Feb. 15, From time to time we see lists of the best hundred or the best ten books in the world which have been compiled by some eminent person, In thes lists the Christian scriptures, the Bible of the Old and New Testaments, usually heads the list. The Bible is so placed, not, necessarily, because the compiler regards it as a divine revelation, but because of its unique value as part of the world's best literature, Looked at from this standpoint some of the driest and apparently least interesting sections have an interest all their own, The tenth chapter of Genesis is a bare record of gen-oologies. "Mizraim begat Ludim and Anamim and Lehabim and Naphtuhim," nothing could seem of less than a sentence of this kind, but an archeologist or the philologist would probably find it most interesting study. Or another verse which says, "And Cush begat Nimrod, he was a mighty hunter before the Lord and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel." No historian would consent to seeing that statement erased from the book. He would chuckle over it and compare it with inscriptions on Egyptian and Babylonian monments and might find many remarkable coincidences during jo is the most thrilling book of short stories in the world, The child that has not heard the stories of Joseph' and David and Samson told by his mother at bedtime has missed one of the joys of life. We have heard of a Chinese story-teller who got hold of the tale of Danie! fu the lion's den and held village audience enthralled with it on several successive evenings. The last evening one of the oldest inhabitants asked anxiously, "Teacher, are you not going to let him out to-night?" And withal there isthe moral purpose running through the story which embeds itself in the plastic texture of the bo} mind and gives him a bias tods rectitude that stands him in good stead in the evil days that are to come. The habit of committing to. memory passages of scripture that was once an accepted part of a child's training had a tremendous educational value. The language of the Bible is the purest English and no one steeped in it can fail to write well. Bunyan, who was as unlearned as St. Peter and whose centenary falls this year, was able to write his i mortal Pilgrim's Progress, which has been translated into more than two hundred languages, solely because he had so steeped himself in the scriptures that he thought and wrote in the words of holy writ.
Such thoughts naturally arise in connection with the reports of the three Bible societies which are at work in China. We learn that during 1927 they circulated 22,419 complete Bibles, 556.271 New Testaments and 7,955,968 gospels or portions of scripture. This is a great achievement and we -are tempted to ask—what effect has this vast circulation that goes on to increasing volume year by year? Has it had a cumulative effect? Or has it had any effect at all on the solid mass of 400,000,000 human beings amongst whom it is cast like bread upon the water? One of those reports answers this question in the following words: "It can hardly be doubted that the Bible has been one of the factors in producing the perplexing conditions. with which we are now confronted. The Taiping rebellion, which, in its time, was as formidable as the Nationalist movement now is, drew its first impetus from the Christian scriptures, Dr. Sun derived much of his discontent and much of his social idealism General Li ug have said, in reply to the qu tion when the rebellion which overthrow the Manchu government began, "It began when Morrison translated the Bible into Chinese." Unfortunately other influences were also at work which gave a sinister turn to the divine discontent which the scriptures kad provoked in the mind of those who saw their country slipping steadily down the steep slope that leads to Avernus. A little knowledge is 'a dangerous thing, and in th case of the Taipings it was the little knowledge that led to their undoing. The Bible is not a book of magic that will bring Tuck to those who carry it as a talisman, It is given to us th may know to choose the good and refuse the evil, It it be true that an impetus was given to the movement for reform that, culminated first in the overthrow of the old regime and then in the present movement for complete national independence, thei we may hope that the wi words of scripture that "right eousnoss exalteth a nation bu sin is. a reproach to any people' may have equal weight in the of those who set that olling, the resting blase of which itis yet dificult to predicate, It is the half truth dimly apprehended that is dangerous, liberty is good but bbe ty must have safeguards or it becomes licence; and so with every other good thing, it h an evil opposite that dogs it as a man's shadow dogs his steps. Light and more light {s the best Dulwark of a nation as it is of an individual.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.