1964 Awake! - Theocratic Collector.com

A
By "Awake!" correspondent in Korea
COLD storm swept south across the
Yalu River pouring sheets of rain
onto the village of EuiJ u in North Pyung
An Province, Korea. The rice paddies, filled
to overflowing, spilled over the fields into
the roads, tmning them into a sea of yellow
mud. An angry merchant, unable to
conduct his business, fled to the refuge of
a tavern, where he was living during his
stay in the village. He muttered his disgust
for the foul weather. Business was
bad; now the unpleasant prospect of a dull,
boring day alone in his room. After shedding
his wet outer garments, he lay on the
hard clay floor contemplating his tiny cell
and its walls pasted over with insulating
wastepaper.
The wastepaper was the standard size for
official documents and, on first glance, was
no different from the flood of documents
that were pasted on the walls of buildings
all over Korea. However, upon a closer examination
of the Chinese characters, the
words on these pieces of wastepaper were
different and infinitely more interesting.
Words like, "Happy are you poor, because
yours is the kingdom of God. Happy are
you who hunger now, because you will be
filled."
According to legend, this is how God's
Word, the Bible, was read in Korea for the
first time---pages of the Gospel of Luke
pasted to a tavern wall. Pure legend though
it is, it is nevertheless based on some fact.
APRIL 8, 1964
In the latter part of the nineteenth century,
a missionary named John Ross became
interested in Korea. While his work
was primarily confined to China, he decided
to attempt a translation of the Bible
into Korean. He posted a servant at the
Korean Gate in Manchuria to find him a
Korean that could help him translate. In
due course such a man was found, but he
had to work in secrecy, even from his
family; the penalty for assisting a foreigner
in such work was death. Luke was chosen
as the first book, and work was started
in 1874. When Luke was finished, it was
distributed among Korean refugees in the
Yalu Valley. However, this first portion of
the Korean Bible met its first great barrier;
it was forbidden entry into the
country.
Korea proudly traces its history back
centmies before the Christian era. According
to legend, Korea's founder, Tangun,
gave his country the traditional name Chosen,
which means "Morning Calm." Known
as the Hermit Kingdom, it resisted all foreign
influence with a passion and forbade
any contact with the outer world except
China until 1876, then added only Japan.
It pointed proudly to its own culture, a culture
that produced movable type before
Gutenberg; telescopes and observatories
dating back to ancient times, and ironclad
vessels long before the Monitor and Merrimac
of American Civil War fame. In 1871
the United States proposed a treaty with
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