p. 15 | Mission Notes

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 19, 1903

Mission Notes

AN edict promulgated in China that sons of Manchus and Mongols should be sent out of the country for foreign study has led to an extraordinary demand for the Word of God. Rev. John R. Hykes, D. D., the agent of the American Bible Society, states: “One government college has applied for a grant of fifty Bibles for the use of its students.”

AN effort is being made in England to establish a mission among the Bedouins. Mr. Archibald Forder recently penetrated seven hundred and fifty miles into Arabia, and went from tent to tent, and from town to town, in those unknown and mysterious lands, unfolding the story of Jesus and his love, speaking and reading to the people in their own tongue.

SOUTH AMERICA, which covers an area of seven million square miles and contains thirty-four million inhabitants, has been called the “neglected continent.” In Paraguay there are two million Indians who never heard of Christ until 1889, and have only four missionaries laboring among them. In Peru, three million Indians, descendants of the Incas, have never been evangelized.

“THE complete report of the British and Foreign Bible Society for its ninety-eighth year, ending March, 1902, shows that the issues of the society during the year were 939,706 Bibles, 1,364,116 New Testaments, 2,763,599 portions, making a total of 5,067,422, which is considerably in excess of the previous year. The total issues of the society, since its foundation in 1804, amount to 175,038,965 copies. The society is preparing with enthusiasm to celebrate its centennial in 1904.”

A COMPLETE Bible has at last been published for the Eskimos in Greenland. These folk were first evangelized by the Norwegian pastor, Hans Egede, who began work in Greenland as far back as 1721. He began the first translation of the New Testament into their language, which was completed by his son. Another and improved version by Fabricius appeared in 1799. Later on, the New Testament, revised by Moravian missionaries, was printed for them by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1826. The Danish Bible Society assisted in subsequent editions and revisions. The chief translator of the Old Testament was another Moravian missionary, Klemschmidt, who died in 1886. Now the whole Bible is at last complete, and an edition has been printed at the expense of the Danish government.