D

BHBaaii

AFTER A
HUNDRED YEAES

APOPUUAR ILLUSTRATEDREPORT
OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN ?
BIBLE SOCIETY 2^3^ FOR THE
CENTENARY YEAR 1903-1904 :

M-fevd2L

JSQ3mi

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Gift of the Publishers

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS.

THE SOLEMN THANKSGIVING SERVICE
FOR THE CENTENARY OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY
IN ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. SUNDAY, MARCH 6th, 1904.
Thi: .Xrcliliislinii of Canterbury preaching before Queen .MLXaiuba and the Prince and Prnicess of Wale:

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS

A

A POPULAR ILLUSTRATED REPORT OF THE
BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY FOR
THE CENTENARY YEAR 1903-4

THOU SAYEST " WELL DONE," AND ALL A CENTURY KINDLES
AGAIN THOU SAYEST " DEPART FROM SIGHT OF ME "
llND ALL THE LIGHT OF FACE OF ALL MEN DWINDLES
AND THE AGE IS AS THE BROKEN GLASS OF THEE

THE BIBLE HOUSE
146 QUEEN VICTORIA ST. LONDON E.C. 1904

INTRODUCTORY NOTE
This Report of the Bible Societ'y is perforce taken up
mainly ¦with the world-mde commemoratio'n of its Cenie-nary.
As regards the incidents and statistics of the Society's
normal operations during the last twelve ¦months, it should
he noted that this period is reckoned to end — for the work
abroad, on December ^Jst, 1903 — and for the work at home,
on March ¦^ist, 1904.
T. H. DARLOW,
The Bible House, Literary Superintendent.
August, 1904.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
I. Then and Now
II. Preparing for the Centenary
III. An (Ecumenical Festival .
IV. The Centenary Fund
v. The Seed-Sowers
VI. The Shadow of the Sword
VII. The Outlook from the Tower
VIII. Some Reflections, and a Moral
IX. Facts, Figures, and Finance
Appendix ....

6
14
33
51
74
8598
105
117

AFTER A HUNDRED
YEARS. I.
THEN AND NOW.
This is the Lord's doing : and it is marvellous in our eyes.
No date in the calendar of modem Christendom shines
out with clearer lustre than the seventh of March, 1804.
Yet the birth of the Bible Society, when it occurred,
seems to have attracted scant public notice. One
friendly if somewhat belated paragraph appeared in
The Gentleman's Magazine ; but we search the columns
of the Times vainly for a word of record or welcome.
Men's minds, indeed, were preoccupied and distracted
with events of a different order. Students had just
heard that the first philosopher in Europe, Immanuel
Kant, lay dead at Konigsberg. Statesmen and soldiers
were watching in feverish suspense as Napoleon
" picked up the crown of France with his sword," and
massed his troops and transports for an invasion of
England. Even among Christian men, who sympathised
with the idea of a Society to make the Scriptures cheap

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
and plentiful, few had vision to discern the possibilities
of this new departure ; there were very few who realized
that a sapling was being planted which would grow and
flourish and spread far and wide, until to-day
Its broad roots coil beneath the sea.
Its branches sineep the world.
The most prophetic comment by a contemporary which
we discover was penned by the Rev. George Burder,
Secretary of the London Missionary Society, who was
intimately connected with both the Rehgious Tract
Society and the Bible Society in their early stages. The
foUowing note occurs in his diary :
" March 7, 1804. — Memorable day ! The British and
Foreign Bible Society founded. I and others, belonging to
the Tract Society, had long had it in view ; and after much
preparation, in which we did not publicly appear, a meeting
was called in the London Tavern, and the Society began
with a very few. . . . Nations unborn will have cause to
bless God for the meeting this day."
Since that March moming the daffodils have blossomed
and danced and faded in a hundred spring-times, and a
hundred harvests have been sown and reaped and
gathered in. The world has moved on through strange
revolutions. New ideas, new discoveries, new inventions
have transformed men's outward lives. The social
order wears another aspect. Civilization itself is become
a different thing. Yet at the close of the most bewilder
ing century of which history makes mention. Christians
can recognize that it has been withal a century of the
conquests of the Bible. We travel back in thought to
its beginning, three generations ago. We stand m that
memorable room by the brimming Thames, amid a group

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
of godly men in old-fashioned garb and with quaint,
formal speech, "these are they who had the magnificent
faith and courage and sacrifice to found the Bible Society
in a season of national storm and peril. And we, who
inherit from them to-day far more than they ever dreamed
of, must needs praise God with awe and wonder, because
He has thus beyond measure fulfilled their hopes and
their prayers.
The Gauge of Grcwth,
The Bible Society exists simply to circulate one Book,
without note or comment. During the first fifty years
of its existence, it issued each year, on an average,
559,000 copies of the Scriptures, complete or in parts ;
during the next fifteen years, the annual average rose
to 1,951,000 copies; during the last six years 'it has
been 5,190,000 copies.
At the end of the first twenty-five years, the Society
sent out, on an average, one volume in every seventy
seconds ; at the end of fifty years, one volume in twenty-
three seconds ; at the end of seventy-five years, one
volume in nine seconds ; and at the end of a hundred
years, one volume in every five seconds.
During its first fifty years, the Society sent out
altogether 27,939,000 copies, in 152 languages and
dialects ; during the hundred years, it has . sent out
186,680,000 copies, in 378 languages and dialects.
At the end of half a century, the Society had 3,315
Auxiliaries, Branches, and Associations in England and
Wales, besides 886 in other countries. At the end of the
century, the number at home has risen to 5,726, in
addition to 2,224 others in the Colonies and abroad.

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
During its first fifty years, the Society expended
altogether £4,070,000 : during the hundred years it has
expended £14,194,000. In the first year of its existence
it spent £891. During each of the last two years it has
spent over £250,000.
Spiritual Arithmetic.
Statistics are dreary, and sometimes fallacious things.
But such figures cannot be thought of as blind returns- —
" a dumb register of the routine work of printers, of
colporteurs, and of accountants." When we deal with
statistics concerning God's Book, we are come unto an
innumerable company of angels. The numbers we handle
are S5mibols of spiritual energies and invisible conflicts
and triumphs among aU the nations and kindreds and
peoples of mankind.
Secrets of Success.
It is not possible to contemplate such marvellous
results without being fiUed with a deep and solemn sense
of what Herder has called "the insight, foresight and
oversight of God." Who can doubt that the fathers and
founders of the Bible Society fulfilled a Divine purpose
and builded better than they knew ? Humanly speaking,
the Society's astonishing development has been due to
the simphcity of its aim, to the cathohcity of its con
stitution, to the fact that it has always been directed by
Christian men of affairs, and not least to its wisely
flexible organization which has fostered and federated so
great a multitude of Auxiliaries, each with its own local
independence and freedom. Thus the Society has been
fed by a stream of gifts which come trickling in from

THE BIBLE SOCIETY'S JUBILEE MEETING IN CARNARVON CASTLE.
In 1854 the Society ha.d 3,315 AuxiliariL-s and Branches in England and ^^'¦alds. It has 5,726 in 1904.

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
tens of thousands of sources. Thus it has gathered
strength to expand with the vast expansion of Christian
Missions, so that year by year fresh tongues of savage
tribes and races have leamed to utter the message of
redeeming love. Yet in these very advantages we must
needs recognize the same singular and special Providence
which has guided the Society's fortunes, and shielded its
agents, and blessed its efforts so abundantly in the waste
places of the earth, and overruled even the contro
versies which once and again threatened its peace at home,
so that they fell out rather to the furtherance of the
Gospel. Humbly and thankfully we confess the good
hand of our God laid in manifest approval upon a chosen
instrument of His Kingdom among men.
This is the Lord''s doing : and it is marvellous in our eyes.

II.
PREPARING FOR THE CENTENARY.
They have bloiion the trumpet, even to make all ready.
As the date of the Society's hundredth birthday drew
near, the Committee began betimes to make ready for its
due celebration. They took counsel together and sought
for guidance that they might keep this festival in the
spirit of the Bible. For the Bible is the great primer of
prayer ; and the enterprise of the Bible Society must be
continued and carried forward — as it Was begun — in the
power of prayer. No Christian can analyze the secret of
this -mysterious spiritual energy which every Christian
can wield. Nevertheless we laiow that the submitted
desires of believing hearts avail with the Almighty.
Our intercession is able to imlock doors in Heaven and
to bring down blessings on a prayerless, faithless world.
More golden than any other gift, the Centenary has
demanded and obtained this grace of united, thankful,
expectant, importunate prayer.
The Centenary Grand Committee.
Three years ago all the Society's home Auxiliaries
were invited — and all the more important of them
agreed — to appoint delegates to serve on a Graud
6

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Committee which should consider the plans for
celebrating the Centenary. This influential and repre
sentative body held meetings in London, October, 1901 ;
in Birmingham, October, 1902 ; and in Manchester,
October, 1903 ; and the projects which it unanimously
sanctioned carried the weight of the whole Society's
approval. In many of the Auxiliaries abroad, as well
as at home, standing committees were also formed,
and special conferences were held to arrange for local
celebrations. The main features of the scheme adopted may be
summarized as foUows : — (i.) Universal Bible Sunday,
on March 6th, 1904 ; (ii.) Public Thanksgiving
Meetings at home- and abroad — between that date and
Easter ; (iii.) a Centenary Thanksgiving Fund of not
less than 250,000 guineas, to enable the Society to meet
those fresh needs and claims which are pressing upon
it from aU quarters of the world.
Centenary Deputations.
To diffuse information and kindle interest, a special
deputation, consisting of the Rev. F. W. Macdonald,
ex-President of the Wesleyan Conference, and the Rev.
H. A. Ra5mes, the Society's Home Superintendent,
saUed in the spring of 1903 for Australia, New Zealand,
and Ceylon, traveUing 36,000 mUes, and addressing over
200 audiences. In the autumn another deputation con
sisting of Archdeacon Madden, of Liverpool, the Rev.
G. H. Bondfield, the Society's Agent for China, and Sir
Algernon Coote, visited Canada, and held successful
meetings at most of the chief cities from Newfoundland
to Vancouver.

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Centenary Literature.
The Centenary history of the Society was entrasted
to Mr. WiUiam Canton, a distinguished man of letters,
and is being written in a style and on a scale worthy of
the subject. Vols. I. and II. , bringing the work down
to 1854, are already published, and Mr. Canton is com
pleting Vols. III. and IV. By the same gifted pen there
have also appeared The Story ofthe Bible Society, a popular
record ; and Little Hands and God's Book, a sketch of the
Bible Society for the young.
A Centenary History of Versions is also in hand,
under the care of the Society's Editorial Superintendent
and Consulting Secretary, the Rev. John Sharp. A new
Historical Catalogue of printed editions of Holy Scripture
in the Bible House Library is being compUed, by
Messrs. Darlow and Moule. The first volume comprising
the English section has already appeared, and the second
volume, embracing foreign languages, is in active
preparation. In addition to these larger works, a popular series of
twelve monthly Centenary pamphlets by various eminent
writers was also published, each pamphlet attaining a
circulation of from 150,000 to 200,000 copies. Numerous
other special pamphlets, leaflets, insets, and articles for
newspapers and magazines were also prepared and
issued — including a penny History of the Society, by
Mr. Canton, and a penny edition of " Mary Jones."
During the Centenary year the total issues of this current
literature from the Bible House exceeded 6,714,000
copies, in Welsh and EngUsh — exclusive of the Society's
magazines. Centenary Uterature was also published by
Auxiliaries and Agencies abroad in various languages,

: :> ¦ ¦¦,

non mnig momtu nouS ffflbSe tilii:
ffO ni) babuira' ab intoo : ui a iliga.
mua flltmimi.l& ^ t tantasim
biilna'liiiramajBtafl.'.fliotrotrac .
niani)adi:utqunnaiiraoi)uauDtBis *
ab mirio in m ambrmatjin muin & »
iitara tiirait i muBii q no lofima ¦
ibKu rattii xmiffE m raniiljii I ffOu-
do! 1 antim[iu9.l5iBiK DotomJoB
jntptSStiajiDptBtifaistftajitinn;- nbtni piraa naipifltiB . ID mm ^ tta>
itttnofiraanttfliodnnaraairnrii v
Stjabtt.CuigraanttiiDdrinailjit -
pamn&Iiii^tt.SitifaatiratiDaB :-
[tbar bodnnanoafitmolttrtcdp^^
te EU f Bonmrntt aut ti 6i)rm«B.iDui ^
tm Bint iPiufttoraunitat opabs ti' .;
raaligmci.putaljflSotjDbrarttibt' -.
tcnoUiigtattattattraranmi.atcco v
tni mr fimicii oputt aos:rt 09 aQ OB
lotiui:!!! oaiiDiii uhn plrnu fit . Sfe
limit It 61it fonmBtutdrdt/aFpi
rpft fmii^a inhfe npli -Xnnpir «'
tmrmum cpiftnlBin ttmmii .
jBiu piftana caufa tiral.
ibtfltiputiiiipraptttatc' maiuat ttipitatoi:BiDttc»
__ _ pmi impimitiB tt fugbit "
lanid obiurgat : bnnttno aiit bonit
aaimanm gbibtt turn tetnbuB mn<
nftfiB«3,'rplinr RijiunttupSutpi
— iQpla iphfs tnaa , rupiti pnmti.'l
" imtgain tarifli.
ran-iiuttgoBiiiBo
inBtntatt.fanlTi. mt-DEOriittoorani imtut Eado prolptr
^KttiitgitiJittualt.
tKliJnt ptopt agit afa tua.i6auiP ."(
faiu uaiot ofliitnttb} fi:atnbus i tcQt/.
ntmiiti gt)ibtatibue Dtn'iati tunQni t^

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tuin uttitatt ambto8.)IHaoa5
no Ijabttt gtatiang m aubiora Mm :
naoainntritatt ambuIatts.ffaniTi* ;
mf-fiBtiitttEatiBnait^BopttraBin '
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ptOfo.ptonDrainE ttiimn?^ft4i
uitu:nitl}il attipBttB a gmlto. ^m
tm StbtinuB fufripnt IjBinfaoBt :
nt tDnptatotta funus taitan8.S!tn»
giiiftin taOtan ttcltrmfib iafl amat
pmantra (tttttt m tie OintttpEB-iuii)
ttripit MB . ptBpf bjE 6 tttmo nm>
monta tiuB opts tpxt Jaticnbia ma-
iiBnia oatpto ra nno.ift qnalj va n
itofnffiriannnttBipt furnpitasri
tOB iiui C:rripiiit.pbibtt-iBE ttdifia
ntii.lCariDimtnniiiraitan niatutn:
to i)ii bnnii tft. ©UI btntfant i| dm
tB;qui maltfotit no uiBtt Btii.iDmit-
too ttSinioniii ctBDif ab orattoi ob
ipa utotaK&B ^ HOB ttSiiuDiun gn:<
IjihinuB:^ noliura tEftim Dtugntm
ttw t. JIHuita ^biii tibi rmtttEdtii no,-
luig atttanictii tt talamti &tto nbi.
S>jB» aiit pmtinue tt oitcEt:) OB at)
DB loqutmur. pat Hbi.^alutant tt
araittSiaiuta araitoB ptt nmnt/eC*
pltnr rpta trma ilife frpH ,>[Smptt
fii5»nittu I cplain brntt luB Rpb ^
(H&as apAoluB-fottte c ainupta>
nbsnit ttmatiB ita intemaKut illttu
nan if& mtott be Dibiuuo limtl ttU'
toe MtutiB-Bntua opoa fua oSa)B
ttouen &Dulilhffl.^pUor ersiimc
timi jKjiopif cpa btan niir apU «
Wttias ibtTu niBi ftnius tot auif
tatabt:^i)B qui runt in Dto patttOdt'
itio-i ttiBto ifttfu tonfttuatiB tt ao(a«
lia. PifttinuBia BobiB tt pat Et rati'
rasate^tatucitanl^t Dmnna

^.'.^vi

•'jii^t •l.ti'li^

' #»<«-

''•.**

From the illuminated caj>y in Lambeth Palace Library. By permission of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
A PAGE OF THE EARLIEST PRINTED BOOK, ABOUT 1455 A.D.
GUTENBERG'S LATIN BIBLE, SHOWING THE 3rd EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN.
Since it was founded a century ago, the Bible Society has issued over 186,000,000 copies of the Scriptures
in 378 different languages.

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
including French, German, Italian, Hungarian, Spanish,
Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati,
and Urdu.
The Inaugural Meetings.
The Society crossed the threshold of its Centenary
year under the happiest auspices. Two great inaugural
meetings were held in London on March 6th, "1903.
At the Mansion House, a highly representative company
assembled, when the Prime Minister, Mr. A. J. Balfour,
paid an impressive tribute to the Bible as " the living
record of the revelation of God," and declared that we
might well " feel a thriU of pride, and even something of
astonishment, at the extraordinary work that had been
done during the past hundred years." Lord Northamp
ton presided over a remarkable popular demonstration
in the Queen's Hall that same evening, when representa
tives of foreign Missions gave personal testimony to the
power of the Scriptures in distant lands.
A Consensus of Sympathy,
During the remainder of that year, the Centenary was
one of the subjects discussed at almost every ecclesias
tical conference and congress in the country, and
resolutions of congratulation, sympathy, and goodwill
poured in at the Bible House from Christian assembhes
and societies of every kind and name. The proposal-
to unite in observing " Universal Bible Sunday," by
special services of thanksgiving for the blessings which
we possess in the Scriptures, was taken up with
general enthusiasm which was the more noteworthy
9

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
when we recall the acute forms which religious contro
versy has sometimes assumed in England. There is one
Book, however, to which all Christians appeal ; and
one English institution which exists simply to make
that Book everywhere common. From its foundation, the
Society has proved itself a moderating and reconciling
force, and has been able to unify in the service of
the Bible multitudes of Christians who act together in no
other religious cause.
Universal Bible Sunday.
The proposal to observe Bible Sunday was emphatically
endorsed by both the English Archbishops, as well as by
nearly all the Bishops of both Provinces, who with hardly
an exception wrote letters commending it to the clergy
and congregations in their respective dioceses. To quote
the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury : —
" We appreciate the significance of the fact that the first
Sunday in March will be observed in this way throughout
the English-speaking world by thousands of Christian people
who do not belong to the Church of England, and we rejoice
in the opportunity of joining with them in thankfulness to
Almighty God for blessings which are happily common to
us all."
Every Nonconformist assembly and conference which
met in 1903 — representing the Baptists, the Congrega-
tionalists the Presbyterians, the Society of Friends, and
all denominations of Methodists in England and Wales—
heartily agreed to unite in this festival. The Wesleyan
Conference recommended that in every Wesleyan place
of worship throughout the land a general coUection
should be taken for the Society's Centenary Fund. Iri
TO

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Scotland, both the Established Church and the "United
Free Church recommended their ministers to join the
celebration. The Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin
issued a joint pastoral letter to the clergy of the Irish
Church urging them all to observe Bible Sunday. Similar
letters were addressed to the ministers of the Presby
terian Church in Ireland by the Moderator of the General
Assembly, and to Wesleyan ministers by the Vice-
President of the Irish Conference.
Throughout the British Colonies the idea was
welcomed with equal warmth. Fifty Colonial or
missionary prelates of the Anglican communion gave
cordial public adhesion to the movement, and the leaders
of aU the non-Episcopal Churches in the Colonies
responded with not less goodwill. Bible Sunday was
heartily sanctioned by the Synod of the Dutch Reformed
Church in South Africa.
Our great Foreign Missions, without exception, joined
hands to celebrate this common thanksgiving. The
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the Church
Missionary Society, the Baptist Missionary Society, the
Universities' Mission, the London Missionary Society, the
China Inland Mission, and the Missions of the Methodist
and Presbyterian and Moravian Churches were of one
heart and mind in the matter. Many of them generously
arranged to forego their own sermons and meetings on
March 6th, in favour of Bible Sunday. Throughout the
foreign field, covered not only by British but by Conti
nental and American Missions, the festival was endorsed
with peculiar gladness and gratitude. Christian teachers
in non-Christian lands are not tempted to undervalue
the Bible, or the Bible Society. Missionaries remember
II

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
what they owe to the agency which saves them from rival
and sectarian versions, and provides the copies of the
Scripture which they need, practically without cost to
themselves. And so from Mission churches and stations
innumerable — from India and Burma and Ceylon, from
Malaysia and China and Korea and Japan, from the East
and West Coasts of Africa, from the Sudan and Uganda
and the islands of the Southern Seas — came pledges of
zealous, loyal co-operation.
A Catholic Commemoration.
Although English Christians have to a great extent
lost touch with the Reformed Churches of the Continent,
the Bible Society serves as a living link between com
munities which have so much to bring them together.
The proposal to observe Bible Sunday enlisted European
sympathy beyond all expectation or precedent. The
Archbishop of Upsala wrote in the name of the Swedish
bishops promising the co-operation of their clergy. The
Danish bishops assembled at Copenhagen forwarded a
unanimous resolution in similar terms. The various
Protestant Churches in France and HoUand and Belgium
and Bohemia, and the Waldensian Church in Italy, aU
agreed to share in the commemoration ; whUe resolutions
to the same effect were heartily adopted by aU the
Protestant ecclesiastical authorities throughout Germany,
and by the Conventus of both the Lutheran and the
Calvinistic Churches in Hungary.
From the Western hemisphere, pledges to participate
came from numerous scattered congregations in South
and Central America. Further north, the American
Bible Society, not unmindful of its origin, eagerly
12

A SACRED VOLCANO IN JAVA.
In this magnificent island, which is as large as England and more densely populated, our Colporteurs sold 11,600 copies of the Scriptures
during the List eight months of 1903.

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
supported the proposal. In the United States, both the
chief Presbyterian Churches, the two Methodist Episcopal
Churches, and the presiding Bishop of the Protestant
Episcopal Church all agreed to observe the festival.
Advantage was taken of the opportunity to issue from
Washington on behalf of the American Bible Society a
" national appeal," which contained the foUowing signifi
cant sentences : — " The social fabric of modem states
has no surer foundation than the Bible. No thoughtful
man can doubt that to decrease the circulation and use
of the Bible among the people would seriously menace
the highest interests of civUized humanity." Such a
testimony carried the more weight since it bore the
signatures of men like Theodore Roosevelt, Grover
Cleveland, John Hay, and W. J. Bryan.

13

ill.
AN (ECUMENICAL FESTIVAL.
There is nothing parochial about the Bible Society.—
A. J. Balfour.
During the weeks before the Society's hundredth
birthday, it grew evident that we were approaching the
most unanimous Christian festival within living memory.
The Bible House became the centre of unbounded and
unprecedented manifestations of sjonpathy and goodwiU.
Addresses and resolutions of congratulation flowed in
from weU-nigh every Reformed commimion and every
quarter of the world. Thirty different religious bodies
at home, and as many Christian institutions and
societies on the Continent and in America, appointed
delegates to represent them at the meetings in London,
whUe other representatives arrived from the Society's
AuxUiaries in India and Ceylon and Australia and New
Zealand and South Africa and Canada.
Reception of the Delegates.
The Centenary celebrations began in the Bible House
Library on Friday morning, March 4th, when a large
assembly, including many of the Society's valued and
veteran helpers, gathered for praise and prayer. On the
evening of the same day, several hundreds of delegates
14

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
and friends, representing many different countries, were
received by the Marquis of Northampton, President,
Mr. Robert Barclay, Treasurer, and Mr. Caleb R. Kemp,
Chairman of the Committee of the Society. The reception
took place, by kind permission, in the stately Hall of the
Fishmongers' Company, London Bridge, which stands
within a stone's throw of the building where the plans for
founding the Society were originaUy discussed and
decided upon.
After words of welcome from "Lord Northampton and
Mr. Kemp, Canon Fleming spoke on behalf of the Religious
Tract Society, Lord Kinnaird and Mr. M. H. Hodder for
the Young Men's Christian Association, the Rev. Dr.
IngersoU for the American Bible Society, Pastor C. H.
Rappard for the Swiss Bible Societies, Pastor K. Eckhoff
for the Norwegian Bible Society, Heer L. J. Van Wijk for
the Netherlands Bible Society, and Mr. I. P. Werner for
the Wiirttemberg and other German Bible Societies.
From first to last the reception was an unqualified
success. The Children's Demonstration.
On Saturday afternoon, March 5th, the Albert Hall was
thronged with juvenUe friends of the Society. The Lord
Mayor of London, Sir J. T. Ritchie, presided, accompanied
by the Lady Mayoress and the Sheriffs in state. Her
Royal Highness Princess Christian was present to cut
the huge Birthday Cake. Every chUd in the audience
on leaving the HaU received a box containing a sample
of this : eight hundredweight of cake had been provided for
the purpose. Mr. J. Lewis Paton, High Master of the
Manchester Grammar School, and Bishop Taylor Smith,

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Chaplain General to the Forces, addressed the immense
assemblage ; and when ten thousand chUdish voices joined
in singing " TeU me the Old, Old Story," grey-headed men
could not conceal their tears.
The Royal TTianksgi'ving Service in St. Paul's.
On Universal Bible Sunday, March 6th, Christians aU
the world over united in cathedral and chapel, in church
and mission-room, to render their thanksgivings and
thankofferings for the Bible. Their Majesties the King
and Queen had signified their intention to be present in
St. Paul's Cathedral at " The service of thanksgiving to
Almighty God for the Centenary of the British and Foreign
Bible Society." Great regret was felt that a temporary
indisposition hindered the King from fulfiUing his desire
to attend. His Majesty was represented by Queen
Alexandra, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and
Princess Victoria. The Lord Mayor and Sheriffs,
who attended in state with the Corporation of the
City, joined the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
Bishop of London, and the cathedral clergy in a
dignified procession. The simple and impressive
service included weU-known hjonns in which the vast
congregation could join, and speciaUy chosen suffrages,
psalms and prayers in which aU hearts could unite.
The selected lesson, St. John v. 24-47, was read by the
Dean. Few worshippers were unmoved as the closing
phrase of Wesley's noble anthem rang round the dome :
The grass wither eth, and the flower thereof falleth away :
But the Word ofthe Lord endureth for evermore.
The Archbishop of Canterbury took for his text the
subhme words. Gen. i. 3-4, " And God said. Let there be
16

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
light : and there was light. And God saw the light, thai it
was good " : and we may cite one or two sentences from
a memorable sermon : —
"We thank God for His revelation in the Bible, and especially
to-day, with thousands who in other lands are gathered like
ourselves, we are thanking Him for this — that He is making
these joint prayers and praises possible and practical and
intelligent by means of our having in our hands throughout
the world, ' every man in his own tongue wherein he was
bom,' the written record of the story of our Father's love. . . .
It is just in proportion as the Divinely-ordered record has
been known and read of all men— just in proportion as those
on whom rested the responsibility of guidance have let it
make its way and do its work and bear its message
straight to the heart of gentle and simple, of the learned
and the ignorant, that its power has become patent, and
that its fruitfulness for good — inexplicable otherwise- — has
proclaimed to every thoughtful observer the Divinity of
its origin. . . .
" The great Society for whose Centenary we give thanks
to-day, has applied itself single-heartedly to the one task of
placing within the reach of old and young the opportunity of
possessing for themselves the written Message of the Word
of God. Various teachers wiU in different ways interpret
that Message, and from widely different standpoints wiU
bring its lessons home. From every corner of the Mission
field — from every kindred, and people, and tongue — comes
the grateful recognition of this elemental provision of the
material or the weapon on which each Christian teacher must
rely. As we trace the story of the Bible Society's successive
conflicts for a hundred years with the giant obstacles of
poverty and distance and language, we look upwards and
outwards and onwards. We thank God and take courage.
The object of it aU is one — ' That they might know Thee,
the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast
sent' " 17 c

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Luncheon at the Hotborn Restaurant.
On Monday, March 7th, the Marquis of Northampton
hospitably entertained at luncheon in the King's HaU
of the Holborn Restaurant about 400 leading members of
many Christian communions and societies, including the
delegates sent by kindred institutions in various parts of
the world to join in the Centenary celebrations. After
the luncheon Lord Northampton gave a most cordial
welcome to his guests, and read a letter from the Bishop of
London, expressing a deep sense of the great debt which
every department of mission work owed to the Bible
Society, and wishing it God-speed for its next hundred
years. Speeches followed from Mr. Robert Barclay, the
Society's Treasurer ; Pastor Wiittig, representing the
Bible Society of Saxony ; Lieutenant-Colonel Parr, repre
senting the Universities' Mission to Central Africa ; the
Rev. Professor Kolmodin, who brought the deep thanks
and best wishes of the Evangelical National Society
of Sweden; Mr. W. J. Slowan, one of the secretaries
of the National Bible Society of Scotland ; Mrs. P. V.
Smith, of the C.E.Z.M.S., who spoke for the Zenana
Missionary Societies ; Admiral Sir Edmund Fremantle,
representing the Missions to Seamen ; Dr. Th. Duka, an
eminent Hungarian member of the Society's Com
mittee, who spoke for the Protestant Churches of
Hungary ; the Rev. Anthony L. EUiott, of the Hibernian
Bible Society ; the Rev. Canon Nash, representing the
Australian AuxUiaries ; and Baron F. de Schickler, of
the Protestant Bible Society of Paris.
The Albert HaU Centenary Meeting.
On Monday evening, March 7th, the Albert HaU was

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
fUled from floor to ceiling by the second audience which had
crowded that huge buUding within three days for the same
object. The Marquis of Northampton took the chair, with
the Archbishop of Canterbury on his right and the Rev. Dr.
John Watson (" Ian Maclaren ") on his left, supported
by a vast array of the Society's generous and influential
friends. The meeting opened with Watt's hymn, " The
heavens declare Thy glory. Lord," the Rev. R. Lovett,
Secretary of the R. T. S., read the Parable of the Sower,
and the prayers of the assembly were led by the Bishop
of St. Albans. Lord Northampton quoted the leading
article in the Times that morning, ascribing the Society's
success to its fidelity to the sole and simple aim of its
founders. He referred to the work which lay before it,
. especiaUy in India, where 74,000,000 of our fellow subjects
have no text of the Gospel as yet printed in their own
tongue, and he predicted that this great celebration
would so stir the hearts of the Christian public that the
Society would never lack means in the future.
The Archbishop of Canterbury addressed his audience
as " brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ," and
declared that " we have grown grey-headed now in our
Society, but we are more hopeful, more buoyant with
regard to the work in days to come than perhaps we
have ever been in the days that are past." The Primate
sat down amid a tempest of cheering. The assembly
then rose and joined, with overwhelming effect, in singing
Jackson's familiar setting of the Te Deum.
Eloquent addresses were also delivered by Sir George
Smith, of Truro, followed by Sir Lewis Dibdin, the
Dean of the Arches. The final speaker, the Rev. Dr.
John Watson, of Liverpool, dealt with the progressive
19 c 2

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
unity, the amazing honesty, and the comprehensive
humanity of the Bible. He asserted that " just as it
was said aU roads lead to Rome, so there is a road from
the remotest verse and comer of the Bible to the Person
of our Lord Jesus Christ," and closed with these words :
" We are aU reading the Bible according to the light
given us, and are believing that our brethren are doing
likewise ; and we are aU praying that by-and-by, when
the hght grows clearer, and we see more eye to eye, we
shall have one Christian Church the world over, as there
is one Book, one Saviour, one HeaverUy Father." The
meeting fitly concluded with the " Hallelujah Chorus."
Testimonies from Foreign Missions.
After such a magnificent gathering, it might have
seemed impossible to avoid an anti-climax on the next
day. But the Centenary celebrations in London culmi
nated at the Queen's Hall on Tuesday, March Sth. In the
afternoon the of&cial representatives of our great Foreign
Missions — the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel,
the Baptist Missionary Society, the London Missionary
Society, the Church Missionary Society, and the Wesleyan
Missionary Society— testified one after another in the
warmest and most emphatic terms to the inestimable
help which they receive from that Society which is the
partner and aUy of them all. Lord Northampton heartily
acknowledged the splendid services of missionary scholars
in translating the Scriptures.
Messages from Foreign Rulers.
The Queen's HaU was again crowded on Tuesday
evening, when Lord Northampton presided over a public

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
reception of delegates from other countries. The meeting
was ,3 especiaUy notable for the recognition which
reached it from some of the chief potentates* of the world.
It is safe to say that no previous religious gathering in
England had received such messages. The United States
Ambassador, the Hon. Joseph H. Choate, read a cable
from President Roosevelt :—
" Convey to the British and Foreign Bible Society
my hearty congratulations on their centenary and
my earnest wish for the continued success of their
GOOD WORK. — Theodore Roosevelt."
His ExceUency also presented an address of congratula
tion from the American Bible Society, which had delegated
him to represent it at the Centenary, and declared that
the cablegram and the address had but spoken the
sentiments of the entire people of the United States.
Pastor de Visme, on behalf of the Protestant Churches
of France, presented a beautiful commemorative Cen
tenary medal, speciaUy designed by one of the most
distinguished of French Christian artists.
"* In this connection it should be recorded that on the occasion
of the Centenary an address was presented by the Committee
to the Emperor of Russia through our President, the Marquis
of Northampton, who received the foUowing reply from Baron
Freederickor, Minister of the Imperial Court of Russia : —
Ayant soumts a Sa Majeste F E-mpereur, -mon Auguste Souverai-n,
le mi-moire prisentd par le Comiti de la Sociiti Biblique (British
and Foreign Bible Society) a l' occasion de son centenaire, fat refu
I'ordre supreme d'exprimer i Votre Grace les remerciements de Sa
Majesti, ainsi que les sentiments de bienviellante sympathie que Sa
Majeste a daigne tnanif ester d Vigard de ladite Sociiti.

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
The Rt. Hon. J. A. CampbeU, M.P., expressed the
warm sympathy of the National Bible Society of Scotland.
Pastor F. Beskow, Court Chaplain to the King of
Sweden, spoke in Swedish, his sentences being interpreted:
" The King of Sweden and Norway, His Majesty King
Oscar the Second, has commanded me to express to the
British and Foreign Bible Society his warmest thanks
FOR the blessings VOUCHSAFED THROUGH THEIR WORK IN
Sweden and Norway during the century that is past.
His Majesty regrets that, owing to a journey abroad,
he is unable to celebrate these memorable days
together with his people, which had been his desire."
Pastor Beskow also presented an address of congratu
lation from the Swedish Bible Society and the Swedish
Missionary Society.
Dr. Hoyles, K.C., of Toronto, handed to the President
a cheque for £2,000 as a birthday gift from the Upper
Canada Bible Society of which he is President, and
expressed the hope that Canada's contribution to the
Centenary Fund would be an additional £10,000. He also
presented a congratulatory message from the Montreal
Auxiliary, of which Archbishop Bond is President.
Count John Bernstorff, of the German Embassy,
presented an address of congratulation from the Prussian
Bible Society, and concluded as follows : —
" Before sitting down I should like to add that by command
OF His Majesty the Emperor, Bible Sunday was cele
brated IN all the Protestant Churches of my country,
and that by order of His Majesty our Ambassador
informs your Lordship of this fact."
Baron Othon de Buxhoevden, of St. Petersburg,
presented an address from the Evangelical Bible Society

I'rom the original /¦niiil iiig,^ (/„ ,j,,. /„ij.„,,/„„ ,y Mr. C. H. Thoiiuis.
THE MANOR HOUSE, LITTLE SODBURY, GLOUCESTERSHIRE,
WHERE WILLIAM TINDALE BEGAN TO TRANSLATE THE FIRST PRINTED ENGLISH NEW TESTAMENT.'
 1. .,,.¦,,.„ ,1,.- 1.,,, ..,,,,,rj- ,1... nn,l.- s,., i.-,v I,.,., i,^,,..i „,,„•,. ,1,.,,, 76.00,.  .-,,|,i..„ ..r ll,.- s.-,l|., ,,,..., ;„ i.-,,uii^i,.

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
of Russia. An address was also presented signed by
the Archbishop of Finland.
Pastor Logstrup read the following telegram, received
that day from the King of Denmark : —
" Copenhagen, March 6th. — God speed the Society.
His blessing for the work. — -Christian R."
It would be impossible for any report to convey the
impression created by these successive messages and
speeches. The American Ambassador produced an extra
ordinary effect when he ascribed everything which was
best in his country to that sacred Book which the Pilgrim
Fathers had carried with them across the seas, and when
he invoked all readers and lovers of the English Bible on
both sides of the Atlantic to join hands in promoting the
peace of the world.
Our President.
We may be permitted to record the universal admira
tion felt and expressed for the part which the Marquis of
Northampton took throughout the Centenary proceedings.
A dignified and eloquent chairman, he conducted each
meeting with unfaUing tact and grace ; while the Christian
enthusiasm of his utterances struck a lofty note which
resounded through subsequent speeches. In welcoming
the foreign delegates on Tuesday evening Lord
Northampton excelled himself, and the cheering which
broke out after the meeting had ended was a spontaneous
and irrepressible tribute of affectionate esteem.
Tlie Centenary Choir.
In the success of the London celebrations an important
place must be assigned to our Centenary Choir, which took
23

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
part in the three chief meetings. Lord Northampton
more than once expressed from the chair the heavy debt
of gratitude which the Society owes to this great body
of 1,500 volunteer choristers, drawn from different parts
of the metropohs, who had worked for many months to
attain the magnificent musical results which deserved and
received such warm appreciation alike from the audiences
and in the press.
The Press and the Centenary.
We desire also to acknowledge with the utmost hearti
ness the eminent services rendered to our Centenary by
the press. The London moming papers devoted con
siderable space to excellent reports of the meetings ;
and most of the great daUy and weekly journals
published able and friendly leaders dealing with the
Society's work. The same may be said of the chief
provincial newspapers ; whUe we owe a special debt of
gratitude to the religious press for its whole-hearted
advocacy and support. No reUgious celebration ever
received more generous assistance from journalists. The
occasion was regarded as national rather than ecclesias
tical, and has furnished fresh proof of how deep-seated
in the character and traditions of Englishmen is a rever
ence for the Bible.
Welshmen in London.
The last of the central Centenary gatherings in London
took place on March 9th, when the Lower Exeter Hall
was fiUed with enthusiastic Welshmen, under the presi
dency of Mr. D. Lloyd-George, M.P., to hear in their own
24

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
tongue how closely Wales and the Bible Society have
always been bound up together.
Bible Sunday in London and the Provinces.
The Royal thanksgiving service in St. Paul's was only
the most conspicuous among multitudes of simUar
services held in the vast majority of places of worship
throughout the country. In the Church of England
most of the Bishops preached special sermons on Bible
Sunday, generaUy from the pulpits of their diocesan
cathedrals, and their example was foUowed by their
clergy with comparatively few exceptions.
The Archbishop of York preached for the Society in
York Minster, the Dean of Westminster in the Abbey,
the Bishop of Manchester in St. James' Chapel Royal,
the Bishop of Rochester in St. Saviour's, Southwark,
and also in St. Matthew's, Brixton, the Dean of Peter
borough in the University pulpit at Oxford, Archdeacon
Wilson in the University piUpit at Cambridge, the Rev.
S. A. Donaldson at Eton CoUege, the Bishop of St.
Albans in Harrow School Chapel, and Dr. James, the
Headmaster, at Rugby School.
Nonconformists were as unanirnous and enthusiastic
as Churchmen. Among the leading Free Church
ministers who observed the day in their own pulpits, we
may mention the Rev. R. J. CampbeU, Dr. Clifford, Dr.
Fairbaim, Dr. Horton, the Rev. MarshaU Hartley, Dr.
J. Monro Gibson, Dr. John Watson, Dr. Barrett, Dr.
Mackennal, Dr. Rowland, Dr. John Himter, the Rev. F.
W. Macdonald, the Rev. C. H. KeUy, the Rev. C. Silvester
Home, the Rev. W. Hardy Harwoad, the Rev. J. H.
Jowett, the Rev. F. B. Meyer, the Rev. W. Cufi, the Rev.
25

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
H. Arnold Thomas, Dr. W. L. Watkinson, Dr. Richard
Glover, and the Rev. J. Morgan Gibbon.
How generally the day was observed may best be
realized from a few examples : — 54 Centenary sermons
were preached in Yarmouth, and 681 in the county of
Durham ; Bible Sunday was celebrated at 65 places of
worship in Brighton, at 356 places of worship in Notting
hamshire, and at 775 in Lincolnshire. The observance
was practically universal throughout Wales.
In many cities and towns the municipal authorities,
accompanied in some cases by local Volunteer Corps,
Fire Brigades, Benefit Societies, and Trades' CouncUs,
attended service in state. Elsewhere, impressive united
services were held in the afternoon or evening of Bible
Sunday ; while in thousands of Sunday schools special
addresses were given on the Bible and the work of the
Bible Society.
Centenary Meetings in England and Wales.
Space fails us to describe the multitude of Centenary
meetings held up and down the country during March.
As a rule the largest available haUs — such as the Free
Trade HaU, Manchester ; the Philharmonic HaU, Liver
pool ; the Colisseum, Leeds ; the GuildhaU, Plymouth ;
the PavUion, Carnarvon ; the Albert HaU, Swansea —
were crowded with representative and enthusiastic
audiences, and the singing was led by united choirs.
Celebrations took place, not only in great cities, but
in towns and villages in every county and comer of
the land. One outstanding feature was the success of
mass meetings for school children and young people.
In some places the chUdren walked in procession and
26

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
received medals or Testaments as mementoes of the
occasion, or the Centenary was signalized by a holiday.
At Aberavon, the young men and women decorated the
streets of the ancient borough with banners and ever
greens and Bible Society mottoes. From Abergwynolwyn,
the people went in procession to Ty'nddol, where addresses
were delivered beside the ruins of Mary Jones' cottage. At
Bala, on March 7th, the girls of the Intermediate School
marched to Llan-y-Cil Churchyard and decorated the
grave of the Rev. Thomas Charles with garlands of
flowers. Of that noble-hearted evangelist it may indeed
be said : — . . . the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the d-ust.
The Centenary on the Continent.
Hardly less remarkable than the Centenary festival at
home were the corresponding celebrations abroad. The
Churches of the Reformation throughout Europe united as
by one common inspiration and impulse to praise God for
His gift of the Bible, and to recognize the services of the
Society. Special Centenary gatherings took place in
Paris and Geneva and Madrid and Lisbon and
Barcelona and Constantinople and Smyrna and
Jerusalem. Bible Sunday was observed in one form
or another by most of the Protestant congregations in
France and Belgium and Holland, and in Spain
and Portugal. In Stockholm cathedral the Archbishop
of Upsala preached to an immense congregation which
included aU the members of the Royal Family then in
Sweden, with representatives of the Government and both
Houses of Parliament, while nearly every church of
27

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
every denomination throughout Sweden and Denmark
and Iceland took part in the celebration.
Protestant Germany evinced the liveUest interest in
the Centenary. In nearly aU the separate States, from
Prussia down to the smaUest principalities, the Church
CouncUs arranged for the -observance of Bible Sunday,
and in not a few cases gave instructions for offertories
for the Centenary Fund. Many of the most influential
journals, secular as weU as religious, devoted lengthy
articles to the Society's work, and Centenary meetings
were held in churches or in public haUs throughout the
Empire. In Switzerland a legion of friends worked and
pleaded for the Society, and Bible Sunday was celebrated
through almost every Canton with coUections for the
Centenary Fund.
A Cosmopolitan Meeting.
A most harmonious and cosmopohtan Bible Sunday
meeting was held in the smaU theatre at Davos, when
addresses were given in four languages. The speakers
included the Anglican chaplain, a German Lutheran
missionary to India, a minister of the Reformed Church
of HoUand, an English Wesleyan minister, an Austrian
priest of the Old Cathohc Church in Bohemia, the Dean
of the local Swiss (Zwinghan) Church, and the German
Consul. Two Enghsh Congregational ministers were
also present, with the Dutch Consul and a Russian Jew.
In aU Austria hardly a Protestant congregation faUed
to keep the festival, and in Hungary both the Caivinist
and the Lutheran Churches arranged for its observance,
with a general offertory. Bible Sunday was UteraUy
universal among the Waldensian and EvangeUcal Churches
28

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
of Italy. In Russia the day was observed more or less
widely by the British communities in various cities, by
Lutheran congregations in Finland and the Baltic
provinces, by the Reformed Church and the Baptists in
Poland, by the Mennonite congregations in South
Russia, and the Evangelical congregations in Armenia.
A Centenary message of congratulation came from the
editor and publisher of the Vladivostock News.
In South Africa.
Throughout South Africa, in the Transvaal and in
Rhodesia, Bible Sunday was very generaUy observed by
English and Dutch congregations, as weU as at the
Moravian Mission stations. At Cape Town the Mayor
presided over a great public Centenary gathering in the
Dutch Reformed Church HaU. SimUar meetings were
held at Durban, at Maritzburg, and at Johannesburg,
where Lord MUner delivered an address.
In India.
Across the length and breadth of India many hundreds
of Mission stations and British chaplaincies united in
the common thanksgiving on Bible Sunday, when the
Viceroy attended a special service at St. Paul's Cathedral,
Calcutta, and in each of the provincial capitals the
Governors foUowed the same example. No important
city faUed to hold its Centenary meeting. At Bombay
and Lucknow the Lieutenant-Governors presided ; at
Calcutta and Madras, the Bishops of the Anghcan Church-
Further East, the same interest and sympathy united
Christians of many races and communions. Bible
Sunday was observed in Ceylon, in Burma, and in the
29

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Straits Settlements. Enthusiastic Centenary meetings
assembled at Jaffna and Colombo, at Rangoon and
Mandalay, at Penang and Singapore.
In the Far East.
Far and wide at hundreds of mission stations dotted
over the Chinese Empire, and by hundreds of congre
gations of converts in every province of this enormous
territory, Bible Sunday was celebrated by thanksgivings
and thankofferings. Centenary meetings were held at
Hongkong and at Shanghai. Under lowering war-clouds
and almost within sound of cannon, Bible Sunday was
observed by nearly aU the Protestant Churches and
Missions in Korea. At a very successful Centenary
gathering in Seoul, the British Minister took the chair,
and the United States Minister also spoke.
In Australasia.
In almost every Australian city and tawa the Centenary
has been marked by sermons, meetings, and gifts. The
ecclesiastical authorities of aU Protestant communions
united in this world-wide festival. At Sydney, the
Archbishop and the Governor presided over impressive
and enthusiastic gatherings. At Melbourne, the Govemor
General of Austraha and Lady Northcote attended
service at St. Paul's Cathedral, when the Bishop of
Melbourne preached. At Adelaide, the Govemor of
South Australia presided at an enthusiastic Centenary
meeting of over 5,000 persons, held m the Exhibition
BuUding. Throughout New Zealand the celebration was
practicaUy unanimous, and Bible Sunday was observed
in scores of the scattered coral islands of the Pacific.
30

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
In Canada.
Protestants throughout the Dominion celebrated Bible
Sunday with impressive unity, and enthusiastic and
representative Centenary meetings took place at aU the
chief centres of population. At Toronto, the Mayor
presided over an afternoon gathering of 3,000 chUdren
on March 7th, whUe the Lieutenant-Governor took the
chair at a great assemblage the same evening.
In the United States.
Bible Sunday was observed at Washington by a
memorable service in St. John's Protestant Episcopal
Church, which stands in Lafayette Square, the historic
centre of the city, on which the White House fronts.
The President of the United States and Mrs. Roosevelt
attended, together with a distinguished company, seats
being reserved for members of the Diplomatic Corps,
the Justices of the Supreme Court, the Cabinet, the
Senate, and many other prominent personages from aU
parts of the States, visiting or residing in Washington.
The Church was thronged. At the close of the prayers,
Dr. GUman, President of the American Bible Society,
in a few excellently chosen words, caUed attention to the
significance of the festival : —
" With admiration and gratitude we celebrate the origin of
that venerable Society which has been a most important
factor in the promotion of modern Christian civilization, the
auxiliary of every Church, the supporter of every movement
which tends towards righteousness, justice, peace and truth
among men of every race and every tongue."
Mr. Justice Brewer, of the Supreme Court of the United
States, spoke on the function of the Bible as the inspiration
31

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
of the spiritual life, and the Hon. J. P. DoUiver, United
States Senator, paid an eloquent tribute to' the Bible as
the fountain of those truths and ideals which are the
only hope of nations.
Throughout the United States, Universal Bible Sunday
was discussed in nearly every religious journal, and by
the most influential daUy papers in aU the principal
cities, whUe thousands of sermons were preached bear
ing on Bible distribution and commemorating the work
of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

32

IV.
THE CENTENARY FUND.
Noii) concerning the Collection.
In their decision to commemorate the Society's Cen
tenary by raising a special thanksgiving fund, the
Committee were not merely following a fashion or affording
an opportunity to generous benefactors. They were con
strained by the irresistible argument of facts. They
recognized the stem logic of financial necessity. On the
one hand, for six years past the Society had overspent its
income, until accumulated deficits had depleted its
necessary reserve fund to the extent of £67,000. On the
other hand new needs and claims press upon the Society
continually from aU quarters of the world. The very
variety and success of missionary enterprise create
fresh demands on the chief storehouse from whence
Missions draw their indispensable supplies. Moreover,
when a great publishing house systematicaUy sells its
books at prices which represent on an average about
forty per cent, of what those books have cost to produce
and distribute, it is obvious that the net loss on its
business enlarges in proportion as the sales increase.
The Society's unprecedented circulation is the real secret
of its recent deficits — that, and the curious fallacy rooted
33 °

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
in the minds of so many good people, that the Bible
Society is immensely wealthy and needs no special sup
port. On the occasion of the Centenary, therefore, the
Committee felt bound to lay their case frankly before
the Christian public, and to appeal for a special fund of
at least a quarter of a million guineas.
Disposition of the Centenary Fund.
It should be understood that a certain portion of the
Fund will be allocated to the requirements of the work
at home, in proportion to their urgency. The bulk of the
Centenary Fund, however, wiU be devoted to urgently
needed extensions of the Society's work abroad — by
means of fresh versions and revisions, new Agencies, and
Agents, Sub-agents, Colporteurs and Biblewomen.* The
Committee ask to be entrusted with the temporary
investment and disbursement of the Fund for these
purposes, as opportunities present themselves. But
there will be no permanent investment of the money,
with a view to endowment. The Committee wiU
endeavour so to employ the Fund, that when it becomes
exhausted, the Society's general income (which they
confidently hope to see permanently increased as a
result of the Centenary) shall be adequate to maintain
the new work in addition to the old.
Is it too much to ask for?
A quarter of a miUion guineas may appear a great sum
to raise. Yet this is no more than the South African war
cost each day that it lasted, ^uring the year 1903, ten
and a half millions sterling were remitted from our national
"Some idea of ihe continually increasing claims on the Society will be
given in a subseqiient chapter. 34

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
taxation. The British people are not impoverished as
yet. Of the annual income of the United Kingdom,
Sir Robert Giffen calculates that less than two per cent.
is spent in spiritual work, whether at home or abroad.
The English Bible contains about three and a half million
letters : the people of this country afford to spend each
year on intoxicating drink £50 for every letter in the
Bible. During the course of the past twelve months
£73,000 was found in letters posted in the United
Kingdom, which could not be delivered because they
were insufficiently addressed. Last March a snuff-box,
six inches long, was sold at Christie's for £6,409 — more
than double the largest individual donation yet received
for the Centenary Fund.
Some distinguished Donors.
Most thankfully we acknowledge the generous response
which the Centenary appeal has thus far received from all
classes and all nations of mankind. The picturesque and
variegated list of contributors shows that no fund within
living memory has aroused such cosmopolitan interest
and received such distinguished support.
Among iUustrious donors we may mention His Majesty
the King, £105 ; His Majesty the German Emperor,
£52 los. ; H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, £31 los. ; the
Viceroy of India, Rs. 250 ; the Govemor of Madras,
Rs. 150.
Sir Robert Hart, G.C.M.G., Inspector-General of
Customs and of Posts in China, wrote as follows from
Peking, enclosing a hundred guineas : —
" It is an honour and a privilege to have even the smaUest
share in your magnificent work, and I wish your appeal the
fullest success." 35 »«

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
From the heart of darkest Africa the King of Toro
and his chiefs — who ten years ago weie worshippers of
demons — sent a bag * containing Rs. 54 (about £3 12s.),
which they had collected for the Fund. With the gift
came the following letter addressed to the Committee : —
'-' I greet you heartily in our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you
verymuch for our Lunyoro books. We were delighted with your
endeavour to give the people the books in their own language.
Thank you very much for feeding the nations with the Food
of Life by this means. For this we praise you much. And
we continue to pray God to give you power and means to
translate the Words of God into all the languages of the people
of Africa. Thus we send you a demonstration of our gratitude.
Farewell. May our Father God help you in your work. I am
your friend in Jesus Christ. — Daudi Kasagama, King of
Toro." The members of the Society's Committee in London
subscribed between them nearly £10,000 to the Fund.
Indeed, it is important to observe that something like
£28,000 has been contributed in sums of £1,000 and
upwards. The largest individual gift hitherto received
has been £2,625 from a member of the Committee ; and
the smaUest 2d. from a domestic servant. The Salvation
Army devoted to the Centenary Fund £1,000 out of the
proceeds of their " week of self-denial," during March,
1904.Bible Sunday Offertories.
It wUl be of interest to quote some examples of offer
tories on Bible Sunday : —
St. Paul's Cathedral, £177 ; Westminster Abbey, £57 ;
* This bag and its contents were bought by a friend in London for ten
guineas. 36

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Christ Church, Gipsy HUl, £430 ; Sunfields Wesleyan Church,
Blackheath, £112 ; All Saints', Derby, £156 ; Sefton Park
Presbyterian Church, Liverpool, £118 ; Chislehurst Wesleyan
Church, £286 ; Norwich Cathedral, £24 ; Bath Abbey, £54 ;
Eton CoUege, £37 ; Canterbury Cathedral, £r2, and French
Huguenot Church, £5 ; Emmanuel Church, Hove, £60 ;
St. John the Baptist, Hove, £52 ; Mornington Road Wesleyan
Church, Southport, £60 ; Holy Trinity Church, Leamington,
£184 ; Holy Trinity Church, Rome, £51 ; the Scotch Church
at Montreux, £35 ; MUitary Chapels at Gibraltar, £8 ; the
Second Baptist congregation, Goteborg, Sweden, £55.
A few members of the SomalUand Field Force sent £15
with this note : — " Collection made prior to March 6th, as
on that date we shaU be again on the trek after the Mullah."
Collections at Meetings.
We also record a few amounts collected at notable
Centenary meetings : —
Albert Hall, March 5th, £170 ; March 7th, £277 ; Queen's
HaU, March Sth, £127 ; Free Trade HaU, Manchester, March
7th, £100 ; PhUharmonic HaU, Liverpool, £107 ; Biarritz,
£64 ; Geneva, £66 ; Johannesburg, £68.
Gifts luith a Meaning.
It is impossible to mention here more than a very few
among the many personal gifts which betray some special
thankfulness or zeal or sacrifice. Our venerable friend,
Mr. R. A. Gorell, of Norwich, who was born in the same
year as the Society, has sent £100. The inmate of a home
for reduced gentlewomen sent los. A gold bracelet and
a gold pin were given anonymously. £10 14s. was
subscribed by the Biblewomen and Nurses of the
London Bible and Domestic Female Mission, which has
intimate associations with the Bible Society. The boys
37

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
of Manchester Grammar School collected £8i. A lad
in London sent 3d., his " lunch money." Last, but
not least, 100 farthings were received on March 7th from
" an elderly and poor woman, as a thankoffering for the
blessed Bible." Surely gifts like these carry with them
the authentic fragrance of spikenard.
From the Continent of Europe.
Munificent contributions have come from foreign
countries and from the British Colonies, though in many
cases the sums named are provisional and may be here
after increased. From the German Empire, £1,300 has
been received already ; from Switzerland, £1,020 ; from
Austria, £146; from Hungary, £577 (including £390, Bible
Sunday offertories). France has already sent £313 ; Italy,
£403 ; Spain, £185 ; Portugal, £42 los. ; Scandinavia, £65 ;
Russia, £550 ; Turkey and Greece, £256 ; from Morocco
and Algiers, £230 has been collected and paid in.
From Bible Lands.
The Egyptian Agency remits the splendid sum of £700,
mainly contributed by missionaries and Mission Churches,
aided by the result of a remarkable Centenary Bazaar orga
nized in Alexandria by the Rev. and Mrs. A. A. Cooper.
Bible Sunday was kept very generaUy by Protestant
Christians throughout Egypt and Palestine. Some of
their gifts are eloquent of devotion for the Society and
self-denial in its cause. The Jaffa branch of the Y.W.C.A.
sent £7, and £3 was received from workers m the Tabee-
than Mission, Jaffa, while the workers at the English
Hospital, Jaffa, remitted £5. The American Mission
Press at Beirut, Syria, sent five guineas. SimUar gifts
38

HINDU WOMEN WHO HAVE BEEN TAUGHT TO READ THE GOSPEL.
Tlie i;Mti.-.h :nMd K.>r^.iK'n lUblL.- SociL-iy last y<^.'u- sii|>|n >rti.-i I 6S.j Niili\.: Cbrisli.-m I li Ml> women in E:usl<_Tn l..nids

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
came from various missionaries in Syria and Palestine,
mcluding £5 from Antioch and £7 4s. from Jemsalem.
The teachers and children of the C.M.S. Orphanage at
Nazareth have forwarded £4 as a birthday offering :—
" With much thankfulness of heart for all the blessings which
the Bible has brought to them. It is the outcome of a little
Sale of Work of articles made during one hour a week through
out last year, and is sent with sincere prayers and good wishes
that the dear Bible Society may ever increase and abound in
its good work."
From South Africa.
The total contributions to the Fund from Cape Colony
have reached the generous total of £3,337, of which about
a third came through the Dutch Reformed Church. Our
newly formed Central South African Agency has so far
sent £290 from the Transvaal and Rhodesia. £600 has
been subscribed at Durban, and £81 comes from Bible
Sunday coUections in the thirteen circuits of the
Wesleyan Missionary Society in Natal. More than £200
has been contributed in Madagascar.
From India.
The returns from India are still incomplete. More than
Rs. 10,000 have been received for the Fund in the Bombay
Presidency, whUe " the liberality and enthusiasm of the
people exceeded aU expectations."
At one well-known Mission near Bombay a thanksgiving
service was held on Bible Sunday, with special prayer
for the Society and its branches in all lands. The Cen
tenary coUection contained not only coins but many
offerings in kind — flour, bread, eggs, chickens, kids, rice,
wheat, curry powder, green vegetables, cloth, &c., &c.
39

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
These were sold, and altogether Rs. 193 realized, including
nearly Rs. 50 from non-Christian workmen and work
women. Some blind girls at the mission would not eat
the food cooked for them in order that it might be sold
and the money given to provide Scriptures for the blind.
The children's offerings also reached Rs. 490, and the
thank-offering from the Mission amounted to Rs. 2,970
(=£200). In Burma the Centenary Fund has reached Rs. 7,000.
We learn that in the tropical islands of South Malaysia
our friends expect to raise $5,000, whUe £435 has
already been received from the water-gate of the Far
East at Singapore.
From China.
The total amount received in the China Agency up to
June 7th for the Centenary Fund was £706, of which
£340 represents generous gifts from native Christians.
Returns are stiU lacking from many inland stations. It
is most inspiring and sometimes also pathetic to read of
the joyful self-denial with which these pious Chinese
brought gifts out of the riches of their poverty to show
their gratitude for the Bible.
The Rev. Walter Taylor describes a picturesque Bible
Sunday service at Wan-hsien, Szechuan : —
" We put before the congregation the facts of the
Society's history for the past hundred years. In addition
we laid a scarlet cloth on a table and displayed thereon
specimens of the fifty-five kinds of Scriptures stored here by
the Society, with English Bibles, Greek Testaments, &c.
The prices varied from a copy of Jonah sold for two cash
(id.=about 22 cash) to my big family Bible, which would
cost in Chinese money some 35,000 cas%. In size they ranged
40

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
from a complete English Bible, weighing only a few ounces,
to this big book, weighing thirty pounds. The books were on
view the whole day ; many came in to see them, and the
offertory was 1,635 cash. On the following Tuesday, as a
direct outcome of the exhibition, we sold some 4,000 cash
worth of Scriptures to one purchaser."
From Australasia.
It is too early to estimate the final contributions from
our friends and fellow workers in Australia. The Sydney
Auxiliary aims at raising £1,000. The Centenary gifts
of the Victoria Auxiliaries' Union have already reached
£1,500. From Adelaide the South Australian Auxiliary
has remitted £675. From New Zealand the returns
disclose a magnificent generosity. Over £2,590 has been
paid in or promised, including £877 from the Otago
Bible Society.
From South America.
From Brazil forty-two Protestant congregations have
sent in their Bible Sunday offertories, amounting altogether
to £147. Over £30 is announced from Peru. From
Chili, the Union Church and St. Paul's Episcopal Church,
Valparaiso, and Union Church, Santiago, have sent
£73 15s. — their combined coUections on Bible Sunday.
In the Republics in Central America, £65 has been sub
scribed, and £86 has been remitted from Jamaica.
Demarara sends £96 as a Centenary gift, and Berbice
£30 ; whUe £3 gs. has been received from the Moravian
Missions in Nicaragua and Surinam.
From Canada.
The AuxUiaries in Canada resolved to raise a special
Centenary thank-offering of $50,000. Up to the tune of
41

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
writing over £6,000 has been received in London, including
two most generous gifts of £2,000 each from the Upper
Canada Bible Society.
From the Corners of the Earth.
No feature of the Centenary has been more impressive
than the generous and spontaneous gifts which have
reached the Society from all manner of strange and
unexpected quarters. Thus, for instance, the Lettish
Baptist Church at Riga coUected £3 on Bible Sunday.
A gift of los. was sent by a congregation of Lettish
farmers, from Ufa, a vUlage at the foot of the Urals. A
small community of Armenian refugees in Bulgaria
collected and sent £1 los. from PhUippopolis. A Cen
tenary gathering at Port-au-Prince remitted £3 from
Haiti. Native converts have shovrai themselves eager to
send contributions, often of the most touching kind, and
from the remotest regions. We may take a few examples
by way of iUustration. Bible Sunday offertories were
taken by the C.M.S. congregations throughout the
Uganda Protectorate, and the result has already reaUzed
£29. The sum of £6 14s. was collected on Bible Sunday in
Toro, under the shadow of the legendary Mountains of
the Moon. At Delhi, the ancient capital of the great
Mogul, the Easter offertory of the native congregation
of the Cambridge Mission realized Rs. 67—" representing
a very large number of small offerings ; also the girls
desired to give half their Lent savings to the Centenary
Fund : this amounted to Rs. 5, and has meant real self-
denial on their part."
At Busreh, on the Persian Gulf — once famous as
42

EZEKIEL'S TOMB AT CHEFEL, ON THE EUPHRATES.
THE TRADITIONAL TOMB LIES UNDER THE TOWER TO THE RIGHT OF THE PICTURE.
The Suciety's Persmn Agency circulated 11,700 copies bst year, although the Scriptures in the Per^i.1n language are
to enter the dominions of the Shah.

now forhiddcn

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Bassora, the port from which Sinbad the SaUor set out
on his voyages — Bible Sunday coUections at tiie Arabic
and the EngUsh services of the Arabian Mission realized
£2 los. — " AU of us esteem it a privilege thus to join in
the Centenary of your Society, and a blessing to unite
with Christendom in praising God for the gift of His
Word." At the Lovedale Missionary Institute of the United
Free Church of Scotland, a special service of praise and
thanksgiving was held on Bible Sunday, and the collec
tion for the Centenary Fund amounted to four guineas —
representing the offerings of the 500 native lads and girls
who are gathered at Lovedale for instruction from every
part of South Africa. At this service the re-revised Xosa
(Kafir) New Testament, published by the Society, was
used at Lovedale for the first time.
Bible Sunday offertories have arrived from C.M.S.
Mission stations in Nigeria, and from Baptist Mission
stations on the Kongo. The sum of £12 comes from
Kumasi, a few years ago named " the blood-thirsty,"
in Ashanti-land, whUe £52 was sent as the result of Bible
Sunday at Lagos.
From the Islands of the Sea.
Bible Sunday coUections were made at the stations of
the Rhenish Mission in Borneo, among the Dyak Christians
whose fathers offered human sacrifices, and coUected
human heads much as English lads coUect postage
stamps. Archdeacon Comins writes from the Melanesian
Mission, Norfolk Island : " I am desired by the Lord
Bishop of Melanesia to let you know that we had an
43

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
offertory for you on March 6, 1904, when our native
converts and the scholars of our Training Institution
here, gathered from twenty different islands of the
South Pacific, listened with the utmost interest to the
record of the great work which your grand Society has
done and is still doing everywhere. The sum of £2 14s. 6d.
was contributed for your Centenary Fund." The same
Mission has remitted £10 coUected by native Christians
of Ysabel Island.
In the New Hebrides, Bible Sunday services were held
in connection with the Presbyterian Mission on the
Island of Tongoa, after which £17 was coUected for the
Centenary Fund, including a gift of £1 from the native
chief. Notwithstanding a serious epidemic, the islanders
of Aneityum contributed £6 5s.
Bible Sunday was observed by the Mission to the
Australian Aborigines at Lake Tyres, Victoria, and the
Rev. John Bourmer who is in charge of this work has
forwarded £1 2S. 3d., the result of the coUection. He
writes : "My congregation did not number more than
thirty, and I think they have responded to the best of
their ability."
From Indian Lepers.
The Leper congregation at Almora, North India, as
they possess no money, saved portions of their aUowance
of food, which fumished an offering of Rs. y/y (=ios.) —
a gift which is the more precious because it carries with
it the prayers of these poor sufferers, who realize the
worth of the Bible themselves and desire that others
may share its blessings.
The Rev. F. Hahn, of Gossner's Evangelical Lutheran
44

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Mission, translator of the Kurukh Gospels, is superin
tendent of the Purulia Leper Asylum in Chota Nagpur.
He writes as foUows : " On Bible Sunday I preached in
the churches of the Purulia Leper Asylum, which shelters
at present 604 lepers. I had previously told the lepers
that we would make a coUection for the Bible Society,
and they contributed from their poverty nearly Rs. 34."
From Chamba, in the Punjab, Dr. Hutchison sends
Rs. 1/2, " the offering of the lepers — Christians and
non-Christians — out of their poverty, for the Bible
Society."
From Baluchistan.
In Baluchistan, the native C.M.S. congregation at
Quetta kept Bible Sunday and " with much joy gave
Rs. 30/8 to the Centenary Fund." Writing on behalf
of this congregation, the Church Committee composed in
Urdu a letter " to the Honoured and Revered Directors
of the Mother Society," from which we quote the
following sentences : —
" All the members of this congregation thank the Society
from the bottom of their heart for having been the means of
bringing God's Holy Word to them. We give thousands upon
thousands of thanks to God fhe Merciful, that this Society
has made the Bible so cheap that even a poor man can
obtain it and read it. Through this Society the Christian
religion is spreading day by day. Now we make our prayer
in the Divine Presence that God would give greater power
to the Society in this century, so that blessings may become
more and more manifest in the whole world."
From Tibetan Christians.
The following letter, in Tibetan, has been received
45

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
through Bishop La Trobe, correspondent of the Moravian
Mission Board at Hermhut. The letter is from the
congregation of its Tibetan Mission at Poo, a hundred
miles north-east of Simla, and is written by Paulu, a
native evangelist, and dated i6th February, 1904 : —
"To our esteemed British and Foreign Bible Society,
greetings of peace. In former time I myself, caUed
Paulu, have been wandering in dense darkness, but I
am grateful to say, now I am obtaining the power by
Him our Lord, that power which enables man to walk
in light, and day by day to hold fast to His Word ;
moreover, for an ever increasing life of faith, Jesus wUl help
me. Some years ago when I reached a part of Tibet proper,
the Totso province, Rupchu, Hanle and other countries,
I preached the Gospel to men living round about. To those
who were able to read and longing for books, portions of the
Bible were distributed. Only by your granted assistance
this appeared possible. Then at a time being quite alone as
a Christian in my native country, Spiti, where all the people
are hke dispersed sheep without a shepherd, I tried to show
them not only by words, but by good behaviour, how their
superficial religion was of no use. Some of them said :
' You are right ' ; others remained sUent. EspeciaUy at that
time I felt what a true treasure God's Word has been to
myself. At present I do not stay alone, but am here at Poo,
where there is a missionary and his congregation, and feel
very happy among reUgious brothers. As soon as the first
missionary arrived here, the people received instructions, and
the Father-love of God who did not spare His own Son was
shown and explained to them. AU our chUdren are learning
now to read and to write. Those who have not learnt
reading yet, desire to begin with it. Very, very great thanks
and God's blessing to you, dear brethren, for every holy book
sent and unspeakable assistance afforded to this poor con
gregation. As we got continual help and the time to celebrate
46

A GROUP OF TIBETAN CHRISTIANS.
With the Rev. A, W. Heyde and Mrs, Heyde, of the Moravian Mission, who have laboured in the Upper Himalayas for fifty years without a furlough.
Mr. Heyde acted as Chief Reviser of the Society's Tibetan New Testament.

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
your great jubUee comes nearer, it is but with great joy that
we coUect something in order to be sent as a donation for
further spreading of the Gospel by our lama, the Rev. R.
Schnabel." (Signed) "Paulu," and six others.
From the City of Mexico.
The foUowing letter, with a donation for the Centenary
Fund, has been received at the Bible House from the
City of Mexico : —
" Dear brethren in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, We,
the Christians of Mexico, who, with aU the nations of the
world, have been so greatly blessed by your glorious work
in circulating the Bible, cannot be indifferent to the joy with
which you have celebrated the first hundred years of your
magnificent undertaking. Our hearts have gone out tenderly
to the Throne of the Lord, thanking Him for the circulation
of His sacred Word and asking His blessing on behalf of your
work in the future. At the same time we wish to throw in
our little drops of sUver to the river which we hope has flowed
towards your treasury. Please accept, dear brethren, our
small offering, and with it our sincerest congratulations for
the event which we have all celebrated, and of which we will
hope to know yet more when we meet in heaven in the enjoy
ment of the Divine Presence of God the Father, and of the
Lamb. The Church of the Divine Saviour, Mexico City.
(Signed) "Arcadio Morales, Pastor."
Embroidery and Needle-ivork.
Gifts of embroidery and needle-work to the value of
over £30 have been received from native Christian women
connected -with the Presbyterian Missions in Manchuria.
The girls in the Chinese Rescue Homes in Shanghai
made and dressed elaborate dolls representing various
Chinese types, to be sold for the Centenary Fund.
47

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
From China numerous decorative scrolls and banners
have been forwarded to the Bible House, beautifuUy
inscribed or embroidered with sentences of congratula
tions from Chinese Christians. We may quote the
translation of a message thus sent from Hong Kong : —
" In one hundred years the sixty-six books of the Old and
New Testaments handed down for man's instruction have
been made known throughout the world : the true light
shines clearly from your lighthouse tower ; and lo, from
every place, the souls of men are led back to their one Lord."

