The Dominion. SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 1915. THE WAR AND THE BIBLE

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2426, 3 April 1915, Page 6

The Dominion. SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 1915. THE WAR AND THE BIBLE

A cablegram which appeared in The Dominion a few days ago indicated that the war has opened up a new sphere of activity for the British and Foreign Bible Society. Wo arc told that this enterprising organisation has provided no fewer than 1,500,000 Bibles in a score of different languages for tho use of the belligerent troops. _ During the year 1912-13 the bociety issued nearly 8,000,000 copies of the Scriptures, and the total issues since its foundation reach the gigantic total of 2*14,-1-14,000 copics, complete or in part. The BrHish Weekly gives some very interesting particulars of . what the Society is doing in connection with tho war. Its depot at Berlin has been able to furnish 300,000 copies of the Scriptures for men serving in tho German and Austrian Armies, as well as for British, French, and Russian soldiers who aro now prisoners of war in Germany. German Bibles have been sent to German soldiers who arc imprisoned not only in England, but in France and in Japan. From the depot at Belgrade it waa possible to provide thousands of Serbian Gospels for the sick and wounded in gallant little Serbia. From the depot at Kobe thousands of Japanese Gospels have been sent to tho sailors and soldiers of Japan who have taken part in the siege and capture of Tsingtau. Within the Russian Empire for many years past the Society has received special privileges. From its depots great numbers of _ Gospels are distributed aniong sick and wounded soldiers, now being nursed in Russian cities. In the Empire of Austria the Society ' distributes the Scriptures in about twenty different versions. In Russia it circulates forty different versions. Among tho allied troops now fighting on the soil of France there are Algerian soldiers who speak Arabic, Belgian soldiers who speak Flemish, Sikhs who speak Panjabi, Pathans who speak Pashto, and Gurkhas who speak Nepali, and in all these languages the Society has already published the Scriptures. It would be interesting to know what the average soldier reads in his leisure moments. Hauptmann, the German dramatist, tells us that many of tho Kaiser's fighting men carry their Goethe's Faust, some tvork of tho philosopher Schopenhauer, a Bible, or a Homer in their knapsacks. It is doubtful if many British soldiers carry with them the works of Spencer, Darwin, or Mill, and one cannot help wondering what thoy do with their Bibles. Do they read them 1 It is difficult to answer this question, for Tommy Atkins has a rooted objection to wearing his heart on his sleeve. He has a way of turning everything into a ioke; but lie has nevertheless ideas of his own about the everlasting problems of life and death, and he probably reads his Bible more than some of us may be inclined to think—more than the German soldier reads Schopenhauer. He may take it up occasionally simply because he has nothing else to occupy his attention, and his experience may be like that of Heinrich. Heine, the celebrated stylist, sceptic, and wit, 'who in a fit of ennui took up a- Bible and became fascinated with its charm. "What a book!" he exclaims. "Vast and wide as the world; rooted in tho abysses of creation, and traversing up beyond tho blue sccrets of heaven! Sunrise and. sunset, birth and death, promise and fulfilment, the whole drama of humanity, are all in this book 1" Or T9MMY Atkins may open it in the spirit of the young undergraduate who patronisingly told Dr. Jowett, the famous Master of Balliol, that he read the Gospel just like an ordinary book. "Really,'' replied Jowett, "you must find it a very extraordinary book." A young officer in a letter to his father, after, remarking that all the men in his' regiment havo pocket editions of St. John's Gospel, goes on to say that one of them in showing some photographs from home brought his copy out and said ho thought thcro was not a man in the regiment who had been at who had not read tho volume through and through. About I six other men in tho room confirmed this statement, and the officer declared that he had heard similar remarks from many others. It is possible that nOt a few soldiers during the present war have made l.lie discovery for the. first time that "tho Bible is, after all,'' as Renax, (ho brilliant French sceptic, remarks,

"l.hc great' book of coflsolslion for humanity," .Touuv Aisiks is ccr.

tainly more likely to get consolation from tho fundamental optimism of the Bible than is the German soldier from the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer.