Large-Print Bible Comforts an Elderly Sumatra Woman
THE following interesting report from Sister Carrie L. Munson, in Padang, Sumatra, we copy from the August number of the Bible Society Monthly Reporter published in London: “Mrs. Carrie L. Munson, an American missionary, writes from Fort de Kock, Upper Padang, Sumatra, dated May 4, 1902: ‘Some of your readers may be glad to hear of the comfort and help which one of your large-print Bibles gave to a dear old lady in this remote country. In Padang we find few people who can speak English, but it was my great pleasure to visit for more than a year an English lady, Miss Repsy, whose relatives settled here during the English occupation of these islands. She had always lived in Padang, except for three years, which she spent in a Baptist girls’ school in Calcutta, during her teens. When I met her, she was trying to read a very fine-print Bible, which she had always used since those far-away school days, about sixty years before. We procured for her from your Singapore agency a fine large-print copy of the New Testament. It was her greatest treasure. She lived alone, except for her Malay servants, and was nearly helpless. When asked if she felt lonely, she would smile, and lay her hand on her Bible and papers, saying, ‘These are my friends; come often; I sleep better after we have read and prayed together; I now think of my God more than I used to do.’ After she had fallen asleep, her relative sent me the Book she loved. “The Chinese people here buy the Scriptures readily. One elderly man in Padang has read his Malay Bible through at least seven times in the last two years; it is his constant companion. His children are learning to read from the Word as their only primer. Last Sabbath I visited a Chinese woman here, and sang a hymn; while looking for another, she pointed to the Gospel of Luke lying in my lap, and said, ‘Read from that book, I like that better;’ so I read and talked of the gospel a long time. I thank God for the Bible Society which is doing so much to hasten the coming of the Lord when the gospel shall have been preached in all the world.”