THERE are two verses which are not out of place when talking about the present position in regard to the Word of God in South India. One verse is taken from I. Samuel iii. 1. “The word of the Lord was rare in those days.” The other verse is in Amos viii. 11. “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.” The War brought many and grievous trials to India; amongst those trials there was a famine of bread; it was so severe in Bengal as to cause the deaths of a vast number of people. Perhaps many of you do not know that there is also in some parts of India, particularly in South India, a famine of the Word of God; and that famine still persists. There are numbers of reasons for it. First of all, there was the exceedingly great demand for the Scriptures in the years immediately prior to the War. We are grateful that that was so. There was a very great demand for the cheaper editions of the Scriptures. And that is partly responsible for the present famine. After the War came there was a very severe rationing of paper; and that also made our difficulties much greater. The Word of God, in the Tamil country, has never been very cheap. I have been there for ten years, and during that time the Bible has never been obtainable at a price less than 1/10. That may
*From a speech by Mr. W. H. Kuhurt, S. India, delivered at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Bible Spreading Union.
not seem very much to you; but 1/10 represents two days’ pay of the average pre-War teacher; and it represents about a week’s pay of the average farm labourer. For some time now these cheaper editions of the Bible, such as the poor people of South India can hope to buy, have been completely unobtainable. And it has been a very sad thing for me and for others to have been compelled to turn away people who have come asking for a copy of the Bible. We have had to show them empty shelves. We have still the dearer editions, and we try to distribute these as far as possible; and where there are those who are unable to pay the full cost, we allow them to pay part of the price, or, through the instrumentality of a Union such as yours, we are able to give them away.
In 1943 they (Mr. Thrower and an Indian friend) were able to print and to publish the first part of the Concordance to the Tamil Bible, the only Concordance in the Tamil language that exists, with its 4,000 index words, and 7,000 references. A thousand copies were printed less than two years ago. Those responsible for the publishing of this Concordance were of opinion that it would take twenty years to sell; but the whole edition was sold in less than two years! The phenomenal success of this Concordance, and the great demand for the Tamil Bible, has proved beyond all doubt that there is in South India an earnest desire for the Scriptures, and for books that will help to explain the meaning of the Scriptures. I think it is an excellent policy to give away the Word of God.