These brief extracts which we have cited can give but
a faint idea of the tone of the Centenary correspondence.
No summary could convey the spirit of the letters which
have poured in from aU parts of the world. Their overflow
ing gratitude for the Bible, and the Bible Society, the glad
exultation with which they describe the ardour and
enthusiasm of their local Centenary celebrations, the
simple, artless terms in which they convey some self-
denying gift, at once humble and inspire the reader.
Up to the end of July, 1904, the Centenary Fund,
IN Payments and Promises, amounted to £176,000.
It is true that in certain home Auxiliaries sums have been
collected, which are not yet remitted to the Bible House ;
while not a few important foreign Auxiliaries have hitherto
sent only part of their response to the Centenary appeal.
Nevertheless, when aU allowances are made, we have to
confess that up to the present the total coUected for the
Fund from aU sources has f aUen short of the amount which
the Society undertook to raise. 48

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
A quarter of a miUion guineas is not an impossible or
extravagant sum to have asked and hoped for ; it is the
lowest sum which, with the most careful economy, wiU
enable the Society to meet its pressing needs.
During the last six years the circulation, especially in
Mission fields, has advanced by leaps and bounds, and
the immediate future shows a stiU brighter promise. As
they contemplate this prospect, the hearts of aU Christians
must kindle with joy.
But such a growth cannot be met without increased
expenditure. From £225,274 in 1898-9 the annual cost of
the Society's work has grown to £256,149 in the year
which closed its first century. Yet the contributions
from our AuxUiaries remain practicaUy unchanged, and
at the most represent less than one-third of the Society's
total income to-day.
During the last six years the Committee have been
compeUed to withdraw over £67,000 from the necessary
Reserve, and the time has come when they must have
their hands strengthened — or they must curtail this
most vital form of Christian enterprise.
The Society is rich in friends ; but for years it has been
poor in funds. Its history has been so free from financial
crises, it has responded so promptly to every caU, that it
has obtained a reputation for wesdth which forms perhaps
the most serious obstacle to its progress. From districts
growing in population and resources its friends are stiU
content to send the same modest annual contributions
which they fumished twenty or thirty years ago, when the
Society's work was barely one-half of what it is to-day.
Yet the responsibUities which we inherit from the past
grow heavier year by year. The very achievements
49 E

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
which the Centenary celebrates are so many hostages
which we have given to the future.
It is therefore with a sense of grave responsibUity that
the Committee urgently appeal (i.) for a vigorous effort
to complete the Centenary Fund before the close of the
Centenary year, and (ii.) for a large permanent increase
in the Society's annual income.
:): * * 4c
A hundred and forty years ago the issue of Gaelic
Bibles for the Highlanders was opposed, on the ground
that to sanction and popularize the Gaelic language
would only add fuel to Jacobite disaffection. When Dr.
Johnson heard of the objection, his wrath broke out in
a characteristic letter, whose sentences stUl rebuke our
slackness in spreading abroad the Scriptures : "To omit
for a year, or for a day, the most efficacious method of
advancing Christianity, is a crime."

50

V.
THE SEED-SOWERS.
The harvest is the end of the world.
The Bible Society has not been content simply to
translate and print and publish versions of the Scriptures
in aU the chief vernaculars of the world. It has realized
that God's Book must be brought within reach of all
His chUdren who are scattered abroad. The seed of the
kingdom must be carried far and wide into the waste
places of the •wUderness, and planted wherever human
hearts are wiUing to take it in.
Christian missionaries are the natural agents for
distributing the written Gospel among heathen nations.
And the Bible Society rejoices to be their partner in this
sacred service. " From the trained and gifted scholars
of the missionary societies, it has received and is stUl
receiving many of its most admirable versions ; but it is
a delightful compensation that by restoring these and
other versions which they desire into their hands, it
makes them aU its debtors in retum."
TTie Function of the Colporteur.
To supplement missionary effort in circulating the
Scriptures, the Bible Society has evolved and organized
its far-spreading system of colportage. In pagan and
Moslem lands, and also in most European countries
unblessed by the Reformed faith, Christian Bible-sellers
are selected and equipped and sent forth to penetrate
SI E 2

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
into every province, selling cheap little Testaments and
Gospels in languages which the common people can
understand. Generally these Colporteurs are natives of
the countries where they labour. Quite half of them,
for instance, are Asiatics, and their work is directed and
controUed by the Society's own agents or by its missionary
friends. Thus in China, last year, 327 of our Colporteurs
were under the direct supervision of 182 missionaries,
representing thirty- two different societies. But whatever
be his nationality and wherever his field may lie, the
Colporteur has only one duty : he offers to aU men the
Book in whose pages he has found for himself the good
news of God's redeeming love.
In recent years the Society's colportage has expanded
untU in 1903 it attained a success far beyond aU earlier
precedent. Over 900 Colporteurs were supported, who
worked continuously throughout the twelve rnonths,
and sold no fewer than two mUlion copies of the
Scriptures. Along Highvjays and Byivays.
These Bible-messengers are literaUy ubiquitous. They
go where np one else ever takes the Gospel. Their foot
steps put a girdle round the world. A glance through last
year's reports show that they have offered their books
to pilgrims flocking to the shrine at Lourdes, and to
poUtical exUes on the sorrowful transit across Siberia.
They have carried the Scriptures to the stem, fair-haired
fisher-folk of the gloomy Jutland coast, and to dark-eyed
vine-dressers and husbandmen on the sun-bathed shores
of the Adriatic. They have knocked at the doors of
lonely log-huts in Manitoba, and of Boer farmsteads in the
52

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Transvaal, and of chalets under the shadow of Mont Blanc.
They have scattered the New Testament over the teeming
rice-fields of China and Hindustan. They have passed
over the ruins of primaeval civilization along the banks of
the Nile and the Euphrates. They have explored virgin
forests on the upper waters of the Amazon. Here is a
glimpse of what colportage means in the Island of Luzon :
" We sailed about five miles by canoe across the bay to
the mouth of a large river swarming with alligators. Up
this we went on for a mUe or two further and then left the
canoe and took a narrow track for six or seven miles
through a dense forest alive with swarms of chattering
monkeys, finding a house here and there, selling
occasionaUy either a Gospel or a Testament." In
order to give some idea of the distances traversed by
our Colporteurs in Siberia, we may mention that during
1903 Karataeff travelled no less than 9,160 miles. This
is, of course, an exception, the greatest distance in the
course of twelve months being normally about 6,000 to
6,500 miles.
TTie Perils of Colportage.
In many countries and under not a few conditions, the
Bible-seUer has to endure hardness, which sometimes
becomes danger. A Colporteur employed in the North-
West by our Upper Canada AuxUiary had a serious ex
perience last December, when he was caught in a blizzard,
his nose, ear, and some of his fingers on both hands were
frost-bitten, and on reaching the tovra of Birtle one of his
horses died of exhaustion. Among the Republics of
Central America, some of our Colporteurs labour in towns
besieged by revolutionists ; others live in the midst of
S3

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
epidemics of smaU-pox and yellow fever ; others find
themselves detained in places where for months there is
no communication with the outside world and they have
none to cheer or to advise them ; others are at work where
earthquakes and rumbling volcanoes threaten catastrophe.
Last year a Bible-seUer was asked: "You have doubtless
taken vows, as you are engaged upon so difiicult a
task ? " " Yes," he answered, " I have taken the vow to
foUow Christ."
Brigands in Kurdistan.
Writing from Mosul, in sight of the mounds which once
were Nineveh, Colporteur Anton shows us what risks
are incurred in the service of the Bible Society : —
" We suffered a good deal during our long tour in Kurdistan
this year. Kurdish tribes were fighting with each other ;
in some places rebeUion against the Government was going on ;
robberies and murders were rife. After leaving Arbil, our
caravan was attacked by fourteen highwaymen, who took
twenty animals with their loads which contained some of our
belongings, and the two mules we rode on. We went three
stages on foot, and for three nights we had to sleep without
any covering. We were robbed a second time near SiUei-
manieh, and whUe selUng books in a vUlage I was stoned by
Kurdish lads. In some places we could hardly find a lodging.
AU the caravans traveUed in the daytime for fear of robbers ;
as a result we were frequently attacked with fever, brought
on by the terrible heat of the summer sun. On three other
occasions our caravan was molested by highwaymen, who
fought with the soldiers guarding it, men being kUled and
wounded on both sides ; but, through God's mercy, we were
saved and lost nothing. In spite of aU such difficulties the
Lord enabled us to circulate more books than in 1902."
54

A CANAL IN OLD BATAVIA, DUTCH EAST INDIES.
Since 1882 the Society's Agents have sold more than one million copies of the Scriptures among the tropical isl.inds of Malaysia.

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
On a Cycle ivith the Scriptures.
Here is another travel picture in a country under
happier govemment : —
" Colportage with a cycle in the mountainous, volcanic,
river-scored, snake- and robber-infested PhUippines, is any
thing but pastime. The wheels sometimes sink deep in the
hot, soft sand, and I have had no alternative but to reverse
the order of things, and carry the machine. After toiling
slowly up a steep hiU and scorching pleasantly down the
opposite side, I often found myself confronted by a rushing,
bridgeless river — to be crossed on a passing buUock-cart, or
on the shoulders of a wiry native ; whilst, faUing either of
these, I had to shoulder the cycle and wade across. Again, I
would ride comfortably through a dense undergrowth, suddenly
to find a large snake stretched across the narrow track. The
ladrones (robbers) also make travelling exciting. A notorious
robber chief was kiUed and his band routed by the native
police, close to the scene of my labours, an American teacher
losing his life in the fray. However, during a tour of nearly
two months I visited thirteen towns, and disposed of i,8oo
copies of the Scriptures."
Wiih Camels in Mongolia.
Our Sub-agent, Mr. Larson, takes arduous joumeys with
a caravan of camels and ponies across the immense plains
where the nomad Mongols pitch their tents. Besides the
physical strain of hard travel, of camping out in aU winds
and weathers, and of indifferent food supply, there is the
burden of comparative solitude for long periods HappUy
Mr. Larson is little troubled by experiences which would
be most trying to ordinary men ; he begins his report
by congratulating hunself that his camels are m such
exceUent condition for a long caravan- journey in the
55

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
coming season. Nevertheless, colportage m Mongolia has
dangers of its own : —
" The country has been much more disturbed than last
year. Large robber bands go where they please and rob
caravans and Mongohan viUages. Three times I have come
in contact with such bands, but as yet have lost nothing and
have not been harmed. My helpers, however, in the spring
suffered great loss ; their tents were plundered, and they lost
practicaUy everything they had. In a viUage near by one
man was murdered and ten wounded by these robbers, whom
the mandarins do almost nothing to suppress."
Barbarism in Morocco.
Our Sub-agent, Mr. E. U. Barnard, writes : —
" At the beginning of the year the disorder in the interior
became acute, and all missionaries were ordered to leave Fez
and proceed to the coast. Later on, matters showed signs of
improvement, and in February I started from Tangier for
Fez, taking with me Adrees, a native evangelist. We found
the country we passed through quieter than we expected. In
some places the people were excited, and insisted on providing
a large number of guards to ensure our safety at night. After
a week's journey we entered Fez about sunset. Half an hour
from the city gate a Moor whom we met asked in surprise why
we were outside the town so late, and informed us that on the
previous evening, near that very spot, five mules had been
stolen and their owners shot by some roving mountaineers.
" Adrees and 1 went out daUy to seU the Scriptures, prin
cipally in New Fez and the Jewish quarter. In addition to
visiting the shops, we took up our position in the open
thoroughfares and offered our books for sale. ... On
several occasions I have met prisoners brought in from the
rebel tribes. They were generaUy laden with human heads,
which were afterwards hung up at the city gates as a
warning to evU-doers. Twice during my stay in Fez I visited
56

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
the slave market, where I saw human beings sold like
animals."
A Thousand Mites in an Open Boat.
Among the courageous feats achieved by our Col
porteurs last year was a four months' voyage which two
of them undertook from Irkutsk in Siberia, down the
river Angara, a distance of 1,125 miles, to the Arctic Ocean.
The waters of this river are of a pure bluish crystal colour,
of fascinating purity. Cold as ice in the summer heat, its
swift current is the last to freeze in winter. Our two
Corporteurs purchased in Irkutsk an open boat — which
cost the Society altogether, including an axe and tarpaulin,
about 25s. — and embarked early in May with over
12 cwt. of books on their long and venturesome journey.
Shooting the Rapids.
One part of the Angara mns through perilous rapids,
where the cargo of Scriptures had to be taken out, loaded
on carts, and conveyed to a place on the river twenty
miles lower down, while local pilots steered the boat
down through the seething waters.
" It was rather an eerie morning, raw and foggy ; as I
looked at the hungry river, whirling round huge masses of
rock and boulder, there seemed small chance of us getting
through with our boat alive. We went at a terrific rate, the
boat bobbing and tossing like a walnut-shell, sometimes the
nose, sometimes the stern, high in the air. Twice we stuck
on flat rocks, and had the greatest difficulty in getting off
again." After shooting the rapids they found that the river in
some places became as much as four miles wide ; once or
twice they got into the wrong channel, and in passing
57

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
the shallows, they had often to jump overboard to save
themselves from mishap.
"This journey is awful. We have mosquitoes by the
miUion. The various flies and crawUng insects make us both
miserable. We cannot have a cup of tea without a dozen or
two floating on the top ; we wear masks made of common
horsehair to protect our faces, and yet we are aU blotched
with their vicious bites."
At the Gold-mines.
At the vUlage of Ribnaya they landed and took a
journey inland through the virgin forest in order to visit
some gold-mines.
" We had a whole week to wait in the village untU the roads
got something like fit for travel. The bridges over the smaUer
streams have been swept away during the last heavy rain.
We started on August 7th, with two carts and two horses, but
you may imagine what the roads were like when I teU you
that the water was sometimes within two or three inches of
touching the cases of books. We walked alongside, often
up to our knees in mud."
At the mines they had a warm welcome from the
managers, and sold 150 roubles (=£15) worth of Scriptures
there in the course of a fortnight. They tramped back
to Ribnaya, footsore and weary, having traveUed 200 mUes
on foot. They passed the last rapids without a pUot, and
on reaching the estuary of the river, were fortunate enough
to catch a steamer bound for Krasnoyarsk. The captain
took their remaining 4 cwt. of Scriptures free, and only
charged the Colporteurs 2 roubles ( = 45.) — reduced fares.
On September 4th they were thankful to reach their
destination safely, having sold altogether 1,076 copies of
the Scriptures in remote vUlages and lonely hamlets where
probably no Colporteur had ever been seen before.
58

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AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Among Sailors and Emigrants.
In a vivid description George Eliot has pictured the
Angel of the Da'wp in his flight westwards, gazing down
upon the outlines of firm land and unstable sea, and
marking here and there along the curved shores some
cluster of sedge-like masts denoting a harbour for ships.
Ever since the first Phoenician gaUey ventured out across
the blue water, these ports and havens have been gateways
for traffic and intercourse between nations. And so we
find servants of the Bible Society everywhere offering
God's Book to the mariners and emigrants along their
quays. At Constantinople a Colporteur visits the vessels from
many countries which cast anchor in the Golden Hom.
In the bay of Naples a Colporteur is busy seUing to sailors
of aU nationalities and giving away Italian Gospels among
the poverty-stricken peasants who leave their native
land by thousands every year for the Argentine and
BrazU. From the busy wharves of Antwerp, our Col
porteur boarded 2,600 different ships during the last
twelve months. At Bremen and Hamburg, another
Colporteur circulated nearly 3,000 copies among the
polyglot crowds of emigrants who throng the docks —
Germans, Russians, Poles, Rumanians, Lithuanians,
Servians, Hungarians, Croats, Ruthenians, Slovenians,
Jews — all turning their backs on the narrow restraints
of the old world for boundless lands of promise beyond
the Atlantic.
In the Harbour of Port Said.
Mr. Kipling declares that there are two places in the
world where you can be certain of meeting any given
59

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
person you want to see — if you have patience to wait.
One of these places is the Suez Canal — the great artery
between the East and the West. And so Port Said, at
the entrance to the Canal, is occupied by the Bible Society
as a strategic position of peculiar importance. It is
calculated that as many as 3,440 ships, representing
eighteen different nationalities, made the passage of the
Suez Canal last year, and that 600 additional vessels,
chiefly coasters and colliers, called at Port Said. Out of
these 4,040 vessels, 3,175 were visited by our Col
porteurs ; and we rejoice that, on an average, each of
the 3,175 vessels visited has home to its destination,
eastwards or westwards, three newly purchased copies of
the Word of God. We pray for God's blessing to foUow
each volume ; for His Spirit to pursue each purchaser ;
for His purpose to be accomplished at every stage.
Remarkably free access has been aUowed to our staff on
all British transports and men-of-war, where the Society's
penny Testaments and large-type Gospels prove a special
boon to the sailors, whose Bible, if they have one, is
stowed away below with their kit.
" Aboard our merchant steamers, the work has been carried
on with unusual life and interest. Most of the captains and
officers and ever-changing crews have come to look upon the
Corporteur as an old friend, and anticipate his visits. Many
who, at one time, regarded the Society with indifference, have
had ample opportunity of observing for themselves the value
of its work in the transformation of men's lives through the
reading of the Scriptures."
During 1903, no fewer than 9,274 volumes, in thirty
languages and dialects, changed hands on board ship in
Port Said Harbour. 60

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Among Ships and Timber-rafts on the Yangtze.
Here is a companion picture from the greatest waterway
in China. " Hu-k'eo, situated at the entrance of the
Poyang Lake from the river Yangtze, is a very important
shipping mart, and, bemg a good anchorage, vessels of aU
sizes often put in there for days in bad weather. Col
porteur Fuh Seng spends most of his time visiting these
vessels, and has met with much encouragement. The
boats coming and going give the Gospel an extensive
circulation. Another very important feature connected
with colportage is visiting the timber-rafts. These rafts
vary in size, and some have over one hundred men aboard.
They are kept here several days before passing the
Custoins, and our Colporteur goes in and out, teUing the
crews of God's love and finding among them a readiness to
buy his books."
Midnight Colportage in Venice.
Formerly Bible work was most difiicult in Venice, on
account of a municipal rule which forbade retaU sales
of any kind to be carried on in the narrow chiassi (lanes)
of the city. But by dint of perseverance Colporteur Sist
at last obtained leave to seU his books in the streets,
by pa57ing a slight yearly tax. He at once took advantage
of this. It is usual in summer for the Venetians to
remain out of doors late on into the night, enjo5dng the
cool air in the Piazza in front of St. Mark's. The great
festa of the Redentore, an historical festival dating from
the earliest years of the Republic, is kept up almost as
much by night as by day, and on the last occasion our
Colporteur sold ten Italian Bibles between midnight
and three in the moming. 6i

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
High on the Andalusian Sierra.
" I set out on my mule for Junquera, and after climbing
for five hours up the slopes of a sierra that seemed inter
minable, I came at last in sight of a house near the summit
of the ridge. Here I found an old woman, the mother of
some shepherds, who were absent herding their flocks.
' Why, seiior, you have lost your way,' was her salutation ;
' nobody comes up this mountain path ; they aU go round
by Ronda.' ' Yes, seHora^ I replied, ' but the Lord may
have brought me hither with a purpose, for I seU the Holy
Bible, and in it we are told how Jesus Christ came into
the world to save sinners.' ' Enter, sir, enter ! I am
going to prepare some coffee, the only thing I can offer
you, while you speak to me of these things. Alas ! we
sadly neglect them up here in the sierra^ I read the
fifteenth chapter of St. Luke. ' Senor, we have no money
up here, but I would vrilUngly exchange a chees^ for one
of your books, if you wUl.' I took out a two-peseta
Bible and exchanged it for bread and cheese currency —
two pounds of bread, and a delicious little cheese. The
woman informed me that she had six sons, and said that
it would give her infinite delight to read a chapter aloud
every night to them aU, and that she was sure they would
be equally delighted to listen."
Our Colporteur in the Sudan.
'From his station at Wad Medani, on the Blue Nile,
Colporteur Stephanos joumeys north and south, finding
abundant evidence that the Sudan of misrule and wide
spread ruin has given place to a new Sudan of order,
freedom and industry. He encounters no opposition
62

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
worthy of mention, but in general, from the Sheikh
downwards, he meets with a cordial and kindly welcome
at each village where he brings the Scriptures for sale.
Here are two typical extracts from his diary : —
On the Blue Nile.
" On September 6th I hired a donkey and went to the
place of Khor el Pasha, which is also caUed Serras. This
viUage is two hours distant from Haifa, and on the bank of
the river are a few palm-trees. The people drink from a weU
in their own viUage, and some know the Arabic and some the
Nubian language, but most know Arabic. ' What shall I do
with this ? ' said one to whom I had offered a Gospel. ' It is
the Injiloi our Lord Issa ( Jesus),'said I. Thereat he exclaimed,
' Peace be upon Him ! ' and took me to the house of the
Sheikh. Then said he to the Sheikh, ' This man has the
Injil.' The Sheikh bade me welcome. I thanked him and
sat down. Then he ordered a cup of coffee for me, of which I
drank. Thereafter I displayed a Bible to him, which he took
and kissed, saying, " Peace upon thee, 0 Great Book.' Next
he ordered for me a portion of bread and brought me another
cup of coffee. Then he enquired of me the price of the Bible.
' Its cost,' said I, 'is seven piastres ( = is. 6d.), but to thee I
give it freely.' ' Nay, nay,' he repUed, ' I wUl take it at its
price,' and paid me seven piastres. Thereafter he summoned
aU who were able to read, and by this means I circulated
twenty volumes ; so I thanked God and gave praise for the
spread of His Word. Then I desired to depart, but the
Sheikh suffered me not, saying, ' It cannot be that thou
shouldst depart this day,' and therewith he took an oath that
I should not leave him. So I remained by him that day well
content. Also I presented him with an Arabic New Testa
ment, voweUed, the price of which I paid myself. The book
pleased him greatly, and at his desire I read to him a passage'
therefrom. The next day I took my leave and departed."
63

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Making Peace.
" In another viUage I offered a man a Gospel, who straight
way replied, ' I know not how to read.' Said I, ' Perchance
thy son knoweth how to read ? ' 'I have no son.' said he.
' Then,' said I, ' it may be that thou hast a brother and he
knoweth how to read ? ' ' Yea; I have a brother,' he replied,
' but I am in anger with him.' ' Then,' said I, ' take thou this
book and it will make peace between thee and him.' The
man paid me its price."
By Water in Annam.
Just before the beginning of 1903 M. Ch. Bonnet, our
French Colporteur, settled at Tourane to recommence the
Society's suspended work in Annam, where he has met
with great encouragement. At first he was looked upon
as a kind of scarecrow, from whom the women always
ran away and hid themselves. On his arrival in one
village everybody vanished, and he found himself alone
in the market-place Soon, however, they began to
reappear, and before many minutes a crowd had gathered
round him as he read part of Luke xii. Often he obtains
help from the headman of the viUage, who wiU summon
the people to assemble. In one place the headman went
about himself giving the necessary orders with so many
gestures and shouts that he lost his voice. As an experi
ment in economical transport, M. Bonnet engaged a
native boat or sampan, which according to custom forms
the home, not only of the traveUer, but of the boatman
and his famUy. The famUy in this case numbered seven
persons, so that M. Bonnet was the ninth passenger on
board a vessel 22 ft. long by 5^ ft. wide. One end was
taken up by cases of Scriptures, and the other by the
arrangements for cooking, while the middle was occupied
64

