The Bible as Wrapping-Paper
THE work of sowing the Bible throughout the Turkish empire from Constantinople to Bagdad is beset with peculiar difficulties. There is, it seems, a most ridiculous censorship of the Bible. It is a curious illustration of prejudice that the “seditious” word “Macedonia” occurring in the New Testament should excite suspicion and mistrust at the sublime porte! In Armenia, too—to give this group of Turkish vilayets its common name—the distribution of Bibles is especially difficult. And yet that it is eagerly read by the natives when it falls into their hands may be gathered from this story told by one of the Bible men. A copy of the Word of God was given to a patient in the American Hospital, and by him carried to his home in a village. Here an Armenian priest took it from the man, and having torn it in pieces, threw it into the street. A grocer, seeing it lying there, picked it up and took it to his shop, where he began to use it as wrapping-paper. So for a time olives, cheese, candles, and other things sent forth from that store were wrapped in pages upon which were printed the “words of life.” In this way one Bible was scattered about through that village, and was read by many whose interest was so far aroused that they began asking for more of the same book. The result was that when the colporteur next came that way, over one hundred Bibles or portions of the Bible were sold in that village.—Everybody’s Magazine.