The Great Controversy - Ellen G. White | Page 488

Page 283. Retribution.--For further details concerning the retributive character of the French Revolution see Thos. H. Gill, The Papal Drama, b. 10; Edmond de Pressense, The Church and the French Revolution, b. 3, ch. 1.
Page 284. The Atrocities of the Reign of Terror.--See M. A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution, vol. 3, pp. 42-44, 62-74, 106( New York, 1890, translated by F. Shoberl); F. A. Mignet, History of the French Revolution, ch. 9, par. 1( Bohn, 1894); A. Alison, History of Europe, 17891815, 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, p. 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 December, 1955, in 1,092 languages; and new languages are constantly being added.
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 mission 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
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