neighbouring villages
were called to come and listen. The host provided
supper, and Mr. Kyrias was detained far into the night,
speaking to this assembly of Albanian peasants. On the
following day the villagers escorted him two hours'
distance on his road, and made him promise that
books should be sent to them. Mr. Kyrias found every
where the fruits of the labours of our two Albanian
colporteurs, Sinas and Luka, and an immense regard
and reverence in the hearts of the people for the Bible
Society.
Nunc Dimittis.
An old man brought his little store of money to
purchase an Albanian Testament. " Now I am ready
to die," were his words, " because in these books I
have found salvation for my soul." With such a Nunc
Dimittis many an old Albanian has blessed the colpor
teur. A priest of the Eastern Church, who had bought
an Albanian Testament, said to Sinas, " Alas for the
people to whom 1 have been appointed to show the
way of the Lord ! Now that I have the Word in my
own tongue, I understand what a heavy charge has
been laid upon me." And this priest has now begun
earnestly to read and preach to his people "the way
of the Lord."
On the Roman Campagna.
Colporteur Zito met a shepherd on the Roman Cam
pagna leE^ding about a hundred sheep, *' My good man,
51

THERE IS A RIVER
your sheep follow you, because they know you are
guiding them to where they can find pasture. Let me
read you from this Book some beautiful words about
another Good Shepherd, who, with infinite love, leads
His sheep to green pastures, which give everlasting
life." And as they walked along together he read the
tenth chapter of St. John, and the shepherd was so de
lighted with it that he bought a New Testament. Zito
does very good work among these lonely shepherds of
the deserted Campagna, reading and expounding the
Scriptures in their huts till late into the night. And next
morning he offers prayer with them, before he goes on
his way. Zito writes :
" I find that the reading of the Word has more effect than
all our talking, and, wherever I go, I ask the people to read
the Bible. ... I prefer the work of colportage to any
other, although my experience varies a great deal. Like the
Roman weather in January, it may be sun in the morning,
heavy rain in the afternoon, and bright sky again towards
evening."On the Shores of the White Sea.
Colporteur E. Maslennikoff, gives the following report
of his last long summer tour in the far north of Russia :
As usual, I began in the town of Vologda, but here I had
less than the usual success, as I arrived after the breaking up
of the schools for the summer ; in these schools it is a com
mon practice to give portions of the Scriptures as prizes to
pupils who pass with distinction into the next class. From
Vologda I went by train to Archangel, and thence by steamer
round the coast oi the White Sea to the towns of Onega,
Sunia, Soroka, and lastly to the island of Solovetski and its
favourite monastery. The Superior, the Archimandrite
5?

THERE IS A RIVER
Joaiiniki, bought about 300 copies of the Scriptures, which he
will distribute among the poorest of the pilgrims to this
shrine. The monastery both sells and distributes gratis books
containing its own history and the lives of its holy men,
Zosima and Savvati. Returning to Archangel, I went up the
river Vychegda, taking advantage of the small local steamers,
to the Ziryen district, calling at half-a-dozen villages. In all
of them, reporting myself first to the clergy, I received a
warm welcome, and was able to effect large sales. In one
village, which is a military station, the commanding officer
admitted me to the barracks, and took the kindest interest in
my success ; he himself bought 200 copies, which he will
distribute among his recruits which come in the autumn.
Colportage by River.
" For my boat excursion this year, I chose the river Pinega,
the most northerly tributary of the northern Dvina. I made
my way by horse to the village of Verkoly, far up the river ;
and here I had to procure a boat and a boatman with which
to come down the river, following all its windings and calling
at every inhabited place on its banks. The boat was excep
tionally difficult to purchase ; nobody had one to spare, and
the boat which I ultimately bought at the price of 8 roubles
{i.e., i6s.) was a very sorry tub, old and worn out. ' Kill
me if you like,' said an onlooker, ' but don't make me go in
that boat.' But what could one do, when nobody was willing
to sell a better craft ? After effecting such repairs as were
possible, we set off, and in due time arrived safely at Arch
angel, having had the finest of weather all the way. On this
river journey twenty villages were visited, over 1,000 copies
of the Scriptures were sold, and the time taken was a couple
of weeks."
In Manchuria after the War.
During the last few weeks of 1905 a Japanese colporteur,
who had been busy among his fellow countrymen in
53

THERE IS A RIVER
Korea, took steamer from Seoul for Manchuria, where,
amid frost and snow, he carried the Scriptures to the
Japanese army of occupation. His journal gives us grim
hints of the havoc wrought by war.
" At Tairen the temperature was 7° below zero. The trains
were filled with returning soldiers. Everywhere was desola
tion ; farms burned and buildings destroyed. Here I had to
wait for the cases of books sent from Japan, as the steamer
had gone on the rocks off the Korean coast. Two Christian
army officers showed me great kindness, and I addressed
1,500 men on 'The mighty power of the Bible.' From
Tairen I went to Liu Shiu Tan, where I found 300 cavalrymen
loading their horses and wagons to return to Japan. In two
days I sold 37 Testaments and some Gospels. Returning to
Tairen, 1 was invited by the Commander of the Army Stores
to a supper with his officers. As the Commander and three
of these officers were Christians, I was encouraged to speak
of our work. They expressed great surprise and pleasure
upon hearing what the Bible Societies had done for the men
in the Japanese army and navy."
The Ruins of Port Arthur.
"At Port Arthur, on account of the intense cold, there were
only some 500 or 600 civilians and about 1,000 soldiers
remaining. The Russian church is now used by the
Y.M.C.A. By the help of God I sold 40 Testaments. On
Sunday I addressed some 200 soldiers, and was given per
mission by one of the officers to visit the ruined batteries.
Who can describe a desolate battlefield ? The rough graves
contain the bodies of Japanese and Russians, brave dead
men. I chmbed to the top of a ruin and knelt and thanked
God with all my heart for stopping the war.
On the Andes of Peru.
Perhaps no countries need the New Testament more
than the Republics of South America. To obtain some
54

THERE IS A RIVER
idea of how God's Book is carried to these remote
regions we may follow in the track of a colporteur last
year along the Oroya road, the steepest and highest
railway in the world. Leaving Lima and the Rimac
valley, with its cotton fields and sugar plantations.
Colporteur Herrera ascended, station by station, this
wonderful line which climbs the steep slopes of the
Andes. Now and again he would make an excursion
among the mountains to a silver-mining camp, or to an
Indian village with its hovels and llamas. Now he is at
Chosica, famous for its good milk ; anon he is off to San
Bartolom6 and to Cocachacra, with its fine peaches and
paltas, there to be welcomed by some of the native Chris
tians, who are always ready to purchase a few copies of
the Scriptures and show hospitality. The up-journey
continues across the famous Verrugas railway bridge
to Matucana, 8,000 feet above the sea. Again the col
porteur is in San Matio, with its patches of wheat and
barley on the mountain slopes, or at Casapalca with its
silver-smelters. Past Morococha with its mines, and
through the Galera tunnel with its glaciers, he reaches
Oroya, the busy centre where the arrieros with their
llamas and pack-mules unload their precious cargoes of
silver ore, and carry back European merchandise to the
towns on this elevated mountain plateau.
Searching for a Bible.
At Casapalca, 13,606 feet above the sea — as high as the
Jungfrau — Herrera visited the silver-smelters and other
residents, among whom his sales were exceptionally
good. Here is one letter to prove that his visit was not
without blessing. " I had long searched to procure a
Bible," wrote Senor X. " In my boyhood my father told
55

THERE IS A RIVER
me about it, and urged me if possible to obtain a copy.
Once on a visit to Lima I searched among all the leading
booksellers for a Bible, but could not find one." Seiior
X. is now himself an earnest student of the Bible, and,
better still, is making steady progress in circulating the
Scriptures in his own township.
Eldorado in the Snow.
Cerro Pasco, the famous mining-centre, which for
centuries has been known as a rich silver-producing
mountain, is now declared to possess also the greatest
single deposit of copper. It is difficult to realize that this
town actually stands 15,000 feet above the sea — at an
altitude only 600 feet less than the summit of Mont
Blanc. At such an elevation few people can bear
the rarefied atmosphere, and until one grows perfectly
acclimatized, the slightest exertion causes fatigue and
exhaustion. The colporteur can only sell his books by
incessantly emphasizing with his voice the message that
the Book contains ; and so for some time after his arrival
at Cerro Pasco he had to suffer from severe inflammation
of the glands of the throat. Here, all the seasons of the
year may be experienced in twenty-four hours. In the
morning a blinding snow storm may cover the city with
a mantle of white; the forenoon may be warm and
spring-like ; the afternoon gusty and raw, like March,
and the evening mild and pleasant. The nights and early
mornings are piercingly cold.
Like most mining centres, Cerro is a godless city, and
outside the Roman Church the only Christian ministra
tions were those of our colporteur as he carried his books
from door to door. As the result of his patient and tact
ful efforts, Seiior Herrera must be congratulated on
56

THERE IS A RIVER
having distributed over i,ooo copies of the Scriptures in
Cerro. This brings up his sales for last year to nearly
3,900 volumes — a splendid total in a country like Peru.
On the Plains of Mongolia.
Across these enormous wind-swept plains our Sub-
agent, Mr. Larson, makes his way with a caravan of
camels and ponies, and sells the Scriptures in the
crowded, smoke-filled Mongolian tents. A born traveller,
his letter shows that even his remarkable powers of
endurance have been sorely tried.
" In my three different journeys during 1905 I covered
about 2,830 English miles, and spent 228 days in Mongolia
and along its borders. On my first tour in winter, I went
due west along the border of China and Mongolia, and
sold 500 Chinese Gospels to farmers and scholars in the
many scattered villages. The weather was bad and the cold
intense. I am still quite deaf in one ear from a cold taken
on that trip. At the Chinese New Year (January 26th) I
took another short trip in Mongolia, north of Kalgan. For
fifteen days a blizzard was blowing, and the air was thick
with snow and sand. My Mongol camel-men's faces were
frost-bitten badly, and my nose and one ear were touched.
I could sell only 33 books, and I came back quite tired.
Rival Buddhas.
" My summer work on the plains began April 27th and
ended October 12th. During that time, I went again as far
north as Urga. The people there were all too busy with the
Dalai Lama of Tibet — who had taken refuge at Urga from
Lhasa — to inquire into anything else. Still I sold some
Scriptures, both Tibetan and Mongolian, to pilgrims who
gather there from all parts of the country. The Dalai Lama
was living in the west temple, and Bogda-;-the incarnation
of Buddha residing at Urga, or the Urga Lama — in the
57

THERE IS A RIVER
central temple. Though hierarchs of the same religion and
living within a couple of miles of each other, they were not
on friendly terms, and met but once during the year that
the Dalai spent in Urga. Even the yearly festivities were
cancelled because of this disagreement. I noticed, though,
that the northern Mongols took very decidedly the part of
their own Buddha — Bogda.
Eaten by Wolves.
" Before we reached Urga, my helper was robbed of his
horse, saddle, and everything ; and the horse that I bought
to replace the stolen steed was eaten by wolves half-way
between Urga and Kalgan. Then one Sunday, when we
were in camp three days out of Urga, a severe earthquake
occurred, when it was difficult to stand up ; we heard after
wards that great rents had been made in the ground.
On the Blue Nile.
The cry of the boatmen on the Upper Nile — Ele-aza,
although they have forgotten its real meaning {Eloi-Jcsa,
i.e.. Lord Jesus)— bears moving testimony to the ancient
Christianity of the Sudan, as far as Khartum and beyond,
for a thousand years. Our colporteur already referred
to, who has carried the Scriptures along the course of
the Blue Nile, finds friendly help in some unexpected
quarters :
" I entered into a village where dwells a sheikh named
Omar, who received me graciously. Then I presented to
him a Bible, with which he was so well pleased that he
called all the villagers together and began to sell the Scrip
tures for me, saying, ' Here is the Injil {i.e., Gospel) of our
Lord Jesus.' By means of this man I sold 20 Gospels, three
copies of Genesis, and a Bible. At the village of Derr Abu
Bekr I met a sheikh, who was intelligent and generous, and
58

