A MISSIONARY in Canada once looked up from his desk to see his room filled with Indians. They had entered so quietly that he had not heard them coming. He asked them where they came from.
“We came a distance of fourteen nights,” they answered, for they reckoned distance by the number of nights on the way. “We have the Great Book, [the Bible], which we can read, but we cannot understand.”
He asked them what missionary had taught them to read, and they replied that they had never seen a missionary. They lived in the Huon Bay region, hundreds of miles away from the nearest missionary station, but their hunting grounds adjoined those of Christian Indians, and from them they had heard about the Great Book.
“They read and explained it to us,” said these men, “and last winter we all learned to read, every one in our village.”
The missionary could scarcely believe that they had learned to read without a white teacher, but when he opened the Book, which they had obtained from an agent of the Hudson Bay Company, he found their words were true; they could read easily and correctly. Like the Ethiopian treasurer, they wanted a guide, and they had traveled a distance of 14 nights over the snow to find one.
How different to these Indians in the Hudson Bay region are millions who do not have to learn to read or get someone to read to them this Great Book. They do not have to journey hundreds of miles over the snow in order to have the Book explained. And yet they do not value their opportunities and are not eager to know the Holy Scriptures which are able to make them wise unto salvation (2 Tim. 3:1515And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 3:15)).
May we learn to value more, dear young friends, the wonderful words of life found in God’s blessed Book, the Bible.
ML-12/02/1973