Do we realize the extraordinary dynamic of the printed page? Dr. Goodell, of the American Board of Missions, passing through Nicodemia in 1832, having no time to stop, left with a stranger a copy of The Dairyman’s Daughter in the Armenian-Turkish language. Seventeen years afterwards he visited Nicodemia, and found a church of more than forty members, and a Protestant community of more than two hundred. Dr. Griffith John tells of eight churches in China reared by tracts alone.

The Life is not in the sower, but in the seed. Even if an infidel scattered the Scriptures, he would only be exploding his own battlements.

For in scattering divine literature we liberate thistledown, laden with precious seed, which, blown by the winds of the Spirit, floats over the world. The printed page never flinches, never shows cowardice; it is never tempted to compromise; it never tires, never grows disheartened; it travels cheaply, and requires no hired hall; it works while we sleep; it never loses its temper; and it works long after we are dead. The printed page is a visitor which gets inside the home, and stays there; it always catches a man in the right mood, for it speaks to him only when he is reading it; it always sticks to what it has said, and never answers back; and it is bait left permanently in the pool.

D. M. Panson