THERE IS A RIVER
had a little knowledge of the Scriptures. To him I offered
a copy of the Tourat {i.e., Pentateuch). When he had read a
little therein, he asked the price. ' Its price is but seven
piastres,' said I. * Is that the cost of the leather binding
only ? ' asked he. ' It may well be true that the leather cost
more, nevertheless, the price of the whole book is as I said.'
When he heard this he was glad, and tendered his hearty
thanks to the Bible Society. Then he purchased ten Portions,
and gave them to his servants."
The Sultan, or the Bible Society.
" In the town of Hamlet Zein I also offered the Tourat to an
old sheikh. 'What is its price?' inquired he. 'Its price is
but seven piastres.' ' I am sorry for thee, that thou shouldst
offer the book at so low a price,' said he. Then I told him
I was a servant of the Bible Society, which spreads abroad
the Holy Book amongst all people, that they may come to
know God. Then said he, ' Such good work should be done
by the Sultan.' Also he asked, ' Where is the chief place of
this Society ? ' ' It is in London,' I replied. ' Is it, then, an
English Society?' he asked. 'Yes, verily yes,' said I. 'Of
a truth the English know God,' said he. Then he paid the
price of a Bible for himself, and of six single Gospels, saying :
' I have a desire to imitate the Society in doing good by
distributing these books among the people.' "
From House to House in Osaka.
In the spring of 1906 five of our colporteurs decided to
canvass the city of Osaka systematically, house by house.
As Osaka — the Liverpool and Birmingham of Japan —
contains no fewer than a million inhabitants, this
undertaking was no child's play. On March 6th, after
holding a prayer meeting, they set out from the depot.
A hand-cart was filled with copies of the Scriptures, and
one colporteur pulled it while the others carried books in
59

THERE IS A RIVER
their hands. At each street corner they halted and sang
a hymn ; then, when a small crowd gathered, they briefly
explained what the Bible is, and invited the people to
purchase. Down both sides of the street every house
was visited, and the inmates were asked to buy a copy.
Earnest efforts were made to sell at least a single Gospel
in each home, and to speak a few well-chosen words on
the Christian faith. So thorough a method of working
involved considerable time and energy, but proved in
many cases highly successful. At night the men re
turned to their headquarters, and united in prayer and
thanksgiving to God. On wet days special visits were
made to schools, banks, and hospitals in the city.
The colporteurs persevered, in spite of discouragements
and opposition. Often they were treated as beggars soli
citing alms, and many shop-keepers received them rudely ;
but by tact and patience and courtesy they generally
conciliated their opponents. Where Christianity seemed
disliked among many of the lower classes, this was
invariably found to be due to sheer and simple
ignorance. After a little explanation the people showed
themselves quite reasonable, and often consented to buy
Gospels. During the first month of this energetic attempt
4,126 copies of the Scriptures were sold. Considerable
interest was awakened in Christian homes and among
the Christian congregations at Osaka, from some of
whom came offers of assistance. More significant still,
one of the leading Japanese daily papers, the Osaka
Mainichi Shimbun, published the following comment : —
" The British Bible Societies have taken time by the fore
lock in embarking upon a great Bible-selling campaign on an
extended scale in this city. Their plan is to circulate, if
possible, 100,000 copies of the Scriptures. A large supply
60

THERE IS A RIVER
of books has been provided, and the Societies' colporteurs
have made a start with the work. Thus far the venture has
proved so successful that the large number of 3,089 books
have been distributed. The district in which the work has
been commenced is Senba, a most conservative section of
the city. When the other districts of the city are visited
even greater success may be looked for. We consider the
movement a unique and interesting one."
Consecrated Drudgery.
This business of colportage, more than almost any
other, demands faithful, patient persistence in well-doing.
Early last year our Sub-agent, Mr. Copp, completed a
house-to-house canvass of Yentai, the Chinese city at the
port of Chefoo. He writes : —
" From Dec. 30th to April 2gth we tramped the straight
and crooked roads called in Chefoo ' streets,' asking a thou
sand times, ' Do you want a Gospel or calendar ? ' and being
set on by a thousand dogs (happily not all at once), being
refused hundreds of times, but also having a good reception
and a good hearing now and again. . . Practically every
shop, house, and cabin has been visited. Chefoo is a large
place, and takes a very long time to go over as we work it.
It has been splendid work, and the sales have been as good as
ever."
In Burma.
In reckoning up those factors which go to make, or to
mar, "the soul of a people," we realize that in a country
like Burma, God's Book can be brought into the hands
of men most effectively by means of colportage. We are
therefore especially thankful for the great success which
has attended this work among the Burmese. Twelve
native colporteurs, maintained throughout last year, have
travelled 10,000 miles, visited 3,000 different villages, and
61

THERE IS A RIVER
sold 35,000 books — an average of nearly 3,000 books
apiece — while 4,000 books have been sold by the Agent
and his assistant colporteur on tour. It must be re
membered also that nearly every Burmese lad learns to
read at the free school attached to the monastery of his
native village.
In Siberia.
Now turn for a moment from the south to the north of
Asia, and look at colportage last year in Siberia, where
the sales exceeded all earlier records. Here our ten
Bible-sellers travelled between them 30,000 miles. Rail
roads and steamboats conveyed men and books free with
splendid generosity, even during the stress of the war.
Russian soldiers homeward-bound from the front would
spend their last coins on a Testament ; one soldier offered
to pledge his boots, and another to pledge his last shirt,
others to borrow money from their comrades for this
purpose. Among the sick and wounded troops many
thousands of Gospels were given away and accepted
with pathetic gratitude.
Lodging in Mosques.
From Mosul, opposite the site of ancient Nineveh,
Colporteur Mansur Jebury writes :
" In certain villages I could find no inn available, and I
was, therefore, obliged to lodge at the Muhammadan mosque.
This was permitted without any hindrance, and at the end of
each meeting for prayer a large crowd of Moslems gathered
around me. Certain of them purchased books, and some
asked me to read the Bible to them. To this some were
attentive, and others argued on rehgious points, while others
desired me to explain a few passages in tfie Holy Book."
62

ON THE PANAMA CANAL.
Photo copyriglit. Underwood nnd Underwood, London

THERE IS A RIVER
Among Devil-worshippers.
The following picture is from Ceylon :
" We have sold a fair number of Scriptures among the
Saivites and Muhammadans, who read them with some
delight. Certain Tamil devil-worshippers opposed us. A
very respectable and religious Saivite who wears the lingam
and sacred beads, listened to me as I read a few verses in
an assembly, and at once bought three different Portions for
his children."
But space fails us to depict the routes and fortunes of
those "men who carry God's Book" up and down the
world. In the Russian Empire, they sold last year 212,000
copies ; in India, nearly a quarter of a million copies ;
in China the colportage sales amounted to no fewer
than 940,000 books. You may meet them in the restaur
ants of Paris, on the quays of Constantinople, visiting
the lumber-camps of Ontario and New Brunswick, travel
ling by bullock cart in the Malay Peninsula, tramping
beside the trench of the Panama Canal. Wherever men
and women congregate in crowds, at markets or fairs or
festivals, our Bible-sellers take advantage of the oppor
tunity. Two Italian colporteurs have been stationed
at the entrances of the Exhibition at Milan this summer.
Last year, on the day of the chief Buddhist festival, two
English lady missionaries and their native pupils sold
400 Gospels, at a farthing apiece in the precincts of the
great pagodas at Mandalay.
At Railway Stations.
These foci of traffic and travel present peculiar facili
ties for colportage, which our agents are quick to seize.
Colporteur Konopleff meets all the trains at the railway
63

THERE IS A RIVER
station on the banks of the great river Obi, which is the
natural terminus of the western section of the trans-
Siberian line : —
" In a passenger train I came across a party of workmen
returning from the gold mines. One of them said, ' We have
been away in the wilderness, far from church or priest, for
three years without even seeing a copy of this Book which
you are now showing us. We have been forgetting God ; we
have used all kinds of foul and evil language ; yea, we are
great sinners.' This open confession seemed to move his
mates, who bought a large number of copies. Several of
them could not read, but they said, ' We will try to be
better men. We shall find some one at home who will
read the book for us.'
The iron road has begun in earnest to open up the
provinces and cities of China. It sounds strange to hear
that Colporteur Yao, who was one of those who carried
a message from the besieged legations to Tientsin in 1900,
has somehow ingratiated himself with the authorities,
so that they allow him to sell books at the Peking rail
way station. He goes in and out amongst the crowds
who fill the trains going to Tientsin and for the most
part have a little spare money with them, and in this
way he has actually sold as many as 1,500 and 1,600
books in a month.
Colporteur Antonio Selle spent nearly the whole of
last year at the great city of Rosario, where he, and he
alone, is allowed to sell the Bible in the railway stations.
He holds, moreover, a free pass to travel by train as often
as he likes. During the year he has visited six, seven,
and even eight trains daily and offered God's Word to
certainly over four hundred passengers each day. His
total sales exceeded 7,000 books. ^4

Photo by]

A STREET IN JEYPORE.

Ifohtison uii(J Hoffnuru.

THERE IS A RIVER
The Colporteur as Evangelist.
In Christian countries it is no part of a colporteur's
business to preach. He merely commends the Bible by
the witness of his own experience, as the Book in which
God speaks to men. But among non-Christian peoples
he must obviously give some simple explanation of the
volume which he offers, before he can hope to sell it to
strangers, even at a nominal price. From the nature of
the case, and with the hearty sanction of the missionaries,
the Bible Society's colporteurs in heathen lands must
be more than mere book-sellers ; the same Gospel of
redeeming love, which they carry in print, glows in their
hearts and kindles in their common speech. From all
quarters of the mission field we hear of native colpor
teurs who also do the work of an evangelist, often with
signal success and with the manifest seal of God's
blessing. A few instances of this form of service may
close the present chapter.
In North India.
From Allahabad we learn that the special importance
and value of colportage as an evangelizing agency are
coming to be more generally recognized among the
aggressive Missions. The man with the Book is pushed
forward as a pioneer. Inquirers are brought in by the
colporteurs and Biblewomen for instruction and baptism.
" Our two colporteurs are busy scattering the Word. I
was out with them for three weeks in March. During that
time we preached in twelve bazaars and over thirty villages,
and sold 856 books. I was much encouraged at the progress
the colporteurs themselves are making, not only in selling
Scriptures, but in telling the story of the Cross. Neither of
these colporteurs could read four years ago. It is wonderful
what the Lord does for these jungle-people."
65 F

THERE IS A RIVER
An Apostolic Convert.
From Hong Kong, the Rev. D. Endemann writes : —
" In former years Colporteur Kyang-min traded in things
necessary for idol-worship, women being his best customers.
He himself was a most devout idol-worshipper, hoping in
vain to find rest for his restless heart. At last he met at
Canton one of my teachers, who became the means of leading
him to Christ. After a year he was baptized, and from that
time his one desire has been to help in the salvation of his
heathen brethren. In due course he became a colporteur,
and his heart and soul are in the work. He goes with me when
I am itinerating, and he never gets tired of offering his books
and of telling of Him whose love and mercy saved him.
During last year alone he led between fifty and sixty of his heathen
fellow-countrymen into the light of the Gospel,"
In Korea.
The " Hermit Kingdom " has been rudely shaken out
of its age-long torpor. With the upsetting of hoary
superstitions and the advent of political reforms, the
Koreans are beginning to turn, in unwonted and unex
pected fashion, to the things of the Kingdom of God.
Our Korean colporteurs sold 69,000 books — more than
double their total in 1904. And never before in any
single year have we received so many testimonies to the
spiritual value of the colporteur as an evangelistic
agent. The Rev. W. R. Foote, of the Canadian Presbyterian
Mission, Wonsan, says of one of his colporteurs :
" When he entered the employ of the Bible Societies,
there were only five Christians in the field — a field in
which he continues to be the only colporteur, while
there are now 250 Christians and two churches." And
of another colporteur he writes : " Last year there were
66

