88 THE REV. JOHN SHARP_, M.A., ON THE LAST 



friend, Moul vie Safdar Ali, had abjured Islam and been baptized, 

 with the purpose of winning him back to it, Imad-ud-din 

 obtained the Christian Scriptures and began to read St. 

 Matthew's Gospel. By the time he had finished the seventh 

 chapter, a deep conviction of the truth entered his soul. He 

 continued his study for a year, and then gave up everything to 

 follow Christ* 



Often, again, a conviction of the truth of Holy Scripture has 

 arisen in the hearts of heathen or Muhammadans while they 

 were engaged in linguistically assisting its translators. Of this, 

 too, a single example must suffice. 



In the year 1813, the Kussian Bible Society was making a 

 translation of the New Testament into Kalmuc. It was hoped 

 that this would also serve for another Mongolian tribe, the 

 Buriats who live in the south-east of Lake Baikal in Siberia. 

 Hence Buddhist Buriats remitted 12,000 roubles (£1,200) to St. 

 Petersburg in subscriptions tow^ards the cost of the books they 

 hoped to obtain. In the end it was found that the differences 

 between the two dialects and scripts made a distinct version and 

 character for each tribe essential. Prince Galitzin asked the 

 Governor of Irkutsk to send him two learned Buriats to assist 

 in preparing the book for their tribe. With the consent of 

 their own Prince and Lama two Buriat nobles proceeded to 

 St. Petersburg and engaged in the translation. As a result, in 

 1818 they wrote to their Prince that they felt the Bible was 

 " truth which may be relied upon," " the pearl of a devout 

 heart." " We can no longer endure the want of it," they said : 

 " We must abide by this doctrine."! 



Space and time are almost gone. But surely the cumulative 

 evidence of these eight varieties of fact out of those which the 

 last century made specially prominent ought to reassure any 

 whose confidence in the Bible as a trustworthy revelation from 

 God may have been shaken by " criticism " ? To quote one who 

 was himself to some extent a "critic," the late Kev. Dr. W. 

 Eobertson Smith wrote the following : — " To thoughtful minds 

 it has always been a matter of supreme interest to realise what 

 proof of the truth and sufficiency of the Christian religion can 

 be adduced apart from the internal impress of genuineness 

 which it produces on the believing mind."t 



* Hutory of the Church Missionary Society, by Dr. Stock. Vol. ii, 

 pp. 561-3. 



t Fifteenth Report of the B. and F. Bible Society. Appendix, 

 pp. 187, 188. 



\ Prophets of Israel^ pp. 14, 15. 



