The Scriptures and Christianity
THE SCRIPTURES AND CHRISTIANITY.—The following curious and interesting items are furnished by Miss Virginia Penny, from whose pen we have had several valuable articles: “The giving of the Scriptures occupied 1,500 years. The division of the Scriptures into chapters and verses is said to have originated with Cardinal Langton in the commencement of the thirteenth century. The Bible is composed of sixty-six books. Those that have turned their attention to the subject assert that more than five hundred Bible prophecies have been fulfilled. The Bible is translated into two hundred languages. One hundred and sixty of these translations have been made during the last fifty years. Fifty have been made by American instrumentality. There are seventy Bible societies in existence. There are 3,000 missionaries. During the first half of the present century 1,200 American women went out as missionaries. There are supposed to be 50,000,000 Bibles published in the world—over 4,000,000 published in the United States. The number of nominal Christians is stated to be 200,000,000, of which it is thought only 1-30 are real Christians. 800,000,000 of the 1,000,000,000 human beings extant are ignorant of the plan of salvation.—Ladies' Repository.