FULFILMENT

Te Ao Hou, Spring 1952, Page 17

FULFILMENT On March 20, 1950, after the rangiatea centennial celebrations at Otaki, we held our last meeting at Bible House, Wellington. Our work of revision had been completed a week before Christmas, 1949, at a final meeting at Ohope, Whakatane. But at last, the headquarters of the society, in London, was ready for Mr and Mrs Laughton to come over and start on the work of publication. Other than the business of passing and adopting the balance sheet, we had come together to farewell them both before they went overseas. Our hearts and prayers went out to them, as we realised only too well the very exacting work to which they were committed, the many weary days and nights of mere proofreading, with all its monotony and eye-strain. At last in June, 1952, the first copies of the new Bible arrived in New Zealand. Before this article is printed the general edition will be on sale in this country. In conclusion, one cannot do better than again quote from the Chairman's report: No edition of the Maori Bible since the first has been looked forward to with such eagerness as that at present being prepared. Maori minds and money and devotion are being given to it. In a new sense it will be the Maori Bible. Some of the funds subscribed have come from groups of Sunday School and public school children. These are tokens which hearten the members of the committee in their labours, which often call for long and concentrated research regarding the meaning of a single word, or the right turn of a single phrase. It is for the generation which these children represent that the members gladly apply themselves to their heavy assignment, that the word of God may come to them and to the generations after them, clear as crystal, and sweet as the water of life, through the medium of their mother tongue.