Perth Amboy evening news., 1904-03-07
BIBLE SOCIETY DAY
Centennial Celebration At
tended by the President.
lave SENT OUT 27O,OOO,OOO BIBLES
justice Brewer Said the Proper Way
to Estimate Value of a Life
Was by Deeds and Not
by Years.

WASHINGTON, March 7.-President
and Mrs. Roosevelt, Justice Brewer of
che United States supreme court, Sena-
tor Dolliver of Iowa, the British am
bassador and Lady Durand and many
other persons prominent in official, dip
lomatic and social circles attended the
service yesterday in commemoration of
the one hundredth anniversary of the
British and Foreiga Bible society at st.
Johns Episcopal church. Justice Brew
err and Senator Deliver were the prin-
cipal speakers. DR.. Daniel c. Gilman.
president of the American Bible socie-
ty, presided and made a few remarks,
in which he said that during the life
time of the British and American soci-
cites they had circulated 210,000,00O
copies of the Bible and parts of the BIZ
BILE to the nations of the world.
Justice Brewer said the poorest way
to estimate the value of a life, whether
of an individual or an organization, is
by numbering the years. We should
count by deeds, not years. So, said he,
we celebrate the anniversary of the
British Bible society not so much be
cause it. has endured for a century as
because of the gigantic good it has ac-
complished.
at is scarcely necessary before this
| audience continued Justice Brewer,
"to enter upon u eulogy of the great
| book of books. But this is the age Of
the %iconoclast, when destructive criti-
cism run rampant. Some criticism, in
deed, Is reverent and useful-that which
| seeks simply by correcting wrong trans
lations and arranging in chronological
order the matchless truths of Scripture.
1t is striving to remove from the sacred
volume the dust that careless centuries
i have strewn upon it.
''but there are other critics without
such lofty aim who strive to destroy
the faith of other men simply because
it is held. The iconoclast is a popular
man. To him the Bible appears mere
ly as a sort of crazy quilt of untrue
history, distorted science, weak poetry,
impractical morality and vague fore
shadowings of the unknown and un
| KnOWuDlc. Yet we WHO DellcNe hlON
there are passages in the Bible unsur
passed in solemn beauty in the litera-
ture of the world; that it's ideals OF
morality are those to which the best
within us is always aspiring; that its
promises are the sweetest and most
comforting that have ever come to the
tired hearts of man."
Justice Brewer declared that tho
greatest glory of this nation lies in the
fact that ever and always she has
striven to translate into the vernacu
lar of international law the parable OF
the good Samaritan and the Golden
Rule.
Senator Dolliver said that the Bible
society had contributed more than any
other influence to unite the creeds OF
Christendom into one grand whole, rep.
r~esenting universal Christianity.
zone of the grandest enterprises ]
ever heard of any organization" Sena'
tor Dolliver said, twas the offer Of this
society to make a language for a barba'
rous people, whose speech had not
even attained to the dignity of an al
| phabet. The society undertook to make
first an alphabet, then a translation OF
the Bible and finally a literature. Ger
tainly the brain of man never conceiv.
ed a grander philanthropic purpose"