OF THE 131BLH INFERRED FROM ITS VERSIONS. 



91 



we explain the mournful fact that the Church of TertuUian 

 and Cyprian and Augustine vanished, and tlie whole broad belt 

 between Port Said and the Atlantic became, and has remained, 

 almost entirely Moslem ? Doubtless, Christianity in North 

 Africa had departed far from the purity and simplicity of the 

 'New Testament. But Archbishop Benson suggested another 

 secret root of the Church's failure to stand fast against the 

 Moslem tlood : it had neglected to translate the Scriptures into 

 the languages of its common people. The Latin Bible existed, 

 indeed, but no early versions were made into those Punic and 

 Xumidian dialects which were the mother-tongues of the North 

 African races. On the other hand, there were ancient Coptic 

 versions of Scripture ; and so the Coptic Church survives in 

 Egypt — a remnant, but still alive after so many centuries of 

 Moslem persecution and oppression. And there was an ancient 

 Ethiopic version ; and so the Abyssinian Church still survives, 

 degraded with superstitions, yet not perished altogether. 

 Looking further atield, we trace this same factor in the 

 persistence of other ancient Churches — such as the Syrian, the 

 Armenian, and the Georgian. In comparatively recent times, 

 the infant mission Church in Madagascar endured a quarter of 

 a century of ruthless persecution. But before the L.M.S. 

 missionaries w^ere driven out of that island they had printed and 

 distributed the Malagasy Bible. The books passed stealthily from 

 hand to hand, and were read in secret, at the peril of their 

 owners' lives ; yet they kept the sacred fire burning, and when 

 the missionaries could return, twenty-Hve years later, they found 

 that the little band of Malagasy Christians had grown from 200 

 to over 2,000. We are tempted to believe that if the early 

 Eoman missionaries in China and Japan had popularized the 

 Scriptures among the converts whom they baptized, their work 

 might have proved less destructible. Perhaps there is no example 

 of a nation, once Christian, having ever abandoned the faith, 

 so long as its people have possessed the New Testament in the 

 vulgar tongue. 



Another problem of curious interest finds illustration from 

 versions of the Scriptures. People sometimes ask : Are all 

 parts of the Bible of equal value ? Which books are the most 

 important ? Well, let us consider the experience of missionary 

 translators, who may be trusted to understand what parts of 

 Scripture are most necessary and useful for their converts. 

 Almost without exception, missionaries begin their translation- 

 work by making a version of a single Gospel — generally selecting 

 St. Mark's Gospel, as the shortest and simplest. Then they go 



