This other literature consists of hymn books, school books of all kinds and of all grades, from kindergarten material to theological and medical works; picture books for children, Christmas cards, Sunday-school lessons, story books, translations of standard works, and several original works by both native and American authors.
The work of Bible publication has since continued under the patronage of the American Bible Society and the British and Foreign Bible Societies, until the entire Scriptures are now available for all Turkish, Arabic, Syrian, Persian, Armenian, Bulgarian, and Greek speaking peoples, and the
New Testament, the Psalms and other parts are available for Kurds and Albanians. It is bound in cheap form and convenient size and sold at cost. Very few copies are given away.
Although the Armenian claims to be the oldest branch of the Christian church, yet when the American missionaries came, they had only a few manuscript copies of the Bible, kept in monasteries or in the larger churches, carefully guarded by priests who were themselves unable to read the text, while the people were permitted only to kiss the covers which were often of solid silver. To-day, thanks to Dr. Elias Riggs, one of the veteran American missionaries, every Armenian can have his copy of the Scriptures in his own language at a nominal price. It is a significant fact that the editions are disposed of as rapidly as they are turned off the press, and it is asserted by competent authority that this book has done more to unify and simplify the modern Armenian language than all other influences combined.
The same is true of the Bulgarian language. There was no Bulgarian literature until American missionaries began to write it, and the missionary presses began to publish it. Of the first one hundred books in the Bulgarian language seventy were issued by the missionary press at Smyrna and Constantinople.
The Kurds, a powerful and populous element of the Turkish Empire, had no written language and no literature of any kind until the American missionaries created one for them and translated the New Testament into the local dialect written with Armenian characters.
The Albanians had no literature when the Americans came, and it would not be far from the truth to say that they have none now except what the missionaries have given them.
Although every Turk is a Mohammedan and the sultan of Turkey is the recognized head of that faith, the Koran, the Moslem Bible, written by the prophet Mohammed, has never been printed in the Turkish language, but remains exclusively in the Arabic tongue, in which it is written, but the Bible has been printed in Turkish for nearly seventy-five years, and may be read to-day in his own dialect by every one of the many races which constitute the Mohammedan world.
When the Americans first began to issue literature in Arabic the scholars of that race criticised the type, which had been made in Europe and was about as perfect as English type would be if it were made by an Arab. Rev. Eli Smith, who was in charge at that time, realized that half the value of the American publications would be lost unless their typographical appearance met with the approval of the artistic taste of Mohammedan scholars. The type did not exist and it was his duty to create it. He made models of the letters of the alphabet by copying them from choice Arabic manuscripts, and in 1836 he took them to Germany to be cast. The voyage ended in a shipwreck and all his work was lost in the waters of the Mediterranean. Dr. Smith, however, was a patient and persistent man. He began again at the beginning and did it all over with the greatest care and fonts of type were cast in the Tauchnitz establishment at Leipzig under his supervision. After five years of patient labour, the first book was issued from the mission press at Beirut in 1841, and it was not only a model of the "art preservative," but was undoubtedly the most perfect and beautiful specimen of Arabic printing ever seen.
Then the work of printing the Bible was decided upon and Dr. Smith was detailed to superintend it. It was the labour of his life, and no literary task was ever conducted with such conscientious care. As soon as he had completed one of the books it was put into type, and a hundred proofs were struck off and sent to educated Syrians and Arabs and British, American and German scholars, whose criticisms were carefully considered, and, after twenty-eight years of hard work by Dr. Smith and his successor. Dr. Van Dyck, the American press at Beirut issued a translation which has received the approval of all the real Arabic scholars of the day.