Get Me That Book

Let me tell you a story. I was a Christian man, living in India, a surveyor in the employ of the Government, and was sent to survey the desert of Rajputana in the Northwest. I entered the desert with the necessary accoutrements. When night came on I would send a message to the little oasis (it is amazing what a number of Hindus can live on a little piece of green ground, supported on less than two cents a day); my servants would go and say, "Our master will be here and after the evening meal he wants to see you."

They knew I was an official of the Government, and perhaps there was a suspicion that I had a Government message.

When the time came I stepped out of the tent, and there were the people. There was the great silvery moon, dropping such light as is seen nowhere else than in the tropics. There was the moon, and there were the people, all men. I stood and looked out on that company and was strangely moved. I was six weeks out in the desert, 180 miles away from any town in any direction. I suppose my thought was absolutely true that those who were listening to me had probably never once heard the name of Jesus Christ. Let me say that there is a certain high tension of spirit, a certain sense of tremendous responsibility, accompanied with a certain profound gladness, when you feel that those who are listening are absolutely hungry, famine-stricken without the Word of God.

I talked to those men that night, I spoke their language. At the close of the earnest and perhaps somewhat long address - who could help it? - this happened:

An old man came forward. He was the son of a king, his long beard flowing down to his waist. He came up to me, leaning on his staff. The young men courteously made way for him. He stood there looking at me, his strong face alert in the bright moonlight. He said:
"You are a young man, and yet the things you have been talking about-how do you know these things? How do you know them?"

I answered, "Father, I have not known these things because of my own personal righteousness or wisdom. But these questions which have troubled your heart and all human hearts-our Great Father has written down the answers in a Book, given to men of olden time who straggled with these questions. And the answers to these questions were written in a Book."
"Do you mean there is a book with all these things you have been telling us about - about a love that is good and all the rest of it?"
Then I said, "There is a Book. It is God's Book, and the answers are in it."
"Young man," said he, "is that book in my language? You speak my language. Did you read it in my tongue?"
"Yes, I have the Book."

I wish you could have seen that old man. He straightened up and pointed his long finger at me (I shall never forget it) as he said:

"Get me that book!"

I ran back to my tent and brought back two copies of the Bible in their language. Forty brown hands were stretched out for them as I returned. I put one into his hand, and when I told him that the answers to the questions were in that Book, the old man looked up and said, "Sir, how long has this book been in the world?"
"It has been here for hundreds of years; for hundreds of years."
"Did your people have it?"
"Yes."
"And I am an old man. All my friends have died hopeless. I am nearly gone myself. And all this time the book was here and nobody brought it to me. Why didn't someone bring us the book long ago?"

The question of the old man rings in my ears constantly, and I pass this question on to you. Why has not that Book been put into every language in the world? Nineteen centuries after Christ came, and two-thirds of the human family still says, "Why have you not brought us the Book?"

Dear Friend, do you have a Bible? If not, please find one. Read it carefully and prayerfully. It contains God's plan to save every soul from sin and everlasting punishment. You will find in it the answer to your problems and a dependable guide for your daily life. Love and obey its sacred precepts. Accept it as your unerring authority. What a privilege to hold in your hands and to possess in your heart- The Word of an Almighty God!

Gospel Tract & Bible Society

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