Appendix
579
of Europe, 1789-1815, vol. 1, ch. 14 (New York, 1872, vol. 1, pp.
293-312).
Page 287. The Circulation of the Scriptures.—In 1804, according
to Mr. William Canton of the British and Foreign Bible Society, “all
the Bibles extant in the world, in manuscript or in print, counting
every version in every land, were computed at not many more than
four millions.... The various languages in which those four millions
were written, including such bygone speech as the Moeso-Gothic of
Ulfilas and the Anglo-Saxon of Bede, are set down as numbering about
fifty.”—What is the Bible Society? rev. ed., 1904, 23.
The American Bible Society reported a distribution from 1816
through 1955 of 481,149,365 Bibles, Testaments, and portions of
Testaments. To this may be added over 600,000,000 Bibles or Scripture
portions distributed by the British and Foreign Bible Society. During
the year 1955 alone the American Bible Society distributed a grand
total of 23,819,733 Bibles, Testaments, and portions of Testaments
throughout the world.
The Scriptures, in whole or in part, have been printed, as of De-
cember, 1955, in 1,092 languages; and new languages are constantly
being added.
[690]
Page 288. Foreign Missions.—The missionary activity of the early
Christian church has not been duplicated until modern times. It had
virtually died out by the year 1000, and was succeeded by the military
campaigns of the Crusades. The Reformation era saw little foreign mis-
sion work, except on the part of the early Jesuits. The pietistic revival
produced some missionaries. The work of the Moravian Church in the
eighteenth century was remarkable, and there were some missionary
societies formed by the British for work in colonized North America.
But the great resurgence of foreign missionary activity begins around
the year 1800, at “the time of the end.”
Daniel 12:4
. In 1792 was
formed the Baptist Missionary Society, which sent Carey to India.
In 1795 the London Missionary Society was organized, and another
society in 1799 which in 1812 became the Church Missionary Society.
Shortly afterward the Wesleyan Missionary Society was founded. In
the United States the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions was formed in 1812, and Adoniram Judson was sent out
that year to Calcutta. He established himself in Burma the next year.