Best Seller

Mr. Cu and Mr. Thu of French Indo-China, Mr. Truu of Estonia, Mr. La of Bhutan, and 1,126 other colporteurs (peddlers) helped keep the Holy Bible the world's best seller last year. Word of their activities reached the U. S. last week in the 127th annual report of the British & Foreign Bible Society. Some facts:

Total number of Bibles, New Testaments and portions of Scripture distributed last year: 11,888,226, of which 7,604.625 copies were sold by the colporteurs. Distribution was 287,000 less than the previous year; contributions dropped -L-33,047. Total number of languages and dialects in which the Bible is published was raised to 644 by the addition of German Romany (Gypsy), Australian Worrora, and twelve dialects of Africa, India and New Guinea.

A fat volume, the Annual Report glances about the world, thus: "By general consent 1930 was a gloomy and depressing year in China's political history. . . . The political situation in Colombia has shown no improvement. . . . Burma was affected during the year by a series of local disasters. ..." Lyrically of the Egyptian Agency (Egypt, Arabia, Palestine, etc.) it says: "There Pharaoh oppressed and Candace reigned, where Herod wantoned and Moses died, where Muhammad fled and the Mahdi slew. ..." Against these backgrounds are painted the labors of the Holy Bible salesmen. One entered an Austrian circus, sold Gospels to Japanese, Italian and Arabic performers. Trying unsuccessfully to circulate in the Eucharistic Congress at Carthage last year (TIME, May 19, 1930), one R. H. Robinson sold a New Testament to a traffic policeman. At a cinema performance of Ben Hur at a fair in Mollet, Spain, a colporteur stood by the door crying: "The Holy Gospels! With all the texts that are thrown on the screen in the film!" He sold 300.

"Colporteur Szoke spends most of his time in the restaurants and cafes of Budapest. Let us hasten to add that he does not go there to be fed, but to feed others with the Word of God." In Turkey, Armenian Colporteur Mihran Balian "tells of a Turk who was heard crying out with a loud voice in the midst of a large crowd: 'May this Society live long! What a philanthropic Society! It is not concerned at all with politics and supplies the people with books at cheap rates!'

"A colporteur was reading the parable of the Prodigal Son in a Paris cafe much frequented by North African workmen. A young kabyle became greatly excited. 'It is my life you are reading!' he cried. 'I am the prodigal son.' And he rushed out into the night."

Into Tibet, into the southern part of Morocco, hitherto difficult of access, up the Andes, went colporteurs. Some things they took in exchange for Scriptures: soap, wool, toasted chestnuts, boiled potatoes, fish, bananas. Russia is the only land where the Society is not countenanced. In nearby countries it finds its sales increased. In France, home of many an expatriate, the Society sold 39,261 Bibles in Russian.

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