The World's Demand for the Bible
It is great, and rapidly growing. Voltaire, who died in 1777, prophesied that within a hundred years the Bible would be an unknown book. The number of volumes of Holy Scripture that come from the press now every twelve months is about eight million, more than the total number that saw the light during the first eighteen centuries after Christ. The Bible, which in Voltaire's day existed in only thirty-eight tongues, is now being read, in whole or in part, in over four hundred. One hundred and fifty of these languages were for the first time reduced to writing by Bible translators. The chief instruments, under God, for meeting this great need have been the Bible societies, of which the American and the British and Foreign are foremost. They co-operate to the fullest degree, but thus far the British Society has been able to do a work more than twice as large as the American. Here is an “open door” that challenges America's most noble enterprise. With the years, the American Bible Society has gained in strength, wisdom, and opportunity. For the first period of twenty-five years, 1816-1841, it issued 2,798,566 volumes; in the second, 18,987,210; in the third, 32,478,138; and for the fourth period would reach 50,000,000, at the present rate of about 2,000,000 a year. This rate, however, is far from meeting the pressing calls, to which, with God's blessing, America will respond more and more generously.—Selected.