BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY.

Te Aroha News, Volume XIV, Issue 2092, 7 April 1898, Page 2

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY.

(To the Editor.)

Sir,— lt was with considerable regret that we found ourselves obliged to postpone indefinitely the annual meeting of the le Aroha auxiliary of this Society. The Bible S >ciety is one of those organisations that has a claim cm persons of all creeds and sects ; and though a world-wide agency, it has ; special claims on this colony. I therefore hope you will permit me to give it a word of honest advertisement and a chance of perpetuating its fame through the medium of your columns. It is a great thing to find a common platform on which all Christians can agree. It does the Bible Society good that all have a friendly word for it; and on the other hand there can he no doubt that it does the churches, themselves good that the Society countenances them. Its sole aim has always been to provide the scriptures without note or comment. It is not a missionary society itself, but it helps all the missionary societies without exception, making their work and their expenses very much lighter by a judicious division of labour* Here are a few typical instances of the tasks it has had in hand lately. To begin at 4 Greenland’s icy mountain,’the annual report tells of a new edition of the four gospels just published for the Eskimos, scattered over 2000 miles of frozen coasts. India, again, the most hopeful of all mission-fields, is honeycombed with Bible Society work. There are five large auxiliaries sending out their colporteurs to sell the scriptures at a low cost wherever they can find purchasers. There are also lady colporteurs lor the Zenanas The work of revising and editing goes on apace, and one of the, most interesting editions is an Indian Bible for the blind. In Africa the society does not appear to. be working on such a large scale as elsewhere. They have had an agency in the east of the dark continent for some time,' but they are only now establishing one in the west. In Uganda, which of course is to the west, there has been an urgent demand for Bibles. This mission field has been well watered with the blood of the martyrs, and it promises to become, in the missionary sense, the key to Equatorial Africa. It goes without saying that the missionaries here, working under the Bible Society, had to make the Uganda language. They had the curious task of reducing the speech they had but recently learnt to writing, and then of teaching it to the the natives.: This, is often the case, however, with the Society’s work ; and indeed there is ono oaee on record in which its agents reduced a language to writing, printed a Bible in it, taught the natives to read it and live by it, and then had the disappointment of" seeing the tribe disappear from existence, ‘leaving not a rack behind * The Bible so prepared is one of the curiosities in the society’s building in London. While ‘ the scramble for poor, broken China’ is being hotly pursued by the Powers, the scriptures, are being distributed broad-cast by colporteurs. There are other ways of getting the gospel to John- Chinaman besides the very questionable method of the powder-cart. Corea, for instance, round which the late war raged, is in a very unsettled state, but .this does not deter numbers of agents from canvassing the Coreans with New Testaments and portions, and the same thing is going on elsewhere. It would be tedious to go into details as to the whole continent of Europe ; but here are some facts about Russia. The Russian peasant is ceasing to be illiterate, he is just beginning to read, and the question arises what is he to read ? His interest has chiefly been so far confined to fairy tales, which may be good enough milk for babes, but will hardly feed strong men. It jis pleasant to hear that the navvies at work on the great Siberian railroad, and the emigrants who are streaming across in hundreds into Asiatic Russia, have been large purchasers of. Bibles! Up in the goldfields,; they take hem, too—in. the Ural mountains—but it is reported that not suchalarge quantity was taken in the past year as in former years, for the simple reason that' so many had got them. Prom the Russian to the New Zealand goldfields is an easy transition. A lady colporteur has been round the Hauraki Peninsula lately, visiting Te Aroha on her way. She seems to have disposed of a good many Bibles and Testaments, both amoug English and Maoris, and to have had on the whole an encouraging tour. It only remains for me to add that the Bible Society’s depot in Te Aroha is at Mrs Fred Lawn’s, Whitaker Street, and that if anyone feels moved to aid the society in the big work it is doing, their contributions will be most gladly welcomed at the Bible Depository, Wellesley Street, Auckland. The Society’s funds are considerable, but its undertakings are more so, and a very large part of its revenue comes in the form of col-lecting-box anrl other small contributions.—l am, etc., R. J. Wright. Presbyterian Church, Te Aroha.