King's Business - 1930-04

197

April 1930

T h e

K i n g ’ s

B u s i n e s s

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c(Dpie R e g io n s b e y o n d

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“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” I NDEED I am, and it is a sin against the Lord if I do not continue instant in prayer on his behalf. It is the priv­ ileged obligation of every believer to pray for others. To fail in this is a sin. May God enable each one of us to exercise the ministry of intercession on behalf of those who are seeking to make known the unsearchable riches of Christ among the sin-deluded multitudes in the Barbary States, under the North Africa Mission, as well as workers in other parts of the great harvest field. Mr. Leslie Robinson has a Bible Depot at Rabat, Morocco, but he meets with much opposition owing to visitors being warned not to listen or even to purchase Scriptures. “In every group there are some willing to listen. They are tired of sin, sick of life’s uncertainty, and without hope as they face death. Such men are overawed hy the so-called educated classes. Nearly every day someone will say, ‘If you listen to what he says you will go mad; he wants to overturn our religion.’ This is a sample incident:—A small boy was speaking to me in the Depot about a quite harmless subject, yet favorable to the Gospel. A young student overheard the conversation and turned on the boy at once with curses, pushing him somewhat violently into the street. An­ other boy standing near, was asked why he allowed his friend thus to be hit. In reply he explained that the aggressor was a shareef., i.e., one of the nobility, a de­ scendant of Mohammed. That fact made him afraid to interfere. Such nobility can be traced, only to Satan. Many a time, an inquirer will buy a Gospel only, to have., it snatched away from him and torn up and burned. The best way, therefore, of reaching these people is hy the quieter methods of .personal work.- Many are not yet prepared to gather before others and face being seen by their friends.” Miss B. Ellis, of Casablanca, Morocco, writes of a' rather extraordinary oppor­ tunity for the Gospel in one of the houses. The wife is a mallama (teacher) and each day has seven young girls com­ ing to her to be taught sewing and car­ pet-making. These- mallamas are usually very severe with the children and never allow them to stop work. “The other day, however, she made them put their work away and they gathered round my knee as I spoke with them. She listened most intently and begged me to read story after story from the Gospel. I was able to teach them a chorus with actions which pleased them immensely. It was a very ¡happy experience and one longs that those girls may be led to receive Him as their personal Saviour.” Mr. A. Chatfield, of Sale,. Morocco, re­ ports a cheering incident amid discourag­ ing circumstances: “The open-air work continues and God’s hand has been with us in a remarkable way. On one occa­ sion when we were being strongly op­

were also published in the Hopi tongue for the Indian tribe of that name living near the Grand Canyon. This is the first time that any part of the Bible has been made available for this tribe and is the thirteenth Indian language spoken in the United States in which the American Bible Society has published Scriptures. The Book of Psalms translated by Mr. George Allen and his daughter of San Pedro, Bolivia, has been published in Bolivian Quechua, a language spoken by a large Indian population in the Andes Mountains. The Book of Proverbs, pub­ lished early in 1929, was the first portion of the Bible to appear in the new Turkish alphabet in obedience to the edict of the government forbidding the further use of the Arabic alphabet. -r-o— Persecution in Russia N O better description of the Soviet Government of Russia was ever penned than that set down in the 59th chapter of Isaiah, where it is writ­ ten : “Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wast­ ing and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings.” A dispatch from Riga states that Prin­ cess Sophie Lieven, sister-in-law of Sir Kynaston Studd, who was Lord Mayor of London last year, has been imprisoned in Moscow by political police for her Christian missionary activities in Riga. The chief charge against her was said to be that she read the Bible to children -of Soviet workers. This lady is a woman of outstanding Christian faith. The work that she sought to do in Riga was to lead the children of the Soviet to a knowledge of the Saviour, and for this she has been thrown into prison. It is incidents such as this that should arouse the conscience of the civilized world to the real situation that exists in Russia today. Moscow’s cup of iniquity is being filled to the brim. The only thing that will avert the doom that she is assuredly drawing upon herself is a mighty outpouring of God’s Spirit upon the nation, that will result in a whole­ hearted turning of the people to God. May He hasten such a revival in His name .—Evangelical Christian. The Star The boldness of modern Occultisms is truly astonishing.. The Bishop of London reveals the fact that he has recently been invited to join the Order of the Star in the East, and was introduced to the New Messiah—“a most commonplace youth.” Dr. Ingram aptly replied: “The only Star in the East stood over Bethlehem." — Selected.

posed, a native forced his way through the crowd, bought a book from us, and then finding his way to an elevated po­ sition, stood up holding the Gospel in his hand and spoke to the crowd, condemn­ ing their behavior.” ■— o — Indians of North and South America* R EV. W. CAMERON TOWNSEND, missionary of the Central American Mission, submits the following facts concerning Indians in the Americas, and makes a'call for prayer: 1. There are 500 or more Indian lan­ guages spoken in Latin America which have not been reduced to writing. Many of these Indian tribes live in the almost inaccessible fastnesses of interior South America. Some of them have never been visited by the white man. 2. Definite effort is being made by va­ rious pioneer missionary agencies to reach these scattered peoples, but the need has not begun to be met. 3. Some societies have well-trained young men and women candidates who have offered to enter upon this special task, but there are insufficient funds to send and support them. The training school for Indian workers carried on by the Central American Mission, which ministers to three missions and four tribes, is without a dean. Two other men are also needed immediately to hold the ground already won, after years of labor, to say nothing of possible new advances. These facts call for earnest prayer; first, that well-qualified men, with lin­ guistic'ability, may be raised up and sent out to reduce to writing these Indian lan­ guages and to give their people at least a portion of the Scriptures; second, that God will enable the little handful of workers to speed up the evangelization of the sections already entered; third, that Mexican Indian Christians may be raised up to take the Gospel to their own tribes; fourth, that the laws against foreign clergy in Mexico may be modified so as to permit missionaries more liberty in their labors among the Indians of Mexico. New Translations of Scripture T WO North American languages were added in 1929 to the long list of over 800 tongues into which- the Bible or its parts have been translated, ac­ cording to a statement by the American Bible Society, Bible House, Astor Place, New York City. For the first time the four Gospels were issued for the Eskimos of the Bristol Bay and Kushokwim River district in Alaska, from a translation made by Moravian missionaries aided by a group of natives. The four Gospels *See Mr. Townsend’s article on “The Remarkable Language of a Neglected People,” on another page.

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