BY REV. EDWARD W. GILMAN, D. D., SECRETARY OF THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY.
Not a long story this, but one full of pathos, of a little girl in North Wales, a hundred years ago, who hoarded her pennies for six long years that she might save enough to buy a Bible, and who then walked twenty-five miles, from Llanfihangel to Bala, in her bare feet, to procure the treasure which she had so long desired to own. We mark the record of her desire and faith: " Oh if I had but a Bible of my own!"
" I must have a Bible of my own, if I save up for it for ten years." I shall never rest until I have a Bible of my own." " Though I have waited so long, the time will come when I shall have my Bible." " Dear Lord, let the time come quickly." The fulfillment of her cherished wish rounds out the record of a personal incident and leads us to share the maiden's joy that at last she became the owner of a Bible in her own tongue.
But the pathos of the story is less important than its connection with a great movement which has to do with the enlightenment and welfare of all nations in all coming time.
" Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth."
It may be only a spark, but in one moment it becomes a blaze, and if rightly used, its radiance and warmth yield a perpetual blessing. Mary Jones could not prepare her weekly lesson for the Sunday-school because in her father's house there was neither Bible nor Testament.
Every Saturday she walked to a farmhouse two miles away, because there only could she see a copy of the sacred volume. Her parents were poor weavers, but even if they had been well-to-do, Bibles in Welsh were not only costly, but rare, and no one had yet conceived the idea of making the book so portable and so cheap that a copy of God's Word might be found in every dwelling.
But when the story of Mary Jones became known through the Rev. Mr. Charles, of Bala, who supplied her need, when it suggested to God-fearing men the possible condition of thousands of youth in other cottages in Wales, when it revealed to lovers of the Bible the intense desire for the book felt by those who had never had it in their homes, Christian sympathy was bound to make some response. Something must be done. What could be done? Might not some association be formed to print and distribute the Scriptures in Wales? " And if for Wales," said the Rev.
John Hughes, one of the Secretaries of the Religious Tract Society, " why not for the world?"
The problem was solved; and so out of the needs and savings and prayers of Mary Jones came in 1804
the British and Foreign Bible Society, an organization catholic in its membership, based on reverence and love for the Holy Scriptures, considerate of the wants of the humble and needy, concentrating its efforts on one definite object, and with a wide and far-reaching enthusiasm for the human race extending its beneficence to all nations, whether Christian, Mohammedan, or pagan. No wonder that the Committee of the Society cherish among their archives the identical Bible which Mary Jones bought in 1800, with her autograph attesting the fact of its purchase when she was sixteen years old.
The key-note of this first movement to supply the world with the Holy Scriptures was sympathy " with the cry that was ascending all over Wales for the Word of God;" but mingled with this tender regard for those who craved the book must have been pity for those who had never even heard of it, and a desire to share with them the blessings which the Bible brings to mankind.
A few years ago a little boy in Connecticut, seven years of age, was sick and nigh to death. He belonged to a " Sunbeam Circle," and had his " mission box " in which his little contributions were treasured up for the foreign field. At his request his mother opened the box that he might see how much there was for " the poor heathen children," and noticing a piece of newspaper among the pennies, she asked, " Why, Miller, what is this? You don't want this in." " Oh yes, I do, mamma. They are beautiful verses about God, and I want the heathen to have them too; I know they will like them." " The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man;" and why shouldn't the heathen have them too? If for Wales, why not for the whole world? It is interesting to note that in after years Mary Jones was a constant contributor to the British Bible Society, practicing through life the self-denial she had learned in her youth, and that on one occasion when a collection was made at Bryncrug for the " China Million Testament Fund," a gold piece neatly wrapped up between half-pence, and thus hidden until the money came to be counted, was her expression of sympathy for the poor heathen. Mary was fortunate in securing one copy of ten thousand which were printed in Oxford in 1799, for they were all disposed of before one quarter of the country was supplied. Since then the British Bible Society has printed more than two and a half millions of volumes of Scripture for Wales alone, and about fifty times as many for the world besides.
If a union of Churchmen and Dissenters in one society was a good thing in England, why not in other parts of the world? The idea met with favor in Europe and led to the formation of Bible Societies in Germany, Prussia, and France; but nowhere was it taken up with greater promptness and ardor than in America.
British laws had denied to the colonies the privilege of printing the Bible, so that when Mary Jones was born, in 1784, one edition, and one only, of the authorized version had ever been printed on this side of the Atlantic.
When we consider that the colonists were thus dependent on the king's printers for their supplies, that the Revolutionary War had for a long time caused a suspension of traffic, and that the country lacked facilities for the production of large editions of the Bible, we can readily believe that the experience of Mary Jones was often repeated here, especially in the new settlements which were being made in the interior.
The necessities of our land were as urgent as those of Wales, and following the example of England, local Bible Societies in great numbers began to be formed.
Philadelphia took the lead in 1808, and was soon followed by Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey. Societies were organized as far south as Charleston, Beaufort, and Savannah. Such men as Jedediah Morse of Charleston and Elias Boudinot of New Jersey were earnest promoters of the movement.
The interest of these societies was enlisted in efforts to reach the inhabitants of the great valley of the Mississippi.
In 1812 Samuel J. Mills traveled from Boston to Pittsburgh, and from there to New Orleans, exploring the country on both sides of the Ohio and the Mississippi and noting the needs and opportunities of the field. Again he went over the same route, distributing Bibles and tracts. A region so extended was too vast for the local societies, and to promote harmony, efficiency, and economy they united, in 1816, to form the American Bible Society. It was patterned after that in London, on the same broad, catholic principle, with the same avowed object, with the same world-wide aim. Responsible for a territory vastly more extended than Great Britain, it pledged itself from the first to extend its influence as far as possible to other lands, Christian, Mohammedan, and pagan. Among its earliest publications were Scriptures for the Indians of North America and the Spaniards of South America and Mexico. It has enrolled thousands of auxiliary societies, and with their aid has carried through four general efforts to visit every family in the United States with the offer of the Holy Scriptures. As the nation has acquired new territory in the South and West it has pushed on to provide the Scriptures for the people of Texas and the great States of the interior and the Pacific. In nominally Christian lands it has been a pioneer of missions, preparing the way by the distribution of the Scriptures for the founding of churches and the establishment of evangelical institutions.
As American missionaries have made their way to pagan nations, reducing rude languages to writing and enriching them with new versions of the Bible, it has stood by their side, giving liberally to make their work effective and circulate the printed book. Its Arabic Bible, in the sacred language of a hundred and twenty millions of men, has found circulation in regions as remote as Western Africa and the eastern shores of China. It has its agents resident in the Turkish Empire, in Persia, China, and Japan, in Mexico and Cuba and the various republics of South America, and under their care more than three hundred colporters devote their lives to the work of distributing the printed Bible.
Confidently relying on the providence of God, sustained by contributions and legacies and prayers, aided by the willing cooperation of unpaid workers, joining hand in hand with other Societies that look for the evangelization of the world, considerate always for the oppressed and ignorant, the needy and the blind, the prisoner and the immigrant, the mariner and the soldier, the American Bible Society seeks to hasten the time when the open Book shall be found in every household in the land and in the world, and all men shall rejoice in the glad tidings which it brings. And its friends may well join with their brethren in Great Britain in honoring the memory of the humble Welsh maiden whose quenchless love for God's Word was so helpful at the outset of these heaven-blessed charities.