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THE KING’S BUSINESS
itself so to the study of the Word of God that it is estimated that more copies of the Bible were sold last year than the combined sales of any other hundred books throughout the world. The Oxford press alone prints more than 20,000 Bibles every week. The British and Foreign Bible society prints the Bible in no less than 400 different languages. Twenty-seven of these Bible societies are printing the Word of God in different parts of the world, and in 1910 they printed and -sold an aggregate of 12,843,196 Bibles, while all of the agencies, both secular and religious, printing and distributing the Word of God have an annual sale of more than 19,000,000. It was Voltaire, you remember, who said over 200 years ago, that the Bible would be an extinct book in fifty years, and now the strange irony of fate is that not only has the Bible far from being extinct, quadrupled and septupled it’s sales throughout, the world, but the very house in which Voltaire made that foolish prophecy is today used as a Bible depository! College Men Studying the Bible But some say : “Ah, that is pnly because the unreasoning masses are reading it more! The serious, the intellectual and the studious do not turn to it as much as they used to, and have long since given up its serious study!” Have they? Do you know that last year 80,000 college men in eighteen different countries were banded together in voluntary classes for the study of the Word of God? I say “voluntarily,” for I mean it was not in their regular classroom work, but an entirely voluntary study they took up among themselves. Do you know also that 97,232 men were gathered at the same time in Bible classes in our Y. M. C. A.’s, and 350,000 men at the same time were found in special
Baraca and young men’s Bible classes in our churches studying the Word of God ? Over 500,000 men, then, in these branches alone giving them- ‘selves, in their college and technical training, to gaining a better knowledge of the Word of God! That doesn’t show that the Bible doesn’t appeal to the intellectual and the studious, does it? It shows, that the Word of the Lord is as precious to the classes as to the masses, to the cultured as to the uncultured, for it is God’s message to men in every class and every condition, showing them the way in which they long to go. Leading Athletes Studying the Bible But mark this also, young men today;—you who perhaps have thought that Bible study was not especially virile and manly for red-blooded men: The records show that the most virile and athletic were, also ready to give themselves to this great study, that they might learn how to keep their bodies under, and how to run with patience the race that was set before them. In the United States and Canada alone 1522 members of varsity football teams, were enrolled in these classes in our colleges and higher institutions of learning, 1402 members of varsity baseball teams, 712 members of basketball teams, and 1053 members of varsity track teams. It’s a noble, aye, a manly thing to know the Word of God, to study the Father’s will and know from whence to get your strength. It will help you in all the contests of life. The World’s Sunday Schools And what shall I say more concerning that larger field of the Sabbath school, that training ground of the ' Church where so many millions are
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