A Bible-House Builder in the Levant: Isaac G. Bliss

Preaching and teaching and Bible distribution have always been prominent departments of foreign missionary work in any needy land. Bible translating and Bible making have been more dependent on and more promoted by faithful and devoted foreign missionaries than by any and all workers in Christian and civilized lands. Hence any memories of missionaries necessarily include the workers in Bible making. At the present time, and so for a generation past, perhaps the finest and most imposing business building in Constantinople, even in comparison with all the stately and noble structures of the metropolis of the Turkish Empire, is the Bible House that was built through the loving labors of an American missionary aided by the contributions of American and native Christians. And thus at that Christian and missionary centre in the Levant,

“Day unto day uttereth speech, And night unto night showeth knowledge.... Their line is gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world.”

The founding of that building and the work of the devoted man who put his life into it are among my precious memories of a third of a century ago.

In 1847 Isaac G. Bliss, of Springfield, Massachusetts, went out as a missionary of the American Board to Erzroom in Eastern Turkey, and he was one of the first in opening up the valley of the Euphrates to missionary influence. Hard and tireless work in his field broke down his health, and in 1852 he was compelled to return to America. After his resignation as a missionary of the American Board he was invited to go to Constantinople as the representative of the American Bible Society in the Levant. Thinking that this would be less confining and ’ more varied than the work that had broken him down, he accepted the position and entered with enthusiasm on his new mission. The work was not yet organized er systematized, and he set himself to the bringing of order out of confusion. His field included Greece, Egjrpt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia. He sought to become familiar with all the missionaries in all his field and thus to co-work with and aid them.

Dr. Bhss was a charming letter-writer, and he had the quick perception and warm sympathy that enabled him to say just what should be said to each person to whom he wrote or spoke. This gave him power with all in his great field. As Constantinople was the port at which all the missionaries landed before going to any station in his field, and as the annual meetings of those missionaries were for many years held there, and as he kept ever open house for them all, his personal influence with them was very great. Moreover, he was ever a missionary worker with them as well as a Bible distributor, and his power for good was felt in all the Turkish Empire. But the cramped and unhealthy official quarters that he had were insufficient for his extensive work, and he conceived the idea of having a Bible House in Constantinople corresponding to that in New York, and to the securing of that he set himself. The American Bible Society said that he might have such a building if he would raise the money for it. Therefore in 1866 he came to the United States to plead with Christians for the necessary funds.

It was then that I became acquainted with Dr. Bliss. He had rare power in making known the need and importance of the building for which he pleaded, and in portraying the characteristics of the people to whom he ministered. A brother of his was in the subscription publishing business in Hartford, Connecticut, and when Dr. Bliss came there the brother was present at the church when he told his story. With an eye to his own business, he said, after leaving the church, “My! isn’t that a great story? Wouldn’t that read well in a book? If Isaac would write a book in that style, it would have a great sale. I wish he’d try it.” But “Isaac” had a book already written — the Book of books — that he wanted circulated, and he sought help for that.

A Hartford pastor called with Dr. Bliss on one of his rich parishioners to see if he would have a share in the new Bible House at Constantinople. As they talked in the rich man’s elegantly furnished parlor, the rich man said positively:

“I can’t give to this thing. I have too many calls in every direction. This cause doesn’t appeal to me.”

Dr. Bliss looked up admiringly at the rich paintings on the wall, and said quietly, pointing to one of them,

“That is a beautiful picture. I wish some of my people could see it. There was a poor woman in my field. She had been brought to Christ by the missionaries, and she wanted to have the knowledge of Christ extended to others. Her home was a little hut or hovel with the bare ground for a floor. She had no bed or furniture or furnishing of any sort. Her only cooking or table utensil was a brass dish or basin in which she cooked, and from which she ate and drank. She heard I was trying to get money to build a Bible House, and she longed to have a share in the undertaking. But that brass dish was her only worldly possession. So she scoured that up clean and bright, and brought it to me, asking if the price wouldn’t help me, as it was all she had. I took it and thanked her. I sold the dish for a trifle, and the proceeds are part of my building fund. I think a blessing came with it. And that’s the sort of helpers that I have in my field.”

The rich man listened arid looked. The tears stood in his eyes as the story struck home. He fumbled in his pocket, took out his pocketbook, and, taking a roll of bank notes he handed them to Dr. Bliss, saying, “There are a hundred dollars I want to give you. I wish it was more.” That donation went into the building fund, but whether it is set down to the credit of the rich Christian in Hartford or to the credit of the poor Christian in Constantinople, the Lord knows.

Dr. Bliss spent his strength and his life in this way. In 1872 the new Bible House was finished. Dr. Bliss just before this came again to the United States and secured the transfer of the printing and making of Bibles for the East from New York to Beyroot, for which great multitudes will ever praise him. He died in the mission field and was buried in 1889 at Assiout, in Upper Egypt, at an outpost of his immediate field of labor, from which point he had been desirous of pushing on his Bible work into the heart of Darkest Africa. But the Constantinople Bible House stands as a monument to good Dr. Bliss, while its glad rays stream out as a light to the Gentiles, in the land of the crescent and of the shadow of death.