General Conference Bulletin, vol. 7

Bible Study Hour - THE BIBLE IN ALL LANDS

JOHN FOX

May 23, 8:30 A. M.

[It was by invitation that Dr. Fox, secretary of the American Bible Society, addressed the Conference on the work of the Bible Society.] GCB May 25, 1913, page 121.1

I am very happy, indeed, to be here. I have just come over from Atlanta, where three Presbyterian general assemblies are in session. I am connected with one of them, but I come here not as a Presbyterian, but as a Christian, to meet with you, whom we recognize in the Bible house in New York as a part of our constituency, and to whom it is a great privilege for me to speak. It is an inspiration to me to speak to you, and if I can bring you any added inspiration, it will be a very great satisfaction to me. GCB May 25, 1913, page 121.2

I always like to have a text. This is a very familiar one: “And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?” readest?” Acts 8:30. You know it was in the providence of God that the Ethiopian eunuch should meet with Philip the evangelist, and learn to understand the Scriptures. What book was the Ethiopian eunuch reading?—Isaiah, the prophet. Now, this man might have had the whole of the Old Testament, but it is quite likely he had only the roll of parchment containing Isaiah’s writings. GCB May 25, 1913, page 121.3

In what language was he reading? I do not think that I ever was introduced to so many people from different lands all at once as I have been during the last five minutes, and I confess that it is a great delight to me. I have a child’s love for people who come from far off, who speak a language different from our own. Our English language is a delight, but I wish I could speak Zulu. Now, this man was in North Africa. What was his language? It is altogether likely that he spoke Greek, and that the Bible he was reading was Greek. You know that 250 years before Christ came into the world, God sent his angel, or his Spirit, in some way, to insure that his Book, the Old Testament, as it was called, that had always existed in Hebrew, should be translated into Greek, and when I talk about the Bible Society I always like to have that for a baseline. The translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek was one of the great events in the history of the human race, and yet how few people realize that! We do not know just how it happened, but it is probable that the old tradition is true, that Alexander the Great, when he made the great library at Alexandria, wanted to have a copy of the Jewish sacred books, and asked their rabbis to procure him one, and that they translated a copy for that purpose into the Greek. So, if you choose to believe the tradition, by a stretch of fancy you might say that Alexander the Great was the first promoter of the Bible Society. GCB May 25, 1913, page 121.4

PHOTO-The Foreign Mission Seminar, Washington, Takoma Park, D. C.

But my business here is to touch upon how the Bible is being translated from Hebrew into Greek, from Hebrew into English, and from Greek into French, German, Spanish, and Zulu, and all those wonderful languages, some of which we hardly know the names of. There are the versions for the Indians in South America, for example. Our society has issued the gospel in the Arawak. From my experience since coming here, I would not be surprised to find as many languages represented as there are people here. GCB May 25, 1913, page 121.5

E. C. Boger: Dr. Fox, I am from a field which includes work in the Arawak. GCB May 25, 1913, page 121.6

Dr. Fox: “According to your faith, be it unto you.” Does anybody here speak Mosquito? I have no doubt you have heard mosquitoes sing, but there is a Mosquito Bible. [After the talk Dr. Fox met Elder H. C. Goodrich, who has Mosquito Indian brethren in his field.] Now, I am not going on. Why, I could spend the whole time just reading names of the languages all over the world; and is it not wonderful to see how God uses the diversities of tongues as an inestimable blessing to his church? It is a victory for Christ. GCB May 25, 1913, page 121.7

Some one has said that the Bible Society is intended to “cancel the curse of Babel and prolong the blessing of Pentecost,” and I would not wish a more admirable definition of what its aim is. GCB May 25, 1913, page 121.8

But let me speak of Africa. One of the most noted of the scholars connected with the Bible house in London estimated eight hundred different languages in Africa. Of course that includes dialects. GCB May 25, 1913, page 121.9

The Ethiopian eunuch, we may suppose, spoke Greek; certainly, he read Greek; maybe he was a bilingual, who read one language and spoke another, as our Saviour himself, very likely, and certainly as his apostles undoubtedly did. They spoke Aramaic, which was the common language, and they probably spoke and certainly read Greek, which was the lingua franca, sustaining the same relation to the peoples that lived about the Mediterranean Sea that French has done in Europe, and as English is getting to do in the world generally, in place of French. The Japanese are not content unless they know it, and even the Chinese are beginning to learn it. I was at a Shanghai missionary congress six years ago, and one of the things that struck me most was this, that there was a request from the missionary women that the Bible Society would furnish more Bibles in the English alphabet [spelling the sounds of Chinese words], because they thought the women of China, most of whom can not read the Chinese characters, would more readily learn to read in our English alphabet. GCB May 25, 1913, page 121.10