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
by rowers, so it may be guessed how much space was left.
In this vessel M. Bonnet reached the town of Tai-foo,
where he took up his position in the market-place, hiring
half the shop of a native tradesman, and selling in one
day 600 Gospels, 300 copies of the Acts, 150 of Genesis,
and 150 New Testaments — a total of 1,200 volumes.
When he visited the vUlage of Hoa-qu6, the local chief
placed the Pagoda at the Colporteur's disposal, and it was
in this buUding erected in honour of Buddha that he read
God's Word to the people of Hoa-que.
A Hero of the Siege at Peking.
In China the sales by colportage last year amounted to
nearly 800,000 copies, and our native Bible-seUers include
some striking examples of the grace of God. Colporteur
Chang Chi-ting, who was a sergeant in the Wei-hai-wei
Chinese corps during the Boxer rising, and has just
received the China Medal, is a splendid Colporteur.
Yao Chen-jmen, another Colporteur, was one of the very
few natives who faced death again and again in 1900
that he might carry messages from the besieged in Peking.
He ate and slept in the Boxer camps whUe his hat was
fined with letters from the Ministers shut up in the British
Legation to the Consuls in Tientsin. Not only did he
safely deUver these despatches, but he actuaUy succeeded
in carrying back answers to Peking. As a Colporteur he
has done exceUent work, seUing over 7,200 Testaments
and Gospels.
A Boxer Leader turns Colporteur.
Chao Yiin-ming is a noteworthy convert. Three
and a half years ago he was a Boxer leader, and gave
himself up to the task of persecuting any he found " of
65 F

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
this way," despoiling their homes and doing his utmost
to stamp out the " Jesus religion." But the manner in
which the native Christians met the storm — their patience
under suffering, and their no less wonderful restraint
during the trying time of settlement, especiaUy as
regarded compensation for injury and loss — so impressed
this man that in the autumn of 1900 he began to attend
services at the little village church of Ch'ang-ke-chuang
(not far from the Great WaU, where it nears the Pechihli
Gulf), and to read the Bible, with the result that he became
a convinced and repentant believer in the Lord Whom he
had once reviled and persecuted. A rigorous testing of
the man's sincerity ended in his baptism after a probation
of eighteen months. A year ago he was made a Colporteur,
although in his heathen days he had been a schoolmaster,
and the appointment thus resembled an " Irish promo
tion." Since then he has been preaching the Faith which
once he sought to destroy. His sales amounted to
1,144 copies, and he has proved a most useful helper
of the Church near his own home.
A Penitent Brigand.
Mr. W. T. Herbert, of Lu-cheo, in Szechuan, speaks
with enthusiasm of the two Colporteurs he has superin
tended : " Both are members of our Church here. . . .
One of them, named Wang, was once a fierce robber, with
a following of a hundred men or so, and was feared by
many ; but about two years ago he was brought to
Christ, and I am thankful to say he is a man in whom
the SpUit of God works mightUy, and since his conversion
he has been the means of leadmg several of his former
companions to the Ught." 66

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
In Chinese Cloisters.
Mr. Kunze takes much pains to kindle the fire of the
Lord in the numerous cloisters of the majestic Laushan,
founded in some cases as far back as the seventh century
by Taoist and Buddhist missionaries among these rugged
mountains in the province of Shantung. One evening Mr.
Kunze with his Colporteur arrived at the old monastery,
Hua Yuen Ngan, and were led into a fine guest-room.
High bookcases with ancient Chinese manuscripts covered
the waUs. Afi old priest brought them refreshments and
questioned them about the story of the Creation and God's
dealing with mankind in former times. Why ? In
Tsimo market-place he had bought a book which told the
story. This book is now passing from hand to hand in
the monastery.
The Abbot, venerable with age, also came in and
asked his guests many questions. Later, after the
evening meal, the missionary was invited to the Abbot's
chamber. The old man was sitting in his high chair, and
around him were some thirty or forty priests. " I beg
you, sir, to teU us your message. May the ears of my
younger priests listen. I am an old man and my memory
is faUing." Mr. Kunze spoke to them for over an hour,
and finished by presenting his own Bible to his distin
guished and venerable host. The Abbot gave Mr. Kunze
a curious old book, darkened by age, entitled, " Holy Men
of aU generations," and containing the pictures of saintly
persons. Each of these saints bears a mark of his degree
of holiness, which he has reached in his life. Some have
a small moon, some are marked with one or two little suns.
Jesus the Saviour is amongst them, drawn as a Chinaman,
and He bears the mark of perfect saintship — three suns.
67 F 2

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Whence came this book, and how did the name of Jesus
find its way into that ancient monastery ?
The Antidote to Gambling.
Here is the personal testimony which a man gave
publicly in San Salvador : "I am an engineer by trade,
and earn a very good salary. Seven years ago I feU a
prey to gambling, and have lost money at the rate of $25
per week, sometimes losing that amount at a single
stroke. I played untU I had scarcely clothes or boots to
stand in, and yet aU the time vowing that every game
should be my last. I tried hard to give it up, but I
could not, and aU my resolutions were broken as soon as
they were made. But a short time ago I bought a Bible
from a Colporteur, and as soon as I read it I felt a new
power come into my life. Since then God, through this
Book, has broken the awful power of gambling."
Christmas Eve in Guatemala.
In Guatemala, our Agent had an interesting experience,
which shows how, quietly yet steadUy, the Word of God
is bemg brought into the life and thought of the common
people. It was Christmas Eve, 1903, and he had halted
at the mountain viUage of Sabaneta for a night's rest.
He was told that there was no priest within a radius of
twenty mUes, and so the people were celebrating the
festival in their own fashion. In several of their houses
they had prepared tableaux of wooden or clay figures,
which set forth the Birth at Bethlehem, and these crade
representations became for the whUe a sort of f amUy altar.
He visited the principal of these nacimientos (as they were
68

[By hind permission of the Buenos Ayres and l\uijie R.u7:,:,n' Co., Ltd.]
THE INCAS' BRIDGE,
Over the River Mcndoza, on the Eastern slope of the .-\nclcs, 8,900 feet above the sea.
One of the natural wonders of the world.

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
caUed), and found the floor strewn with pine-leaves, the
waUs decorated with wUd flowers, candles lighted all
around, and the people saying their prayers and singing
songs to the weird sound of a marimba, played by Indians.
When the music ceased, he offered to read the Gospel
story for the large audience present, and as he proceeded
to do so, he beheld, to his great surprise, no fewer than
seven persons foUowing his reading with New Testa
ments opened at the right place in their hands. Upon
inquiry, he was told that they had bought the books
from one of our Colporteurs who had recently passed
through the vUlage ; and also that one of the viUagers
had just before been reading those very chapters aloud to
his friends, who were simply charmed with the Book.
In Northern Argentina.
Our young Colporteur, J. Van Ysseldyk, spent most of
his time and efforts in the north of Santa Fe. Thereis
no doubt that he is one of the best qualified young men
for the hard Ufe of a Colporteur in those regions. Finding
that effective work could not be done there without a cart,
he bought himself with his own money a cart and two
cheap horses to draw it. The region which he visited is
§jtuated near the great Parana River ; the traveUer must
thread his way through immense forests and jungles, and
often meets with wide canudos (marshes), which make
journejdng difficult, not to say dangerous. Between the
scattered houses which sometimes lie several mUes apart,
the Bibleman toUs on, with his pack on his shoulders,
because he has left his vehicle at some distance behind on
account of the impassable roads. 69

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Woodmen and their Shanties.
Here and there stand little villages for the woodmen and
their families. These men, among whom Ysseldyk sold
most of his books, are a kind of gauchos of the North — a
rather dangerous set of feUows, fond of gambling and of
strong drink. Legal marriage is almost unknown. Few
of the women can tell how old they are, or the age of their
partners. Sometimes the huts in which they shelter have
nothing but a roof, without any waUs. The water they
use is generally dirty ; but they drink it boiled, with their
indispensable mate. Our Colporteur overcomes his repug
nance, and takes his foo(i with them in order to gain an
opportunity to teU them what the Bible is and to speak of
the grace of Him Who, though He was rich, for our sakes
became poor.
The overseers of these woodmen maintain a kind of
store at which their workpeople are compeUed to buy
everything they need, and absolutely forbid the presence
of any pedlar, and severely threaten those who might give
him shelter for the night. Generally, however, our
Colporteur is permitted to go about and seU, after showing
the kind of goods he carries with him. But it is not often
that he sleeps in a room and in a bed. He is glad if he
can borrow some sheepskins to put under his tired body.
Yet Ysseldyk has not once complained of hardship.
He writes : " I am ready and wiUing to work in the hottest
places, if it is to serve the Lord. I feel happy to be a
servant of Christ, and to have had the opportunity of
proclaiming to many this year the message of love."
Exchange and Barter.
In strange countries the Scriptures are sometimes paid
for in strange currency. Looking over last year's reports,
70

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
we read of peasants in Galicia who offered " fowls or
eggs or sucking pigs," in exchange for books, " as money
is so scarce." Our Sub-agent in San Salvador writes :
" Generally these Indians are very poor, and can only
purchase a single Gospel. Even for this they often barter.
Sometimes I have 'in my box a large number of candles,
which have been given- me in exchange for copies of the
Scriptures." In Persia, £ man who wanted a Gospel,
but had no coin, sent some straw for the Colporteur's
horse. A poor Filipino woman in Cavite was so anxious
for a Tagalog Testament that she proffered in exchange a
pet monkey, which is now an inmate of the house of the
Society's Agent at Manila.
Writing from Toro, Mrs. A. B. Fisher, of the C.M.S.,
gives a charming picture of selling the Scriptures in the
heart of Central Africa : ' ' Each Monday moming a very
busy scene may be witnessed on our barazza ; sometimes
it is more like a native bazaar than a European's court
yard, for the people do not all possess cowrie sheUs with
which to purchase their books, so the teachers bring
in chickens, eggs, grass-mats, and in many cases boys
and women come in to dig and cultivate in payment for
books. It sounds strange to be asked for 'three chicken
Matthews'; this means that in exchange for the three
cackling chickens they want three penny Nyoro Gospels."
In the journal of our Siberian Colporteur, who
traverses the region round Vladivostock, we find this
entry : " While on the journey to Khaborovsk, I offered
a Korean a copy of the Chinese New Testament. ' I've
no money,' he said ; ' wilt thou barter ? I'U give thee
my pipe, if thou givest me a book. I want a copy of that
book very much : please exchange. My pipe cost more
71

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
than the price thou art asking for the book.' So after a
little bargaining, we came to terms, and I was the possessor
of a pipe and the Korean of a New Testament. A group
of coolies had meantime collected, and they were so eager
to see the book that I had sold three more copies before
the train started again."
Free Gifts.
Although long experience has proved that as a rule the
best spiritual results are obtained by seUing copies of the
Scriptures for some nominal charge, however small,
rather than by giving them away wholesale, yet aU the
Bible Society's Colporteurs are allowed to exercise
discretion in regard to free gifts, and they have instruc
tions that no applicant, who genuinely desires God's Book
and is able to read it, shall be sent away without a copy
because he is too poor to pay the price. In cases of
special distress and destitution, in hospitals and in prisons,
the Scriptures are given freely to everyone who wiU accept
them. Advantage is also taken of exceptional oppor
tunities for gratis circulation. Thus, for instance, during
the past year nearly 50,000 Gospels were distributed
among Chinese scholars attending the State examinations
at the chief provincial centres in China.
The Microbe of the Gospel.
In M. Jusserand's illuminating work on English Way
faring Life in the Middle Ages, he depicts the variegated
crowd of pedlars and pUgrims and preachers and beggars
and motley wastrels who spent their lives wandering
along the great English roads, and exerted no slight
influence by diffusing new information and ideas through
72

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
mediaeval society. For good or evil, these wanderers
acted as social " microbes " in the old feudal system — a
countless, hardly visible host who became the secret
agents of immense transformations and revolutions.
To-day, the wandering Colporteur carries the beneficent
microbe of the Gospel and scatters the seeds of spiritual
transformation through many a land which is still in the
mediaeval or even the barbarous stage.
* * * *
It would be hardly an exaggeration to apply to our
Colporteurs the eloquent words in which Lacordaire,
greatest of French preachers in the nineteenth century,
expanded the original charter of Christian Missions.
" Go and teach all nations. Fear neither the difiiculties
of foreign tongues, nor difference of manners, nor the
power of secular governments ; consult not the course of
rivers or the direction of mountain ranges ; go straight
on ; go as the thunder goes of Him Who sends you — as
the creative Word went which carried life into chaos —
as the eagles go, and the angels."

73

VI.
THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD.
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep .
"God is not dead I nor doth He sleep!
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, '
With peace on earth, goodwill to men."
The Bible Society had its beginning at a crisis of that
European conflict which our grandfathers used to speak
of significantly as " the Great War." The smoke of
battle drifts across the initial chapters of the Society's
history, and its early enterprises were conditioned by the
progress and outcome of fierce campaigns. Yet from the
first its agents discovered amidst the dreadful circum
stances of war, opportunities to spread abroad the Gospel
of peace. In the striking words of its latest historian,
" The Almighty made the armies of kings colporteurs of
His Word ; and He alone knew into what far distant
homes — in crowded cities, on the steppe, among the
hUls, on the great plains, in the forests- — His Word
was carried, and prospered in the thing whereto He sent
it. . . . Just as great armies always bear with them in
their forage seeds of wild flowers and plants that grow
in the meadow and cornfield at home, so, by every
cartel and transport," soldiers and prisoners of many a
ca.mpaign have carried from land to land the incor
ruptible seed, which is the Word of God.
The War against War.
The one implacable, invincible enemy of the sword is
the Bible. God's Book makes perpetual war against
those selfish passions which are the real seeds of war,
74

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Nothing else can exterminate the dragon's teeth. Only by
means of the New Testament wiU men ever leam to love
their enemies, and this blood-stained earth grow beau
tiful with the lUies of etemal peace. Throughout the
hundred years of our Society's existence, it has found
ways and means to put into the hands of hostile
soldiers, as they marched to fight, the message of
Divine sacrifice and human brotherhood.
Thus, during the Crimean War, over 200,000 copies of
the Scriptures were circulated among both the allies and
the Russian troops. In the Franco-German War the
issues to the French and German armies considerably
exceeded a miUion books, and cost the Society more than
£20,000. When China and Japan were at war in 1894
the joint Bible Committee at Yokohama distributed
114,000 copies. During the recent war in South Africa,
no fewer than 133,000 Bibles, Testaments and Gospels
were supplied to beUigerents and prisoners on both
sides, and to .families in the concentration camps —
without reckoning the copies provided in Australasia
and Canada for the Colonial contingents as they sailed.
WhUe the S.S. " Kildonan Castle" was making- seven
voyages on transport service to the Cape, her commander
distributed 4,300 copies among the troops he had on
board. It throws a curious light on the polyglot nature
of modem warfare to find that the Society suppUed Miss
Edith Rhodes, sister of the late Cecil Rhodes, with the
Scriptures in fourteen different languages, for her to
give away among wounded Boer prisoners in the
military hospital at De Aar.
The remainder of this chapter will iUustrate how often
during the closing months of its century of service the
75

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Society has been able to act as a spiritual Red Cross
agency ; for it supplies the supreme antidote to the evil
and misery of warfare in that Gospel which shaU be made
more than conqueror at last.
Blessed are the Peacemakers.
We rejoice to know that the effects of our work have
made for healing and reconciliation in South Africa.
During this last year the Society has been supplying 5,000
Dutch family Bibles, bound in purple leather, to certain
generous members of the Society of Friends, who have
ordered these for free distribution among homes where
the family Bibles were destroyed or lost in the course of
the war. The Society's agents have undertaken to
assist in distributing these books, and 1,437 Bibles were
sent out within two months of their arrival at our Johan
nesburg Dep6t, while 200 more reached their destination
through our Auxiliary in Cape Colony. In executing
this trust, we were naturally brought into closer touch
with many suffering people in the Dutch community ;
the task involved numerous interviews and extensive
correspondence with their ministers, and the result has
been highly satisfactory. . When acknowledging their
deep indebtedness to the Society of Friends, they have
made gratifying and generous reference to the past work
of the Bible Society, and we received their hearty
co-operation in celebrating the Centenary.
In Albania and Macedonia.
In these provinces the past twelve months proved a
period of anxiety, hardship, and no smaU peril. Mr.
Kyrias, our Depositary at Monastir, and his entire staff
of Colporteurs have been engaged in assisting to admin-
76

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
ister' the relief funds provided by associations in England
and America for the starving peasants in those regions
which were ravaged by the insurrection. To this work
of mercy our men devoted the whole of their time during
the later months of the year, at the personal request
of H.B.M.'s Ambassador at Constantinople. Indeed,
without their efficient and wiUing assistance it is difficult
to see how the relief could have been satisfactorUy
administered to the sufferers. Mr. Kyrias writes : —
" At one time thousands and thousands of Turkish soldiers
were moving along the roads, in the cities and viUages, and
among the mountains ; villages were plundered and burned
on every hand, whUe news of the murdering of men, women,
and chUdren reached us every day. Nevertheless, our
Colporteurs were seldom molested. Before the outbreak they
had been busy at their ordinary task ; and considering the
circumstances and the poverty of the people, their sales for
the first six months of 1903 were better than had been antici
pated. During the latter half of the year aU the men were
engaged in relief work, which was the means of saving thou
sands from perishuig with hunger. This humane service is
stUl going on, and has been most successful. And the British
Relief Committee highly appreciate the valuable assistance
that is thus being rendered by the Society's servants."
Free Grants to those in Distress.
Bibles were given by our Society to the poor villagers
who had lost their all — a work as important as giving
daily food to prevent their starvation. Many of these
downtrodden folk, including some unhappy prisoners to
whom we presented Bibles and Testaments, have found
great solace in the faithfiU promises of God. The
prisons are full of villagers and citizens, and the
Scriptures are gladly read by the more inteUigent
77

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
of these people. Our Bible Dep6t at Monastir has
remained open uninterruptedly, and numbers of destitute
persons have applied for copies of the Scriptures.
At first the relief was administered from this Depot,
until the work grew to such proportions that it
became necessary to rent a much larger dwelling, and
even this hardly sufficed.
Not Politics, but Humanity.
Colporteur Sinas sold a Bible to an Albanian officer who
had a great desire for the spread of the Gospel among his
people. " I have found," he said, " very great delight
in this book, and truly its teachings are the very best
means for the moral education of mankind." While the
Colporteur was talking with him, another officer joined
them and said, " These are the only people who do not
meddle with politics and who endeavour to do good to
humanity.' ,
TTie War in the East.
Since the present momentous conflict broke out in the
Far East, the Society has spared neither pains nor cost
in carrying out its ministry to the combatants on both
sides. In the Russian Empire it holds a traditional
position of favour with high authorities in Church and
State, and seUs more than half a mUlion copies every
year. We hear with special interest that the Tsarina
herself is taking an earnest personal concern in the
distribution of Russian Scriptures among the sick
and wounded soldiers, especially in Manchuria. The
Bible Society has already supplied her Imperial Majesty
with tens of thousands of Testaments and Gospels for this
purpose, which are being forwarded to the East from the
78

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Winter Palace at St. Petersburg. Her Majesty has been
graciously pleased to command that the Society be
sincerely thanked for its gift, by which she has been
deeply touched.
Early in 1904, our Agent in Siberia obtained official
permission from St. Petersburg to make a free distribution
of Scriptures among Russian soldiers traveUing eastward
to the seat of war, and tens of thousands of copies have
been gratefully accepted. The paragraphs which foUow
supply vivid gUmpses of our Colporteurs meeting the
troops as they pass through the principal stations on
the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Easter in the Train.
Here is a letter, dated April 9th, from Depositary
MichaUoff, at Cheljabinsk : —
"On Easter Eve there passed through this station 300
young men, all of them volunteers for the war against Japan.
Entering the first railway car I told them in a few words the
purpose of my mission. ' Brothers,' I said, ' to-morrow we
shall celebrate Easter Day; you wiU be on the road to the
war ! Don't forget that Christ has risen and is with you.
The Bible Society has not forgotten you, and wishes to present
each one of you who is able to read with a copy of the Gospels
or of the Psalms ; I am sure that you wUl find a place for it in
your haversacks, and that it won't be a heavy load ; it is the
Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.' With these
words I began my free distribution ; a soldier carried my
knapsack and so helped me through the whole transport
train. Several men asked my name, that they might write
it in their note-books ; but I replied, ' It is not I who am
giving you the books, it is the Bible Society.' With this I
drew their attention to the inscription stamped on each copy.
They were all deUghted, and thanked me most heartily."
79

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
With Military Honours.
Another letter from a Sub-agent of the Society at
Cheljabinsk, dated May 20th, mns as foUows : —
" At present from three to five transport trains pass here
daUy, and the generals and officers accompanying the troops
take a lively interest in the distribution of the Scriptures. On
May i6th a train with six hundred, soldiers stopped here on
its way to the front. Their colonel ordered the troops to form
up in line, while he helped me to distribute the copies. When
we had finished he ordered the mUitary band to play. Before
bidding me good-bye, the colonel thanked the Bible Society
for such a valuable gift to the men under his command. On
May 19th General Tolmatchoff arrived, and hearing of the
Scriptures the Bible Society had forwarded for gratuitous
distribution, he called at our Depot. I told him that I had
already begun to distribute the books among the men of his
regiment. The foUowing day the general himself assisted me
in the distribution. Before he left for the Far East he was
kind enough to introduce me to some other officers on their
way to the front, and he requested me to convey his thanks
to the Bible Society."
At Vladivostock.
During the early weeks of last year. Colporteur Kora-
taeff -visited Vladivostock, where he obtained the
necessary permits from the Bishop, the Govemor of the
Fortress, and the Chief of Police. Armed -with aU these
he could travel anywhere, and had free access to the
troops. In October he received a further written permit
from the Commanding Officer in charge of the Cossacks
in Nikolsk to visit all the barracks and sell Scriptures to
the soldiers. It is pathetic to read of Polish Testaments
supplied by the shore of the Pacific to conscripts from
Poland thousands of mUes from home.
80

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Called back to the Colours.
In Siberia, one of our zealous Colporteurs belongs to
the Russian Navy, and joined the Bible Society on
completion of his training in the Pacific. At the begin
ning of 1904 he was summoned to join the ranks of the
naval reservists at Port Arthur. Another Colporteur, who
is a military reservist, was busy for the Society at a town
in the heart of the Altai Mountains, 227 miles from any
railway. He, too, was called away to the front, as he had
been previously in 1900 when the Boxer movement broke
out. May God guard them both, and bring them back
in safety to the work which they have been forced to
leave.
In Manchuria.
From Manchuria itself we hear that by Easter this year
our Colporteurs with Russian passports were visiting the
barracks and military quarters, and selling large numbers
of Testaments and Gospels in Russ.
For Japanese Soldiers.
In Japan, where our Society works in partnership with
the National Bible Society of Scotland, prompt and success
ful steps were also taken. It is noteworthy that the
special correspondent of the Standard with the first
Japanese army in Manchuria has recently reported that
he does not believe it contains a- single illiterate man
in its ranks. By the exercise of intelligent anticipation
our Agent was able, before war had been declared, to
obtain official permission to distribute Scriptures among
soldiers going on active service. He writes as follows
in a letter, dated Kob6, March 15th : —
81 G

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
" I have akeady been able to make arrangements for
issuing a special edition of 200,000 Gospels for the
soldiers, besides 1,500 Testaments for their officers. The
fly-leaf of each copy bears an inscription that the British
Bible Societies presented the book ; this ensures its
acceptance, on the ground of political relations. You would
have enjoyed being with me in Hiroshima last week. Each
division of Japanese troops is stationed in that city for some
time preparatory to its embarkation, and, as the soldiers are
quartered in the houses, they are easUy reached. It is a
pleasure to be amongst them. They are bright and eager for
action ; their behaviour in the town is remarkably free from
drunkenness and rowdyism. They are worked so hard each
day, that they feel glad to stand at ease in the evening.
They aU seem imbued with one spirit — to vindicate ' the rights
of Japan.'
"The courage of these soldiers has its terrible side. Most of
them-have made complete preparations for their non-return.
Many of them have divorced their wives ; one man actuaUy
put to death his two chUdren because ' he had no one with
whom to leave them, and would not be coming back.' When
men have made up their minds to die, how urgent is the need of
placing in their hands that Book which can teach them how
to meet death and prepare them for life eternal."
Wemust not omit to add thatthe Japanese generals have
shown the utmost kindness and courtesy in helping in the
distribution of the books, which are received with many
warm expressions of gratitude. The foUowing is the
Uteral translation of a postcard received from an officer of
the Imperial Guards : " The Testament which you have
so kindly presented to me I shaU take with me to the
war, and gladly read as opportunity serves. We have not
aU got these books, but intend to lend them to each
other. I am very grateful for such a present at this time.'*
82

JAPANESE COLOUR-PRINTERS AT WORK.
ice war brok.; out. lli(.' IhlvlVS. and iht \. II. S.S. Ii.ivc l>i^rilici ilistrilmh. ! nc.iily juo...:..i Cos],,,!* am. .ng J.ipanese lr(..-ips

nil- tu the Iront.

