cannot feel too thankful that I am able to follow it in these days of my weakness. A few hours later he was dead.

It was determined to produce a translation in the Ameitiyum tongue, the language of certain fierce tribes of cannibals in the New Hebrides, and the Rev. John Walker set forth with a Mr. Harris to reduce the language to writing and prepare the manuscript. The natives met them as they landed and promptly clubbed them to death. After a little time others undertook the task, only to meet a similar fate. Again and again the Society tried, and each time the natives or the fever drove its brave emissaries back. Each of those who escaped, however, brought with him a little knowledge of the language, and it was finally possible to prepare a small portion of the Gospels.

Then a miracle occurred. The natives, impressed perhaps by the courage that had refused to relinquish the enterprise, became eager to help. Long before the New Testament was completed they had begun storing up arrowroot to pay for it. So seven new names were emblazoned on the martyrs' roll of the Societies. And another title was added to the list of versions.

In

Remember for a moment the richness of the Bible's imagery, the subtleties which characterize its expression of spiritual truth, and then picture the missionary's task in rendering these conceptions into languages like Tasiko and Buguha, which do not even have a word for God. In Swahili there are no prepositions. Santal the translator was confronted with five voices, five moods, twenty-three tenses, three numbers, and four cases. The sheep of Java are a few goats imported by the Dutch. Hence the missionary was compelled to render it, "Behold the little Dutch goat of God." Among the Eskimo it became, “Behold the little seal of God." The Lord," according to a version of the Twenty-third Psalm in one of the Indian languages, "is a first-class mountain sheep hunter." How to translate conceptions such as conscience, salvation, blessedness, regeneration, redemption, into languages which have to do only with the most rudimentary ideas has kept missionaries groping for years, almost hopelessly.

The devoted pioneer who prepared the first translation in the Micmac Indian language opened the copy of his Testament to find this absurdity staring him in the face: "A pair of snow-shoes shall rise up against a pair of snow-shoes." It seems an almost inconceivable error, and yet the change of a single letter in an unpronounceable word made the difference between "nation" and "snowshoes." In the new edition of the Lifu Bible for the Loyalty Islands 52,310 corrections were made; the revision of the Fiji Bible occupied four years and involved more than forty thousand changes. The work of emendation and revision goes on unremittingly, each new edition serving a little better to convey the meaning of the original. And each advance is certified to, not by the verdict of the scholars, but by its direct and visible influence upon the hearts of those who read. 66 It tell me by heart," says the Negro. "It makes men new," said the Bechuana.

No commercial institution has measured off the world more carefully or worked it with greater enterprise than have the Bible Societies. Under a tacit agreement which has never had to be reduced to writing, each Society has undisputed right to the territory covered by its flag. The remainder of the world is neutral ground in which the Bibleless are hunted with a persistence that verges upon benevolent persecution. Does the European peasant think to escape the British Society by emigration to America? Before he has a chance to leave the dock on this side he is met by agents of the American Society who urge the Scriptures upon him. makes little difference whether one turns east or west, the ubiquitous colporteur will discover him. At Ghoom, far up the sides of the Himalayas, on the edge of Tibet, the presses are busy turning out copies to be smuggled across the border into the Forbidden Land. At Coney Island a smiling young fellow intrenches himself behind this sign:

"Satan trembles when he sees

It

Scriptures sold as cheap as these," and gathers the crowds about him with all the wiles of the professional show

man.

The British Society employs 850 col

American more than half as many; there is literally no corner of the earth to which they do not penetrate. The last annual bulletins report them selling the Scriptures "under the shadow of Dante's tomb in Ravenna; among rubber-gatherers at the upper waters of the Amazon; along the Hejas Railway, which creeps southward from Damascus to the holy cities of Islam. East of St. Petersburg five thousand miles stands Yakasutsk, on the river Lena, one of the coldest places in the world, where the mercury is frozen for months together. Last winter, when the Bishop of Yatsutck was traveling to a remote corner of his subarctic diocese, he gave free passage to one of the Siberian colporteurs on a sledge drawn by reindeer."

The colporteurs are the advance agents of the missionaries. In more than one recorded instance the missionary has pushed his way through to a new tribe only to find its members already in possession of the truth and a number of them prepared for baptism as a result of the colporteur's visit. Iwo weeks after the Battle of Manila the colporteurs entered the Philippines, and there, with a moving-picture show to which admission is gained by the purchase of a Testament, they are scattering the Scriptures broadcast in spite of much opposition and bigotry. Because those who pay a price for their books read them most, the Societies uniformly insist upon a sale. The price, of course, is very low. Payment is accepted in such curious mediums as eggs, butter, swords, skins, wool, arrowroot, nuts and fruits, shells, ivory-anything, in fact, which the people have and value.

