Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1908-11-10

1871, or a New Perce BlDle.
A Cherokee worked out a Cherokee
alphabet in 1921, and by 1881 the So
ciety had published most of the Bible
in that language. The greatest Of al
the Indian translations was the COM
plete Bible in Dakota, the tongue OF
the Sioux, published in 1879.
Often the translator had had to
create words as we'll as alphabets
How shall the dweller in some low ly-
ing atoll know the word mountain ?
How write Lamb Of God" for Eski-
mos, who know no lambs? Little seal
the translator had to put it at last.
Bad to eat" was as mar as the
translator into mosquito could get to
sin. Nice smell had to serve as
native Australian for frankincense. In
Uganda the translator had to wait five
years before he could catch a word
that meant plague. Then one day he
heard a man bewailing the influx of
rats such a "dibebu" they were Out
came the notebook, down went the long
sought word.
How translate the Gospel into Ian
guage that has no words for city, mar
riage, wheat, barley, in which pig, rat
and dog exhaust the geological terms,
in which the word for five is, my
hand" for six, my hand and one"
and so on.
Then the revision. An American
translated the Gospel of Matthew into
Micmac for the Nova Scotian Indians.
After all his long toll and faithful
proof reading up from the south came
the printed word, and he read the puz-
zling sentence. "A pair of snow shoes
shall rise up against a pair Of snow
shoes" One letter wrong had changed
nation" into pair Of snow shoes"
But If for some races the translator
had to create a written language for
others he worked in fear Of a criticism
more learned than his own. The story
Of the Arabic Bible, the greatest of
modern translations and the greatest
of all Bibles in a non: Christian tongue,
reminds one Of Aldus and his Venice
print shop.
The first task was a creation Of a
type which should pass muster with
the fastidious and artistic Mohamme-
dan scholars, who to this day prefer
manuscript books to printed volumes
Including vowel points 1900 different
types are necessary to print an Arabic
alphabet.
with which to strike the matrices to
cast the type in a form to disarm all
criticism and their eventful casting al
Leipsic, whittier they were transported
overland from Sytia, took five years
The whole work proceeded at the same
rate. Every proof was corrected by
the one hundred leading authorities In
the world, Syrian, Arabian, American
and European.
No Occidental can conceive the COM
plexity of page Of Arabic proof, OF
the sight destroying Of reading it. Men
grew gray and lost their eyesight put
ting the work into type. From the
moment Of it's inception to that Of its
final electrotyping in ten different
FORMS seventy-six years passed, and
the American Bible society had spent
100000 on it.
The result is the standard Arabic
Bible which circulates all along the
North African coast, across the Sahara
to Timbuktu, and south to Niger and
Mombasa. 1t is called for at the Cape
of Good Hope, in Persia, Central Asia,
India, China, Malaysia, the Philippines
Yucatan and Brazil Imported from
Beirut it is the Bible used by Syrians
in New York and Chicago.
One of the heroic tales Of the socie-
tvs annals is that Of Bishop Scher-
eschewsky, who, stricken with paraly-
sis, pounded out Chinese translation
with two fingers on the typewriter. Fol-
twenty years preceding his death he
was practically confined to an arm
chair. During this time he translated
the whole Bible from the original
Greek and Hebrew into the Easy Wenl
dialect Of China.
He was unable to speak plainly
enough to be understood by Chinese
scribe. He could not hold a pen, hav-
ing only one finger on each hand un-
der control. So he made the transla-
ton with these two fingers on the type
writer and it was then copied by hand
into the Easy Wenli dialect by Chi
nese woman, Mrs. Wei. His Original
typewriter manuscript Is now pre-
served in the Lenox library as a mon
ument of one Of the most stupendous
literary undertakings ever made.
In ninety-one years Of existence the
society contributed SO,420,3S2 copies OF
the Bible. Last year it distributed g.
0OO, 900. These Bibles are paid for In
queer circulating medium sometimes.
Within it's history the society has
accepted dried cocoanuts, salt fish
knives, SpOOIlS, rugs, pceiuo' SO"Ai~
shells, grass mats, bracelets, porpoise
teeth, rice, sugar cane and South Sea
Island money for Bibles. In little ma
tive boats the colporteurs creep down
among the islands. By dog sledge and
komatik in Alaska, by Buffalo cart In
Borneo. camel in the Cobb desert, mule
train and llama pack in the Andes, by
elephant and straw thatched cart In
Siam and native junk on Chinese riv-
ers they push their wares. One white
man and his wife floated 5000 miles
down the Lena river on an open raft
with half a ton of Bibles, selling Cos
pels to the Yakuts in their own Ian
guage.
Colporteurs distributed Bibles in
twenty-seven different languages in the
United States last year. They found
negroes in the south who had never
heard of such a book They were kick
ed down stairs in tenement houses by
free thinking immigrants. The socie-
tvs colporteur among the Poles and
Russians of the Chicago stock yards Is
Paul Chaser, who, was a member OIL
Il hui