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
On the Field of Batik.
Since fighting began in the spring of the present year,
many of us have begun for the first time to learn the
geography of the Far East. We have discovered that
Manchuria is a country three times as large as the British
Isles, with a population estimated by the Japanese
general staff at 20,000,000. But long before it was
trampled by conflicting armies, this great region had
become a province in the operations of the Bible Society,
which employed last year in Manchuria fifty native
agents, who sold more than 80,000 copies of the
Scriptures. On the River Yah.
As we have followed the campaign, we have traced
the course of the Yalu River and marked the position of
remote towns hke Wi-ju and An-tung at the river's
mouth. How many of us realized that both banks of the
crystal Yalu are famiUar ground to our Bible-sellers ? In
Wi-ju the Society has laboured by its Colporteurs for
twenty years, and there, sixteen years ago, our missionary
allies from Seoul founded a Church whose members had
been gathered by the influence of our little Korean Gospels.
In An-tiing the Society has worked longer stiU. There
its faithful friend and volunteer helper, the Rev. James
WyUe, was mobbed while seUing the Scriptures, only a
few weeks before he died a martyr's death at Liao Yang
in 1894. And aU through this last troubled spring a
Danish missionary friend has held on in An-tung, aiding
our Colporteur in that town, where our stock of
Scriptures has probably been destroyed during the
recent battles. 83 G2

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
In Liao Yang.
While these pages are being written immense hostUe
armies lie facing each other round the city of Liao Yang,
between Mukden and Port Arthur. It is pathetic and
yet inspiring to know that our Bible Depot in this
city was unusually busy and prosperous during March
and early April, 1904, the native Manchurian Christians
recognizing their especial need for God's Word in their
time of trial. They kept Bible Sunday in Liao Yang,
and nearly £10 was coUected for the Centenary Fund by
these comparatively poor people, who were even then
living UteraUy under the shadow of the sword.

Instances such as these iUustrate the policy by
which the Bible Society is able to act as a Peace Society
of the most effectual kind. It watcher for openings and
opportunities where it may "buUd a heaven in heU's
despite." Amid the blood-stained conflicts of earthly
kingdoms it points steadfastly to that great White
Throne which is glimmermg through the dimness and
confusion of time ; and in all the murderous wrath of
man it finds continual occasions when it can testify to
the love and righteousness of God.

84

Vll.
THE OUTLOOK FROM THE TOWER.
Whatsoever things are Scriptural are politic.
Whatsoever is in the Bible shall yet he in the world.
Nothing is too great to hope for which Divine
goodness has promised ; and nothing is impossible
which God has asked His Church to perform.
In the narrow space aUotted to a report Uke this, it is
not possible to attempt any complete or symmetrical
account of the Society's multifarious activities. In the
present chapter we shall content ourselves with a few
outline sketches which may indicate some of the possible
developments and expansions of Bible work in the near
future. For the last word which can ever be applied to
that work is finality. Lord Northampton declared at
this year's anniversary that as the world seems to
shrink in size, the scope of the Society's enterprise
grows greater. What was impossible a century ago, has
become comparatively easy now. WhUe to supply men
with God's Book only creates a new demand : " the
Bible is loved more and more, in proportion as it is
more widely distributed throughout the world."
A Universal Language}
PhUologists compute that about two thousand different
tongues are current on this polyglot planet. If only we
85

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
could reduce them to one speech, or, at any rate, invent a
lingua franca for the human race ! Such an idea f ascmates
the imagination. Ingenious linguists have boldly made
the attempt. A few years ago " Volapiik," which owed
its origin to Pastor Schleyer, enlisted thousands of disciples
on the Continent, and more recently Dr. Zamenhof set
out to persuade aU mankind to talk " Esperanto." From
a work just published by two French scholars — Histoire
de la Langue UniverseUe, par MM. Couturat et Leau — it
appears that these new-fangled " intemational " or
" universal " languages now number nearly fifty— aU
different ! The leamed persons who can seriously sit
down and say, "Go to now, let us invent a universal
language," somehow seem lacking in their sense of humour.
Certainly the Bible Society's work would be amazingly
abridged and simplified if we could but abolish the
confusion of tongues. The Editorial Superintendent
might discover, like Othello, his occupation gone. But
the curse of Babel is not yet canceUed ; and our Society
meanwhUe remains one chief instrument for multiplying
the blessings of Pentecost.
Immigrants into Canada.
Consider an example of the service thus rendered. It is
often assumed as a matter of course that the Enghsh
language prevaUs throughout British North America.
But' besides the Society's versions in fifteen Indian and
three Eskimo dialects, the Scriptures are needed by
immigrants from most of the countries of Europe. In
Upper Canada the Society last year supplied large numbers
of copies in such languages as Ruthen, Hungarian, Russ,
etc. Scriptures are provided for the Icelandic Synod of
86

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
the Lutheran Church at Winnipeg, and for a Chmese
Sunday School at HaUfax, N.S., while French and Itahan
Biblewomen are employed in Quebec.
India and Us Sunday Schools.
Last year the Sunday Schools in India celebrated their
Centenary, the first having been established in Serampore
on July 9th, 1803, by Felix and WiUiam Carey and John
Fernandez. To-day, Sunday Schools are conducted in
thirty-two Indian vernaculars and attended by 300,000
children. There are 7,000 voluntary teachers in 12,000
schools, where the Scriptures used as text-books are
supplied far below cost price by the Bible Society.
Our circrUation in India has for the fourth year in
succession surpassed aU previous records. Of the total of
661,000 books, nearly 196,000 were sold by native Col
porteurs. Nevertheless, 74,000,000 people in India, speak
ing over a hundred distinct languages — not mere dialects
— have as yet no word of the Gospel printed in their ovwi
tongue.
For such as sit in Darkness.
Some part of the Bible in about thirty different
languages now exists in embossed type for the blind. It
must be reckoned among the outstanding achievements
of the Centenary year that Gospels in Oriental BraiUe,
transliterated under the direction of the Rev. J. Knowles,
have been published by the Society for the first time in
five new languages for the bUnd in India :— St. Mark in
Bengali ; St. Mark in Tamil ; St. Mark in Urdu ;
St. John in Telugu ; and St. Mark in Marathi. Few
87

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Englishmen realize that King Edward reigns over half a
mUlion sightless subjects in India alone.

At the Gates of Tibet.
For many a year the Bible Society has been laying
siege to this mysterious country which has barred its
doors so closely against every European. But the printed
page can penetrate where the missionary is shut out.
The New Testament in Tibetan, revised by the venerable
Moravian missionary Heyde and printed for the Bible
Society at Ghoom, near Darjeeling, on the southern
slope of the Himalayas, had won its way across the snowy
passes and penetrated to Lhassa long before the British
expedition. The Moravian Mission stations at Leh in
Little Tibet, 11,500 feet above the sea, at Kyelang, at
Lahoul and elsewhere, are centres from which our Tibetan
Gospels fUter through the fastnesses and enter the strong
holds of Buddhism.
It is found, however, that on the Chinese border we can
circulate Tibetan Testaments and Gospels more easUy
than on the Indian frontier. Accordingly Mr. E. A.
Amundsen has been appointed Sub-agent to occupy a
strategic position in West China, paying special attention
to the north-east frontier of Tibet. It was when serving
for five years in connection with the C.I.M. in this border
land that Mr. Amundsen gained his unusual knowledge
of Tibetan. We hope and believe that he wiU find
opportunity for the entrance of the Tibetan Testament
and Gospels across the passes traversed by caravans of
laden yaks, which carry tribute from the Dalai Lama
into China and convey tea back into Tibet.
88

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
In China.
Throughout this enormous, incalculable empire doors are
opening on every hand. We hear of viceroys who issue
proclamations against foot-binding, and mandarins who
purchase the Encyclopcedia Britannica, and ask for a
Chinese translation of that work ! Most wonderful is the
circulation of the Scriptures. Last year our Society printed
a mUlion and a half copies of the Scriptures for China;
934,000 of these were put into actual circulation, nearly
800,000 being sold by colportage. Nevertheless, for
every person in China who has a Bible there are about
two thousand who have none ; for every person who has
a New Testament there are two hundred and fifty who
have none ; for every person who has a single copy of the
Gospel, or some other small portion of Scripture, there are
forty who have none. So the work as yet is only beginning.
Islam in the Sahara.
The re-vival of Islam during the last sixty years through
the growth of the Dervish orders in North Africa is a vast
and startling portent in politics as weU as in religion. Here
a storm-cloud is gathering which may burst any month
over the southern shore-lands of the Mediterranean.
Against such fierce and mUitant fanaticism, the
weapons of our warfare are not carnal. But the New
Testament has never yet spoken to these tribesmen of the
Sahara in their own tongues. It is one of the Society's
desires and hopes, if circumstances permit, to open a
Bible Dep6t at Timbuktu, so that this great trading-centre
of the southern Sahara may become also a centre for the
distribution of the Scriptures. Many problems have to
be carefuUy considered, and not a few practical difficulties
89

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
overcome, before this object can be accomplished. Our
Agents in Morocco and on the West Coast of Africa are
concerting their plans, and next year's report may
announce that the preUminary exploration has begun. ^
At Tiflis.
Dr. Kean, the Society's Agent in Russia, has lately paid
a visit to Tiflis, and is organizing colportage to be carried
on under the Swedish Mission at Kashgar, in Eastem
Turkistan. He hopes shortly to be able to engage a
Chinese Colporteur for that remote region, and thus to
add another link to the lengthening girdle of Bible dis
tribution which must soon stretch across Central Asia.
At Johannesburg.
Our new Dep6t is already supplying the Bible in
twenty-nine different languages, aU spoken in this modem
city of Babel. Permission has been obtained in advance
to employ Chinese Christian Colporteurs, who -wUl have
liberty to distribute the Scriptures among the newly-
imported Chinese miners at the Witwatersrand Goldfields.
From the Transvaal the Society looks wistfuUy north
wards through Rhodesia into the regions beyond, where
British engineers are busy bridging the Zambesi vrith a
raUway bridge at the Victoria Falls. Already from
Khartum, a monthly steamer pUes southwards up the
Nile to the border of the Uganda Protectorate, where the
new Bible Committee is spreading the Scriptures round
Lake Victoria Nyanza. It remains to connect the inter
vening space by a chain of stations before we can realize
our dream of unbroken colportage from the Cape to Cairo.
90

A HOMESTEAD IN COSTA RIGA.

Tlic Bible Sorluty's CMl[i.n-tciii-^ sold uvcr :jo,o.

ast i'uar :iinony; ihe Ci'Ulral Ainciir.-m RcpiiMics.

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Panama and the Gospel.
fThe newly achieved independence of the Isthmus of
Panama and the ratification of the Canal Treaty by the
United States are events of signal importance for mission
ary enterprise as weU as for industrial and social progress.
The surface of the Isthmus is covered with damp tropical
jungle which swarms with insects, snakes, and aUigators,
and forms a hotbed of malarial and yeUow fever. During
the former canal operations the moral atmosphere
became more deadly even than the physical, and it is
feared that when the work begins again in earnest, we
shall see, as we saw before, speculators, gamblers, and
traders in every form of vice, gathered like human vultures
from the four quarters of the world to divide the spoil of
Panama. The inhabitants of the new Republic number
about 280,000, but this number wiU be speedUy increased.
On aU sides people are busy making preparations for the
future, and the Bible Society is planning to send out to
Panama speciaUy competent workers in order to seize an
extraordinary opportunity and to cope with a most
difficult situation. The Bishop of Honduras promises
that his catechists wiU cheerfuUy co-operate, and adds :
" The greatest hope for the evangelization of Central
America lies in the circulation of the Word of God."

Not the least hopeful feature in the Society's outlook
appears in the attitude which is adopted towards the
Bible and the Bible Society by those older and more
conservative Christian communions which were com
paratively untouched by the Reformation. The following
paragraphs wUl indicate that on the whole, and in spite
91

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
of lamentable exceptions, we are vidtnessing a gradual
but distinct change for the better.
Among the Isles of Greece.
Although m Greece itself, through a curious mixture of
poUtical and ecclesiastical prejudices, the modem Greek
Testament has become a prohibited book, not a
few ecclesiastics of the Orthodox Church countenance
and assist our Colporteurs in the islands of the ^Egean.
In Rhodes, Bishop Joachim is a cordial friend, and the
Bishop of Thasos fumished our Colporteur -with an open
letter of commendation.
The Friendliness of Russian Ecclesiastics.
Space woiUd faU us to cite instances of the weU-
kno-wn friendship shown to the Bible Society by the
Russian Church, of which the vast majority of our
Colporteurs in the Russian Empire are devout members.
In many places the priests take the warmest interest in
the circulation of the Word of God ; they give the
Colporteur all manner of information, teUing him what
places to go to and what people to call on. At
Tomsk Bishop Makari has always been a firm friend of
the Bible Society, and has done a great deal to promote
the circulation of the Scriptures in Siberia. He has
expressed himself speciaUy pleased with our edition of the
Four Gospels in Kirghiz recently published in Russian
characters for the Tatars. Only last year one of these
Muhammadan Tatars joined the Russian Church as the
result of reading a New Testament which he had bought
from our Colporteur. 92

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
From Mesopotamia.
Two letters addressed to " The Honourable Secretary
of the Bible Society, London," have lately been received
signed by the priests and elders of a community of Chal
dean Christians — one of the relics of primitive Oriental
Christianity which survives in the Euphrates vaUey : —
" The endeavour to translate the true Bible into various
languages and to distribute it all over the world is work the
value of which no one can deny. God, who sent His Son for
the salvation of the world, will undoubtedly reward the work
accomphshed. We also take this opportunity of adding that
your Colporteur here does his best to discharge faithfully the
duties of his position ; and for his modest and irreproachable
conduct we always love and respect him. We also protect
him in time of need when he is working among non-Christians.
FinaUy we beg you to accept the wishes and regards of your
brethren in the Lord, and we pray for your success."
In the Roman Church.
Since their first foundation a century ago the Bible
Societies have been formaUy condemned by six Popes in
succession. Nevertheless, welcome signs are not wanting
in the Church of Rome itself; the authorities are
modifying their policy with regard to a free use of Holy
Scripture. Members of Reformed Churches often fail
to realize that the Roman communion is tolerant in
practice of extraordinary variations according to its
environment. Those who know it at Westminster might
be startled if they came to study it in Pera. And the
attitude of Roman ecclesiastics towards a free and open
Bible is happUy inconsistent. In some countries, it is
true, they could hardly be more hostile. The furious
93

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
denunciations of the Ultramontane press in Germany, the
Jesuit policy which prevents colportage licenses through
whole provinces of Austria, the open burning of Bibles
by priests and the assaults on Colporteurs in Styria and
Moravia, can only pain and shock English Christians.
In South America we find ourselves in a yet drearier
spiritual climate. BrazU still belongs ecclesiasticaUy to
the middle ages. Last year in Pernambuco public notice
was given by the priests of a burning of Bibles to take
place on September 27th. The announcement caused
considerable excitement, and every important journal
raised a protest. The subject was brought before
Congress in Rio, and a fine speech against such bigotry
and intolerance was made by one of Brazil's foremost
statesmen. It is interesting to record, however, that as
a result of this incident Bible-work in Pernambuco has
received a remarkable impetus. People everywhere are
saying, "We want to see the book of which the priests
are so afraid."
A Nev} Spirit.
We are aU the more thankful that in various quarters
omens are beginning to appear of a different spirit in
the Roman Church. In France, for example, some
ecclesiastics are awake to the need of placing the Bible
in the hands of the laity. The foUowing extract is
from a recent pastoral letter of Bishop Lacroix to his
clergy in Savoy : —
" The fear of seeming to foUow the example of Protestants
is the cause why French Catholics gradually grew out of the
habit of having personal and direct contact with the Book of
books, and the result of this has been an ignorance of religious
94

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
truths and a weakening of godliness from which we stiU suffer.
But for the last fifteen or twenty years — and this was only the
continuation of Bossuet's noble tradition, who circulated
thousands of Bibles in French in his Meaux diocese — generous
laymen, eminent priests, bishops with an apostoUc soul, have
been seen, who, acting separately, or combining their efforts,
have circulated the sacred texts among the people."
The Society of St. Jerome.
Our last report recorded the new departure of the
Roman Church in Italy, whereby the " Pious Society of
St. Jerome for the Dissemination of the Holy Gospels " has
been aUowed to issue from the Vatican Press a cheap
little Italian version of the Four Gospels and the Acts, and
to disseminate it far and wide among the people at the
low price of 2d. per copy. By the beginning of 1904 we
leam that as many as 320,000 copies of this book
had been already printed, and its circulation is being
vigorously pushed, although not a few priests are stiU
prejudiced against it. The St. Jerome Society has now
taken another step forward by pubUshing St. Matthew's
Gospel as a separate Italian Portion. Although for the
present the plan of issuing in the same version a
complete New Testament seems to have been abandoned,
we are assured, on the best authority, that similar
versions of the Gospels and Acts are soon to be issued
for Roman CathoUcs in other countries, beginning with
Germany. The Approval of the Pope.
On November 29, 1903, Pope Pius X. received the
leaders oi the St. Jerome Society, and not only granted
95

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
a very special blessing to their work (of which he had
already been a promoter as Patriarch of Venice), but
commended it in the warmest terms.
" You try to disseminate the book of the Gospel ; very
weU ! That book is a written sermon, and all can profit by it.
Many say that the peasants, being slow of inteUect, cannot
derive any benefit from reading the Gospel. That is false :
peasants are much sharper than people think ; they read
with pleasure the Gospel narratives, and draw their own
conclusions from them, sometimes much better than certain
preachers. There are many devotional books, even for the
clergy, but nothing is better than the Gospel, the true book of
meditation, of spiritual reading and exercise. ... I not
only grant to you my blessing, but I thank you aU, because
you are doing a most useful and most holy work."
Although the preface to the St. Jerome version contains
qil'estionable assertions and some of its renderings and
notes betray a distinctly Roman bias, nevertheless the
life and work and teaching of our Lord are, on the whole,
faithfully and clearly placed before the eyes of a reader,
and we earnestly implore God's blessing on the good work
of the St. Jerome Society.
Roman Versions in Brazil.
Even in BrazU, side by side with the Bible-buming of
which we have given an example, we find by a curious
anomaly the Roman Church pubUshing two new transla
tions of the Gospels. One is a Portuguese version of parts
of the Four Gospels made from the Vulgate by a priest in
San Paulo. This handsome volume which seUs for $s.,
is styled. A Harmony of the Holy Gospels— "a. translation
approved by ecclesiastical authority, and enriched with
more than 2,000 notes." In the translator's introduc-
96

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
tion, under the heading " The Gospel and Catholic Piety,"
he writes with a fervour which must refresh the heart of
every Christian who loves the Bible : —
" It must be admitted that for a long time the Gospel was
for Catholics a closed and unknown book, and for this reason
the God of the Gospels is becoming an unknown God. Even
among pious persons there are very few who read the Gospel
with avidity, though they devour other books of piety which
they meet with and which are often completely useless. But
the book of Jesus Christ — the priceless book where are to be
found His teachings. His miracles. His joys. His tears. His
blood. His Cross, and finaUy His heart — the book of the Gospel
is a closed and unlaiown book to the very great majority of
the faithful. . . . Jesus is truly in the sacred Eucharist,
but it is not sufficient to know that He is there, looking at us
in His love and tenderness. It is more necessary that He
speak to my heart, that He should say aU that His love has
done for me, and that I should know aU that my love owes
to Him by reading and studying the book of His Gospels.
To introduce the Gospel into a house is to cause our Lord
Jesus to enter into the bosom of the famUy ; it is to put an
entire famUy into communion with the Word of God. Let
us therefore work for the Gospel. Let us take into the bosom
of every famUy this ray of Divine light which wUl lead them
securely to heaven. To read the Gospel in the spirit of faith
and humUity is to drink from its fountains the omnipotent
power of God. To put this Gospel into the bosom of famUies,
to assist it to become their indispensable companion, is to give
to our neighbours the power of Godforthe triumphof the truth."
We desire no clearer afiirmation of the Bible Society's
cardinal belief that God's Word belongs by right to every
one of His children, and that the Holy Spirit, even apart
from any human guide, Uluminates and interprets its pages.
97 H '

VIIL
SOME REFLECTIONS, AND A MORAL.
Whoso is wise and will observe these things,
even they shall understand the loinngkindness
ofthe Lord.
Looking back over the course of these memorable
Centenary celebrations now that they lie behind us, we
become graduaUy aware of certain broad impressions
and salient facts, which emerge from the mass of details
and stand out in their proper perspective and proportion.
As we review these last anxious laborious months, our
hearts must overflow with humble gratitude to God, who
has so signally blessed our festival of thanksgiving, even
as He blessed our Society throughout the hundred years
which the festival commemorated. Both at home and
abroad the celebrations have been characterized by
most impressive enthusiasm and unanimity, and have
been carried out with a success which outsbone the
brightest hopes of their promoters. To organize and
achieve such results as are summarized in the foregoing
chapters, has obviously entailed a very hea-vy burden of
additional toU, which was cheerfuUy shared by the
President, the Committee, and the whole staff of the
Society, reinforced by multitudes of honorary officials
and devoted friends and helpers in all quarters of the
globe. As one general result, we may be certain that for
98

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
years to come the Society wiU be permanently strengthened
and enlarged, alike in its influence and its resources. It
has gained a new impetus and taken a different rank in
pubhc estimation. Its work is recognized as bearing the
visible seal of God's favour before the eyes of men.
A World-vjide Tribute.
"From one point of view, indeed, the Centenary may be
regarded as an immense and spontaneous tribute to the
Society for the service which it has rendered to modern
Christendom. For a hundred years it has pursued one sole
object -with a fideUty and a wisdom which have kept it
clear of most of the controversies which stiU divide
Christians into hostile camps. It has concemed itself
vrith none of these things. It has been content to provide
the Book to wh^ch all Christians alike appeal as their
common charter. In the pro-vidential economy of the
Church there is room for diversities of gifts and operations,
and the Bible Society has gone on for a century simply
minding its own business and fulfilling its proper function.
Leaving aU questions of interpretation, criticism, and
comment to be dealt with by recognized and appointed
teachers, it has laboured with a single eye to put this
Book which all men need into the hands of aU who are
-wiUing to receive it. In its activity the Society has
been aU things to all men-^a patriot in every country
which it enters. Believing that the Bible carries the
secret of the surest happiness for individuals and the
securest prosperity for nations, it has gone into every
comer of the earth distributing the Scriptures in the
languages which the inhabitants can understand. Con
fining itself loyally to this supreme aim, the Society has
99 H 2

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
won the confidence of the various sections of Christ's
Church as weU as of the authorities of the nations where
it has laboured. And so we have seen the highest civil
potentates joining with great ecclesiastical dignitaries to
pay common homage to the institution which has no
politics and no frontier, and no paUadium — except that
Book which makes the whole world kin. Universal Bible
Sunday was an overwhelming testimony to the Society's
success, and to the unique position which it holds among
Christians to-day.
E Pluribus Unum.
Again, the Centenary has fumished the opportunity
for a signal demonstration of Christian reunion. Through
out its history the Bible Society has been mindful of
Lord Bexley's aspiration : " If we cannot reconcile aU
opinions, let us endeavour to unite all hearts " ; it has
cherished and fostered that spirit of concord, sympathy
and charity for which all faithful disciples pray. From
age to age controversies arise to accentuate the lines of
cleavage which exist in organized Christianity, as they
exist, indeed, in the frame and fabric of civU society, and
in those elements which blend in human nature. .At
such seasons it is no mean benefit to hold before men's
eyes a permanent and manifest sign of the grandeur and
extent of those possessions which aU believers have in
common. For a hundred years, often without conscious
intention, the Bible Society has performed this high
service, of which its Centenary festival was a recognition
and reward. " Without other cohesion than the bonds
of a common purpose, the Society finds itself to-day the
largest union of divided Christians, the most varied, the
lOO

m0mM

( \'%

A MAORI CHIEF.
New Zealand sent the Bible SociEty /t,43o in Free Contributions last year, besides raising over
^2,000 for the Centenary Fund.