But for the courage and devotion of the colporteurs the Societies' record of achievement would have been impossible. Thousands of them have patiently submitted to every conceivable hardship, and have died with no other reward than

the knowledge that the Bible has been carried to a few more hundreds who would not have known it otherwise. Every annual report is filled with stories of their heroism. They are entitled to an equal place with the translators in the esteem of the Christian world.

And the translator is not idle. In 1909 the British Society completed editions in six new languages, including Tigrinya, a Semitic language spoken by three million people in the Tigre province of Abyssinia. The American Society reported an equal number of new versions. The work of revision goes forward continuously.

The total number of Bibles and portions of Bibles produced by the two Societies is known exactly, and does not fall far short of ten million a year. How large a number of copies are put forth annually by smaller societies and by private agencies can only be conjectured. Five million copies would probably be a conservative estimate, and the number may be very much larger. Certain it is that the Bible is the only book which does not carry consternation when dealers find it stacked high upon the shelves. "If we happen to get an extra fifty thousand or so on hand, it does not worry us," said a prominent publisher recently. "We are always certain that they will be disposed of sooner or later."

From this positive assertion of the modern business man one turns with a curious interest to the prediction of Voltaire that the Bible would have passed into history within another hundred years. And from this again to the words cut deep into the red stone of the British Bible House, which stand out in one's memory more than the storeroom with its two million copies, or the library, or any other feature of that impressive building: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."

NE of the chief reasons for the existence of the country church is that it promotes the happiness and efficiency—that is, the general welfare and the education and the social harmonyof the community. It should, along this line, take up the work of the public library. Also, it should be the village improvement society, the federation of all study clubs for old and young, the grange, the historical museum and the museum of science and art, the chief advocate of the schools, the social center, and many other things. If it is not the head, heart, and center of all these things, it can at least be the prime mover in them and their right hand.

O existence of the country church is

But, unfortunately for its efficiency in promoting general temporal welfare and spiritual well-being, it often puts too much in the foreground the restraints which religion imposes instead of the beneficent activities which it can set free.

By a happy circumstance the public library is an institution between which and the church there can be no antagonism. The library does not conflict with any doctrine. It does not interfere with the carrying out of any ceremonies, it does not represent and is not maintained by any group of people which might set it up against any church. It belongs to all members of all churches, and encourages in all that broadening of sympathies for which each and every church is proud to be thought also to stand.

The country church, if there is but one, can properly give the library a room. If this is impossible because there are rival churches, or because the one church is not approved by all of its neighbors, then it can make use of the library in a broad and helpful way.

The minister should mention it every Sunday in the year. If new books have come in during the week, let him take them as a text for a five-minute talk. there are no new books, let him mention

If

three or four noteworthy articles in the magazines, or some of the older books, or a State or county publication just received and of practical value to his congregation, or a document from the United States Government on forestry or birds or on some topic in agriculture locally interesting.

If the minister cannot always do this, let the librarian do it, or any one of the readers or students, old or young, in the community.

The church should not try to maintain a library of its own, but should contribute to the public library, and through its contributions should have the right to display every Sunday in its main meeting-room a few good books for old and young. Το these some one should allude during the service every Sunday, and then those who wished could look them over and take home what they selected.

If there is no library, the church should establish one, or see to it that one is established. How to do this there are many who are able and willing to tell.

If the one church, or the several churches, of the community make it known that a public library is to be set up in the town, or if they make it known that the library already established is to be warmly supported and freely used by the churches, the progress of the scheme cannot well be slow. Friends, publishers, magazine editors, secretaries of societies for the promotion of education in agriculture, forestry, art, village improvement, and many other topics will send in publications.

If churches and the library unite, the efficiency of both will be greatly increased. In any specific community, if the exact social, religious, and educational conditions are known, it should be easy to give specific suggestions along certain lines of work; and though the remarks above are quite general, I am sure that if they meet with approval in any country community the people of the church in that commu

nity will have no difficulty in carrying out certain definite and helpful plans.

As every one knows, the country church is now the social center of its own members, the point about which many interests gather already. If to those interests there is added the work which can be done for and by and through the books, periodicals, pictures, and the librarian of

a public library, then the church's work will be much broader and more helpful still. Moreover, through its work with and for a public library, which grows out of and belongs to the whole community more fully than does any church, the church will broaden in the best way its own interests and its own feelings and its own powers.