THERE IS A RIVER
only 20 Christians in his territory, and this year there are
loo, who are cared for and fostered by the colporteur."
From South Korea, the Rev. R. H. Sidebotham, of the
Presbyterian Mission, Fusan, writes : —
" Mr. Chang, our colporteur, was at the market in Chogei
city, when a man came forward and bought two Gospels,
and entered into conversation. Ten months before, he had
bought two Gospels, and, after reading them, he became
convinced that they were a good message to him. He
beHeved in secret. Twice afterwards, when the colporteur
came to Chogei, he had bought more books, but this time he
wanted to get the whole story correctly. So he said, ' Please
come to my house to-night, and bring your friend '• — for Mr.
Yi was helping Mr. Chang as an honorary assistant. On
going to his house that night, they were surprised to find
that the man knew a good deal of the Scripture story. On
the wall hung some curious papers. ' What are those ? ' they
asked. ' Those are prayers. The Gospel said I must pray,
and I supposed that was the way to pray. Do not the
people who do this doctrine pray by those papers on the
wall ? ' Then they taught him the real inwardness of prayer
from the heart. They also urged him to let his light shine,
for as yet he was only a secret believer. After some per
suasion, he went out and brought in some friends, who
also listened gladly. For ten days Mr. Chang and Mr. Yi
preached in that house, and they left five men definitely
decided for Christ."
At tidings like these the heart of a Christian leaps up,
as when he beholds a rainbow in the sky. Who can
refuse to echo the sentence with which another missionary
closes his letter: "God bless the colporteur, and the
people who enable us to keep him at work by their
unstinted contributions." 67

THERE IS A RIVER

IN DRY AND THIRSTY LANDS
One characteristic quality of water is its power to
percolate through obstacles and to diffuse itself almost
imperceptibly, in spite of elaborate precautions against
its inflow. And in the same way the Bible can pass
through doors which are barred against every other
Christian influence. This Book crosses the frontiers of
kingdoms which no missionary may enter, and silently
proclaims the Gospel where no preacher's voice is ever
heard.Closed Countries.
A glance at the missionary map of the world shows
that not a few countries still remain closed, or only very
partially open, to the missionary. Afghanistan, for
example, admits no Christian teachers : nevertheless, the
Pashtu Bible finds its way over the mountain wall
north-west of the Panjab and reaches readers at Kandahar
and Kabul. Similarly New Testaments and Gospels in
Naipali are taken by native Christians across the frontier
where for seven hundred miles Nepal marches with
British India ; while the same books are distributed
among the gallant little Gurkhas, who furnish some of
the bravest regiments in our Indian army. From
mission stations at Aden on the Red Sea and at Bah
rein on the Persian Gulf, the Scriptures are carried by
68

THERE IS A RIVER
caravans of camels into the forbidden recesses of Arabia.
From the inaccessible hinterlands of the West Coast of
Africa, traders come down to Bonny or Accra, and
bear home with them Hausa Gospels and Arabic Testa
ments. The Egyptian Government still prohibits aggres
sive mission work among the Moslem population in the
Eastern Sudan ; but the Bible Society's servants are
permitted to sell the Scriptures without hindrance in
any part of that vast territory.
On the Borders of Tibet
Take the case of another country which remains
sullenly closed against foreigners. The recent British
expedition and the treaty which ensued have certainly
opened no road for ordinary travellers into Tibet — pro
bably they were never intended to do so. Nevertheless
the Scriptures filter through barriers which baffle the
tourist. In the extreme south-west of China and close
to the Tibetan frontier, the China Inland Mission has
maintained for many years an outpost station at
Tachienlu. Mr. Theo. Sorenson, of the C.I.M., is now
trying, with encouraging success, to reach Tibetan-
speaking Chinese and trading Tibetans who reside in this
town, from which the caravans start on their journeys to
Lhasa. Though not very populous, Tachienlu is a great
business centre, where Tibetans come from long dis
tances to trade their wool and skins and gold for tea and
clothing. Every day numbers of them may be seen
in the streets, going from shop to shop examining the
different goods for sale, or congregated on the square in
front of the C.I.M. church, which is a favourite centre
where the lamas who wish to hire themselves to say
prayers in private houses wait to be hired. Thanks to
69

THERE IS A RIVER
the friendly help of the C.I.M. the Bible Society has
now secured one of the rooms in this building, where a
small stock of books will be kept prominently before
the people. Thus our depot is not only on the high
way to Tibet, but at the very door through which
any one going to the interior must enter. The "great
Closed Land" is closed still. But the border country is
opening more and more, and Tachienlu forms an admir
able centre, from which last year over 2,300 copies of
the Scriptures were put in circulation.
In Abyssinia.
One nominally Christian country has remained for
ages practically isolated from the rest of Christendom.
But our reports have repeatedly mentioned the friendli
ness shown to the Bible Society by the Emperor Menelik,
who has accepted and distributed gifts of Scriptures sent
to him at his capital. The Rev. Karl Cederquist, of the
Swedish National Society's Mission at Eritrea, is, however,
the first Protestant missionary who has been permitted
for many years to make anything like a stay in Abyssinia.
He wrote in February, 1905, from Adis Abeba, asking
for Bibles, Testaments, and Gospels to be despatched to
him. Accordingly four cases of books were sent off from
Alexandria ; besides Gospels in other vernaculars of
Abyssinia, such as Tigr6 and Bogos, the consignment
included Bibles, Testaments, and Psalters in Amharic
and Ethiopic, and contained altegether 657 volumes.
The books travelled first of all from Port Said to Jibouti
on the Red Sea ; thence they were transported to Dire-
dawa, and at length, after many months' delay, carried
up to Adis Abeba by a friendly English caravan,
reaching Mr. Cederquist nearly a year after he first wrote
70

THERE IS A RIVER
for them. A recent letter reports that he has sold
practically all the Bibles and New Testaments in
Amharic, and most of the Psalters in Ethiopic. At
his request, more Bibles and Testaments in Galla are
being sent out to Adis Abeba.
But if we can do little to enter this sealed land of
Abyssinia, we meet and accost its pilgrims and exiles
at many different points — in Egypt, at Aden, in the
Sudan, and especially at Jerusalem, the holy place of
all Christians. During 1905 the Bible Society's sales in
Amharic, Ethiopic, and Galla numbered 1,252 volumes.
"These Gospels will Remain."
Even where Christian missionaries are allowed to
settle in great pagan communities, they form at best a
scanty band amid such teeming multitudes of untaught
souls. But, as Bishop Welldon has said : " The Bible
is the one silent, universal and irresistible missionary, on
whose influence the Church can everywhere and always
depend." Among dim myriads of heathen folk the Four
Evangelists are the only permanent evangelists who
proclaim the love of God.
From Kathiawar, on the north-west coast of India,
a missionary writes : " We had preached in a small
village which no evangelist had visited for at least twenty
years. After our addresses we offered for sale, as usual,
the Bible Society's pice Gospels. A Brahman in the
audience was displeased when he saw some of those, on
whose charity and superstition his daily bread depended,
stretch out their hands for the books. He said to us :
' You will go, and they will forget what you said ; but
these ' (pointing to the Gospels) ' will remain.' "
71

THERE IS A RIVER
Secluded Women in the East.
Last year the Society supported 687 native Christian
Biblewomen employed in connection with about forty
different missionary organizations in the East. They
carry the Gospel where no ordinary agents can gain an
^ntrance. In the darkened chambers of Indian zenanas
the devout Biblewoman with God's Book in her hand
undermines the foundations of Hindu superstition ;
while the same humble agent contends and prevails
against the sorceress in Korea and the spiritualist in
Brazil.
Neglected Countries.
The silent influence of the Bible extends across wide
regions where Christianity exists only under corrupt and
superstitious forms, and indeed is sometimes little better
than a name. Speaking at the Bible House in July, 1905,
the Archbishop of the West Indies said :
" I cannot think of any part of the world where the efforts
of this Society in circulating the Holy Scriptures, by the
various means that you ordinarily use in countries other than
English, are more necessary than they are in the Spanish
and French-speaking countries of Central America and the
West Indies. I am thankful to know that in various quarters
— British and American — a good deal is being done to pro
mote the rehgious life of these countries, but I can assure you
that the state of things there is deplorable in the extreme."
The Perils of Colportage.
In many parts of the world the Bible-seller has to face
no small amount of hardship and persecution. We need
only quote a few out of many instances recorded in
last year's reports. In China, for example, piracy and
brigandage are rampant in Kwongtung, whilst small
7^

THERE IS A RIVER
robber bands infest the long, desolate roads in Kwongsai.
Two of our men were "held up" by highway robbers,
but on proving that they were booksellers were let off
after paying a small sum of silver. Another colporteur
was beaten for offering "foreign" books for sale at a
place not very far from Canton. At Yachow our Sub-
agent, Mr. Fergusson, was assaulted and his face cut
open with a brick. In Turkish Arabia one colporteur
was imprisoned, and another beaten by policemen. One
of our Bagdad colporteurs was attacked by armed high
waymen while travelling in Persia, and narrowly escaped
with his life.
Last summer the terror of plague lay heavy across the
people of Northern India. Near Allahabad one of our
colporteurs was severely beaten and much injured in a
village, because the people feared that he was poisoning
the wells to spread the plague. In many parts of that
region village Christians have suffered greatly, as they
are imagined to be the agents of the Government in
introducing the dire disease.
In the interior of the Republic of Honduras, two
of our colporteurs were detained in prison, until the
kind intervention of the Salvadorefian Minister of
Foreign Relations secured their release. Colporteur
Ramirez also was greatly hindered through the martial
law which for several months was in force throughout
that Republic. In Chile, Colporteur Pedro Navarro, a
Spaniard by birth, has met with persecution from
fanatics. In Santa Barbara, on offering the Bible to a
man, he was at once clubbed to the ground, and rose
only to be knocked down again. God gave him grace
to show his furious enemy that the " heretic " had the
spirit of forgiveness. 73

THERE IS A RIVER
In Bolivia, near L^ke Titicaca, the highest lake in the
world. Colporteur Felipe Mufioz visited the town of
Tiahuanaco, famed for its prehistoric ruins, hoping to
sell his books at a local festival of the Aymara Indians.
Here he was shamefully mobbed, as a " freemason "
and a " Protestant," and picked up insensible, almost
done to death. With keen regret we record that one of
our colporteurs, Juan E. Brandt, while Bible-selUng in
Southern Chile, was accidentally drowned in the Rio
Bueno. He had thrown himself energetically into this
pioneer colportage work, visiting outlying districts and
circulating during his brief three months' service some
eight hundred copies of the Scriptures. Among the
last messages he sent us from the Book which he carried
to his fellow-men was this : " The grace and peace of God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all."
In Moslem Lands.
For the past two or three years the internal condition
of Morocco has made it well-nigh impossible to carry on
Bible distribution. The towns on the coast have been
visited, but itineraries among the villages and towns
of the interior have been perforce suspended. From
Fez, where our Sub-agent, Mr. Dermer, spent several
months trying to establish a new depot, he sends a pitiful
account of what he endured from Moslem fanatics :
" The violence with which the people treat me is affecting
my nerves. Indeed, I can borrow the words of the
prophet and say, ' I gave my back to the smiters, I hid
not my face from shame and spitting.' Frequently I
have been attacked by the people, and felt their rough
hands on me as they dragged me like a beast. Almost
every day have they spat on my face and clothes."
74

AMONG THE HEAD-HUNTERS IN BORNEO.
\'illa2e House where the single men reside.

