Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/449

 427 RKLIOION This section comprises articles showing how women may help in all branches of religious work. All the principal charities will be described, as well as home and foreign missions. The chief headings are : Woman's Work in Relitlion Missionaries Zenana Missions Home Missions, etc. Great Leaders of Religious Thought Charities How to Work for Great Charities Great Charity Organisations Local Charities, etc. The Women of thg Bible Bazaars How to Manage a Church Bazaar What to Make for Bazaars Garden Bazaars, etc. How to Manage a Sunday-School TME BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY The Bibk in 424 Languages — How Women have Translated the Gospels — ** Bible-women " in the East— The Story of a Little Welsh Girl of Sixteen "The British and Foreign Bible Society is not only a missionary society in itself, but the handmaid of all missionary societies, the fuel without which their engines could not work. The Bible Society was founded in March, 1804, for the purpose of bringing the Bible within reach of all, no matter how strange their language, how small their means, or how distant their habitation. We have only to turn to the report for 19 10 in order to ascertain how far this purpose has been carried out. We find that the Bible is to-day the cheapest book in the world. The New Testament, for in- stance, can be obtained for id. in England, i^d. in China and Japan, and in the principal Indian languages Gospels are sold at |d. each. In 1909 over six million and a half Bibles, or portions of the Bible, were circulated all over the world among people speak- ing 424 different languages. These include six new languages in which Gospels have just been issued, languages which did not even contain an alphabet, and had first to be reduced to writing. Volumes might be filled with the difficulties vhi(.h translators have had to Mary Jones on the way to Bala to purchase her Bible overcome. In many languages such words as love, conscience, honesty are non-existent, and new words have to be coined. Even where words have their equivalents strange mistakes are apt to creep in. To give an example. An American camping with the Micmac Indians found that in their version of St. Matthew, chapter xxiv., verse 7 was translated, " A pair of snow- shoes shall rise up against a pair of snowshoes. Only one letter was wrong, " Naooktuku- miki^ijik" is a nation, " Naook- takumiksijik " is a snowshoe. In many languages through- out the world scholars are en- gaged revising and translating the Scriptures, often assisted by the natives of the various countries, who are anxious to have God's message in their mother tongue. We are told that "the vision of these native Tyndales, Coverdales, and Luthers. now skilled and able and wilhng to take their place on translation and revision committees, is one that is full of hope." Through the agency of the Bible Society, "translators i )elone:ing to different Churches, of different races of mankind, of different tongues, different ages, different national ability, and different educational