W

HAT business, has the Church with the Labor Question? Is it not an economic question? What right has the Church to meddle with matters purely secular? Why does she not confine herself to spiritual interests, and find her function in inspiring men with right conceptions and pure motives, leaving them to make their own application of the principles she teaches to the affairs of life? Is there not danger that the Church will make grave mistakes if she undertakes to deal with these difficult problems of modern industrial organization? Would it not be better for the Church to adhere to her own proper function of saving souls and comforting sorrows and fitting men for heaven? Do we want these disturbing questions of the labor market brought into the sanctuary? Must it not have a tendency to irritate many hearers and drive them away from the churches?

Questions of this tenor are often heard even in this generation; and the attitude of mind which these questions imply is the prevailing attitude in a great many of our more influential churches. It seems, therefore, to be necessary, at the close of the first decade of the twentieth century, to give some heed to such scruples.

It ought not to be necessary to say that

they arise out of a conception of human life which is not any longer entertained by thoughtful men-namely, that it is divided into two non-communicating hemispheres-the sacred and the secular; religion being an interest by itself, with motives, principles, and laws of its own, and the rest of life being under the control of ideas and forces with which religion has nothing to do. Some such conception as this prevailed in evangelical circles fifty years ago; when Mr. Beecher began to preach the doctrine that all life is sacred, the idea came with a shock to most "professors of religion." Of course this notion was taught with varying emphasis; there were many to whom the close correspondence between faith and conduct was evident, but the tendency to keep morals and religion in separate compartments was very strong within the memory of some who are now alive. The recently published confessions of Uncle Daniel Drew refresh our memory with forms of speech which were once familiar, and set before us a habit of thought about religion which was prevalent not very long ago.

When Uncle Daniel tells us about the way he spent his Sundays during his exile in Jersey City when he was engaged in one of the colossal robberies by which he won distinction-how he needed in

those exciting days the comfort which only the sanctuary could give, and how he felt that he, as the "only Christian among those bold buccaneers, must set them a good example by piously attending church—we get a vivid illustration of the state of mind to which I have referred. And when, a little later in the story, the same eminent saint mentions a sermon which he had lately heard, on making the Lord a partner in your business, and deplores the fact that we have so much of that kind of preaching nowadays, we discern the same mental attitude as that which finds expression in the questions we are considering.

Briefly, then, we may say that the labor question is an economic question, and that all economic questions are fundamentally religious questions; that there are no purely spiritual interests, since the spiritual forces all incarnate themselves in the facts of every-day life, and can be known only as they are there manifested; that there is indeed danger that the Church will make mistakes in dealing with such questions, but that the greatest of all her mistakes is in ignoring them; that there are no souls that more need saving than the souls that are getting entangled in the materialisms that undervalue manhood; and that there are no people who need moral guidance more than those who are grappling with the manifold phases of the labor question. That some of them resent the truth about this matter is a sad fact, but that is not a good reason for suppressing the truth; and there must be many among them who are ready to know the truth and from whom it would be a crime to conceal it. While, therefore, the preacher knows that to some of his hearers the truth, no matter how wisely and kindly spoken, will be "a savor of death unto death," it is his business to tell the truth for the sake of those to whom it will be "a savor of life unto life."

It is sometimes said that the Church cannot deal in any explicit and concrete fashion with these labor problems; that the utmost she can do is to enunciate ethical principles; that she must not venture to apply them. But if Scriptural examples are of any validity, it is clear that Amos and Hosea and Micah and Isaiah and Jeremiah knew how to apply

All these

principles to concrete cases. Hebrew prophets dealt in the most direct and explicit manner with the social injustices then prevailing. They did not content themselves with enunciating ethical principles, they made the application in the most pungent fashion. "Forasmuch therefore," cries Amos, " as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them. For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right." "Woe to them," echoes Micah, "that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand. And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage." It is hardly too much to say that the burden of these Hebrew prophets was the social inequality of their time, and that it was in their struggle against the oppression of the weak by the strong that they came to their clear consciousness of a righteous God. Doubtless these were disturbing messages; doubtless many of the wellto-do were alienated from the Church by this trenchant testimony; but it was spoken nevertheless, and it remains to the world an imperishable legacy.

Much of Christ's preaching on social topics has no lack of definiteness, and the concluding chapters of most of the Epistles would be suggestive reading for those who think that the Church must avoid the application of Christian principles to actual human conditions. James, the brother of our Lord, may be supposed to be familiar with our Lord's point of view. His words recall the old prophets: "Go to now, ye rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are rusted; and their rust shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. have laid up your treasure in the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who mowed your fields, which is of you kept

Ye