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BHUTAN

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BIBL1

opening of the Suez Canal a direct eastern trade in spices, coffee, indigo and jute has sprung up. The first line of omnibuses in Syria was established here in 1859, and water works and gas works have been introduced by European companies. A Scottish school for Jews and the Protestant Syrian College have also been founded here. The American Presbyterian Mission in Syria has its headquarters here. Population, 150,000.

Bhutan or B ho tan (b&ti-tdn'), an independent state, in the Eastern Himalayas, area about 16,800 square miles. It lies south of Tibet and north of Assam and Bengal, and is flanked in the west by Sikkim and Nepal. Its population is close upon 30,000, and its capital is Punakha, a place of much natural strength. It has a dual ruler, Deb Raja, the secular, and Dharin Raja, the spiritual, head of the state. Its trade is chiefly with British India, its main products being rice, Indian corn, millet, musk, chowries and silk. Formerly its native tribes were given to aggress on British India, but this was put a stop to, the Bhutan rulers receiving an annual subsidy from the Indian government conditional on the good behavior of the natives. The latter are nominally Buddhists, but their religious exercise consists chiefly in the propitiation of evil spirits and the recitation of verses from the Tibetan Scriptures. The principal monastery in Bhutan (lasichozong), has 300 priests. The country has a varied climate and a wide range of products.

Bible. The word Bible comes from the Greek, where it is plural and means the books: books that stand apart from and in moral worth are higher than all other books. The Bible consists of two great parts, the Old and the New Testament—testament meaning covenant, a covenant between God and His people. The Jews had a threefold division of the Old Testament into the Law, the Prophets, and the Sacred Writings. By the Law, they meant the first five books, called usually the Books of Moses or the Pentateuch. Of course, law is not the only thing we find here. There is also history, from the story of the creation in Genesis to the death of Moses in Deuteronomy. But in this bed of history we find three sets of law or codes; the Book of the Covenant (Ex. xx-xxiii). which seems to have been followed by the Israelites till the reign of Josiah; Deuteronomy, which prevailed from the time of Josiah to the exile; and the Priestly Code (Leviticus), which came to be looked upon as authoritative after the Restoration.

The Jews divided the Prophets into the former prophets and the latter prophets. By the former prophets, they meant what we generally call the historical books, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, which give us the sayings of the great prophet-statesmen,

Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha, though they themselves wrote nothing. With the Israelites the sense of being a people and the sense of being a people of Jehovah were almost one and the same, and this is one reason why we find so much history in the Bible. So in the Prophets, as in the Pentateuch, we find history ; Joshua to Kings being really one work, setting forth the fortunes of the people from the conquest of Canaan to the fall of Jerusalem.

The latter prophets are divided into the greater prophets, Isaiah. Jeremiah, and Eze-Kiel; and the minor prophets, the twelve smaller books. The prophets made predictions, but this was not all their work. They were sent usually to guide the people in great crises. Amos and Hosea came before the fall of Samaria, Isaiah during the great struggle with Assyria, and Jeremiah before the destruction of Jerusalem. The Sacred Writings include books of poetry—Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations and the Song of Songs; books of history—Chronicles, Ruth, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, and one prophet, Daniel. That the Psalms are true poetry no one will deny; yet there is no accent, or counting of syllables, no rhyme or rhythm. The one thing that makes the Psalms the finest religious poetry in the world is what is called parallelism; that is, an arrangement in couplets or pairs, the second line repeating or contrasting the thought of the first. There is much poetry outside of the poetical books, and the oldest piece of writing in the Bible is a song, that of Deborah (Judges v).

Running all through the Old Testament we find hints, passages, and whole discourses showing that Jehovah had promised the people a deliverer out of all their troubles, who was to be known as the Messiah. It is these Messianic prophecies, as they are called, more than anything else, that bind the Old Testament to the New Testament, which tells of a new co/enant, through Christ the Messiah.

The New Testament begins with four accounts of Christ by his followers, called the Gospels The authors of the first and fourth, Matthew and John, were themselves disciples, while the other two gospels were written by Mark, a follower of Peter, and Luke a companion of Paul. The Acts of the Apostles tells of the planting of the church. Then follow twenty-one letters of the Apostles— personal letters, as the epistles to Timothy, and letters to the churches that sprang up as the Apostles went preaching from town to town and from country to country. Christ uttered prophecies, but the one prophetical book in the New Testament is the Revelation of St. John.

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew on skins, linen cloth, or papyrus and kept in rolls. The first draft ot Matthew seems to have been in Hebrew, but ft'wrf