THERE IS A RIVER
Last year the Turkish Government imposed such new
restrichons on the Society's colporteurs as would have
effectually crippled their work. It is acknowledged that
the Society's men and methods have been entirely free
from political, controversial, or subversive meddling, and
have been confined to distributing the Scriptures. In no
case has any personal charge been brought against a
colporteur. Yet our men have been detained in idleness,
in some cases for many months, by provincial governors.
The British Ambassador has been able, however, to
induce the Sublime Porte to modify to some extent its
poHcy of repression, and our warmest thanks are due to
Embassy officials for their very valuable kindness.
Socialism and Superstition.
In Central Europe, and especially in the German black-
country, and in Alsace-Lorraine, we hear that Social Demo
crats and Anarchists are increasing in number. Socialism,
unhappily, is becoming more and more identified with
hostility to all forms of Christian faith. From Courland,
for example, news comes that the peasants now talk
" not only against the Government, but also against
religion, and God, and the Scriptures." On the other
hand, the influence of the Roman Church still remains,
on the whole, bitterly opposed to the free circulation
of the vernacular Bible, apart from ecclesiastical glosses
and interpretations. Prelates and priests — especially
those of the prevalent ultramontane type — oppose and
denounce the colporteur and do their utmost to hinder
his mission. Against forces like these the Society's
agents often have no easy struggle.
Friendly Exceptions.
We thankfully acknowledge, however, some golden
75

THERE IS A RIVER
exceptions to this normal attitude of Roman ecclesiastics.
Word comes, for instance, from Brazil that in the city of
S. Luiz de Carceres, not far from the capital of Matto
Grosso, a colporteur sold ;^i3 worth of Bibles in three
days. Here the priest proved quite friendly, and declared
that the Bible was very good, because it counteracted the
influences of spiritualism and materialism which are so
prevalent in Brazil. One of our Persian colporteurs
recently made a journey to Senneh, in Kurdistan, where
he was well received by the aged Roman Catholic Bishop
and his monks, who, with a young Chaldean priest, a
graduate of Paris, proved most kind and friendly : " They
were very glad to know that we sold the Scriptures to
the Kurds also, and the priest recommended me to the
chief of the Kurds."
Religious Education among Chaldean Christians.
It is interesting and instructive to learn that at the
request of the Chaldean Bishop (who is in communion
with the Roman Church) and his flock at Kerkook,
one of the Society's colporteurs has for some years given
a Bible lesson at their school for an hour every other
day, without payment. These Chaldean Christians at
Kerkook greatly appreciate the Society, and most of the
readers used at their school are copies of the Scriptures
in Arabic and Turkish which it has supplied.
The Roman Church and the Vernacular Scriptures.
We rejoice once more to note an increasing readiness
on the part of Roman authorities to popularize the
Bible. The admirable new French version of the Bible
by I'Abbe Crampon, translated from the original texts —
not from the Vulgate — and revised by Jesuit Fathers and
76

THERE IS A RIVER
professors of the Seminary of St. Sulpice, has won such
recognition and success that the first edition of 25,000
copies was disposed of before the end of 1905, and the
book has just been reprinted.
For the last two or three years our Reports have
recorded the splendid achievements in Italy of the
beneficent Society of St, Jerome, More than 400,000
copies have now been printed and circulated of the
volume containing the Four Gospels and the Acts, newly
translated into Italian and issued from the Vatican press,
which the St. Jerome Society sells at 20 centesinii (= 2d.)
a copy. At certain churches in Rome, like the Church of
San Marcello al Corso, this version is read and expounded
every Sunday. One of the leaders of the St. Jerome
Society, Padre Genocchi, has stated that they expect to
issue the Epistles in this same version not later than
October, igo6.
It is cheering indeed when at Florence, for instance.
La Stella Cattolica, the weekly religious journal of the
diocese, has a leading article entitled " The Reading of
the Gospel" which begins thus: "There is among
Catholics a vigorous revival of the dissemination and
the reading of the Gospel ; " and when, in the famous
Church of Sta. Maria Novella, the Lenten preacher this
year, at the end of each sermon, has recommended his
hearers to buy and read the Gospels published by the
St. Jerome Society.
The Roman Church in Brazil is beginning to follow
along the same track. At Bahia the Franciscan monks
have recently published a new Portuguese version of the
Four Gospels and the Acts, each part of which is sold
separately at prices varying from 5d. to 7d. apiece. Only
last year another Portuguese translation of the Four
77

THERE IS A RIVER
Gospels, made from the Vulgate, appeared at Rio, in one
handsome volume, with notes and illustrations, which
costs, however, as much as 4s. This book has special
significance, because it contains an introduction by the
Archbishop of Rio, who has just been created Cardinal,
and is the only South American prelate now in the
Sacred College. His introduction ends with the fol
lowing sentences : " All Catholic families should have
in their homes the Book of the Holy Gospels. They
should read it in common and meditate upon it. Let
all pious souls take to their charge this holy and
regenerating mission of propagating among all classes
of society the reading of the Holy Gospels."
To this the Bible Society can most fervently respond :
" We desire nothing better, we work for nothing less."
In the Russian Empire.
Although no foreign missionary is allowed to reside
and proselytize in Russia, there is an ancient and honour
able tradition which secures a warm welcome and special
facilities for the servants of the Bible Society throughout
the dominions of the Tsar. More than seventy of our
colporteurs are at work in this Empire of vast distances
— where eight out of every nine people live in villages
and small hamlets, often isolated by wide stretches of
empty country. Most of these colporteurs are them
selves Russian peasants, and devout members of the
Russian Church. As they travel from place to place
they live on the food of working folk — black bread,
chiefly, with sour milk, and perhaps a bowl of cabbage-
soup once a day. Thanks to the generous concessions
of the Government and the railroad and steamboat
companies, these men can travel free in any part of the
78

THERE IS A RIVER
country, while the Society's books are exempt from
various taxes and duties and are carried for the most
part without charge over Russian lines. The railway
mileage put at the Society's disposal in the Empire
of the Tsar, without charge for travelling or freight,
amounts to a quarter of a million miles annually.
Thanks to the attitude of those in high places, our
colporteurs have permission to sell practically every
where. They go from one end to the other of the trains
and the steamers, offering the Scriptures to passengers.
They sell at the fairs, they sell in the monasteries, and
from first to last they have seldom experienced anything
but friendliness from the priests, the police, or the
people. In spite of political crises and social upheavals, the
popular demand for the Scriptures in Russia shows no sign
of slackening. During the month of May, 1906, three
hundred cases of books were despatched from our St.
Petersburg depot to different parts of the Society's
Russian Agency. This is the largest output ever re
corded during a single month.
For Strangers in Strange Lands.
No feature in the life of the world to-day is more
impressive than the great, silent movements of population.
Formerly emigrants would venture forth, like single spies,
to seek their fortune. But now, common people have
begun to migrate in battalions and crowds at once.
Travel is made so cheap and easy that multitudes, of
many races and many languages, set out each year to find
new homes beyond the sea. Among these thronging
emigrants the Bible Society finds its special opportunity.
Alike on their journey and after they have settled, it offers
79

THERE IS A RIVER
them the Gospel in their mother-tongue. And to folk
in exile, who feel themselves literally strangers and
foreigners, the sight of God's Book, in the familiar type
and speech of the native land they have left, comes with
the same poignant appeal which long ago moved David
to cry : " Oh that one would give me drink of the water of
the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate I "
As the peasants of Continental Europe flock to the
seaports where they take passage for a new world, our
colporteurs meet them before they set sail. At Hamburg,
for example, 7,000 books were sold to emigrants last year.
At Rotterdam special provision was made for Jews
passing through from Russia, Poland, and Rumania.
During 1905, over 200,000 Italian emigrants left Naples,
where an Italian colporteur was busy on the wharves
and on board the steamers. Gospels were provided
for distribution to emigrants at St. Lazare station, Paris,
and were sold in great numbers at Breslau railway
station in Silesia, through which passed thousands of
Galicians, Ruthenes, and other Slavs on their way to a
foreign land.
In Greater Britain.
The Bible Society, which has over 2,000 Auxiliaries
and Branches in the British Colonies, does not neglect
its duty to our own flesh and blood in the outposts
of the Empire. By colportage and by liberal grants
the Scriptures are distributed far and wide among British
settlers on the Canadian prairies and in the Australian
bush. Perhaps the problem of reaching emigrants will
be best understood if we take two concrete instances
— at Johannesburg and at Winnipeg.
80

THERE IS A RIVER
At Johannesburg.
It is astonishing to learn that from the Society's new
depot at Johannesburg the Scriptures were supplied last
year in fifty-three different languages. One other lan
guage, indeed, was called for, which could not at the time
be provided ; but we can hardly be charged with lack of
foresight because in Central South Africa we did not
anticipate a demand for the Icelandic Bible. Of this
medley of fifty-three different tongues, twenty-one be
longed to aborigines of South Africa, eighteen to Europe,
and fourteen to Asia. The sales in English and in Dutch
both exceeded 5,000 copies. Among the polyglot crowds
which gather in the market-place and at the street-corners
of the " Golden City," a Syrian colporteur sold 1,600
books in sixteen different versions.
On the Rand.
Amongst the Chinese coolies in the mines 1,656 copies
of Chinese Scriptures were circulated last year. Our col
porteur has had but little difficulty in getting access to
the compounds, and in general his work has been en
couraged and even aided by those in charge. Many of
the coolies themselves asked for the complete Bible in
Easy Wenli and in Mandarin, and we are now able to
supply this demand. Again and again, coolies who had
received Gospels as gifts from the Society's agents
in China on their embarkation have shown how grate
fully the books have been treasured and used. The
various Missions which have taken up work among these
Chinese immigrants have found our depot of very great
great assistance. The Chinese have much unoccupied
time on their hands, and those who can read are often
seen quietly studying the Word of God.
81 G

THERE IS A RIVER
Moreover, 108,000 native Africans were employed last
year in the labour districts of the Transvaal. Within
a few miles of our depot there are natives who speak one
or other of all the twenty-one African languages referred
to above. From the extreme north of Nyasaland and the
south of Cape Colony, from Damaraland in the west, and
Portuguese East Africa and Zululand in the east, they are
collected to do unskilled labour on the Rand. Here the
Bible Society has a wonderful opportunity.
To provide these labourers with the Word of God,
in languages spoken 800 or even 1,200 miles away, is to
send them back home with an equipment of far-reaching
possibilities. The Bible thus introduced will prepare the
way for the future advance of the Christian Church.
It may be added that the Earl of Selborne, the High
Commissioner, has become president of the Bible Society's
Transvaal Auxiliary, and took the chair at its annual
meeting at Johannesburg in August, 1905.
At Winnipeg.
The cosmopolitan character of the immigrants who are
now pouring into Canada may be judged from the fact
that the Scriptures in forty-five different languages have
been asked for at our depot in Winnipeg. Of the
144,600 people who entered Canada last year, not less
than 35,000 came from Continental Europe, chiefly from
the backward and less -enlightened regions of Central
Europe — Hungarians, Galicians, Poles, Russians, Ruthe-
nians, besides Finns, Scandinavians, and numerous
Italians. Some 70,000 Galicians are to be found west
of Lake Superior. Winnipeg is the main point to which
these motley new-comers converge, before they are dis
tributed over the prairies. This open gateway to the
82

LUMBERMEN IN THE WOODS, NEW BRUNSWICK.

