Article August 8, 1925 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from John W. Vrooman

[From the Herald, Boston, Massachusetts, May 22, 1925] The growth of Bible study in the public schools of the United States is on a steady and considerable growth, it was revealed recently in a report by the Rev. W. A. Squires of the Presbyterian Board of Christian Education. Mr. Squires showed that nineteen states now officially sanction the crediting in high schools of Bible study. The actual increase in this phase of education, he declared, has been approximately three hundred per cent since 1917.

[From the Egyptian Gazette, Alexandria, Egypt, May 1, 1925]

A day or two ago, a procession of carts might have been seen wending their way through the town, laden with cases marked "B.F. B.S., Port Said." Your correspondent called soon after on the agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and learned that these fifty-seven cases contained about seven tons of Scripture, and were their half-yearly replenishment of stock disposed of. The agent kindly allowed a perusal of the bill of lading and the contents lists.... For those with a little imagination, what a tale was unfolded by the lists of the contents of the cases! Forty-three thousand volumes in thirteen languages (though the agent said that they stocked and handled Scriptures in ninety languages in this depot); and this only six months' stock! ... A very significant item is the large number of Bibles and Testaments in Arabic, showing that the Egyptian is waking from the sleep of centuries, and at least reading for himself the claims of Christianity. The same deduction may be from several other items in the list, namely, Bibles and New Testaments in Hebrew. That these are being bought in increasing numbers is one indication of the awakening spiritual outlook of the Jew to-day.... Another item in the list which furnishes food for thought is "400 Gospels, Annamite." France's Colonial Empire in the Far East, the Great War, the Ruhr occupation, and the very excellent stewards on the Messagerie Maritime steamers going to Cochin China and Annam, are all suggested by this single entry; for as the soldiers, or labor corps, or stewards pass through, they, are offered the Scriptures in Port Said harbor in their own language, and at a price within the means of the poorest. A further entry which suggests ships is "Gujerati Testaments," which find a ready sale among the lascars, which form the bulk of the deck crew on so many of the ships trading to the east. Gujerati is spoken largely in the Bombay provinces and adjoining territory, and Urdu-Persic, another large item in the list, is one of the lingua franca of India. "One thousand Amharic and Ethiopic gospels" remind one of Abyssinia, the oldest Christian kingdom in the world, whose royal family trace their pedigree, with more truth than many family trees, back to the Queen of Sheba and Solomon. Ethiopic is the ecclesiastical language whose church was founded by Frumentius, who was consecrated the first bishop about 320 A.D. Amharic is the court and popular language, though of course many others are spoken in that vast and little known country. ... One wonders how many people in Egypt could make use of the "Syriac and Ancient Peshitto" versions of the Scriptures which figure in this consignment, and which the Bible Society supply for those who want them. To give one an idea of the difficulties to be overcome before they can be put on the market,... the compositor must be familiar with at least one thousand characters before he can set up the type for this version. This Peshitto is. the standardized Syriac version probaby made by Rabula, Bishop of Edessa, early in the fifth century A. D. There is still a set of volumes which has not been mentioned, for it has not a single printed character. We refer to the Bibles for the blind. These are issued in two kinds,—the Arabic Braille, which consists of raised dots on the page, and the Arabic moon type, which consists of raised lines and crescents. The advantage of the former is that both sides of the sheet can be used, while with the moon type only one side can be used, though it has the advantage of being easier to learn by people who start late in life. These volumes in Braille are sold by the Bible Society for about one fifth of the cost of production.

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