The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1933, Page 85

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

85

has the power to transform men in the same manner
as a single passage changed the whole future life of
Luther on that memorable day in Rome when he
crawled up the so-called Sacred Stairway, and it

Courteay American Bible Society

“—__medilalively as he listens”

takes but little imagination to picture to oneself the
blessings that these volumes, issued by only one of
the Bible societies in the world, has brought into
men’s lives. In the last year, work was done by this
one Bible society in 182 languages; in Asia, in
sixty-seven languages; in Europe the Scriptures
were spread in fifty-one tongues; in Africa the
Word of God was brought to its readers in sixteen
languages; the islands of the Pacific heard the
Word of Life in twenty-three tongues; and in the
Americas the Word of Revelation was disseminated
in twenty-five languages. “There is no speech nor
language where their voice is not heard.”

The last annual report of the American Bible
Society tells how a Moslem who had never heard of
Christianity got a Bible into his possession and by
its reading became a Christian and was baptized ;
also, how a workman near Rio de Janeiro in Brazil
who had been addicted to drink found a crumpled
copy of a gospel by the roadside, took it home, read
it, and was so completely transformed that others
noticed the wonderful change in his life and in this
way were also led to accept the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. In China a Bible colporteur fell among
robbers and while in their hands told them the story
of Jesus. When later he was set free, the robber
chief asked for a New Testament. The result was
that he gave up his wild life and became a Christian
and later the elder of a mission-church.

In the Near East there is a marked increase of
interest shown by the natives in the Bible. There

has been an increase of twenty per cent. in the dis-
tribution of the Bible in the Arabic-speaking lands
at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. In the
Philippines the sale of Bibles has been greatly re-
tarded by the lack of money, but in Japan there has
been no falling off in the sales of entire Bibles and
Testaments, and the distribution of portions has
even increased from 700,000 to over a -million
volumes.

In China the political situation has had a damp-
ening effect upon the sale of the Word, as far as the
Gospels and other portions are concerned; but,
strange to say, the distribution of whole Bibles was
much greater than in the previous year, and the in-
crease in the sales of Testaments was thirty-five
per cent.

The door of one country is shut fast to the
Bible — Russia! But in due time it, too, will open
its doors to the Gospel of Jesus and the blessings of
His revealed Word.

During recent years special attention has been
paid to the placing of the Bible in hospitals,
reformatory institutions, and orphanages, in homes
for the aged, feeble-minded, and blind, and par-
ticularly in veterans’ hospitals.

Since the Mississippi flood there has been an in-
creased demand for the Bible among the French-

Courtesy American Bible Soctety

1T’S A REVOLUTIONARY BOOK

speaking people of Louisiana, and for the Spanish
Scriptures there is a growing demand among the
Mexicans of the Southwest. Bibles have likewise
gone in large numbers to various Indian tribes.
Atlanta is the center of distribution for the col-
ored people of the South. There has been a large