February 1943
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call our precious English Bible "the Book that saved England." The Word brings life. It invariably does. Iri 1941, the entire Nevv Testament was translated for the first, time into one of the fifty-one Indian languages of Mexico by two y o u n g women, Misses Florence Hansen and Eunice Pike. Although the completed work is not yet ready for publication, boys and girls in this tribe have memo rized verses and are quoting them to their parents, and the work of trans formation ’has begun. It is recorded that the Indian tribes who received' the Word of Gpd in their own lan- guages'ip the United States were the first to put away their old customs and really enter into the life of the nation. Thus we may expect that the Indian tribes of Mexico will put away idolatry, witchcraft, sun worship, and other practices, and become true cit izens of the great Mexican nation when the light of the gospel breaks full upon them. The Bible in the Life of a Nation When the first copy of the Cak- chiqpel New Testament was presented to the President of Guatemala, Gen eral Jorge Ubico, ten years ago, he said that the accomplishment meant a great step forward in the nation’s life. Not'long afterward he showed his Cakchiquel Testament to an In dian who had come to the Presidential Palace with a complaint. The com plaint was from, the chiefs,, and it concerned a citizen in their town, who, they said, had accepted a pew reli gion and would no longer take part in the time-honored festivals of bap tized paganism and religious drunk enness. “This Book is what you need,”, said the President. “Read it. It is in your own language.” The Indian could read, and so he proceeded to peruse the Holy Writ at the place where the Spirit of God had caused the President to open the Book. "This is fine; Mr. President,” he soon exclaimed. “Where .can I get a copiy?” , - “From the very people whom you would like to keep from visiting your town,” the President replied. Today- there is a large congrega tion In that village, believers born again through the Word. God’s Word is the Book that breaks the shackles of sin, removes the blindfold of superstition, l i f t s the soul from groveling in the earthy muck of idolatry to fellowship with its Creator, and drives from the heart fear, hatred, and despair. A Cakchi quel Indian who had worshiped idols all his life learned to read in one of pur reading' campaigns. There was
nothing else to read in his own lan guage so he bought a Cakchiquel New Testament and began to read it by the flickering light of the rich pine torch. Within a few months, he invited some Christians to, his home, and he told them that he had come to. believe. They held a service of praise, in the very shadow of the life-size images that occupied the large altar at one end of the room. A few days later, one of the Chris tians returned to chat with him, and to his surprise arid joy he found that the images had disappeared. “What has happened to your form er gods Tata Felipe?” the visitor asked. With a trace of a twinkle in his black eyes, he r e p l i e d , “I serve'”
great champion of enllghtenxnent and reform, General Lazaro Cardenas, had secured from Congress, while he was President, the exemption of all books from duty especially with a view of increasing the circulation of the Bible. However, the greater reason has been a growing hunger for the Word. The Unfinished Task In over a thousand 1a n g u a g e s throughout the world, the Bible has performed miracles of mercy as nu merous aS the sands of the sea, yet more permanent than records carved in marble. We- rejoice in all that, but Paul spoke in Colossians 1:25 of com pleting the Word of God, and so we must think of completing its distri bution to the thousand tribes still without it. Some one., must translate the \yord for these tribes. To this task the Wycliffe Bible Translators are dedicated. The movement began w i t h t h e founding of Camp Wycliffe in the summer of 1934, and has grown to include the Summer I n s t i t u t e of Linguistics that meets each summer ’ (now •on the campus of the Univer sity of Oklahoma) to train pioneer Bible translators among the Indians of Mexico. The organization is un denominational and nonsectarian as is the American. Bible Society- which has assisted it, and w h i c h plans .to publish Its translations. It is sup ported through the gifts of God’s chil dren sent as God Himself places the need upon' their hearts in answer to prayer. The task of the Wycliffe Bible Translators is specialized. It is to give the tribes the Word. If it is possible to give all the unreached tribes, teachers, preachers, Bible s c h o o l s , nurses, Christian literature and the like, well and good. But without the Word, they have nothing. With it, they have enough, even if the other things that missions usually provide are not available. Furthermore, if the unreached tribes must wait for a fully rounded-out missionary program to be launched they are condemned to wait until many more generations die. If, however, we concentrate oh giving them the Bible in the scientific and pioneering fashion» of the Wycliffe Bible Translators, they can be reached in this generation. In this glorious hope, the hope of finishing soon, and banking all upon the power of the inspired Word of God, these modern Wycllffes forge ahead, now in Mexico, soori in other so-called closed fields, angl on until eventually in e v e r y p l a c e where Christ has not been named (Rom. 15: 20), men shall read the Bible, as Wy cliffe said, “in ye common tongue of ye common people."
them for years, and so when I found that they were not gods at all, I de cided that they should perform a serv ice for me. I made firewood of them, and they .are cooking my beans.” The outstanding difference between the two Americas, the Anglo-Saxpn and the Latin, is that one has had the Bible and the other has not. The peoples of Latin America are just as gifted intellectually as are those in the north. They have,great physical stamina. They are as artistically in clined. They are skillful with their hands. They lack just one thing—the Bible. True, they need a square deal from their neighbors, but ,when the Bible takes care of the defects within, they will be in a position to win the square deal from without. They are beginning to realize this fact, and the Bible is in increasing demand. In Mexico, the American Bible So ciety was able to report for the year 1941 a forty per cent increase in sales over the previous year, and that year had broken all former recqrds. This was partly due to the fact that the
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