COLPORTERAGE IN FRANCE.
THE sleepless warfare of the priest against the Gospel is described in the Report (we quote from that of the Bible Society) of 1837 in terms which may be repeated still. As if he had been the embodiment of some inextinguishable dread of discovery, of some evil conscience, the minister, who was set apart for the service of the Gospel, was found everywhere pursuing the footsteps of the sixty years ago distributor of the Scriptures; the same sad record, illustrated by a thousand examples, repeats itself continually during all the intervening period, and in the accounts of 1896-7 the same old sorrowful testimony appears once more. If it is changed at all it is more universal, more bitter, more carefully organized. "At every spot," writes M. Monod, "where a colporteur succeeds in selling a few volumes there rises up at once an enemy seeking to destroy them. And how intense is the conflict the colporteurs' reports bear witness.”
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“I have a Gospel in English," said a man; "it is a better translation than the French one, but I have torn the pages that did not agree with me.”
“What do you mean? Why did they not agree with you?”
“Because they did not agree with our religion.”
“You had better tear off what in you does not agree with the Gospel," was the reply.
A curd told me, "Go to Madagascar: there you will sell your books, but not here, where we all are good Catholics. Protestants are not French, they are Jews. They are English, Germans, Prussians.”
“People here are as much in need of the Gospel as in Madagascar.”
“Yes, but not Luther's and Calvin's Gospel." He turned round and asked for a match to burn the books. "But they are excellent," said a woman. "I have a Testament; I read it, and am very fond of it." The curd went away murmuring, "Were I the maire I would not tolerate your presence here, and next Sunday I will preach against your books.”
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I was selling a Testament to a woman when the curd came along and said in Breton, “These are bad books, not approved of by the Bishop of Quimper." The poor woman dared not displease M. le Curd, and refused the book. I could not help saying to the cure, "Remember, that whosoever shall be ashamed of Jesus and His words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when He cometh." The cure disappeared at once, and a sailor, who had heard the whole, approached and said, "What is the price of the Bible? I want to buy one, and I need no permission from that seller of prayers in Latin.”
At the isle of Ushant the people are excessively religious, and rather superstitious. "We would like to read the Gospel, but our curbs do not allow us to read the New Testament, and thus we are not free to inquire about religious truth," said one. A woman who bought a Bible, said, "We are quite sure it is a good book, but we must hide ourselves to read it, otherwise if the cures knew us to do so they would ruin our commerce"; and this is true.
Along the coast, fishermen are busy in selling their fish, and among them I sell best; they are not prejudiced, and listen willingly to Gospel truth.
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At Vannes a woman refused my books because they are Protestant. "But, mother," said the girl, "I wish to have a copy." "I see no harm in that," said the father. But the mother exclaimed, "Look here! you have been to confession tonight; you arc to receive holy communion tomorrow morning, and you should not read such books! That would be to sin with a full purpose of doing so.”
“How," I asked, "can the fact of reading the Word of God be a sin?”
“The 'Word of God,' indeed! And it is a book full of horrors against the Virgin, to whom my daughter is consecrated." I pointed to Luke 1:26-36, which the girl read aloud.
“You see, mother, how you are mistaken. Let the book be Protestant, I want to know its contents." And she bought a copy with her father's, but not her mother's, approval.
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At Vastes a woman said, "Why should we buy books which the cures forbid us to read?" "But they are not your masters, are they?" "In fact they are. We had bought a Testament that we liked to read, when the cure, catching hold of the volume, threw it into the fire. When my husband came home he was not pleased, and said that I should by all means buy a Bible from you if ever you passed again.”
“Is it really the true story of our Lord Jesus Christ?' asked a farmer's wife, after a short conversation; and when she believed my statement that it really was, she was so happy that she did not know how to express her thankfulness.
“And so you came so far only to bring me that book?" She then spoke of the Savior with an ardent love, though not yet realizing how complete and gratuitous is the salvation He brings us. I showed her some passages on that point, and I feel sure that the work of grace begun in her will be perfected by the Holy Spirit.