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
most contrasted in position, in means, in attainment, the
world has ever seen, but united as one man in the faith
that the Bible is God's message to mankind." Amid so
much which distracts and embitters modern Christianity,
we bless God because He has granted us this immense
and inspiring reminder of the unity which lies beneath
aU our divisions.
A Common Doxology.
The most catholic of Christian acts is praise. Nothing
fuses men's hearts like the glow of common thanksgiving.
Only in her Te Deum does the Holy Church throughout
aU the world duly acknowledge her God. And in hun
dreds and thousands of Centenary meetings men who
pray together all too seldom have found themselves singing
one doxology side by side. Believers of many schools of
thought and confessions of faith forgot their differences
in this deep unison, and clasped hands with feUow-
Christians of strange races under alien stars, aU giving
thanks together to the same God for the same Bible.
The foreign mission field supplied impressive manifesta
tions of this spirit of reunion. In the capital of Mada
gascar, for instance, at a Centenary meeting in the Anglican
Cathedral, Bishop King of the S.P.G. Mission presided,
and' Mr. H. E. Clark of the Friends' Mission gave an
address. Here in England, the Bishop of Salisbury
summed up the matter in emphatic words : —
'; .|" There were times— and this was one — when it seemed
almost hopeless to unite Christians on some questions, but
the Bible did unite them fundamentaUy. He thanked God
that it was possible for Christians to unite in reverence
for Holy Scripture."

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
No one, however, pointed the moral of this great object-
lesson more aptly than the President of thej National
Union of Teachers in his inaugural address at its
conference last Easter Monday : —
" Surely the common platform of Christian men and women
—which, just now, is an everyday sight — a platform of men
and women, divines and laity, of every Christian Church who
publicly bear testimony to the wonderful and healing grace
of the Bible, and who are now joyously celebrating the Cen
tenary of the British and Foreign Bible Society— beUeve and
desire that " the Book of books ' shaU continue to be the
foundation of aU true greatness. The representatives of the
Christian Churches aU go to the same Bible for inspiration,
and our earnest hope is that they may be given guidance to
seek their points of agreement, rather than their points of
difference."
A Confession of Faith,
From yet another point of view the Centenary has
become the occasion of a remarkable confession of faith.
On Universal Bible Sunday a great event took place.
The Churches of the Reformation all the world over
combined as by one impulse to reaffirm their faith in the
infinite value of the Word of God as revealed to them in
the Bible. Although we cannot help reading the Scrip
tures to-day with other, if not always -with larger eyes
than our fathers, we read with the same heart. During
the hundred years since the Bible Society began its career,
books and creeds and institutions have passed through
the fire, and that Book which it exists to circulate has
been subjected to the most searching and remorseless
scrutiny by some of the keenest human inteUects. Never-

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
theless we see this practical result — that side by side
with the progress of criticism versions of the Bible have
increased by hundreds and copies have multiplied by
scores of miUions. At the end of a century of this
experience we are surely entitled to declare that the
Bible not only survives, but satisfies the most exacting
of aU critical tests— the test of vitality. Apart from its
mysterious, inherent quaUty of life, the Book could never
have been naturalized in so many different countries and
languages, and in so many different hearts. This is no
counterfeit power, which can transform human character,
and caU into being a new spiritual life in the human soul.
The history of the Bible Society is one vast arsenal of
e-vidence, gathered from races in every stage of civilization;
demonstrating the inexhaustible, miraculous vitality of
Holy Scripture. The Bible is incontestably alive to-day,
Uke no other book in the world. It is the chief spiritual
educator of mankind. What antidote shaU we find but
this to the C5mical luxury and material standards and
commercial triumphs of our own time ? When the critics
have said their final word, the Bible remains the living
witness to the supernatural : wherever it goes, it brings
with it a sense of the redeeming presence of God. We
know by the age-long experience of Christendom that
this Book, however you dissect its pages, is instinct
with the power of an endless life.
Looking Forward.
After the Society had celebrated its jubUee, fifty years
ago, our predecessors paused to remind themselves how
grave and responsible was the burden of their duty which
remained stiU undischarged. We too may lay to heart
103

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
the same lesson. Like them, we dare not forget that
" the Book we handle and with which alone we have to
do, is the Book of God ; it bears with it a message of Ufe
and death ; it contains in it words by which aU shall be
judged at last. . . . It is a serious thing to be called
to labour for God at a period Uke the present ; it is a
serious thing for individuals or societies to be entrusted
with faculties and influences for good at such a time."
At the end of this century so rich in blessings yet so
eventful in momentous changes, we set our faces towards
the future, humbly and seriously indeed, but without
dismay. We cannot teU what that future has in store
for nations and for institutions. We may not Uft the
shadowy veU which hides God's secrets utftU the
coming of the Son of Man. In the history of the
Church, in the education of the world, a hundred years
are but as yesterday, and as a watch in the night. Yet
through all the revolutions of human thought men have
only one Book which proclaims the everlasting Gospel
of redemption and resurrection. And if at the end of
another century our successors gather together, amid
changes of which we have not so much as begun to
dream, we may be confident that whatever else on
earth has decayed and waxed old and vanished away,
the Bible will be reigning and conquering by its revelation
of the Ufe of God.

104

IX.
FACTS, FIGURES AND FINANCE.
He took the five loaves and the two fishes, and
looking up to heaven He blessed, and brake, and
gave the loaves to His disciples, and the disciples
to the multitude.
In this closing chapter we exhibit as usual in a summary
form the essential statistics which belong to the story
of the Bible Society's work last year. These figures
Ulustrate the unmense services which the Society renders
in its world-wide field of labour, and emphasize afresh
its claim to be supported by aU sections of the
Universal Church.

The Year's Issues.

Turning to the normal operations of the

past twelve

months, the Society's issues were as foUows ;

; —

1903-1904. 1902-1903.

1901-1902.

Bibles ... .. i,057>i54 997.720

939.706

New Testaments. 1,449,808 1,491,887

1,364,116

Portions . . . . 3,190,399 3,454,168

2,763,599

Totals .. 5.697,361 5.943,775

5,067,421

Comparing these remarkable figures, we rejoice that
the issues of complete Bibles have risen nearly 60,000
above last year's record total. Never before has the
Society sent out over a million complete Bibles in a single
year. Testaments show a decrease of 42,000. Portions
105

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
are less by 263,000. The total issues during the past
year have been only 246,000 copies fewer than the un
precedented result announced for the year preceding, and
600,000 copies more than the total for any other year of
the Society's history. In view of such results we must
indeed thank God and take courage.
Of every 100 volumes sent out, 18 were Bibles, 25 were
Testaments, and 57 were Portions, chiefiy Gospels or
Psalters. The issues from the Bible House in London for the
year ending March 31, 1904, were 2,034,253 copies — an
increase of 59,151 on the previous year.
The total issues of the Society since its foundation in
1804 have amounted to 186,680,101 copies of the
Scriptures. The Work at Home.
In England and Wales the Society spent about £11,000
last year, mainly in direct grants of Scriptures — free or
at greatly reduced rates — to the Sunday Schools, Day
Schools, and Missions of nearly every Christian Com
munion, and to all the varied agencies of religious and
philanthropic activity.
The Society's Centenary gift of a Desk Bible has been
sent out to about 10,000 different Sunday Schools in
England and Wales, accompanied in most cases by a
copy of Mr. Canton's Sketch of the Society's Histoiy —
Little Hands and God's Book—for the School Library.
By the courtesy of the magistrates and chief constables
the Society has been permitted to place a Bible in 1,838
pohce court cells in different cities and towns throughout
England and Wales. 106

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Students at Theological and Missionary CoUeges, who
need such assistance, receive as gifts about four hundred
Testaments in Hebrew or Greek each year. The Society
also presents outgoing missionaries with Bibles or Testa
ments in the vernaculars of the fields in which they are
to labour.
Nearly all the English and Welsh Institutions for
befriending the blind receive the Scriptures they use at
half-price, in either Braille or Moon type.
The colportage work of such societies as the Missions
to Seamen, and other simUar institutions, receives
substantial assistance.
A large annual subsidy is given to the London Bible
and Domestic Female Mission, which employs over 170
Biblewomen and Nurses, who read and seU the Scriptures
in the poorest districts of the metropolis.
Home Issues and Auxiliaries.
Of the year's issues 1,510,333 books, or nearly 27 per
cent., were in English or Welsh, and circulated mainly in
the British Empire. Of our English Penny Testaments
253,813 were issued last year, making the total 8,167,004
during the last twenty years.
Of the English Revised Version 52,468 copies were
issued last year — 35,675 Bibles and 16,793 Testaments.
At the close of 1903 the Society had 5,726 Auxiliaries,
Branches, and Associations in England and Wales.
This is fifty-four fewer than were reported a year ago, on
account of the removal from the lists of a number of
names which had come to be names merely. We believe
that one important result of the Centenary wUl be to
107

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
revitalize languid AuxUiaries, as weU as to form vigorous
new Auxiliaries in all parts of the country.
The District Secretaries' returns show that during
1903 in England and Wales 4,886 meetings were held,
and 2,287 sermons were preached on the Society's behalf
— 519 meetings more and i29,^ermons less than in 1902.
The Work Abroad.
Outside these islands the Society has 2,230 AuxUiaries
and Branches, mainly in the British Colonies, many of
which undertake vigorous local work besides remitting
Free Contributions to London in aid of the Parent
Society's world-wide missionary enterprise.
The Depdt and the Missionary.
The Society maintains Bible Depdts in more than a
hundred of the chief cities ia foreign lands. In non-
Christian countries the missionaries of every Reformed
Communion act as the most zealous and effective dis
tributors of the vemacular Scriptures, which they obtain
from the Society practically without expense to their
own Missions.
Afield vjith the Colporteur.
But our characteristic agent for circulating the Bible is
the Colporteur, who carries his books to the people " where
they are," and offers cheap Testaments and Gospels from
door to door through to-wn and viUage and hamlet in
most countries of the world. Of these Colporteurs the
Society maintained 900 at work throughout last year, at
a cost of about £45,000. The Colporteurs' sales reached
the unprecedented total of over 2,000,000 copies.
108

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
The Task of the BibleTvomen.
During the year the Society has supported 680 native
Christian Biblewomen, in connection with forty different
missionary organisations, in those Eastem lands where
only women can carry the Gospel to their secluded sisters.
The Society has also helped to support, more or less
directly, over 100 European Biblewomen in Malaysia,
in Canada, in South America, and in London. The
cost of this department of our enterprise in 1903 was
nearly £6,000.
Translation and Revision.
We can give only a brief summary of the more prominent
items of progress in translation and revision last year.
Besides special Centenary editions of the English
Authorised Version, the Bible in the Revised Version has
been issued in two fresh popular forms. A Centenary
edition of the Welsh Bible has also been published in
brevier type.
The Centenary Greek Testament, for which the Society
is indebted to the scholarship and industry of Professor
Eberhard Nestle, has appeared, beautifuUy printed, in
a variety of cheap and convenient forms. The text is the
resultant obtained by comparing the three great recensions
of Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, and Bemhard Weiss.
Through the courtesy of the Wurttemberg Bible Institute,
the Society is permitted to reproduce the text as edited by
Dr. Nestle for the Institute. One edition of this Centenary
Testament contains the text alone. In another edition,
besides the text, its variations from the Textus Receptus
on the one hand, and from the avowed or inferred readings
of the EngUsh Revisers on the other, are sho-wn by a new
critical apparatus at the foot of each page.
109

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Numerous unportant revisions are m progress. The
Shanghai Missionary Conference of 1890 provided for the
production of improved and unified translations for Chma
at the cost of the Bible Societies of England, Scotland, and
America. The first of these Union Versions to appear
is the New Testament in Easy Wenli, pubUshed last
year. Another completed Bible m the circulation of which this
Society participates is the version of Bishop Schereschew-
sky m Easy Wenli. By its production the sister Bible
Society of America has been privUeged to make accessible
to multitudes the fraits of Bishop Schereschewsky's
wonderful linguistic skUl and heroic toil.
The New Testament has now been published in
Wenchau. This is mainly through the self-den5dng
labours of the Rev. W. E. and Mrs. SoothUl, of the
United Methodist Free Church Mission to China.
The Scriptures in eight of the leading languages of
India are undergoing elaborate re-translation vrith in
some cases the addition for the first time of marginal
references. Among these, the revised Bible in Telugu
deserves special mention. In this undertaking, the
efforts of sixty years, again and again baffled and
interrupted, have at length reached a successful con
clusion. More has been accomplished than an improved
rendering of the sacred text. As the outcome of
twenty-one years of prayerful and patient negotiations
with the Baptist Missions of America and Canada, the
co-existence of two divergent Telugu New Testaments
in adjoining Missions -wUl cease. In the new version,
baptize and its cognates appear in the text in a ver
nacular and conjugated form of transliterated Greek ; the

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Baptist translations are given as alternative renderings
in the margin. It is hoped that a similar plan wUl in
time cause dual versions to disappear elsewhere.
The version for Niu^ or Savage Island, which was
begun about forty years ago by Dr. W. G. Lawes, has at
length become a complete Bible as the outcome of thirty-
six years' labour by his brother, the Rev. F. E. Lawes,
also of the L.M.S.
Eight Nev) Languages.
Eight languages appear in the Society's List for
THE FIRST TIME THIS YEAR, and the total now embraces
versions in 378 languages and dialects. For South
Eastem Asia, the Society has been enabled to publish the
Four Gospels in Shan ; St. John in Tdngkhul Ndgd ;
St. Matthew in Chung Chia ; and St. Mark in Chhattis-
garhi, a Hindi dialect spoken by over 3,000,000 people in
the Central Provinces. The respective translators are
the Rev. Dr. Gushing, of the American Baptist Missionary
Union ; the Rev. W. Pettigrew, of the same Society ; the
Rev. S. R. Clarke, of the China Inland Mission ; and the
Rev. Julius Lohr, of the U.S. German Evangelical Mission.
The other four new languages belong to Africa. St.
Luke in Namwanga is the work of the Rev. Alex. Dewar,
of the Livingstonia Mission of the United Free Church
of Scotland. St. Matthew in Nyassa Nyika is due to
Herr Kootz, of the Moravian Mission, S.E. of Lake
Tanga-Nyika. The Acts has been translated into Kamba
by Herr Brutzer and the Leipzic missionaries in German
East Africa. The rendering of the Four Gospels into
the Masaba of Mt. Elgon in Kavirondo, in the N.E. of
the Uganda Protectorate, is due to the Rev. W. A.
Crabtree, of the C.M.S. Ill

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
For Foreign Missions.
The mere recital of these names Ulustrates how multi
farious is the help which the Bible Society provides for
the happily expanding Missions of various nationalities
and many branches of the Catholic Church of Christ.
Every year the Society becomes more indispens
able to aU Foreign Missions, representing not only
British but often Continental and American Churches.
And it supplies them with no grudging hand. As a rule,
Scriptures for the foreign field are granted on such
terms that they practicaUy cost nothing to the Missions
which receive them. At best, only a small fraction of
what the Society expends on the preparation and delivery
of these missionary versions can ever come back to it as
the result of sales. Plainly, each fresh advance in the
mission field becomes an imperious demand on the Bible
Society. The Year's Finance.
Side by side with these results we have to record the
following payments and receipts : —
General Fund Payments.
The payments for the past year have been : —
1903-1904. 1902-1903. 1901-1902.
For Translating, Revis
ing, Printing, and
Binding Scriptures £123,433 £121,966 £111,731
For Grants, Home and
Foreign Agencies,
Colportage, Depots,
and aU other charges 132,206 132,017 128,998

Totals .. .. £255,639 £253,983 £240,729

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
These figures show an increase of £1,467 for preparing
and pubUshing Scriptures, and under the second head an
increase of £189. The total expenditure, including
Special Funds, amounts to £256,149. This is £1,945
more than the expenditure for 1902-3, which was itself
larger by £13,061 than any previous year in the Society's
history. General Fund Receipts.
1903-1904. 1902-1903. 1901-1902.
Free Income . . . . £140,760 £138,781 £143,597
Receipts from Sales . . 97,760 93,458 9r,7oo

Totals .. .. £238,520 £232,239 £235,297
Among the chief items which constitute the " Free
Income," the annual subscriptions, donations, and
coUections, paid direct to the Bible House, taken together
amounted to nearly £9,000 more than in the previous
year. These donations, however, include one special
gift of £10,000 Indian stock, from an anonymous friend.
Legacies, which are always a fluctuating item, have
increased by £1,500.
The Free Contributions from Auxiliaries at home and
abroad amount to £63,619 — which is £6,700 less than in
1902-3. One cause of this apparently serious decline may
be found in the fact that not a few Auxiliaries are stiU
holding their regular annual contributions to remit later,
with their Centenary gifts.
Receipts from sales have risen by over £4,000, and on
the whole, the General Fund receipts show an increase of
£6,281 on those of the previous year. Receipts from
Special Funds raise the total receipts last year to
£238,880. It may be noted that this amount exceeds the
T13 I

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
Society's whole income in its JubUee year including the
two special Jubilee Funds.
A Deficit of over £17,000.
Comparing these total receipts with last year's total
expenditure, we have a deficit on the past year's working
of £17,269. The deficits announced at the three previous
Anniversaries have been £21,066, £4,851, and £15,006.
Indeed during the past six years the Society's expenditure
has exceeded its revenue by over £67,000 — a fact which
cannot but cause our friends grave searchings of heart.
We have faith, however, that the Centenary celebrations
will lead to such a speedy and substantial increase in its
normal income that the Society ¦will not be compelled to
refuse those appeals which are reaching it more urgently
than ever from all quarters ofthe world.

Where the Money comes from.
It will be interesting to state, approximately, how each
5s. of the Society's income is made up and how it is spent.
Each 5s. which the Committee administered last year
was received from the foUowing channels': — s. d.
r. Proceeds of Sale of Scriptures
2. Free Contributions and Donations
3. Legacies
4. Dividends, &c.
5. From Reserve Fund to meet deficit

114

. . I

II

. . I

9

. . 0

10

. . 0

2

. . 0

4

5

0

After a hundred years
How the Money is spent.
Each 5s. spent by the Committee was apportioned as
foUows : — s. d.
I. For translating and revising the Scriptures,
and for paper, printing and binding . . 25
2. For rent, taxes, establishment, &c., of over
100 Depots and warehouses in the chief
cities of the world, grants to other Depots,
salaries of foreign Agents, Depositaries,
etc  10
3. Towards the maintenance of 1,680 Col
porteurs and Biblewomen, at an average
rate of £33 each per annum . . . . 10
4. For home establishment, officers, district
secretaries, traveUing, reports, literature,
and the staff needed for the despatch of
Scriptures from London, with grants to
assist other kindred societies in Bible
distribution . . . . . . ..07

5 0
Comparing the sources of income with the heads of
expenditure, it wUl be seen that for every 2S. gd. received
from Subscriptions, Donations, Legacies, &c.. Scriptures
went out into the world which cost the Society 2s. 5d.
merely to produce, apart from any expenses of carriage,
warehousing, and business establishment.
Obituary. The crowded twelvemonth has brought losses and
changes of its own. Three of the Society's Vice-
Presidents have been called away : the Bishop of
Gibraltar^ Archdeacon Richardson, and Sir Joseph
IIS I 2

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
WhitweU Pease, Bart., who presided at our Exeter HaU
Anniversary four years ago. The Committee have lost
two greatly valued coUeagues : Mr. James McLaren, of
Hampstead, and Mr. John Mamham, of Boxmpor, both
of them devoted servants of Christian Missions.
We also record the deaths of M. Gustave Monod,
distinguished as the Society's Agent for France from 1872
to 1901 ; and of Mr. Roger Haydock, of Blackburn, at
the venerable age of 91, who had been for many years
the most successful and best known Colporteur in
Lancashire.
Nev) Vice-Presidents.
The foUowing gentlemen have accepted office as
Vice-Presidents : — The Bishop of Worcester ; The Bishop
of Manchester ; the Rev. Dr. Andrew Murray, • of
Capetown ; the Rev. F. B. Meyer, President of the
Free Church CouncU ; the Bishop of Honduras ; Bishop
StirUng ; the Rev. MarshaU Hartley, President of the
Wesleyan Conference ; the Rev. Dr. S. G. Green,
formerly Secretary of the Religious Tract Society ;
the Rev. Dr. D. Mackichan, Vice-ChanceUor of the
University of Bombay; Sir A. Hargreaves Brown,
Bart., M.P. ; Dr. N. W. Hoyles, K.C., of Toronto,
President of the Upper Canada AuxUiary ; Thomas
Pumphrey, Esq., of Newcastle-on-Tyne ; George
Cadbury, Esq., of Birmmgham ; P. F. Wood, Esq. ;
G. F. Sutton, Esq. ; and Th. Duka, Esq., M.D.
Such a list forms of itself a vivid practical iUustration
of the catholicity of the Bible Society.

116

APPENDIX

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS

NOTICE RESPECTING REMITTANCES.
Subscriptions and donations are received at the Bible House, 146, Queen
¦Victoria Street, London, E.C. ; also at the Society's Bankers,
Williams Deacon's Bank, Limited, 20, Birchin Lane, E.C. ; —
advice being sent to the Secretaries at the Bible House. Cheques,
Bankers' Drafts, and Post Office Orders {on the Ge^neral Post Office),
should be made payable to The British aitd Foreigii Bible Society,
and sent to the Secretaries.

FORM OF A BEQUEST TO THE SOCIETY.
I bequeath the sum of Pounds sterling,
free of Legacy Duty, to " The British and Foreign Bible
Society," instituted in London in the year 1804, to be paid for
the purposes of the said Society to the Treasurer for the time
being thereof, whose Receipt shall be a good discharge for the
same.