There are many nations that not only had no literature, but they had no alphabet, and the missionaries have constructed one, or else they have taught the English alphabet. I know I could call upon your friends here from Zulu-land to tell you about the Zulu language that is written in the English alphabet. One of the main things I had to do just before leaving New York was to look over the proof of the new Zulu Revised Bible. Just think what that means!—a nation that had no alphabet, no literature, and not many of what we call civilized customs, either. And they did not have words for what we esteem almost essential. For instance, certain articles of clothing were not very abundant. The Zulu maidens do not have as many changes of apparel as some of the ladies described in the Old Testament. And when they came to the translation, for example, of the wardrobe of Aaron and his sons, the linen breeches, there was no synonym in Zulu for that, and they had to make one. That illustrates the difficulty of translation. Of course it did not make much difference in that particular case, but the same poverty of word and thought exists as to the things that it does make a difference about. How are you going to teach a Zulu, until he has learned the gospel, what justification, as distinguished from sanctification, is? You can see that these simple things illustrate greater ones. GCB May 25, 1913, page 122.1

You are a people—I know you are, for I see it in your faces—who believe in the Bible to the world. You have your advanced line all over the earth. I am a member, in fact one of the oldest members, of our Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, and I shall tell them that they must look to their laurels. Here are two or three thousand people interested in Africa, interested in Asia, and the isles of the sea, and especially interested in the translation, the circulation, and the distribution of the Scriptures everywhere. GCB May 25, 1913, page 122.2

[Many voices: Amen, Amen!] GCB May 25, 1913, page 122.3

Now, in order to do this work, one must be interested in it; and with you are all the Presbyterians, and the Methodists, and the Episcopalians, and all the rest, or most of them. I am speaking of denominations. I am speaking of all the believers, the saints called in Christ Jesus. They must be interested in it, although there are some who are not. GCB May 25, 1913, page 122.4

We have had the rare honor as a society, along with our British friends, of having been twice officially cursed by the Pope. But we pray that God may turn his curse into a blessing. There are, however, countries where the Roman Catholic Church appears to have learned the value of Bible translation and Bible circulation. That is not the rule, however. GCB May 25, 1913, page 122.5

I had this pleasant experience some time ago: The manuscript of an article intended for publication in the Roman Catholic Encyclopedia, which treats of all religious matters, and is a very learned publication, was submitted to me at our Bible Society office for correction. It was an article on Bible societies. I felt highly honored at being considered a more infallible authority than the Pope himself, but they gave me to understand that they did not want me to revise and Protestantize the article, but to see that no mistakes were made in reference to the statement concerning our Bible Society. The article was published, and in it was the statement concerning the anathema of the Pope pronounced upon us. Now I regard that article as a sign that God is opening blind eyes all over the world. GCB May 25, 1913, page 122.6

Now we must remember that the Bible Society is a Protestant institution. It is the corollary of the Protestant Reformation, and is distinctly Protestant in its methods. Our work must depend upon Protestant support. I come here today not only because I am a Christian, but because I am a Protestant Christian, and we need all Protestants who are truly one with us in Christ Jesus to cooperate with us in this work. I am here to appeal to you as followers of Christ, and children of those men of old who broke loose from the tyranny of “no Bible for the people.” We are meeting before God and angels to prosecute this great propaganda of circulating the truth of God, and to see that this great enterprise is adequately financed, adequately prayed for, until every child of Adam that can read or can be taught to read, shall have a copy of the Scriptures in his possession. That is our platform. We are elected of God on that platform, and we do not propose to repudiate its pledges [amens]. Now that involves more than “amen.” It involves sacrifice and self-denial. It involves cash. It involves that we recognize that this is not a missionary luxury, but it is something that is obligatory on us to prosecute. It is part of the missionary curriculum we have been studying. GCB May 25, 1913, page 122.7

The Bible Society managers sometimes feel that the people forget the necessities of the institution they have themselves constructed for the purpose of doing this work, and consequently the societies are hampered. I am ashamed to say that this is so with our American societies. However, there has been much more help rendered lately by our American people, and now the British Bible Societies are coming to look on us and our work very differently from what they used to. They regard us as coming to the front in this missionary work. The British Bible Society is doing a great work in the circulation of the Bible. We have no envy toward them for the work they are doing, and we would be glad if they had the honor of doing it all, but we want to do our share. GCB May 25, 1913, page 122.8

