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iv
PREFACE
over 60 forms of chnracters - ideograms of China,
n.ncient alphabets of Syria and India, Gothic and
Slavonic letters of mid-Europe, syllabic scripts, and
many others-is given at the erid of the book.
These details are but the prose of a great vision–
the vision of learned scholars poring over the Hebrew
and 'Greek origínals: of patient, painstaking pioneers
in all parta of Christ's ChUt·ch, listening to strange
words, reducing them to order, and then to writing,
so that all men may receive God's Message, each in
his mother-tongue. In t.hese specimens philologists
will find materials for the comparison of cognate or
diverse forma of speech. But
to
the Bible Society they
.stand for over 375 millions of books distributed all
over the earth during the last 122 years. They picture
multitudes of manldnd receiving their first and their
increasing knowledge or God from such printed pages.
They bear ;vít'ness t'o the marvellous fact that no tongue,
the most e ude or the most
refi~ed,
has yet been
discovered 'nto 1lich it has been found impossible
to translate that Gos_eel which is the oommon property
of the human race. And they speak of a work which
is always progressing. Once every six or seven weeks
sorne fresh ]anguage is added to the list. When we
include those versions of Scripture published by other
agencies, there are now over 830 forms of human
speech in which sorne printed portion of the Bible is
representad on the shelves of the Bible House Library.
THE BIBLE
HousE, LoNDON,
January
1927,
R. KILGOUR,
Edit01·ial
Supet'intendent.
.
.