of the century of missions,
says:

"The closing years of the eighteenth century constitute in the
history of Protestant missions an epoch indeed, since they
witnessed nothing less than a revolution, a renaissance, an
effectual and manifold ending of the old, a substantial
inauguration of the new. It was then that for the first time
since the apostolic period, occurred an outburst of general
missionary zeal and activity. Beginning in Great Britain, it
soon spread to the Continent and across the Atlantic. It was no
mere push of fervor, but a mighty tide set in, which from that
day to this has been steadily rising and spreading."--_"A
Hundred Years of Missions," p. 69._

The time of the prophecy had come, and the hand of providence was
bringing into being agencies that have spread light and knowledge over
all lands.

"Look where the missionary's feet have trod--
Flowers in the desert bloom; and fields, for God,
Are white to harvest. Skeptics may ignore;
Yet on the conquering Word, from shore to shore,
Like flaming chariot, rolls. Ask ocean isles,
And plains of Ind, where ceaseless summer smiles;
Speak to far frozen wastes, where winter's blight
Remains;--they tell the love, attest the might
Of Him whose messengers across the wave
To them salvation bore, hope, freedom gave."

--_Horace D. Woolley._

The organization of foreign missionary enterprise was quickly
accompanied by the establishment of Bible societies for a systematic
work of translating and world-wide distribution of the Scriptures. In
1804 the British and Foreign Bible Society was organized. Students of
the prophetic word felt at the time that these agencies were coming in
fulfilment of the prophecy. One writer of those times said:

"The stupendous endeavors of one gigantic community to convey
the Scriptures in every language to every part of the globe may
well deserve to be considered as an eminent sign even of these
eventful times. Unless I be much mistaken, such endeavors are
preparatory to the final grand diffusion of Christianity, which
is the theme of so many inspired prophets, and which cannot be
very far distant in the present day."--_G.S. Faber, D.D.,
"Dissertation on the Prophecies," Vol. II, p. 406 (1844)._

Now the Word of God, in whole or in part, is speaking in more than five
hundred languages, and i