Now here is a thing I am ashamed to tell, but it is a fact. We have had to refuse, for reasons of financial prudence, any larger appropriations to China. God has opened China, as Robert Morrison and his prophetic-souled colleagues never dared to believe it could be. And we have not yet collected the money we need to Bibleize China. That is an ambition in itself that might fill the mind of a statesman, or any other large-souled man. Just make you own calculations. There are 400,000,000 people in China. If you give a book worth four cents to every one of them, that is a book bill of $16,000,000. Of course a great many of them are children and many are illiterate; but the children are going to learn to read. The women are going to learn to read. GCB May 25, 1913, page 122.9

Heathen eyes are this moment turning toward the light. O, in how many a home, how many a heart, the first dawning of the Sun of Righteousness is now rising in China! I saw some things there that moved me greatly. GCB May 25, 1913, page 122.10

The boats on the rivers near Canton are large enough to contain the family, and they are run by women. The husband may be working at his trade and the women manage their boat. I shall never forget one Chinese boatwoman whom I saw. She stood on the edge of the boat, with an oar like an old raft oar. There was no binding of her feet, or arms, or person. Wearing her Chinese women’s trousers, and with her little baby strapped on her back, and a little girl sitting on a very narrow place right by her, that woman was rowing the boat in and out among the river craft, steering it in the swirling currents at the mouth of that great river. GCB May 25, 1913, page 122.11

How can any one look upon such a spectacle and not ache to speak Chinese, and tell her about Christ, the Redeemer of her body as well as of her soul? I asked the missionary to let me talk to her, through him, and he did. I said, “Tell me the names of your children.” She said the oldest girl, about twelve, was named Flowery Princess, and the second girl was named Little Heifer, and the third—they had run out of names—was simply Number Three. How can anybody look on such a scene and not long to give them the blessed gospel of Christ! There were thousands of interesting cases like this. GCB May 25, 1913, page 122.12

Floating in the river hard by was a little girl ten or twelve years of age; a dead, drowned child. No one paid any more attention to that child than if it had been a dog or a log. That is another side of Chinese life. We may look upon them sometimes as having a strange callousness. But they need the whole Bible. O, how it vexes me to hear people say, “They do not need all the Bible”! Why not? Was all the Bible made for proud, boastful Anglo-Saxons only? GCB May 25, 1913, page 122.13

One of our colporteurs told me of a Chinaman who was convicted by reading the genealogies. “Why,” he said, “a man that has such a pedigree as that must have been a great man.” And you can easily see, if you stay in China a few weeks, how true that is. They do not despise their ancestors. “Honor thy father and thy mother” is a commandment that hardly needs to be taught in China. It is much more needful to teach it here than it is in China. We must have the whole Bible there, and we must have it adequately translated. It must not be an apprentice attempt, it must be the finished product of the best Chinese scholars. I suppose that it will finally have to be made by Chinese people themselves. [The speaker told of the various languages and dialects to be dealt with in China.] GCB May 25, 1913, page 122.14

I would like you to know how cheap we make Bibles. A single small book costs one cash, that is, one seventeenth of a cent. I am almost afraid to say that, because Satan is so cunning that he might make Christian people feel that that was a measure of benevolence; but I think the penny is as low as we ought to go, and perhaps it will work in the reverse way, that if we can make Bibles so cheap, we ought to have the funds to make a great many of them. The single books of the Bible are the larger part of the circulation there. I am not here to lecture on translation, except to show that to do the work we must have time and money. We must put down our best translators, and keep them at it until it is done. We must be patient, until all the tribes of the earth, every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, are reached with the divine oracles. May God bless you, dear brethren, and fill your hearts with a wise and understanding spirit, that you may have the manifest tokens of the Spirit of God in your own affairs and in the affairs in which you measure with the universal church of believers. GCB May 25, 1913, page 122.15

[At the close of this address an offering was taken for the Bible Society amounting to $132, and a vote of $500 from general funds was made, the Conference desiring to share more largely in the work which is carrying the light of God’s Word into every dark land. Dr. Fox expressed deepest appreciation. He said it was an unusual, in fact, a new experience to him, and that this action by the Conference would be appreciated at the Bible Society headquarters in New York.] GCB May 25, 1913, page 123.1