BIBLE SUNDAY ON MAY 4

Chronicle (Levin), 2 May 1947, Page 6

BIBLE SUNDAY ON MAY 4

HOW THEr SCRIPTURES HAVE BEEN DISTRIBUTED (Gontributed) Next Sunday, May 4," will be observed in many clrurclies, nationally and locallyj as Bible Sunday, the day:on which special reference is made to the concerri of the Christian Church for the Holy Scriptures, and especially that the Bible should be available to ali peoples in. their native tonguejs. • There are editions of the Soriptures in .1068 languages= and dialects and the British and Foreign Bible Society, now in its 143rd year of translating and distributing the Scriptures, has worked in 764 of those languages.. The.policy"' of the British and Foreign Society has been to sell the Scriptures at prices which the poor of every. country can afCord to pay, so that .all rpay be able to own a Gospel 'in their native language. Revisi'ons of translations are constantly bein'g made. Competent scholars in Maori are at present thoroughly revising the Maori Bible and preparing it for- reprinting. The spread of education, especially in China, India and Africa, is creating millio'ns of new readers. A recent colonial White Paper has sketched a scheme for mass education in Africa. This, when it is carried through, will mean that some 40,000,000 British subjects in Africa are to be taught to read. What are they going to read? Christians\throughout the Empire, expressing themselves through the Bible Society, are urging that the Bible must be available to them. Some stirring stories are . 'now being told » of how strength and comfort came to hard pressed people in the days of tyranny in Europe. Philip de Beaufort was a Dutch student who was t'aken by the Gestapo and suffered much at their hands; but he was a Christian who knew his Bible. After long solitary confinement, he saw his cell door opened and a young working lad called Dirk pushed in to share it with him. It was Christmas Eve. This is what he says: "I got out my Bible and turned to the Christmas story in St. Luke. 'What about reading it aloud, Dirk?' I said. 'They always do at home,' the boy replied. I began, 'Now it came to pass in those days, there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed . . ? 'Speak up,' shouted a voice from the next cell. Then, 'Bring the Bible in here,' said someone else who thought the reader was free. 'Read for us all,' said another, 'Yes for us all,' they echoed. Dirk took up his stool and put it near the door. 'Stand on this,' he said, 'and read through the grating.' And there, in semi-darkness, standing as it were between heaven and earth, I began again, 'Now it came to pass in those days therei • went- out ^ a .decree «from Caesar Augustus. . .' " After reading, de Beaufort spoke feimply about the passage read, and the meaning of Christmas for them and for all men. Then he began: "Our Father '. . ." Dirk took it up. From the other cell doors he heard a murmur of voices as the unseen congregation joined in the Family Prayer, In the early days of the German invasion of -Poland a bomb was dropped near the Warsaw depot of the Bible Society,, blowing out windows and doors.' One .little pane of glass only remained, on which. were the wards, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away." Those w'ords remained on. that '^mall fragment . and through the long months and years people, as they passed by, took off their hats, made the sign of the cross and took courage. The liberating and transforming power of the Word of God is still a fact in the world we live in. The churches in their services on" May 4 will take note of the fact.