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The Bookshelf

One World--One Book

Best buy in books today is offered at 41 Bromfield St., Boston, at the headquarters of the Massachusetts Bible Society. As depository agent of the non-profit organization Harold P. Landers points out that sixty-five cents still furnishes the purchaser with an excellent, legible, 600-page Bible complete with the dedication of the 1611 translation committee to King James I. Mr. Landers, who has been selling the world's best seller for 35 years, has on his shelves even greater bargains for non-English speaking peoples. Three cents now supplies the South Sea missionary with portions of the Book in pamphlet form, and last year the Sloop Morning Star VI bore 2000 copies of the Four Gospels in native tongues to King John of Kusiae, and other potentates on the Marshall and Caroline Islands.

Since the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was organized in 1842, three years after the Society itself was incorporated, both have worked closely together in spreading the Word to the so-called "heathen peoples." Last year the Bible House supplied American missionaries with Bibles in 117 new languages. Recipients of the organization's largesse listed in the annual Librarian's report include both the Chinese Mission of New England, as well as the Norfolk Prison Colony of the Commonwealth.

Preparation of biblical material for tribes that have never committed their language to a system of writing poses a great obstacle for the non-sectarian group. Such was the case with the Mazetaco Indians, citizens of Mexico in the Isthmus of Yucatan. Researchers financed through voluntary contributions to the society spent years living among these people to analyze their speech phonetically. Once the language is reduced to the Roman alphabet, the natives must be taught painstakingly to read it. New languages expressing the Logos of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John for the first time last year embraced eleven of the "Amerindian" aggregation--Malisect, Potawatomic, and Menominee among the more obscure.

Replenishment of European Bibles destroyed by the hand of war, and by the anti-clericalism of the totalitarian states has emerged as the foremost immediate problem of the Society. Early last year Dr. Martin Niemoeller was furnished with 1000 Bibles to give to German pastors who had been forced to subsist on Mein Kampf for over a decade. As soon as Japan surrendered, native Christian leaders requested an immediate shipment of 100,000 Nipponese Bibles, and now 500,000 New Testaments and 400,000 Gospel portions have been sent through American contributions. One World, One Book--this is the philosophy of the Society. They see the dream of world brotherhood grow real as the merchant in Thailand, the German student, the Arabian shiek, and the African Zulu sit down simultaneously to read the words of Luke, ii, 14: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will towards men."

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