[Footnote A: The American Bible Society circulates upwards of 600,000 copies of the Word of God annually, at home and abroad. Besides assisting in publishing translations issued by other societies, it has been at the sole expense of publishing the Armeno-Turkish, and Modern Syriac New Testament; the entire Bible for the Burmese, and also for the Sandwich Islands; the Ojibbeway New Testament; the Gospels, or some portion of the Bible, into the languages of the Sioux, Mohawks, Seneca, and Cherokee Indians.]
It surely cannot fail to fill the heart of every Christian with deepest thankfulness, to contemplate these glorious achievements. The Church, like the angel seen in prophetic vision, has been flying with the everlasting gospel to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. It has given the Bible to the inhabitants of the old lands of Egypt, Ethiopia, Arabia, Palestine, Asia Minor, and Persia; to the indomitable Circassian; to the mountaineers of Affghanistan; to tribes of India speaking thirty-two different languages or dialects; to the inhabitants of Burmah, Assam, and Siam; to the islanders of Madagascar and Ceylon; to the Malays and Javanese of the Eastern seas; to the millions of China, and the wandering Kalmuck beyond her great wall; to the brave New Zealander; to the teeming inhabitants of the island groups which are scattered over the Southern Pacific; to the African races, from the Cape to Sierra Leone; to the Esquimaux and Greenlander, within the Arctic circle; and to the Indian tribes of North America. All are now furnished with a translation of that wonderful volume, which, with the light of the universal living Spirit of God, at once reveals to man, in every age and clime, his lost and miserable condition, and tells him of a remedy that is adapted to meet every want of his being—to redeem him, by a moral power it alone can afford, from all sin and misery, and to bring him into the glorious fellowship of the holiness, the blessedness, and joy of Jesus Christ, and all the family of God in earth and heaven![A]
[Footnote A: The following facts regarding tract societies may be here stated:—The Religious Tract Society of London was formed in 1799. During the first year of its operations, ending in May 1800, it had issued 200,000 tracts. What is its present working power? Its annual income from sales and benevolent contributions (£12,500) is £95,000. Its annual distribution of tracts, including handbills, from the London Depository is—in English, 20,870,074, and in foreign languages, 537,729, making an annual total of 21,407,803. It publishes tracts in 117 different languages. Taking into account the number of affiliated societies, the total probable annual distribution of tracts, British and foreign, in connexion with the London Tract Society, amounts to 28,500,000. Several religious bodies in the United States maintain Tract or "Publication" Societies. But the "American Tract Society" (founded 1825) is the largest and most influential in the United States, and has a catholic constitution similar to our own Tract Society. It is supported by more than 700 auxiliary societies—those in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York being large and efficient. We may add that its circulation is not confined to the United States, but extends to Mexico, Central and South America, and to those districts in the East and Asia Minor where the American missionaries are labouring. It has issued upwards of 200,000,000 of publications since its commencement.]
And now let us ask, What shall be the history of the Church during the rest of this century? Without attempting with a vain or profane hand to uncover what God has concealed, it is surely a comfort to be able to take our stand on the immovable rock of His promises to Christ, and to rejoice in the assurance, that, sooner or later, His name must be glorious in all the earth!
But when? Is it too much to assert, that before the end of the present century, the gospel shall have been preached to all nations, the Bible translated into all tongues, and the last visible idol on earth cast down amidst the triumphant songs of the Church of Christ? We might expect this blessing judging only from the past, and the constantly-increasing ratio with which society advances. Yet, as revolutions in the physical world anticipate in a single night the slow progress of ordinary causes, so, for aught we know, may God, by some evolution of His providence, make one year do the work of many.
But while we do anticipate the most glorious results ever attained by the human race during this century, we anticipate, also, from the signs of the time, a desperate conflict of opposing systems, both of truth and error. It is not a little remarkable, that never before was there such a life and strength in every system as at this moment. Protestantism, Popery, Infidelity, and even Judaism,[A] were never so alive; and never were alive together before. Does this not look like a coming struggle?[B] But what may appear suddenly and unexpectedly, may nevertheless be the necessary results of long preparation; like the water or the gas, which suddenly enter a thousand city houses to refresh and illuminate them, but which are the results of years of labour in digging trenches, laying pipes, and erecting reservoirs, during all which time no streams of water or of gas were ever present to the senses.
[Footnote A: It is only within twenty-five years that preaching has become common in all their synagogues, while, during the same period, ten periodicals have been started by the Jews, in different parts of the world, in defence of Judaism, in some form or other.]
[Footnote B: In a conversation which we had with Neander in 1848, (immediately before the continental revolutions,) he said, "I believe we are entering a period of unprecedented warfare, which will issue in the increased glory and purity of the Church. The light and darkness will every year be more and more separated; the one becoming more bright the other more densely dark.">[
But we know from the testimony of God's Word, strengthened by the experience of past ages, how certain victory is in the end, however long and apparently doubtful the campaign may be between His kingdom and every form of evil. The day has been when "the Church" was "in the wilderness," and when within that Church four men only held fast their confidence in God, believed His word, and exhorted that Church to take possession of the land of promise, saying, "Rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land: their defence is departed from them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not." And how was that missionary sermon received? "All the congregation bade stone them with stones!" And had they done so, the world's only true lights were extinguished and lost in universal unbelief and heathenism. It was in such desperate circumstances as these that the Lord himself came to the rescue of the world, and it was then these marvellous words of promise were littered, "As truly as I live my glory will fill the earth!" The day has been, too, when "the Church" met in an upper room with shut doors, for fear of the Jews; but it was even then that its Lord said, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth: go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: and, lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world." Never more can the glory of God appear to the eyes of the weakest faith to be so dim, or the cause of Christ to be so hopeless, as it hath been in those days of old! The glory of God is filling the earth, and the gospel is being preached to all nations. Mere rays of light, which we see breaking over the mountain tops in heathen lands, are beautiful in themselves; but far more beautiful to the eye of faith are the first beams of that sun which is yet to stream into every valley now lying in darkness, and steep in its glory all the habitations of men. Those notes of joy and thanksgiving, too, are beautiful which ascend from many a heart in "Kedar's wilderness afar;" but they are still more beautiful to the ear of faith as echoes from the Rock of ages, and the prophetic song uttered by "great voices in heaven," saying, "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever!"