THERE IS A RIVER
wide West occupies a commanding position for the
circulation among the immigrants of the Scriptures in
many foreign tongues. It is estimated that 100,000
people pass through the Canadian Pacific Railway station
at Winnipeg in a single year. In the Immigration Hall,
where thousands of polyglot strangers arrive and await
dispersion, a Bible-stand has been erected with the assent
of the Immigration Bureau. In the heart of that cos
mopolitan crowd, forming a spectacle of unique and
appealing interest, may be seen the Bible Society's col
porteur offering the Scriptures in many different versions.
Among Galicians in Saskatchewan.
Among the Galicians, who cover large tracts of country
in Saskatchewan, a most interesting religious movement
is now proceeding, hamely, the spontaneous formation
of an Independent Greek Church by the people them
selves. Among thousands of these settlers the Reforma
tion is now silently going forward. Some 25,000 of
them are coming under the influence of this Independent
Greek Church, which is organizing itself on the basis of
a self-governing " Consistory," and is casting off the
controlling hands of pope and patriarch. There are
already about fifteen Galician preachers who have charge
of thirty congregations, and do good service in circu
lating the Scriptures among their own people.
At Port Said.
Every great harbour reproduces to some extent those
cosmopolitan characteristics which belong to the centres
of immigration. The most vivid illustration of the Bible
Society's mission may be found at the wonderful water-
gate between the East and the West at the entrance to
83

THERE IS A RIVER
the Suez Canal. If we reckon up passengers and crews
and troops on transports, it is estimated that over a
million persons belonging to all nationalities and races,
touched at Port Said in 1905. Here is a unique
opportunity for Christian service, which only the Bible
Society has learnt to utilize.
Our three colporteurs, who with their superintendent are
always busy visiting the vessels in Port Said harbour, seem
well equipped for their polyglot task. One is a German, who
speaks not only his own language and English, but also
Greek and Hausa, and can make himself understood, suffi
ciently for his purpose, in Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Italian,
Spanish, and Swedish. The second, an Englishman, makes
Arabic and Italian his special languages, but has also had
considerable experience in Russ, Croat, Spanish, Portu
guese, and French, to which he adds a useful smattering of
Bengali, Gujarati, and Marathi. The third, a native of
Ceylon, in addition to his own Sinhalese, speaks Arabic
and English, as well as Tamil, Hindostani, and Bengali.
Between them they are ready for most languages spoken on
boai'd ship, and it is not often they are all tongue-tied.
The Society's colporteurs visited 4,170 ships of all
classes last year, while to the passengers and crews on
board there have been sold altogether 10,160 volumes
of the Scriptures in twenty-nine different languages and
dialects — which were carried away forthwith to the very
ends of the earth.

84

THERE IS A RIVER

WATERS OF HEALING
Spiritual religion finds its ultimate proof in the depths of
spiritual experience. The challenge of Divine wisdom is
not " O argue and reason," but " O taste and see." For the
incontestable witness and warrant for God's living water
rriust come from those men who have themselves tasted
its living virtue to quicken and heal the soul. So the
final evidence for the Bible— and the justification for the
Bible Society — can be seen in that moral power which
it exerts over the characters of faithful Christians. They
are the highest of all critics, the real experts in Holy
Scripture; and their verdict is enshrined in the hearts of
Christ's little ones and written at length in the lives and
deeds of His saints.
Year by year the Society accumulates fresh testimonies
from many lands that the Scriptures, in whatever tongue
they speak, are still able to make men wise unto salvation
through faith which is in Christ Jesus. God's Book does
not belong to scholars any more than it belongs to
priests ; it can come home to the minds of children
who read the Gospel pages. In the words of the Bishop
of Durham, " it is able to unveil its inmost secret, not
necessarily to the elaborately instructed, but to the simple-
hearted soul." When we are told that " there is no book
in the world which so much requires expert interpretation
as the Bible," we answer that God is His own interpreter,
83

THERE IS A RIVER
and we recollect how the first edition of Olivetan's French
Bible in 1535 bore on its New Testament title-page this
text : They shall be all taught of God. Last year a simple,
unlettered Christian in Chehkiang, mistaking the Chinese
word for sacred in the title of the New Testament, spoke
of it as the " Heart Book " ; while another declared that
the proof of the Bible being divine was " its marvellous
insight into men's hearts." "It has explained to me," said
a Hunan scholar, "some of the sublimest things our Sage
Confucius ever said. This doctrine of repentance and
pardon is wonderful. Oh, if it had only come to me
earlier ! The Gospel has been heaven's gate to my soul !"
The Book which brought Happiness.
Near Liege Colporteur Messoten sold a Testament two
years ago to a woman who first objected : " I am much
too poor to buy. My husband drinks the money away."
" This Testament," said Messoten, " will teach you the
way to peace and joy." Finally she bought it. Soon her
husband began to read her book, and before long he
resolved to go and listen to the Gospel. To-day both he
and his wife are earnest and avowed Christians. " On
one of my last journej's," says Messoten, "I knocked at
the door of a house ; it quickly opened, and I heard a
man's joyful exclamation : ' Here is the first Christian
who came to us, and sold us the Testament,' and he
shook hands with me heartily. His wife took up the
book I had sold her, saying, ' Here is this Holy Book
which has brought us happiness.' Then her husband told
me in detail about his conversion, and showed me the
furniture he had broken in his drunken state, and how he
had repaired it since. 'Ah,' he cried, 'how glad and
thankful I am that I have come to know Jesus Christ ! ' "
86

THERE IS A RIVER
The Effect of Reading the Gospel.
Here is the testimony ^ of a Sikh convert : —
" When I was a young man I used to hate the very name
of Christian, and in the bazaars, when any missionary got up
to speak, I used to throw stones and mud. One day I was
much worse than usual ; it was as if Satan had got posses
sion of me, and I tried to make the missionary angry, but he
answered nothing back. He seemed to be praying when he
could not make himself heard, and I was afraid. I thought,
' He is calling on his God to curse me.' After the crowd
had gone, he came up to me and said, ' Why do you treat
me so badly ? ' I thought he would be very angry with me
and said, ' Why are you not angry with me ? ' He said,
' Because in our Injil (Gospel) it is written, " Bless them
that curse you."' I said, 'Sahib, they tell me that the Injil
is an evil book, and that Christians are evil people, but that
word, " Bless them that curse you," is a good word.' ' Read
the Injil yourself,' he said, ' do not trust what other people
say.' I took it and I read it, and you know what effect the
Injil has. I soon became a Christian."
The Gospels in Korea.
Last autumn the venerable Primate of Ireland wrote :—
" The days were once for me when I thought that the
Bible without the living voice of a missionary in the case of
heathens, or of an existing interpreting Church in the case
of Christian lands, might be looked upon as almost wasted.
I have lived to hear of a whole body of people in Korea
Christianized by the Gospel of St. Mark alone in their own
language. I have reason to think that the conversion of a
whole people may follow the distribution of a bag-ful of the
Four Gospels translated into their own language. Such is
the answer of fact to the speculations of criticism."
' From ' The Mission Field; August, 1905,
87

THERE IS A RIVER
Archbishop Alexander's letter receives vivid illus
tration from some sentences addressed to the Bible
House from Songdo, Korea, dated March i, 1906, by the
Rev. C. T. Collyer, of the Methodist Episcopal Mission :—
" I am paying my first visit to the village of Syen-mi.
Nearly seven years ago a man named Pak bought a copy
of St. Matthew's Gospel from the Bible Depot in Songdo.
He comprehended very little and so put the book away,
where for over five years it lay buried in dust. Latterly it
was taken out and shown to friends. In this village there
are now fourteen persons who have decided for Christ, and
until recently the only light they had for their path was the
copy of St. Matthew, bought seven years ago and lent round
among them."
Kept by the Good Shepherd.
In Saints and Savages, the tale of five years in the
New Hebrides, by Robert Lamb, we find the picture of a
faithful Christian teacher named Tatu in Ambrym, defying
by sheer faith the evil machinations of those about him.
When they thought by aple, that is to say native magic,
to deter him from his work of evangelization, he sat on
his doorstep in the evening light and spelled the words on
his favourite page of the Psalter — published by the Bible
Society — The Lord is my shepherd, or, as the verse reads
literally in his own tongue, Jehovah keeps looking to
protect me. When the darkness settled close round their
dwellings, he might be found with two or three younger
companions sitting round the fire in his own hut,
teaching them, and singing with them the native version
of a familiar hymn in such words as these : —
Jesus says to tis. Shine your reddest light
Like a glowing fire-slick in the blackest night.
Dark is every village, therefore we must shine,
You in your hut's corner, and I in mine,
8S

THERE IS A RIVER
Translated into the Kingdom.
Here is another example of the strange power of
Scripture. The Rev. P. O. Bodding, who has trans
lated the New Testament into Santali, was obliged last
year to change his principal assistant, who had been a
Christian Santal. With considerable trepidation and
hesitancy Mr. Bodding engaged instead a heathen,
a man somewhat better versed than his fellows in the
idiomatic usages of the language, who held indeed a
position of influence as the headman of a village in the
Santal Pergannas. The Four Gospels had been com
pleted and the new assistant sat day by day with Mr.
Bodding while he was rendering the Acts and Epistles
into Santali. As time went on the man became so
thoroughly convinced of the truth of the Christian
revelation that he asked for baptism and is now an
earnest Christian, using all his influence as a humble
disciple of our Lord.
The Leper's Comfort.
Writing from the Methodist Mission, Loma Loma,
Fiji, the Rev. Colin Bleazard describes the following
experience which came to his notice only last April : —
'' A few Sundays ago I went to preach at the back of the
island and missed from my congregation a local preacher
named Nathanael. On inquiry, I found that the native
doctor had recently pronounced him to be a leper, and the
Buli or ruler of the district had decided that he must be
isolated. Accordingly the townsmen had erected a small
house for him half a mile outside the town. Wife and
children and relatives are all forbidden to come near him.
Every day they carry food to within about thirty paces of
the house, then they call to tell him that his food has been
8q

THERE IS A RIVER
brought, and they must return to the village. However, I
went on up to the house. He was greatly surprised to see me
and wept with gratitude at my visit. We had prayer together,
and I asked him if he were content with these strange
solitary conditions under which he had to live. He took up
his well-worn, dilapidated Testament and said amid falling
tears : ' Sir, with this Book I am contented in my loneliness.
This is my contentment. If I had not this Book to sustain
me, I should be miserable indeed ; but with this Book I am
content to remain where I am, for I gain from its words the
daily comfort which helps me to bear easily what would
otherwise be indeed a burden.' This Fiji New Testament,
pubhshed by the Bible Society, constituted the leper's whole
library." A Convict in Siberia.
In the third-class waiting-room at Omsk railway
station, a poorly-clad man with haggard, wearied looks,
bought a German New Testament, and then told the
colporteur his story, not without tears :
" I am from the island of Saghalien, where I was sent for
eight years' penal servitude. I am a Lutheran, and have
served four years of this heavy punishment. I am an
innocent man, and have had to suffer for some one else ;
but I have sought strength and comfort in God's W^ord.
You know the words in 2 Corinthians iv. 17 : Our light
affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh foi us a far more
exceeding and eternal weight of glory. These words "ive me
courage and patience to carry my burden, and to hope for
the life to come."
Such testimonies might be multiplied almost indefinitely.
We have chosen only a few out of the great cloud of
witnesses, at home and abroad, who speak from the
fulness of their experience, and declare how the livin"
90

THERE IS A RIVER
water in God's river has become life and joy to their
souls. A Brazilian farmer who had come into Rio from his
home in the remote interior, brought out of his pocket
one of the Society's small Testaments : " This is my
guide," he said, " the only one I have, and I am putting
all my trust in Jesus." In the hospital at Hiroshima,
a Japanese soldier w^ho lay recovering from typhoid
spoke enthusiastically of what the New Testament had
been to him when he read it by the bright autumn
moonlight, encamped on the plains of Manchuria.
"The book has been my comfort through my illness
here in hospital, but it was best of all there,"
* * *
" O fountain of gardens, well of living waters, streams
from Lebanon 1 How do you, the ' nether springs ' of
this world, bring to us something of the everlasting
loveliness and peace of those ' upper springs ' by which
the beautiful flock now feed and lie down, none making
them afraid."

91

THERE IS A RIVER

GIFTS AND GRATITUDE
We know enough about human nature to feel persuaded
that any ordinary person is more likely to value and read
a book when he has paid something in order to make it
his own. The Bible Society, therefore, endeavours, as a
rule, to sell the Scriptures at prices which put them within
reach of the poor in every land, instead of scattering them
broadcast by means of wholesale free distribution. Out
of the total amount which the Society expends each year
in preparing and distributing God's Word, about 40 per
cent, comes back to it from the proceeds of sales.
Nevertheless, in the case of certain eminent personages,
the open acceptance of a gift from the Society has a sym
bolic meaning and importance. Last year, for example,
the Khedive of Egypt graciously accepted a magnificent
Arabic Bible. The King of the Hellenes received an
English Bible, with a copy of Nestle's edition of the Greek
Testament, in remembrance of his visit to England. A
presentation Amharic Bible was forwarded to Queen Taitu,
the consort of King Menehk of Abyssinia. The New Tes
tament in Korean "mixed script" was presented to the
Emperor of Korea. During his mission to Japan Prince
Arthur of Connaught accepted, "with much apprecia
tion," a Japanese New Testament, printed and bound by
native workmen. While the Chinese Commission visited
London last spring the Duke Tsai Tseh and his two

Photo by]

THE, TONGSA PENLOP OF BHUTAN.
A Chieftani in the Eastern Himalayas.