Another day an old woman of eighty-three years was at first surprised that such a young man as I should speak to her of such things. "But, sir, I love God. Is it He who sends you? Please step in, that we may talk more intimately." I did so, and told her about the great salvation the Savior has secured for us. She drank in my words, and the tears ran down her cheeks. "To think that He died for, me. What a marvel!" She bought a Testament in large print that she can read very easily, and we parted, to meet again in our heavenly home.
This month I sold two hundred and fifty copies among people favorably disposed. "What a good thing," they said, "to circulate such books! It is a deplorable fact that even our children believe nothing. What will become of us if things continue in that way? We cannot allow our children to read bad books.”
I often hear, "We have lost our faith in our religion, but we still believe all bon Dieu, and we want to read the Gospel.”
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“Will you have the Gospel, the Word of God?”
The woman thus addressed turned round and said sharply, "No! we do not love God here.”
“Nevertheless," I said, "God loves you." This struck her. She then said her husband had been lying already three years with great sufferings, and that the cure had explained that such sufferings were needed to deserve heaven. "I conclude," she said, "that God is not a merciful God.”
I showed her the cure's mistake; what was meant by the gift of God; and how Jesus is the only way to heaven. I was listened to with great attention by several persons who were present and who bought a few portions—poor sheep not having a shepherd.
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In a very small village lives a woman who is said to be distracted. She never attends mass, but stays at home "reading a small book." I called upon her and found the small book to be a Testament that she had bought from one of my colleagues! Having lost her only child, she sought consolation in that book, and having found it, she felt that she wanted nothing else. When pressed by her friends to go to church, she says, "Why should I go? I understand not a word, and no one will tell me better things than what I find in this book. That is why I prefer remaining at home.”
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I spent a few days last year at a place where there is hardly now a single house without the Scriptures, and I am received with so much joy and cordiality when I speak of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that I cannot but feel that the Lord is at work in that small village.
At Orliac de Bas a rich landlord who had read a Bible I had sold to his sister, not only bought one for himself, but made me sell a dozen more to his neighbors. I had to stay at his house, where we had at night quite a little religious meeting; several said as they retired, "We had never heard such things before and we shall never forget them.”
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HONDURAS.
From different places in South America good news comes relative to Bible distribution. The hearts of the people are frequently opened by the Lord to receive His truth and salvation. Gospels and epistles and tracts have been well circulated, and also in Ecuador.
Venezuela also has workers in it, who are making a good headway. "In these lands," says our correspondent, "it is quite important to adhere to the Lord's way of sending forth two and two, yet it does not seem always possible in the present scarcity of laborers.... Little by little these dark lands are being penetrated, and the Lord, whose Word His servants carry, will not let it fall to the ground.”
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THE ARGENTINE.
“One writing from the Argentine speaks of knowing whole families being turned to the Lord through our publications.”
Thus we rejoice in God's work in these long neglected and hitherto benighted countries, where native paganism has had merely the darkness of Rome to mock the salvation of God for centuries.
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ROME.
We have in our hands the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, in Italian. Our friend, Mr. Wall, of 35, Piazza in Lucina, Rome, has ready a first edition of ten thousand copies for distribution, and he wishes to circulate this gracious portion of God's Word to the forty-five thousand Romans who are electors. We have already been the means of sending him some contributions for the object in view, and we should be delighted to be the means of transmitting to him sufficient funds to enable him to place one copy in the hands of each of the electors of Rome.
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In concluding our message to our readers on missionary efforts, we would beg them to give all heed to these words of the apostle: "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season... For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine... they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." Our duty is plain; we have to make the Word of God known to the utmost of our power. We can all circulate it more widely than we now do. Our own land, the countries of Europe, and the peoples at the ends of the earth are in need of the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Let us do our duty and leave the results to God. There is no happier service in which we can engage than in Scripture distribution, none more pure, none more profitable. And in Roman Catholic countries, none so richly blessed by God. “Preach the Word.”