The Newtown bee., 1906-10-26
TRINITY PARISH NOTES.
BISHOP, MISSIONARY, SCHOLAR, TRANS
 LATOR, HERO.

At Trinity church, Sunday morning,
 Rev MT George spoke as follows con-
 eerning Bishop Schereschewsky: The
 Right Rev Samuel l. J. Schereschew'
 sky, D. D., some time Missionary
 Bishop of China, died in Tokyo, Japan,
 October IA. Bishop Schereschewsky
 in the long history of the Christian
 church. Born in Poland of Jewish
 parents, about 75 years ago, he became
 8 Christian through his study Of the
 Old Testament. To escape threatened
 persecution, he came to this country,
 met the late Bishop Kerfoot of Pitts
 burgh, decided to study for the minis try and was sent to the General The
 olOgtcal seminary in New York. While
 there he offered for the China mission,
 and in July, 1859, started from New
 York in a clipper ship, reaching Shanghai in December. He showed and within two years began the series of translatiOns which have placed him in the first rank of those who have made the Scriptures available for other tongues. Within few years he had translated into the Mandarin dialect the entire Bible and large part of the Prayer Book. In 1877 he returned to the United States and was cOnsecra- ted third Bishop of China. Returning to that country he continued his liter ary work besides carrying the heavy burdens of the episcopate. While on a visitation during the intense heat of the summer of 1881, the Bishop was stricken down with disease that de- velOped into almost complete paraly- sis. Unable to do his work he resigned his see, but could not content himself with idleness. He resolved tO:translate the entire Bible into the Wen-li, or classical written language Of China. But what could man Smitten with paralysis do? Unable to use pen he procured typewriter only to find that he lacked muscular energy sufficient to move the keys. After some months he was able to use the middle finger of his right hand, but sometimes even this failed and he used stick to press down the keys one by one. Thus he t01led through nine years, writing the Chinese words phonetically in Roman letters. In 1895 he returned to the Far East and since 1896 'has made his home in Tokyo. Here, with the aid of Japanese and a Chinese secretary, he rewrOte the Romanized typewriter pages into the Chinese characters. In 1903 the monumental work was com pleIeQ ana was puDllSDed Dy Gne A mer- ican Bible Society. Through all these years the Bishop was helpless. When. ever he left the house he was carried from his chair to carriage, but in spite of all, he bent to his self-impOsed task in the spirit of hero
 China's spoken language is broken up into multi tude of dialects. The man from Pekin cannot understand the man from Shanghai, and neither can understand the Cantonese. Clas- sical Wen-lt is the universally written language. So Bishop Schereschewsky's years of heroic labor turned the Scrip lures into the written language of more than 300, GOO. 900 people, or nearly One-quarter of the population of the world. Samuel I. J. Schereschewsky- bishop, missionary, scholar, translator, hero! A man for whom the Church may well thank God. His life and work must ever be precious and inspir- ing memories.