IJ. C. Wliite, CLE.

THERE IS A RIVER
colleagues accepted beautiful copies of the Wenli New
Testament and the English Bible. A picturesque inci
dent of the Indian tour of the Prince and Princess of
Wales was the arrival at Calcutta of potentates from
the Himalayas. Surrounded by splendid retinues, they
descended from their mountain strongholds to meet the
future Emperor of India. Copies of the Tibetan New
Testament were presented to the Maharajah of Sikkim,
who ranks first among native princes in Bengal ; and the
Tongsa Penlop, who is the dominant feudal chieftain in
Bhutan.
For Special Need or Calamity.
In face of public trial or disaster the Society makes
prompt and generous free grants to those in need. Last
year, for instance, its colporteurs gave away French
Testaments among the widows and bereaved famihes of
the miners entombed by the terrible explosion at
Courri^res, in the north of France, and distributed
Italian Gospels among the sufferers from earthquake in
Calabria and from the eruption of Vesuvius. Testaments
and Psalters were sent as gifts to the 626 lighthouse-
keepers along the coasts of France and Belgium.
For Prisoners and Captives.
The Society has always sought to place in prison cells
the Book which speaks liberty to those whom Satan has
bound. Thus our colporteurs regularly visit the islands
in the Mediterranean where Italian convicts are interned.
Last year 400 Gospels were given away among these un
happy coatti. In Siberia every prison has its library which
our colporteurs replenish at stated intervals with copies
of the Scriptures. They have also been allowed to
distribute Testaments among convicts in the Siberian
93

THERE IS A RIVER
mines. Last year 580 Japanese Testaments were given
away to criminals confined at Okayama, and 500 Chinese
Testaments were presented for the use of prisoners in the
new municipal gaol at Shanghai. One of our Sub-agents
in China writes : —
" We visited the prisons at Loting, Saining, and Wuchow,
and distributed Gospels among the prisoners. I have tried
to do so everywhere, but find permission difficult to obtain.
A Chinese prison beggars description : the tortures inflict
awful wounds v/hich, undressed, soon present a most
sickening sight."
During the war between Russia and Japan the Society
gave away hundreds of thousands of Gospels and
Testaments, with friendly official countenance and
assistance, to the armies and navies of both nations.
And after peace had been signed, the same work of
distribution still went on among multitudes of the sick
and wounded in hospitals, among Russian prisoners of
war in Japan, and Japanese prisoners in Russia. When
a detachment of Togo's sailors brought Japanese tran
sports into the Thames last spring, each man received
from the Bible House a Testament in his own tongue.
For Indian Students.
The Society regularly presents the Scriptures to all
students at Indian Universities. Each man, when he
matriculates, is offered a copy of the Four Gospels and
Acts in English ; half way through his course he is asked
to accept the complete New Testament ; and when he
has graduated, the Society endeavours to arrange that
he shall go forth with the complete Bible in his hands.
During last year nearly 6,000 volumes were thus distri
buted and gratefully accepted as gifts from the Society.
94

THERE IS A RIVER
For our own People.
These few examples may serve as specimens of the
Society's giving. We must not forget that it spends over
;^io,ooo a year in England and Wales by direct grants of
Scriptures, free or at almost nominal rates, to numberless
schools, hospitals, asylums, orphanages, and benevolent
institutions of every kind. From this source each boy or
girl sent out to Canada by Dr. Barnardo's Homes and
similar philanthropic agencies receives a Bible as a
parting gift. * * -»
Year by year fresh expressions of gratitude for the
Scriptures reach the Bible House in London from all
corners of the earth. Those munificent gifts which
completed our Centenary Fund, and the messages of
congratulation thereupon which came from the rulers
of every nation of the Reformed Faith, were really
thanksgivings for the Bible. Sometimes gratitude takes
curious forms. King Menelik once sent a pair of
elephant's tusks from Abyssinia. Last year Prince
Salah-ed-Dowleh, the third son of the Shah and Governor
of Kurdistan, forwarded an autographed portrait of him
self, with a unique silk carpet of Persian workmanship,
"as a token of my goodwill and esteem towards your
honourable Society." This Prince had previously ac
cepted a presentation copy of the Persian Bible, which
he keeps in a box of gold, made for that purpose. Some
times converts in remote countries send touching words
of gratitude for the Gospel. The native Christians in
North Nyasaland wrote last autumn : —
" We, the people of Utengule, Nyasaland, ask you to
accept our truly grateful thanks, because you have agreed to
95

THERE IS A RIVER
write the books for us {i.e., the Gospel of St. Matthew in
Nyasa-Nyika). Our special thanks are due to you because
in your kindness you have worked out these books for us in
our mother-tongue. This is why we people of Utengule — all
of us — rejoice very much and send you our thanks. Your
love to us is really great, and we have learnt that you love
the people of all lands. Your benevolence is great ; it spreads
over all the countries. God increase you more and more in
His grace ! We, who have no wisdom, we of Utengule — all
of us — greet you."
Out of their Poverty.
But far more moving and pathetic than any words are
gifts from the poor of this world, who are rich in faith
and love. Bible Sunday was observed last year by eighty-
four Chinese congregations — some of them only small
groups of worshippers — who contributed altogether
$1,238. The spirit in which they gave is illustrated by the following
extracts : " After the collection another $2 was sent in by a
Chinese Christian, to show his gratitude for what the Bible
has done." "A contribution of $2 was saved out of weekly
food allowance by ten schoolgirls." "A few Christians"
sent $4 ;. " they were within the Russian lines and could not
send it earlier." " Every penny of this sum ($40) comes from
our natives. Among them there are not many rich, but they
were glad of another Bible Sunday." Sacred and precious
beyond all the rest was the sum of 60 cents, found in the
collecting box of Amy Machle, one of the party massacred
at Lienchow.
This spirit of thankful, eager generosity breaks out in
many impressive forms. At an orphanage in North India
the boys denied themselves one meal for three Sundays,
to give the price of the food to the Bible Society. Men,
96

THERE IS A RIVER
women, and children of the Danish Mission to the Santals
were collecting for the Society for a month, the school
girls laying aside part of their rice to save money. The
result was 6,000 annas {£2^), " sent with heartiest greet
ings and prayers." In the Leper Asylum at Purulia for
a week before Bible Sunday some of the lepers put by a
handful from their daily supply of rice, others went with
out their dole of pepper or spices or tobacco, others saved
a pice or two from their weekly pittance ; after the collec
tion an old man rose and said, " Write to the Bible Society
Sahib and say that we have been glad in giving." . . .
Our correspondent adds, "And so they were."
Since midsummer a negro in the island of Tobago
wrote, " Please receive this 6d. It's my small gift that I
give towards the Bible Society. The gift is small, sir, but
love is all." Surely that sixpence has found a place of its
own, beside the widow's mite and the box of spikenard,
in the treasury of the great King.
" The Kingdom of Heaven has no entrance fee, but its
subscription is — all that a man hath." How far do we
reahse this awful and glorious secret of the Gospel ?
How deeply have we entered into this sacrificial passion
which crimsons the pages of Holy Scripture ? " If thou
knewest the gift of God, thou could'st keep back nothing
from God." The Love which passeth knowledge demands
a gratitude which passeth limits. Indeed, the Heidelberg
Catechism, one of the most typical documents of the
Reformation, was bold enough to include the whole of
Christian ethics under this heading of "Gratitude." When
once Christian men and women have a profounder sense
of their unspeakable debt to their Redeemer, and their
imperious duty to publish abroad His Gospel, there will
97 H

THERE IS A RIVER
be an end of deficits at the Bible House. We lose sight
of human criticism, as we rend our hearts before that
High and Holy Critic who meets our very gifts with His
challenge : How much owest thou unto thy Lord f
Proceeding out of the Throne.
Finally, we remind ourselves that the source of the
River is the Throne. The Bible Society was founded in
an atmosphere of prayer by men who knew the mysterious
power of intercession. To-day it has no other secret of
fruitfulness and vitality. It can never exist on inherited
spiritual capital, or advance by the momentum of its own
past. It must live and move and have its being in
perpetual prayers, answered by fresh influx of grace and
energy from God. In Dr. Stewart's book. Dawn in the
Dark Continent, he declares that " the force and expansive
power of primitive Christianity depended at first, as they
still depend, on its internal condition, that is, on its
spiritual life." The Bible Society is one most characteristic
and catholic form of the Church's missionary enterprise.
And its friends dare not forget that " spiritual enterprises
require spiritual conditions of the very highest force, and
while the latter are wanting, the success desired may be
wanting also." Amid the multifarious methods of a great
institution, with its business details and financial cares,
nothing can save the Bible Society from sinking into
a mere machine for the distribution of useful literature,
unless it be baptized continually in that same heavenly
River which it exists to communicate, and renewed day
by day in spirit by the powers of the world to come.

98

APPENDIX.

NOTICE RESPECTING REMITTANCES.
Subscriptions and donations are received at the Bible House, 146, Queen
Victoria Street, London, E.C. ; also at the Society's Bankers, Williams
Deacon's Bank, Limited, 20, Birchin Lane, E.C. ; — advice being sent
to the Secretaries at the Bible House. Cheques, Bankers' Drafts,
and Post Office Orders {on the General Post Office), should be made
payable to The British and Foreign Bible Society, and addressed to
the Secretaries.

FORM OF A BEQUEST TO THE SOCIETY.
I bequeath the sum of Pounds sterling,
free of Legacy Duty, to "The British and Foreign Bible
Society," instituted in London in the year 1804, to he paid for
the purposes of the said Society to the Treasurer for the time
being thereof, whose Receipt shall he a good discharge for the
same.

Telegraphic Address : Telephone :
Testaments, London. No. 2036 Central.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY.
President : The Marquis of Northampton,

