Tárogató, 1944-1945 (7. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1944-09-01 / 3. szám
14 TÁROGATÓ great botanist, a great linguist, a great educator, a great financier but first, last and always he was a great evangelist. During forty years in India he preached on an average of once every day. It was said of him that he changed the civilization movement into an evangelization movement. —/. H. Amup. —ONWARD. THE WORLD’S MOST POPULAR BOOK By Vincent Edwards One hundred and forty years ago in London, a curious meeting took place. On March 7, 1804, representatives of various Protestant denominations came together at the London Tavern, and there decided “to promote the circulation of the Holy Scriptures in the principal living languages.” Thus, was born the British and Foreign Bible Society, and organization that was to send out a hundred and eighty million copies of the Bible all over the world in the next hundred years! Altogether, the Great Book was translated into four hundred and fifty languages and dialects—a remarkable feat when one considers that, at the society’s organization, it could be read in only forty languages. Nothing is more amazing about the Bible than its persistent popularity. Today, in the midst of war, the demand for copies can’t begin to be filled. Taking into account the millions of Bibles that the parent British Society has distributed, along with the millions more that have been sent out by the younger American Bible Society, there is not the slightest doubt that it is the world’s most popular book. War always increases the call for Bibles by leaps and bounds. In their hours of loneliness and fearful anxiety, thousands of families turn to it as the only sure guide-book and comfort for such times of uncertainty. Yet, in the year of the British Society’s centenary—a time of peace in most of the world—a total of 5,943,775 copies were sent out from London, and 1,993,558 more from New York. That seems like an amazing figure—nearly eight million Bibles—but the record has been topped in years since then. How was the Bible brought to the people of far-off foreign lands? It was done by means of special salesmen called “colporteurs” — a name that has now found its place in the dictionary. Ordinarily, they were the natives of the country, well acquainted with its language and customs, and filled with a burning zeal to bring the Book of books to every possible family. It goes without saying that they often ran into bitter opposition. As a matter of fact, these colporteurs have more than once paid with their lives for their courage and loyalty to the Word of God. and their energy in its distribution. The London and New York headquarters have always given their colporteurs a free hand in the matter of sales. As far as possible, they were told to get the list-price, which never exceeds the cost of publication. But they were also allowed to sell their Bibles at a reduction, and, even to give copies away —under certain circumstances. The societies did not expect to get back more than forty per cent, from these sales of what it cost to print the Bibles. The payments made in some places were of a very curious nature. In Uganda, for example, the colporteurs had to accept cowryshells, while, in the New Hebrides, copra and arrowTOOts were given in exchange. The list of other things taken sounds fantastic — swords, daggers, sandals, amulets, straw hats, pieces of silk, eggs, butter, dogs’ teeth, seabirds’ eggs, etc. Every one of these has been payment for a Bible at some time. It was claimed that these Bible salesmen were the world’s greatest travellers—and the statement seems justified. They went about by railroad, carriage, boat, bullock-wagon, sleigh, bicycle, wheelbarrow, on mule, horse, jinricksha and afoot. They could be found in the most northerly outposts of Siberia, among the workers of Sicily’s terrible sulphur mines, in Africa’s worst malarial regions, even among the miners of the Klondike. In fact, it was once said of the colporteur that “there was no speech or language where his voice was not heard.” The packing rooms of the British society in London were a sight visitors did not soon forget- No publishing house anywhere offered a spectacle to compare with it. There, Bibles in hundreds of languages were stored. But every order had to be given special consideration, especially if the shipment was to go out to some remote comer of the Orient. Thus, Bibles going to Madras were always packed in water-tight boxes, to protect them against damage when they were landed through the
