The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1893, Page 22

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22 The Lutheran Pioneer.
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Early Difficulties and Present Opportunities stood by the greatest number of the common | same case will also appear specimens of elec-

people should be used, and after two months | trotype plates used in printing the Scriptures.
it was ready for the blockcutter. But his | Two of these plates are especially noteworthy,

In December last, the Rev. Dr. J. D. Davis, | teacher begged of the writer not to let any] one of them having been employed in the set
of Kioto, read a paper before the Kobe and/ one know who helped in the preparation of it, | used in printing 980,000 copies of the five-cent
- Osaka Missionary Conference in which he pre-| as he would be ashamed to have it known that | edition of the New Testament, a total edition
sented the contrast between the present oppor-| he prepared so colloquial a book. This was | numbering 3,300,000 having been issued since
tunities for mission work in Japan and the con-| one of the very first tracts prepared, and within | 1878. ‘The other plate was one of those used
dition-of things which he found on landing in| ten years over 100,000 copies of it had been|in supplying 876,000 copies of the 2,054,000
Kobe in 1871; the year that ‘‘witnessed the] circulated. twenty-cent Bibles which have come from the
abolishment of feudalism, the dispatch of the} There is a different outlook to-day: Society’s presses in the same period.
first great embassy to foreign lands, the begin-| The twenty missionaries of twenty years ago} Many rare and valuable volumes from the
ning of the first railway and of the post-office] pave become, including the wives of the mis-| library in the Bible House will be placed on
system, and the starting of the first news- sionaries, nearly 600. Instead of the four un-|the shelves for the inspection of the public.
paper.” “The edicts against Christianity, | married female missionaries, we-now have|Among them will be a copy of the original
which had. been posted upon the bulletin) ayout 200. The waters of the coasts of Japan | King James edition of the Bible, which was
boards all over the empire for 250 years, and| are now plowed by steamers in every direction, | published in 1611. There will also be dis-
which made the profession of Christianity a nearly 2000 miles of railroad are in operation, | played a fac-simile of the first page of the first
capital offence, and offered rewards to all in-| and thousands of miles of jinrishika roads are | Bible ever printed, the Mazarin Bible of 1450,
formers, had been reaflirmed by the Mikado found, while a network of telegraph wires is | and a copy of the Biblia Pauperum, represent-
upon his restoration, and were still to be spread over the land, and the postal facilities | ing the style of printing from wooden blocks
seen in every part of Japan.”” Early in 1872, extend to the remotest hamlet ; and these rail- | before the invention of movable types. The
Dr. Davis in company with Dr. Greene, called roads, steamers, telegraphs and_post-offices | English Hexapla, showing the six early ver-
upon the governor of the Hiogo Ken, and were! are all the ready servants of the messengers | Sions of the Scriptures at a single opening,
_ told that if it came to his knowledge that a| of the cross. with the Greek text, will also be exhibited.
Japanese bookseller in Kobe had sold even A legion of books has been prepared to as-| In order to show the great advancement
a copy of the English Bible, it would be his sist the beginner in learning the Japanese lan- | made in the publication of the Bible in other
duty, acting under orders from Tokio, to arrest guage. A Christian vocabulary has been cre-| tongues, Rey. Dr. E. W. Gilman, who has
that man and send him to prison. ated, and fairly good teachers are to be secured. | charge of the foreign department of the So-
Among the early difficulties of the situation, The whole Bible is published in the language | ciety’s business, has selected a large number
Dr. Davis mentions the fewness in number of | of the people, and fairly good commentaries | of works that are printed by the Society in
the missionaries, the difficulty of travel, the on, the whole of the New Testament have also | nearly all of the three hundred languages in
Jack of helps in learning the language, the been published; a good beginning has been|which the Scriptures have been published.
small number of Japanese Christians, and the] made in Japanese hymnology, and a good be- | Copies of Marshman’s, the Delegates’, Bridg-
dissemination of Western skepticism and ma- ginning has also been made in the preparation man & Culbertson’s, and Dr. Schereschewsky’s
terialism through the extensive circulation of of Christian books and tracts. It is no longer | versions of the Scriptures in Chinese will be
books in both Japanese and English. Speak- a disgrace to publish a book in a language included in the list. Complete or detached
ing of the lack of Christian literature, he] which can be read. portions of the Scriptures in the following
Says: The fear which existed universally twenty | Janguages will form a part of the exhibit:
_ Nopart of the Bible had been printed, and, years ago is well-nigh gone; religious freedom | Turkish, Arabic, Syriac, Persian, Urdu, mod-
so far as the writer knows, no tracts had been| ;, guaranteed in the constitution, and there is|ern Greek, Siamese, Burmese, Pail, Tamil,
prepared. We were shut up to the Bible in| , readiness to hear on the part of the people, | Tulu, Marathi, Ponape, Thibetan, Mpongwe,
the Chinese language, without the kunten, and} in most places throughout the empire, which'| Sheetsiva, Azerbijan, Omali-Turkish, Mende,
to Dr. Martin’s evidences of Christianity, in| cals for a manifold larger number of direct | and others.
Chinese. On account of the fear which had evangelic workers than are at present engaged| In one of the cases will be a display of a
_ possession of-the people, the preparation and|j, that work in Japan. The Protestant Chris- | quantity of curious objects which have been
printing of Christian books were very difficult, tians of twenty years ago have become more | taken in barter (in exchange) for the Scriptures
and the prejudice of all scholars against writ-| nan 80,000, organized into over 200 churches, | in far-off lands. In this collection is a copper
ing anything’ in the colloquial was an almost with about: 180 ordained Japanese ministers, | coin that is more than eighteen centuries old.
insuperable barrier against the preparation of| ang nearly 500 other Japanese evangelists and | It was coined in China in the year 25 A. D.,
any books or tracts for the masses. workers, and with nearly 400 men in training |#0d was given in exchange for one of the
In the summer of 1878 the writer sat under in theological schools. Gospels to an agent of the Society in 1888.
the maples by the waterfall in Arima, the only The Bible Society Record. |Several cowries, queer African shells, which
missionary in the place, and wrote in Roman ; ; are used as money by the natives, and a
| ietters, in his broken Japanese, the first draft : TET ee number of ancient copper coins, received by
Bibles at the Columbian Exposition.

in Japan.

of a little tract; two months later, when his Dr. Jacob Chamberlain in return for Bibles
teacher had copied this into Japanese, he asked : during his tour through the interior of India,
him to revise it, and it came back in'such high| The American Bible Society-has arranged | will be shown. Other noteworthy curiosities
‘Chinese that none of the common people could| to make a fine exhibit at the World’s Fair. | are a photograph of a Roman manuscript of
d ‘it; he then asked a scholar’of the pure} The purpose is to show to the visitors, by its| the Pentateuch that is over nine hundred years
ese language to put it in such language | exhibit, the work it has accomplished and the | old, and a photograph of the Slavic manuscript
masses could read it, and after another progress-it has made in the-76 years of its| of the Gospel of Matthew.

th: i came back about fifty degrees higher) existence. Speaking of this the New York Perhaps the most unique feature of the Bible
riter then took his original draft| Tribune says: : : ' Society’s part in the Exposition will be a free
wn by his teacher and fought it over _ Copies of each of the annual reports and| distribution of the New Testament; and to
ord and sentence by Sentence, de-| bound files of the Bible Society Record will| meet the probable demand, 250,000 copies of
rds which could be under-| occupy shelves in one of the cases. In the| the five-cent edition have already been printed.