Vice-Presidents t

1873. BISHOP MITCHINSON, D.C.L., D.D.
1876. BISHOP MOOEHOUSE, D.D.
1877. The EARL of ABERDEEN.
The Rl. Hon. Sir T. H. KENNAWAY, Bart.,
C.E., M.P.
1878. The ARCHBISHOP o( YORK.
1S83. The BISHOP OF ST. ANDREWS.
1884. BISHOP BARRY, D.D.
The BISHOP of RIPON.
1883. Rev. ALEXANDER MCLAREN, D.D.
•BISHOP BICKERSTETH, D.D.
I8S6. Rer. W. H. DALLINGER, LL.D., F.R.S.
Rev. J. OSWALD DYKES, D.D.
Sir THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, Bail.,
G.C.M.G.
1S87. The ARCHBISHOP of CANTERBURY.
Rev. TAMES H. RIGG, D.D.
1888. W. SCHOOLCROFT BURTON, Eiq.
BISHOP ROYSTON, D.D.
JOHN CORY, Esq.
18S9. The EARL of HALSBUEY.
LORD BRASSEY, K.C.B.
The BISHOP of ST. ASAPH.
1891. LORD KINNAIRD.
The DEAN of WINDSOR.
R. N. CUST, Esq., LL.D.
Rev. A. M. FAIRBAIRN, D.D.
1892, The BISHOP of LICHFIELD.
The ARCHBISHOP of MONTREAL.
Aid. Sir JOSEPH SAVORY, Barl.
The BISHOP of SODOR and MAN.
The ARCHBISHOP of SYDNEY.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON.
A. MCAETHUR, Esq.
1893. Rev. CHANCELLOR EDMONDS, E.D.
•EDWAED RAWLINGS, Esq.
J. STORES FRY, Esq.
BISHOP JOHNSON, D.D.
Rev. J. G. ROGERS, D.D.
1894. ROBERT HEATH, Esq.
The ARCHBISHOP of the WEST INDIES.
ARCHDEACON SINCLAIR, D.D.
The BISHOP of MARLBOROUGH.
Admiral Sir F. LEOPOLD McCLINTOCK,
Rev! H.' J. POPE, D.D.
J. R. HILL, Esq.
1895. VISCOUNT PEEL.
The BISHOP of BATH and WELLS.
The Rt. Hon. VICTOR C. W. CAVENDISH,
M.P.
ALEXANDER PECKOVER, Esq., LL.D.
The BISHOP of CHESTER.
BISHOP GOE, D.D.
The DEAN of DURHAM.
The BISHOP of ST. ALBANS.
Eev. J, MONRO GIBSON, D.D.
1896. VISCOUNT HAMPDEN.
The EARL of STAMFORD.
J. TRUEMAN MILLS, Esq.
Sir ALBEET SPICEE, Bart., M.P.
Rev. G. J. GEEENHOUGH.
Rev. RICHARD GLOVER, D.D.
The BISHOP of HEEEFORD.
BISHOP STUART, D.D.
The DEAN of NORWICH.
1897. The BISHOP of PETERBOROUGH.
Hon. J. J. ROGERSON.
A. S. LESLIE-MELVILLE, Esq.
LORD RADSTOCK.
The BISHOP of DURHAM.
1898. Eev. CANON CHRISTOPHER.
Rev. CANON FLE»tING.
Rev. D. MACEWAN, D.D.
Tlie BISHOP of WAKEFIELD.
T. A. DENNY, ESQ.
The Rl. Hon. Sir HENRY HARTLEY
FOWLER, M.P., G.C.S.L

1898. Eev. CANON A. R. FADSSET.
1899, The BISHOP of ST. DAVIDS.
BISHOP Sir LOVELACE T. STAMER, Bart.
BISHOP WELLDON, D.D.
VISCOUNT CLIFDEN.
Rev. CANON R. B. GIRDLESTONE.
Rev. W. L. WATKINSON, D.D.
ROBERT BARCLAY, Esq.
CALEB E. KEMP, Esq.
HENRY MORRIS, Esq.
1900. BISHOP INGHAM, D.D,
The BISHOP of LIVERPOOL.
The MASTER of TRINITY.
Rev. F. W. MACDONALD.
F. A. BEVAN, Esq.
igot. The BISHOP of WINCHESTER.
The BISHOP of LONDON.
The BISHOP of LUCKNOW.
Sir GEORGE HAYTER CHUBB, Barl.
The EL Hon. Sir SAMUEL J. WAY, Bart.
LOBD ALVEESTONE, G.C.M.G., Lord Chief
Justice.
Sir G. E. KNOX.
Eev. GRIFFITH lOHN, D.D.
> Rev. JOHN G. BATON, D.D.
T. FOWELL BUXTON, Esq.
190a. The BISHOP of CALCUTTA.
The BISHOP of UGANDA.
The BISHOP of HOKKAIDO, Japan.
Rev. W. G. LAWES, D.D.
Eev. W. T. DAVISON, D.D.
Sir CHARLES ALFEED ELLIOTT, K.C.S.L
Sir ERNEST TRITTON, Bart.
THOMAS HODGKIN, Esq., D.C.L.
CHARLES FINCH FOSTER, Esq.
1903. The DEAN of WESTMINSl'EE.
Rev. C. H. KELLY.
Eev. JOHN WATSON, D.D.
Sir ALGERNON COOTE, Bart.
G. W. MACALPINE, Esq.
GEORGE SPICEE, Esq.
MAETIN JOHN SUTTON, Esq.
1904. The BISHOP of BIRMINGHAM.
The BISHOP of MANCHESTER.
The BISHOP of HONDURAS.
BISHOP STIRLING, D.D.
Rev. ANDREW MURRAY, D.D.
Eev. MARSHALL HARTLEY.
Rev. F. B. MEYER.
Eev. D. MACKICHAN, D.D.
Sir A. HAEGREAVES BROWN, Bart.
N. W. HOYLES, Esq., K.C., LL.D.
THOMAS PUMPHREY, Esq.
GEORGE CADBUEY, Esq.
P. F. WOOD, Esq.
G. F. SUTTON, Esq.
TH. DUKA, Esq., M.D.
1903. The BISHOP of BRISTOL.
Sir GEO. LIVESEY.
The Hon. JUSTICE FORBES.
Rev. R. F. HORTON, D.D.
GENERAL BOOTH.
E. PERCY HOLLAMS, Esq.
WILLIAMSON LAMPLOUGH, Esq.
1906. The EARL of DARTMOUTH.
The BISHOP of CARLISLE.
The BISHOP of ELY.
LORD STRATHCONA, G.C.M.G.
LORD WIMBORNE.
BISHOP TAYLOR SMITH, D.D., Chaplain
General to the Forces
Rev. PRINCIPAL FORSYTH, D.D.
Rev. TIMOTHY RICHARD, Litt.D.
Rev. D. ROWLANDS.
D. E. HOSTE, Esq.
SAMUEL LLOYD, Esq.
•J. E. VANNEE. Esq.
E. J. EAEP, Esq.

' Dtaastd since March 31,1906.
lOI

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY.

Treasurer :
Robert Barclay, Esq.

Committee :
Elected May 2, 1906.

Chairman of Committee :
Caleb R. Kemp, Esq.

when members first joined the Committee.
. 1900 H. W. Maynard, Esq. .
. 1906 G. J. McCaul, Esq.
1897 F. D. Outram, Esq.
. 1906 W. C. Parkinson, Esq.
. 1906 Joseph Pollard, Esq.
. 1886 Leslie S. Robertson, Esq.
. 1901 Maj.-Gen. C. G. Robinson
. 1905 W. H. Seagram, Esq. .
. 1905 E. J. Sewell, Esq.
. 1904 Colonel D. V. Shortland
. 1902 Colonel E. S. Skinner
. 1903 *H. Arthur Smith, Esq.
. 1906 Emil Walser, Esq.
. 1900 F. P. Weaver, Esq., m.d.
. 1905 D. Wellby, Esq. .
1897 L P. Werner, Esq.
. 1906 Sir And. Wingate, K.c.i.E.
. 1905 A. W. Young, Esq.
on the Committee last year.

The dates indicate
F. F. Belsey, Esq.
•C. A. Bingel, Esq.
A. Brauen, Esq. .
*W. van O. Bruyn, Esq.
*R. D. Cheveley, Esq. .
A. J. Crosfield, Esq. .
G. T. Crosfield, Esq. .
A. T. Dence, Esq.
Col. D. F. Douglas-Jones
C. A. Flint, Esq.
S. H. Gladstone, Esq.
Sir William Godsell .
*H. Lance Gray, Esq. .
T. Morgan Harvey, Esq.
Harold Knott, Esq.
H. Koenigs, Esq.
•Benjamin Lamb, Esq.
Geo. Maddox, Esq. ? Hot
The Committee meet, as a rule, at the Bible House, 146, Queen Victoria
Street, E.C, on the first and third Monday in every Month, at Half-past
Eleven o'clock ; and oftener, as business may require.

1898
1902
1905 1905
1890190118981902
1901190019031906
1887189s
189218841903
1891

Secretaries ;
The Rev. Arthur Taylor, m.a. The Rev. John H. Ritson, m.a.
Translating { The Rev. John Sharp, m.a.. Editorial Superintendent and
& Editorial ¦ Consulting Secretary,
Department [ Mr. Crayden Edmunds, m.a., Assistant.
Literary ( The Rev. T. H. Darlow, m.a., Literary Superintendent.
Department\ Miss F. Klickmann, Assistant.
Home j The Rev. H. A. Raynes, m.a., Home Superintendent.
Department \ The Rev. Harry Scott, Assistant Home Secretary.
Accountant : Assistant Foreign Secretary ;
Mr. W. P. Wakelin. Mr. T. Ernest Price.
Warehouse Manager : Collector :
Mr. W. Bulloch. Mr. Geo. B. Poole.

Honorary Solicitors :
Messrs. Hollams, Sons, Coward & Hawksley,
30, Mincing Lane, E.C.
Bankers :
Williams Deacon's Bank, Ltd., 20, Birchin Lane, EC.
102

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY.

Foreign Agents and Secretaries.

Paris — Pastor D. Lortsch.
Berlin — Mr. M. A. Morrison.
Florence—Sig. Augusto Meille.
Madrid — Mr. W. Summers.
St. Petersburg — Rev. W. Kean, d.d.
Ekaterinburg — Mr. W. Davidson.
Constantinople — Rev.T. R. Hodgson.
Alexandria — Rev. A. A. Cooper, m.a.
Cape Town — Rev. G. P. Van der
Merwe.
Johannesburg — Rev. G. Lowe.
Durban — Rev. J. Baptist Rose.

Ispahan— Mr. C. E. G. Tisdall.
Rangoon — Rev. W. Sherratt.
Singapore — Rev. P. G. Graham.
Shanghai— Rev, G. H. Bondfield.
Seoul— Mt. H. Miller.
Kobe— Mr. F. Parrott.
Whanganui, N,Z. — Rev. F. H.
Spencer.
Petropolis, Brazil— Rev. F. Uttley.
Callao-Mr. A. R. Stark.
Jamaica — Rev. G. O. Heath.
Toronto— Rev. R. E. Welsh, m.a.

Calcutta — Rev. A. W. Young.
Bombay — Rev. W. E. H. Organe,
B.A., b.d. {pro tem.).

Madras — Rev. S. W. Organe.
Allahabad — Rev.T.S.Wynkoop,M.A.
Lahore— Mr. W. H. L. Church.

Home District Secretaries and Assistants.

Rev. James Thomas,
Bible House, London.
Rev. J. Cynddylan Jones, d.d.,
Whitchurch, Cardiff.
Rev. W. H. Norman, m.a.,
17, Gunterstone Road, West Ken
sington, W.
Rev. W. Fisher, m.a.,
Bible House, London.
Rev. D. C. Edwards, m.a.,
Llanbedr, R.S.O., Merionethshire.
Rev. W. R. Bowman, b.a.,
Rowley Avenue, Stafford.
Rev. W. G. Jones, b.a.,
26, Malvern Street, Newcastle-on-
Tyne.
Rev. J. Alston, b.a.,
10, Castle Park, Lancaster.
Rev. T. Smetham,
5S,St.Augustine'sAvenue,Croydon.
Rev. J. W. Plant, 14A, Belvidere
Road, Princes Park, Liverpool.

Rev. Elias George, 83, Princess
Road, Leicester.
Rev. F. StentonEardley,B»-0M«7(tora,
Henleaze Road, Bristol.
Rev. Walter Wall, 12, Chestnut
Road, Moseley, Birmingham.
Rev. T. A. Wolfendale, m.a.,
41, Barrfield Road, Pendleton,
Manchester.
Rev. W. F. Hodge, m.a.,
Ridge End Villas, Headingley,
Leeds.
Rev. A. H. Gaskell, m.a., b.d.,
19, Staverton Road, Oxford.
Rev. J. Addison Ingle, m.a.,
Walden, Mount Gold Road,
Plymouth.
Rev. John A. Cooper,"
Carrick-a-Rede, Central Avenue,
West Bridgford, Notts.
Rev. H. T. H. Wightwick, m.a.,=
32, Panton Street, Cambridge.

Rev. H. Starmer,
12, Cedar Road, Norwich.
I Appointed January i, 1906.

