Wheel up this sun of light to the mid-heavens, and cause its
rays to gleam in every land."
Rev. Mr. Goodell, missionary to Constantinople, remarked, that during
thirty years residence in Mahomedan countries, he had learned something
of the importance of that book. The nations of the East are all wrong in
their conceptions of God. He had often stood upon the goodly mountain,
Lebanon, and upon the heights around Constantinople, and raised his
thoughts to God, asking, How long shall this darkness prevail? Without
this book we could have effected little in our missionary work; but by
it God hath done great things, whereof we are glad. The Bible was once
found only in dead languages; now it is translated into the language of
almost every people with whom we come in contact. Every friend of the
Bible will rejoice to know that it is becoming the great book of the
East. Before its translation into the Greco-Armenian, it was a mere
outside book, kept and admired for its handsome binding, and from a
superstitious reverence. Now it is an inside book; it has taken hold of
the heart of the Armenian nation. Once it was looked at; now it is read.
It has come to assume a great importance in the eyes of that people.
They have a great anxiety to read. More than one hundred aged women are
now engaged in learning to read, that they may read the New Testament
for themselves.
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