AS A MATTER OF COURSE by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Feb 21, 1906

AS A MATTER OF COURSE.

By Editor

THE following extract from a letter written by Dr. H. H. Jessup tells a fearful story of church degeneration in the United States. Nothing so emphasizes such degeneration as a falling away in mission effort:

BEIRUT, DECEMBER 26, 1905.—In our Bible printing work we are confronted with a crisis, and it might be called a calamity. We have printed 47,000,000 pages of Scriptures, and the call continues. We have added a new press and engine, and now the American Bible Society calls a halt and cuts down its appropriation to a simply destructive figure. It says virtually, "Suspend work on the great, large type, first-font Arabic Bible." We can not do it. It must be finished before Dr. Hoskins goes away next summer. We have to order paper from Europe six months in advance. Dr. Bowen says, "Countermand your big order for paper now, and wait." Then if relief comes we shall have to wait another six months before the press wheels can move! Has the church at home lost interest in the Arabic Bible just at the time when the demand is greatest and the machinery is ready to print, bind, and ship it?

We need $10,000 this coming year as a special contribution to the American Bible Society for work on the Arabic Scriptures. It is peculiarly an American enterprise and should be carried on by American funds.

It is the common work of all branches of the Christian Church, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Reformed, Baptists, Methodists, and all who believe and love the Bible.

Can not some one raise the alarm, that just when the Moslem nations are receiving the Arabic Bible gladly, we must say, "No, America is too poor! Let them wait until somebody in America has time to earn a little money!"

This spirit of waning interest in Bible circulation is in direct keeping with the spirit of inter-church federation that is now wielding such an influence in the United States. It is indeed the same spirit; for the church federation movement is a move in the footsteps of the Papacy, and that was a direct result of a waning interest in the Scriptures and their circulation. The same people could not maintain an interest in straight Bible work and at the same time deliberately take the road that leads directly to Rome. The condition complained of by Dr. Jessup could not be otherwise where such a spirit holds the reins.