I Mr. Robert F. Crosland,
I Oldfjeldnoo:', Cleckheaton.
3 Appointed September i, 1906.
103

THERE IS A RIVER

SUMMARY.
/ desire to protest against the unholy thirst for statistics : it is
perfectly impossible to put into statistics the results of missionary
work. — The Earl of Selborne.
The British and Foreign Bible Society exists for one single
object — to supply every man with the Holy Scriptures in his
own mother-tongue. It concerns itself solely with circulating
that Book which is the Charter of Christ's Church through
out all the world. And in this aim it unites Christians of
almost every communion.
The Year 1905-1906.
Looking back across another year's labour we thankfully
confess the good hand of our God upon the Institution which
He has guided and prospered so wonderfully in years gone
by. Foremost among our new mercies we reckon the com
pletion of the Centenary Fund. The Society's great Thanks
giving in the Albert Hall, in November, 1905, had its echoes
far and wide in many hearts. Messages of congratulation
and goodwill from the rulers of every nation of the Reformed
Faith came to confess the place which the Bible holds in
modern Christendom.
Last year the Society issued over 5,977,000 copies of the
Scriptures — complete or in parts. This total is 119,808 more
than in 1904-5, and is 33,678 copies in excess of the highest
annual total ever attained by the Society.
The Work at Home.
Of last year's issues, 1,331,130 books were in English or
Welsh, and circulated mainly in the British Empire. This
number is about 72,000 fewer than the figures for 1904-5.
Of our English penny Testaments, 218,226 were issued,
making a total of 8,591,107 during the last twenty-one years.
104

THERE IS A RIVER
The English Scriptures issued last year included 131,500
copies of the Society's 6d. Bible ; 153,900 copies of the lod.
Bible ; and 10,650 copies of the is. Reference Bible. The
issues included 29,709 Bibles and 9,013 Testaments in the
Revised Version.
In England and Wales the Society spent about ;^io,ooo
last year, mainly in direct grants of Scriptures— free or at
greatly reduced rates — to the schools and Home Missions of
nearly every Christian Communion, and to all the varied
agencies of religious and philanthropic activity.
Nearly all the English and Welsh Institutions for befriend
ing the blind receive the Scriptures they use at half-price, in
either Braille or Moon type.
Students at Theological and Missionary Colleges, who
need such assistance, receive as gifts about eight hundred
Testaments in Hebrew or Greek each year. The Society
also presents out-going missionaries with Bibles or Testa
ments in the vernaculars of the fields in which they labour.
A large annual subsidy is given to the London Bible and
Domestic Female Mission, which employs over 150 Bible-
women and Nurses, who read and sell the Scriptures in the
poorest districts of the Metropolis.
Translation and Revision.
The Society's list of versions now includes the names of four
hundred distinct forms of speech. This means the complete
Bible in 102 different languages ; the New Testament in 94
more languages ; and at least one Book of Scripture in
204 other languages.
To print these languages over fifty different sets of charac
ters are required. Eleven new names have been added to
the list during the past year.
This branch of the Society's work cost ^5,000 last year.
In embossed type for the bUnd the Society has helped to
provide Scriptures in many languages. 105

THERE IS A RIVER
The Partner of Missions.
Its alliance with Foreign Missions was never more intimate.
From it all British Foreign Missions must draw their indis
pensable supplies. No Missionary Society's request to print
and publish a properly authenticated version of the Scriptures
in a new tongue has ever been refused.
From the Bible Society the Church of England, with com
paratively insignificant exceptions, obtains almost all the
Scriptures required for its foreign missions.
The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts has procured Scriptures from the Bible Society in sixty
foreign languages ; and the great majority of these are not
obtainable elsewhere. The Church Missionary Society uses
a hundred and four different translations, which come from
the Bible House. Similar assistance is rendered to the
Universities' Mission to Central Africa, the South American
Missionary Society, and the Melanesian Mission.
Nonconformist Foreign Missions, with some slender ex
ceptions, obtain the bulk of all the Scriptures they use,
directly or indirectly, from the Bible Society.
It furnishes the London Missionary Society with the
Scriptures in fifty different languages — and the Wesleyan
Missionary Societies of Great Britain and her Colonies with
over forty versions. Presbyterian Missions throughout the
world use about sixty of its versions. It has published the
Kongo version for the Baptist Missionary Society, and also
supplies many of their stations in China and Jamaica. The
China Inland Mission and other undenominational societies
practically obtain all the Scriptures they ask for.
Plainly, each fresh advance in the mission-field creates an
imperious demand on the Bible Society. As a rule, Scriptures
for the foreign field are granted on such terms that they
practically cost nothing to the missionary boards which
receive them. At best, only a fraction of what the Bible
Society expends on these missionary versions can ever come
back to it as the result of sales. 1 06

THERE IS A RIVER
In Foreign Lands.
The Society maintains depots in about a hundred of the
chief cities of the world.
It employs 930 native Christian colporteurs who were at
work throughout the year 1905 — more than half of them in
India and China — supervised by the Society's foreign Agents,
or its missionary friends.
These colporteurs sold last year over 2,250,000 copies. The
Society's grants for colportage during 1905 amounted to over
;^44,ooo. It supports 687 native Christian Biblewomen, mainly in the
East, in connection with forty different missionary organiza
tions. The total annual grants for Biblewomen amount to
about ;^6,ooo.
Retrenchment and Reorganization.
By revising the Society's methods considerable economies
have been effected both in administration and distribution.
Thus by aid of the telephone and the parcel post, it is
possible to dispense with not a few outlying depots in foreign
countries. Certain Agencies, again, have been amalgamated
under single management. Thus North and South Malaysia
are now both supervised from Singapore ; Brazil and the
Argentine, both from Rio. Our work in Spain has the same
headquarters as our work in North Africa. Central America
and the West Indies are alike controlled from Jamaica.
In carrying out the retrenchments to which they are driven,
the Committee have unfortunately been compelled in some
Agencies even to reduce the staff of colporteurs ; and this
reduction has necessarily involved a corresponding lessening
of distribution.
In North America all the Society's different Auxiliaries
from Newfoundland to Vancouver are now happily federated
into one Canadian Bible Society, Auxiliary to the Parent
Society in London. In Australia the same unifying tendency
107

THERE IS A RIVER
appears, and our Auxiliaries are drawing together into a
common unity for each State.
A successful journey among the Society's principal Auxili
aries and Agencies in the East was made during the year by
the Rev. Arthur Taylor. We congratulate him, and ourselves,
that he has brought home the promise of permanent results
from his visit.
After careful consideration the Committee have resolved
to throw open the Society's business to the book-trade
generally. This fundamental change of method will gradually
supersede the Society's system of Auxiliary depots ; but it
has already led to wider circulation, and at lower cost.

The Centenary Fond,
Part of the Centenary Fund is being utilized to provide
the Society with its own foreign depots at important centres
in British territory, or at treaty-ports, where rents have been
a heavy burden on our ordinary fund and are rapidly be
coming prohibitive. A considerable sum has already been
spent on reorganization in our Colonies, on colportage in the
East, and on translation work. The interior of the Bible
House in London has been altered so as to secure increased
office accommodation and concentration in each department.

Awxiliaries. The Society has about 5,800 Auxiliaries, Branches and
Associations in England and Wales, where 4,526 meetings
were held and 2,548 sermons preached on its behalf during
1905. These figures show an increase of 348 meetings and
791 sermons on the previous year's totals.
Outside these islands the Society has more than 2,000
Auxiliaries and Branches, mainly in the British Colonies, many
of which undertake vigorous local work besides remitting
Free Contributions to London. 108

THERE IS A RIVER
Finance.
The Society's income in T905-1906 from all sources, apart
from the Centenary Fund, was ;^23 1,964 ; while it spent
;^238,632. This leaves, on the year's working, a deficit of
^^6,667. Although such a sum appears less alarming than the
deficit of ;^35,233 announced a year ago, this is the eighth
time in succession when the Society's accounts have closed
with a balance on the wrong side. During the last eight
years expenditure has exceeded income by ;^ 119,000.
A heavy debt has been avoided only by continued drafts
on the Society's working capital. This capital is now so
dangerously depleted that the Committee dare not draw upon
it further. Nor can they look for help to the Centenary Fund,
which from the first was definitely allocated to reorganization
and aggressive enterprise, and cannot be applied to the ordi
nary, existing work of the Society. Accordingly, the Com
mittee have already begun to cut down their outlay in
important provinces of the foreign field — at least until the
income at their disposal shows a decided advance.
I The Society's Appeal.
The Society's financial position can never be satisfactory
until the contributions from its friends throughout the country
keep pace with the growth of its work. During the last forty
years the Society's circulation has increased 90 per cent. ; but
the contributions, paid through our Auxiliaries, have increased
only 10 per cent. Will not friends and lovers of the Bible
lay these facts seriously to heart, and send the Society that
yearly help for lack of which it begins to be crippled ?
Christian men are not impoverished. A penny in the income
tax yields to-day half as much again as it did forty years ago.
Our countrymen were never so wealthy, so luxurious. Yet
the Bible Society, on which all other Missions depend, must
still describe itself
AS POOR, YET MAKING MANY RICH.
109

THERE IS A RIVER

CONDENSED STATEMENT of RECEIPTS
For the Year ending

Receipts.
from sales of scriptures.
Trade Depots, Auxiliary and other
Societies  ;£44,i97 6 7
Sales in Society's Foreign Agencies ... 54,006 10 9

98,203 17 4
free income.
Free Contributions, Annual Subscriptions,
Donations, Collections and Special
Funds  92,813 17 7
Legacies (paid in London)  3S)92S 3 n
Dividends on Stock, Interest, Exchange,
&c  5,021 II 5

231,964 10 3
From Reserve Fund  6,667 10 o

;g238,632 o 3

IIO

THERE IS A RIVER

AND PAYMENTS OF THE BIBLE SOCIETY.
March 31ST, 1906.

Payments.
For translating and revising the Scriptures
and for paper, printing and binding ... ;£io8,464 17 i
For rent, taxes, establishment, &c., of over 100
Depots and Warehouses in the chief cities
of the world, grants to other Depots, salaries
of foreign Agents, Depositaries, &c  55) 184 o 8
Towards maintenance of (930) Colporteurs and
(687) Biblewomen  43)676 7 5
For home establishment, officers, district sec
retaries, travelling, reports, literature, stafE
needed for the despatch of Scriptures from
London, and grants to assist kindred socie
ties in Bible distribution  31,306 15 i

;£238,632 o 3

III

The Bible in the World
A Monthly Record of the Work of the British and Foreign Bible
Society. Profusely illustrated, id.
Annual volumes, cloth, is. 6d. each.
The Bible Society Gleanings
For villagers and young people. Illustrated, monthly, Jrf.
Annual volumes, cloth, gilt sides and edges, is. each.
The History of the British and Foreign
Bible Society
By William Canton. In Four Volumes. Vols. I. and II., 1804-
1854. Illustrated. Published by Mr. Murray, Albemarle
Street, W. Price, iSs. net per volume. Vols. III. and IV.
in preparation.
The Story of the Bible Society
A Popular Record. By William Canton. One Vol., 8vo.
Illustrated. Published by Mr. Murray, Albemarle Street, W.
Price, 6s.
Little Hands and God's Book
A Sketch of the Bible Society. By William Canton. One Vol.,
small quarto. Illustrated.
Published at the Bible House. Price, is. net.
Historical Catalogue of the Printed
Editions of Holy Scripture in the Library of the
British and Foreign Bible Society
Compiled by T. H. Darlow, M.A., and H. F. MoULE, M.A. In
two vols., 8vo, large paper, bound in dark-blue buckram, top
edges gilt. Vol. I., English, now ready. Vol. II., Other
Languages, in preparation. Price of the Two Vols, (not sold
separately), 31s. 6rf. net. Only 500 copies printed, of which 450,
numbered and signed, are for sale in England and America.
To be obtained at the Bible House, 146, Queen Victoria
Street, E.C.

Note. — All orders, addressed to 146, Queen Victoria Street, E.C, must be
accompanied by payment, including cost of postage when required by
post ; or booking fee of 2d. if to be enclosed in bookseller's parcel.
VNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THB ORSSHAM PRESS, WOKINO AND LONDON.

'¦A' \"

-^Kh'.

IS*

f-?r

-v. ',!¦.<*<¦¦.¦¦ .

'^ ¦¦> -J^.^L'^i ^,