The American Antiquarian Society, which was the object of so much interest to Dr. Thomas, has become one of the strongest institutions of the land. It has a new building with a library of ninety thousand volumes. It contains the noted Mather collection, and other Americana.

The Society has a full set of the Thomas publications elegantly bound, and containing the library plate of the eminent editor and publisher. Harvard University has a copy of the folio Bible, which was presented by the printer. It contains in front a printed slip in an ornamented border, reading, "This Book, being one of the First edition of the Folio Bible printed in America, is the gift of the printer, Isaiah Thomas, to Harvard College."

The Thomas Bibles are not rare, and copies are found in nearly all of our older libraries.

THE COLLINS BIBLE.

THE first Bible printed in the State of New Jersey came from the press of Isaac Collins at Trenton. He was born in New Castle County, Del., in 1746. He learned the printing trade, part of the time with James Adams of Wilmington, Del., and completed it at Williamsburg, Va. When he was of age he went to Philadelphia and worked with several firms, and was regarded as an expert and superior workman. He removed to Burlington, N. J., in 1770, when his business ability secured him the position of public printer. In 1777 he became editor of a weekly paper known as The New Jersey Gazette. It was said of him that "he carefully avoided publishing anything which tended to injure the religious, civil,

or political interests of his fellow-citizens." Later he removed his business to Trenton, where in 1788 he published an edition of the New Testament. He issued in 1789 proposals for publishing a quarto Bible "with the Apocrypha and marginal notes." The book was to be "in one large volume of nine hundred and eighty-four pages." The price named to subscribers was "four Spanish dollars." As one of the inducements, it was stated that "Downame's Concordance, which is annexed to Eyre and Strahan's London quarto edition of 1772, will be added, without further expense to the subscribers."

Mr. Collins presented his proposals to the various bodies of Christians, and solicited their encouragement and support. The first to take action were the Friends. The minutes of a meeting held in Philadelphia in 1789 show that the proposed Bible was indorsed in these words:

"This undertaking being a matter of very interesting concernment, and such an edition as therein proposed ap

pearing likely to be useful and much wanted, on a deliberate and weighty attention to these considerations, it is the united sense of the meeting, that it be recommended to the quarterly and monthly meetings of Friends to encourage the work, by appointing committees to procure subscriptions agreeably to the tenor of said proposals, and forwarding to this meeting lists of the subscriptions obtained as early as may be, in order that a suitable appointment may be made for the assistance of the printer in attending to the correctness of the work."

Mr. Collins was a member of the Society of Friends. "He received," says Thomas, "much assistance from the Quakers in printing the Bible, particularly from those in Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New York."

At a meeting of the Presbyterian General Assembly, held in Philadelphia, May 25, 1789, a resolution was passed "that a person or persons be appointed in every congregation, vacant or supplied, to procure subscriptions" for Collins's Bible. Rev. John Witherspoon, D.D., and two others were appointed to help "revise and correct the proof-sheets." It was also recommended that "Ostervald's Notes" be added to the Bible.

At a meeting of the Baptist Association, held in the same year and city, the proposals were indorsed, but with a condition. The members of the committee appointed to assist in correcting the proof-sheets were "ordered to use their influence to prevent the Apocrypha or any notes of any kind being printed and included in said edition, as having a dangerous tendency to corrupt the simplicity and truth of the sacred Scriptures, by being thus intimately associated with them."

At the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in May, 1789, held at Philadelphia, it was resolved "that the members of this Convention will assist Mr. Collins in the procuring of subscriptions."

The work having received the requisite support, the Bible was issued from the Collins press in Trenton in the year 1791. The edition consisted of five thousand copies.

The title-page reads