THE SOCIETY'S MAGAZINES, &c.
The Reporter and the Gleaiiings, issued monthly, price one halfpenny,
contain news from the Society's Agents who superintend Bible work in
its world-wide field- — articles describing the Society's operations abroad
— notes of work and news from workers at home— sketches of Veteran
Friends, with portraits — and specially contributed papers on Biblical
subjects. Both Magazines are fully illustrated. The Gleani-ngs,
though still claimed by our younger friends, is also read by many of
their elders.
¦Various illustrated and statistical papers setting forth the aim,
methods, and extent of the Society's work, are suppUed free, on
application at the Bible House, 146, Queen ¦Victoria Street, E.C.

Telegraphic Address: TESTAMENTS, LONDON.
118

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY.

President: The Flarquis ol Northampton.

1863.1873. 1876.
1877.

1878. 1881. 1882.
1883.1884.

1887.

iSgo.1891.

1892.

1893.

1894,

189s

The Bishop of Gloucester.
Bishop Mitchinson, D.C.L., D.D.
Bishop Moorhonsc, D.D.
The Earl of Aberdeen
Earl Fortescue.
The Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. Kennaway,
Bart., C.B. , M.P.
The Archbishop of York.
Sir William Muir, K.C.S.I.
BishoiJ Perowne, D.D.
The Bi.shop of St. Andrew's.
Bishop Barry, D.D.
J. Bevan Braithwaite, Esq.
The Bishop of Ripon.
Rev. Alexander McLaren, D.D.
Bishop Bickersteth, D.D.
The Bishop of Southwell.
The Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Fry, F.R.S.
Rev. W. H. Dallinger, LL.D., F.R.S.
Rev. J. Oswald Dykes, D.D.
Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Bart.,
G.C.M.G.
The Archbishop of Canterbury.
Rev. James H. Rieg, D.D.
Rev. J. Thain Davidson, D.D.
The Bishop of Carlisle.
"W. Schoolcroft Burton, Esq.
Bishop Royston, D.D.
John Cory, Esq.
Rev. Thomas Davies, D.D.
The Earl of Halsbury,
Lord Chancellor.
Lord Brassey, K.C.B.
The Bishop of St. Asaph.
S. W. Silver, Esq.
Lord Kinnaird.
The Dean of Windsor.
R. N. Oust, Esq., LL.D.
Rev. A. M. Fairbaim, D.D.
The Bishop of Lichfield.
The Archbishop of Montreal.
Aid. Sir Joseph Savory, Bart.
The Bishoi) of Sodor and Man.
The Archbishop of Sydney.
Viscount Midleton.
Sir George Williams.
A. McArthur, Esq.
Rev. Chancellor Edmonds, B.D.
Edward Rawlings, Esq.
J. Storrs Fry, Esq.
Bishop Johnson, D.D.
Rev. J. G. Rogers, D.D.
Robert Heath, Esq.
The Archbishop of the -West Indies.
Ven. Archdeacon Sinclair, D.D.
The Bishop of Marlborough.
Admiral Sir F. Leopold McClintock,
K C B
Rev.' H. j. Pope, D.D.
J. R. Hill, Esq.
Viscount Peel.
The Bishop of Bath and Wells.
Victor C. W. Cavendish, Esq., M.P.
Alexander Peckover, Esq., LL.D.
The Bishop of Chester.
Bishop Goe, D.D.
The Dean of Durham.
The Bishop of St. Albans.
Rev. J. Monro Gibson, D.D.
Rev. E. E. Jenkins, LL.D.
"Viscount Hampden.
Thu Earl of Stamford.
J. Trueman Mills, Esq.
Albert Spicer, Esq.
Rev. J. G. Greenhough.
Rev. Richard Glover, D.D.
The Bishop of Hereford.
Bishop Stuart, D.D.
The Dean of Norwich.

Vice-Presidents :
1897,

1904.

The Bishop of Peterborough.
Hon. J. J. JRogerson.
A. S. Leslie-Melville, Esq.
Lord Radstock.
The Bishop of Durham.
Rev. J. Morlais Jones.
Rev. Canon Christopher.
The Bishop of Newcastle, N.S.W.
Rev. Canon Fleming.
Rev. D. MacEwan, D.D.
The Bishop of Wakefield.
T. A. Denny, Esq.
The Rt. Hon. Sir Henry Hartley
Fowler, M.P., G.C.S.I.
Rev. Canon A. R. Fausset, D.D.
The Bishop of St. David's.
The Bishop of Shrewsbury.
Bishop Welldon, D.D.
Viscount Clifden.
Rev. Canon R. B. Girdlestone.
Rev. W. L. Watkinson, D.D.
Robert Barclay, Esq.
Caleb R. Kemp, Esq.
Henry Morris, Esq.
Bishop Ingham, D.D.
The Bishop of Liverpool.
The Master of Trinity.
Rev. F. W. Macdonald.
F. A. Bevan, Esq.
Robert Davies, Esq.
The Earl of Northbrook, G.C.S.I.
The Bishop of Ely.
The Bishop of Winchester.
The Bishop of London.
The Bishop of Lucknow.
Sir George Hayter Chubb, Bart.
The Rt. Hon. Sir Samuel J. Way,
Bart.
Lord Alverstone, G.C.M.G., Lord
Chief Justice of England.
Hon. G. E. Knox.
Rev. Griffith John, D.D.
Rev. J. G. Paton, D.D.
Rev. J. Hudson Taylor.
T. Fowell Buxton, Esq.
The Bishop of Calcutta.
The Bishop of Uganda.
The Bishop of Hokkaido, Japan.
Rev. W. G. Lawes, D.D.
Rev. J. Thoburn McGaw, D.D.
Rev. W. T. Davison, D.D.
Sir Charles Alfred Elliott, K.C.S.I.
C. E. Tritton, Esq., M.P.
Thomas Hodgkin, Esq., D.C.L.
Charles Finch Foster, Esq.
The Bishop of Huron.
The Dean of Westminster.
Rev. C. H. Kelly.
The Rev. John Watson, D.D.
Sir Algernon Coote, Bart.
G. "W. Macalpine, I5sq.
George Spicer, Esq.
Martin John Sutton, Esq.
The Bishop of -Worcester.
Tile Bishop of Manchester.
The Bishop of Honduras.
Bishop Stirling, D.D.
The Rev. Andrew Murray, D.D.
The Rev. Marshall Hartley.
The Rev. F. B. Meyer.
The Eev. S. G. Green, D.D.
The Rev. D. Mackichan, D.D.
Sir A. Hargreaves Brown, Bart., M.P.
N. W. Hoyles, Esq., K.C.LL.D.
Thos. Pumphrey, Esq.
George Cadbury, Esq.
P. F. Wood, Esq.
G. F. Sutton, Esq.
Th. Duka, Esq., M.D.

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS

Treasurer:
Egbert Barclay,

Esq.

Chairman ot Committee :
Caleb R. Kemp, Esq.

Committee :

Elected May 4, 1904.
The date after each name records the year when that member first
joined the Committee.
F. F. Belsey, Esq.
A. Brauen, Esq.
John Cho-svn, Esq.
A. J. Crosfield, Esq.
G. T. Crosfield, Esq.
''C. A. FHnt, Esq.
A. R. Fordham, Esq.
S. H. Gladstone, Esq.
Sir William Godsell
T. Morgan Harvey, Esq.
H. Koenigs, Esq.
¦WilliamsonLamplough,Esq. 1 894
*Sir George Livesey
H. W. Maynard, Esq.
G. J. McCaul, Esq.
R. Morton Middleton, Esq.
¦•T.P. Newman, Esq.
Maberly PhiUips, Esq. "¦ Not on the Committee last year.
The Committee meet, as a rule, at the Bible House, 146, Queen
¦Victoria Street, E.G., on the first and third Monday in every month,
at Half-past Eleven o'clock ; and oftener, as business may require.
Secretaries :
The Rev. Arthur Taylor, m.a. The Rev. John H. Ritson, m.a.
Superintendent of the Translating and Editorial Department, and
Consulting Secretary :
The Rev. John Sharp, m.a.
Superintendent of the Literary Department :
The Rev. T. H. Darlow, m.a.
Superintendent of the Home Department .-
JiThe Rev. H. A. Raynes, m.a.
Warehouse Manager :
!¦ Mr. -W. Bulloch.
Assistant Home Secretary : Assistant Foreign Secretary ;
Rev. Harry Scott. Mr. T. Ernest Price.
Accountant : Collector :
Mr. -W. p. Wakelin. Mr. Geo. B. Poole.

1900

p. W. Pocock, Esq.

1902

1897

Joseph Pollard, Esq.

1890

1903

¦^A. Rolland Rainy, Esq.

1902

1886

Leslie S.Robertson, Esq.

1 901

I90I

Maj.-Gen. C. G. Robinson

1898

1904

Fr. Schaefier, Esq.

1887

1896

W. H. Seagram, Esq.

1902

1902

E. J. Sewell, Esq.

1901

1903

Colonel D. V. Shortland

1900

1900

Colonel E. S. Skinner

1903

1897

Emil Walser, Esq.

1887

1894

F. P. Weaver, Esq., m.d.

1895

1904

G. H. Wedekind, Esq.

1893

1898

*D. Wellby, Esq.

1892

1902

I. P. Werner, Esq.

1884

1900

Sir And. Wingate, k.c.i.e

1903

1904

*H. Ernest Wood, Esq.

1904

1903

A. W. Young, Esq.

1891

Honorary Solicitors :
Messrs. Hollams, Sons, Coward
and Hawksley, 30, Mincing
Lane, E.C.

Bankers :
Williams Deacon's Bank, Ltd.,
20, Birchin Lane, E.C,

120

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY

Foreign Agents ot the Society.
Pans— Pastor D. Lortsch Julfa—Ur. C. E. G. Tisdall
Berlin— Mr. M. A. Morrison Rangoon— "Rev . W. Sherratt
Florence— Sig. Augusto Meille Singapore— Mr. J. Haffenden
Madrid — Rev. R. O. Walker, m.a. Manila — Rev. Percy Graham
St. Petersburg— Rev. W.Kean, d.d. Shanghai— Rev. G. H. Bondfield
Ekaterinburg — Mr. W. Davidson Seoul — Mr. A. Kenmure
Constantinople — Rev. T. R. Hodg- Kobe — Mr. F. Parrott
son Wha-iiganui, N.Z. — Rev. F. H.

Alexandria — Rev. Alfred A. Spencer
Cooper, m.a. Buenos Ayres — ^Sig. B. A. Pons
Tangier — Mr. W. Summers Petropolis — Rev. F. Uttley
Accra — Mr. Broome P. Smith Callao — Mr. A. R. Stark
Cape Town — Rev. J. F. Botha Kingston — Rev. G. O. Heath
Johannesburg — Rev. G. Lowe Belize — Rev. F. de P. Castells

Secretaries in India.
Calcutta — Rev. A. W. Young Allahabad — Rev. T. S. Wynkoop,
Bombay — Mr. C. Douglas Green m.a.
Madras — Rev. S. W. Organe Lahore — Mr. W. H. L. Church
Home District Secretaries and Assistants.
Rev. F. D. Thompson, m.a., 32, Blenheim Terrace, Leeds.
Rev. James Thomas, Bible House, London.
*Rev. Jelinger E. Symons, f.r.g.s., Clieveden, Guildford.
Rev. Edward S. Prout, m.a., 55, Alexandra Road, Reading.
Rev. J. Cynddylan, Jones, d.d., Whitchurch, Cardiff.
Rev. W. H. Norman, m.a., 14, Station Road, Cambridge.
Rev. W. Fisher, m.a., Bible House, London.
fRev. W. Monk Jones, m.a., Kotagiri, Huyton, Liverpool.
Rev. D. C. Edwards, m.a., Llanbedr, R.S.O., Merionethshire.
Rev. W. R. Bowman, b.a., Mellendean, Burns Street, Nottingham.
Rev. W. G. Jones, b.a., 26, Malvern Street, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
Rev. H. C. Moor, m.a., 18, Carlyle Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham.
Rev. J. Alston, b.a., Woodmancote, Copthorne Road. Shrewsbury.
Rev. T. Smetham, 53, St. Augustine's Avenue, Croydon.
Rev. J. W. Plant, 14A, Belvidere Road, Princes Park, Liverpool.
Rev. J. Percy Treasure, Eastholme, Alderley Edge, Manchester.
Rev. E. George, 12, Tichborne Street, Leicester.
Rev. F. Stenton Eardley, Westbury Park, Bristol.

Rev. T. A. Wolfendale, m.a., ^c,, Gordon Terrace, Sunderland.
Rev. Walter Wall, .12, Chestnut Road, Moseley, Birmingham.
Rev. H. Starmer, 12, Cedar Road, Norwich.
Mr. Robert F. Crosland, Oldfieldnook, Cleckheaton.
* Resigned Sept., 1904. t Resigned Aug., 1904.
131

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
CONDENSED STATEMENT of RECEIPTS
For the Year ending

Receipts.
from sales of scriptures.
Trade Depots and Auxiliaries . . £33,630 16 11
Other Societies . . . . . . . . 8,628 7 0
Sales in Society's Foreign Agencies . . 55, 501 i 3

97,760 5 2

FREE INCOME.
Free Contributions, Annual Sub
scriptions, Donations, and Col
lections  90,604 2 7
Legacies (paid in London) . . . . 44,471 16 5
Dividends on Stock, Interest,
Exchange, &c  5,684 5 9

238,520 9 II
From Reserve Fund . . . , 17,118 13 6

£255,639 3 5

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY
AND PAYMENTS OF the BIBLE SOCIETY.
March 31ST, 1904.

Payments.
For translating and revising the Scriptures
and for paper, printing and binding . . £123,388 6 2
For rent, taxes, establishment, etc., of
over 100 Depots and Warehouses in
the chief cities of the world, grants to
other Depots, salaries of foreign Agents,
Depositaries, &c  50>4i9 6 0
Towards maintenance of (1,680) Col
porteurs and Biblewomen . . . . 50,981 0 5
For home establishment, officers, district
secretaries, travelling, reports, Uterature,
staff needed for the dispatch of
Scriptures from London and grants to
assist kindred societies in Bible distri
bution  30,850 10 10

£255,639 3 5

123

The Centenary History of the Bible Society.
By William Canton. In Four Volumes. Vols. I. and II., 1804-1854.
Illustrated. Published by Mr. Murray, Albemarle Street, W. Price
15s. net per volume. Vols. III. and IV. in preparation.
" Mr. Canton has brought to a difficult and laborious task a rare dis
cretion and a clever and illuminating pen." — Westminster Gazette,
" Happy is the Religious Society that has the good sense to instruct a
genuine literary man to write its history . . . It has largely the attractive
ness of the romance . . . The reader will hardly find a dull page
throughout." — The Daily Chronicle.
" Takes its place at once with the classics of missionary literature.
More than this, it reveals itself as a contribution of the highest value to
Christian apolegetics . . . Mr. Canton's charm of style has given vivacity
to a narrative which might often have been interesting only to the few." —
The Record.
" A book of consummate excellence. The work of a skilled litterateur,
masterly m its grouping of events, and in its handling of detail, pictur
esque and profoundly interesting. There is not a dull page anywhere,
and the volume sparkles with gem-like passages. Every disciple of Christ
should read this soul-quickening, faith-strengthening book. — Methodist
Recorder.
The Story of the Bible Society.
A Popular Record. By William Canton. One Volume, 8vo.
Illustrated. Published by Mr. Murray, Albemarle Street, W. Price 6s.
" Truly an excellent memorial of a remarkable Centenary." — The
Times.
" We gladly bear testimony to the literary ability which Mr. Canton has
shown in both books, as well as to the spirit of perfect sympathy with his
great theme which they evince." — The Guardian.
" Something more than a bare chronicle of the work, of the Society. Mr.
Canton writes with force and simplicity ; he is graphic without being
ornate, and has a rare gift of effective narration. Altogether, it is a wel
come volume." — Liverpool Daily Courier.
" It is the history of a great achievement, a history of permanent inter
est, parts of which read more like a fairy tale than the record of work
actually accomplished . . . We cannot close this all too inadequate notice
of a great and beneficent work without congratulating Mr. Canton on the
admirable manner in which he has classified and handled the wealth of
material at his hands." — The Observer.
Little Hands and Qod's Book.
A Sketch of the Bible Society. By William Canton. One Volume,
small quai-to. Illustrated. Published at the Bible House. Price
is. 6d. net.
" Mr. Canton is at his best when he is talking about children or talking
to them, and admirable as his larger histories of the Bible Society are, this
children's book is quite the most charming of his Centenary volumes . . .
Mr. Canton tells the 'story of its great work in his most delightful style,
with many a picturesque phrase and figure." — The Christian Worj-d,

HISTORICAL CATALOGUE
OF THE PRINTED EDITIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTTTRE
In the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society.
Compiled by T. H. Darlow, M.A., and H. F. Moule, M.A.
In 2 vols. %vo.. Large Paper, bound in dark-blue buckram, top edges gilt.
VOL. I. ENGLISH, now ready.
_ VOL. II. OTHER LANGUAGES, ready in 1905.
Price of the 2 vols, (not sold separately) 31s. 6d. net.
Only SOO Copies nrinted, of which 450 numbered and signed, are for sale in England and
America. lo be obtaraed only from the Warehouse Manager, Bible House,
146, Queen Victoria Street, E.C.
A SELECTION OF NOTICES OF VOL. I.
"An honest and painstaking piece of work. Cataloguers and indexers
belong to a class of indispensable workers whose task is little understood
by the casual reader. Only those whose work has lain with catalogues can
fully appreciate the qualities required for its successful accomplishment.
The outside world knows nothing of the patient research, the painstaking
drudgery, the incessant thought and care that are imperative if accuracy is
to be ensured. A cataloguer, too, can never have sufficient knowledge ;
every scrap of information he may possess is certain to prove useful at
one time or another. The catalogue of the Bible Society exemplifies on
every page the rare qualities enumerated above. Each ¦note represents
many hours of research, each collation is in its own way a monument of
untiring drudgery, and the seemingly insignificant signatures are them
selves a test of the editor's accuracy." — The Times. (A three-column
notice.) " They have made what might have been a dry catalogue fascinating
. . . The fulness of the entries of the early Bibles . . . is u welcome
surprise ; and still more interesting and important is the intermixture of
historical detail with the dry particulars of the catalogue . . . Mr. Darlow
and Mr. Moule have performed a most acceptable service." — Dr. Richaso
Garnett, C.B., in The Bookman.
" Of this elaborate work only 500 copies have been printed, and they are
certain to be eagerly sought for by collectors." — The Manchester
Guardian.
" A book for the lover of books. It is art as well as science. How
. beautiful is the white paper, how broad the margin, how clear and leisurely
the type." — The Expository Times.
" AU who are lovers of the Bible and all who are lovers of the Bible
Society . . . will be grateful to Mr, Darlow and Mr. Moule for their
splendid contribution to the Society's Centenary." — Dr. J. Rendel
Harris in The Examiner.
"A permanent contribution of high value to the most .important and
attractive department of bibliography . . . We have been able to test this
book with considerable thoroughness . . . and we can testify to the excep
tionally fine and careful workmanship displayed on every page . . .
Many of the articles are fine examples of careful scholarly condensation of
facts and history relating to particular editions." — The Record.
" A work of real historical interest and importance . . Apart from
the great value of its bibliography . . . the distinctive feature of the
Catalogue is iis historical method and spirit . . . Constantly we find it
shedding gleams of light across the broad highway of English or Scottish
politics." — The Gi,ASGOvir Herald. '-

A New Greek Testament

Prepared by Prof. Eberhard Nestle, D.D., and published by
the Bible Society in connection with its Centenary.

Text Edition w^ithout critical apparatus s. d.
On fine white paper, cloth, sprinkled edges, square corners ... I 9
On India paper, paste grain, gilt edges, round corners  2 6
,, ,, „ Morocco, gilt edges ,, ,,  3 o

Text Edition w^ith critical apparatus
On fine white paper, cloth, sprinkled edges, square corners ... 2 o
On India paper, paste grain, gilt edges, round corners ... ... 3 o
,, ,, ,, Morocco, silk sewn, gilt edges, round corners ... 3 6
{Postage on each of the above, yi. extra.)

The same w^ith Broad Margins
In specially strong binding.
Half-bound Roan, Boards   5 q
,, ,, Morocco ,, ... ... ... ... ... ... 7
(.By post, ^d. extra.)
Also in Two Parts :
(i) The Four Gospels, (2) Acts— Revelation.
India paper, Levant Morocco, complete  5 6
(Postage on each ofthe above, ^d. extra.)

CENTENARY EDITIONS OF THE ENGUSH BIBLE.

New Editions, specially prepared to commemorate the Centenary.
Net retail prices during 1904 only.
I. AUTHORISED VERSION.
Bourgeois Bible, Central Refs.
Ordinary Paper Edition. s. (J.
Roan, gilt edges, rounded comers ... ... ... ... ... ¦, q
French Morocco, Yapp, leather lined, red gilt edges, rounded
corners  maps 5 o
Levant Morocco, do. do. do. do. 8 6
Thin Paper Edition.
Persian Morocco, red-gilt edges, rounded corners . . . maps 5 o
Persian Morocco, Yapp, leather lined, red gilt edges, rounded
corners  maps 7 6
Levant Morocco, Yapp, calf lined do. do. do. 12 6

On the Cover of the following Editions is a design, in gilt, " The Sower
Sowing the Seed," with the words, " Centenary Edition, 1804 — 1904" : —
Pearl Bible, 16mo., M.R., Paste Grain, gilt edges  i 6
,, Blue Roan, red edges  i 6
Ruby Bible, 32ino., Pluviusin (a very durable imitation leather) I o
„ Cloth, gilt edges .. .  i o
New Testament, 24!no. (Penny Testament), with same design
in White Foil ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... o 2
New Testament, Minion, 24mo., Cloth or Roan, red edges,
with the design in Gilt  o 6

II. REVISED VERSION.
Nonpareil Bible, 16mo.
In Brown, Black, or Red Sheep, Enamelled Cloth, or Cloth
with Gilt Lettering ... ... ... ... ... ... o 10
Nonpareil Bible, 16mo., Marg, Refs. (Maps).
Persian Basil  2 6
Roan, red edges   2 6
Small Pica Bible, 8vo.
In Brown, Black, or Red Sheep, Enamelled Cloth, or Cloth
with Gilt Lettering  2 o
Roan, red edges   3 o
Brevier Testanxent, 16mo.
In Brown, Black, or Red Sheep, Enamelled Cloth, or Cloth
with Gilt Lettering  o 4

The Bible Society Monthly Reporter
Charged to Auxiliaries, &c., at the rate of 4jd. per dozen copies;
their Committees fix the terms upon which they supply copies
to local supporters. Orders for less than a dozen copies are
charged one halfpenny per copy. Postage or carriage extra.
The Bible Society Gleanings
Price Jd. a month. Supplied on same terms as Reporter.
The Monthly Reporter 3nnual Volumes
Cloth, gilt sides, is. each.
The Gleanings Annual Volumes
Cloth, gilt sides and edges, is. each.
The Gospel in Many Tongues
A pamphlet containing St. John iii. l6, in 359 of the languages and
dialects in which the Society has printed or circulated the Scrip
tures. New and Enlarged Edition, stitched, id. ; cloth, 3d.
The Society's Annual Report, 1904
Paper cover, to non -subscribers, is.
3fter a Hundred Years
Popular Illustrated Report, 1904. To non-subscribers, is., post free.
The Story of Mary iJones and Her Bible
Paper, id. ; cloth, plain edges, 6d. ; cloth, gilt sides and edges, 9d.
Also for the Blind (Moon's type), 4s.
Pamphlets and Papers
Describing the operations of the Bible Society's world-wide work —
suitable for enclosure in letters, distribution at Drawing-Room
Meetings, Garden Parties, and Public Meetings— are supplied
gratis at the Bible House, 146, Queen Victoria Street, E.C.

5994

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