AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY REPORT, 1912

ALL

LL Societies and Institutions receiving this Annual Report are respectfully requested to acknowledge the same by forwarding to the Secretaries of the American Bible Society, Bible House, Astor Place, New York, a copy of each of their reports or similar publications.

The dominant note of the report of the Bible Society this year is the increased demand for the Scriptures. The total of issues is 459,479 volumes more than the total of issues in the ninety-fifth year of the Society. This is an increase of fourteen per cent. It is also notable that this total is almost twice the total of issues reported in 1906.

It may be interesting to note how an increased demand affects the various centers of distribution. Orders for books are hardly noticeably larger as they arrive at the great depots of supply; but these orders diminish the stock on hand. The printing establishments, always at work keeping up the stock, now feel the pressure of unusual demands. Paper mills have to be asked to speed up their rate of production; printing presses have to be driven more rapidly; binderies have to employ more men and women; shipping offices are called upon to find means of rushing shipments; railroads, steamships, and caravans receive the impulse to hasten; and colporteurs, in their daily drudgery of toil among the people scattered over a thousand hills and valleys, are thus barely kept supplied with the Book which they love to carry.

One fact concerning this increase of issues will be a surprise to many of our supporters. One third, at least, of all the issues of the Society were in English. The English Scriptures issued in 1911 from the Bible House in New York, amounted to 1,274,787 volumes. The special point to which we now would call attention is that this amounts to an increase of twenty-four per cent over the English Scriptures issued in 1910.

The part of the work of the Bible Society done in the quiet of the study of the translator is a work of slow but sure preparation of the way of the Lord, for this work by its very nature looks to the action of God's Word upon souls which have not yet felt the power of its appeal. During the year translators in many lands such as China, Siam, Brazil, South Africa, the Philippines, Turkey, Japan, Mexico, and Bolivia, have been revising former versions or carrying to completion newer translations of the Scriptures. And a joint Committee of the British and Foreign and the American Bible Societies has been formed at Cadiz, Spain, to make a revision of the Spanish version.

Every translator prayerfully throws his mature scholarship and ripe Christian experience into his work as if he were interpreting the Word of God to a single man of alien speech, but by the blessing of God his labor in the hands of the Bible Society, with its printing presses and its agents of distribution, reaches multitudes who through study of the Bible may turn to God with yearning hearts.

The Bible Society has no noisy activities, but at the same time it has no spare moments. At the rate of twenty volumes of Scripture for every minute in every working hour, the American Bible Society issued its books throughout the year 1911. After the books are printed, they must go out promptly. Idling on the part of these who distribute would accumulate in a single day a fruitless pile of 12,000 volumes. Such an accumulation may not be allowed. The books must be carried into the highways and hedges, to nomads in strange lands, to marketplaces under alien skies; to the slums of the cities; to the homes of the poor; to lonely and half-forgotten farm houses; to mountain villages far from railroad or river; to mines; to lumber camps; to diggers and ditchers in the wilderness; to prisons, asylums, and hospitals; to sailors on their ships and soldiers in their barracks or their camps; to churches, Sunday schools, and missions.

Attention ought to be called to the fact that the budget prepared for the ninety-seventh year of the Society calls for $814,000. Our friends and supporters may question within themselves where the money goes which they contribute for the work of the American Bible Society. If our friends will turn over to the article entitled, "Appropriations and Estimates for 1912," at the beginning of the Treasurer's report in this volume, they will find in detail an answer to the question, Where does the money go? They will also find that this great sum is quite inadequate to meet the demands coming from all parts of the United States and from the four corners of the world. We would be glad if our friends would meditate as anxiously as those have to do who are charged with distributing Scriptures in connection with the Society, over the question, Where can all this money come from? About one third of it may be reckoned as coming from the sale of books. About one sixth of it may be reckoned upon from interest upon the endowment and other invested funds. Perhaps $100,000 may come from unrestricted legacies-but receipts from legacies may not be counted upon. At least $300,000 must be provided by contributions from churches and from individuals. A work so simple and so necessary to every church work as that of the American Bible Society ought to command a willing contribution from every church of every denomination.

AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY

NINETY-SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT

OF THE

BOARD OF MANAGERS

TANDING on the threshold of the ninetyseventh year of the American Bible Society's work, we can look back with pleasure not unmingled with wonder at the experiences of another year. It is no new thing to have the importance of the work of the Society every year more fully realized, for the fruits of Bible distribution both at home and abroad become more tangible the longer the work continues. The wonder of this work is in its continual expansion, or at least in the inviting opportunities for expansion, together with the absence of any hindrances like the governmental opposition which in some countries has barred our way in past years. The only serious hindrance to seizing these opportunities arises in the United States-that is to say, they spring entirely from the problems connected with the financial support of the Society. Even these hindrances should not be looked at as permanent, for the churches of the United States are yearly more fully understanding how fundamental to all evangelistic work is the undertaking committed to the American Bible Society.

Our Home Agencies are increasing in efficiency from year to year. With such growth of population as is seen in our country, it is needless to point out that entreaties for larger sums to be used in meeting desperate needs in the United States are constantly brought to our ears.

Abroad we hardly know how to reject appeals for enlargement of the work of the Society. The new enthusiasm for missions in the American churches has so stimulated American missions in Asia and Africa as to demand from the Society greater efforts if it is to be, as heretofore, the

pioneer in these mission fields. Eager calls come from the West Indies; from the La Plata, for the establishment of a new Agency on the Pacific coast of South America, where the work is now administered from Buenos Ayres; and from the Canal Zone for some form of regular supply of Scriptures to meet the requirements after the Canal is open to traffic. In this latest addition to the territories of the United States we have to consider the permanent corps of workmen, the greatly increased commercial population, and the thousands of sailors of all nations who will be passing continually through the Canal.

From a further paragraph in this report it will be seen that the increase in issues during the ninety-sixth year is 459,479 volumes over the total issues of the ninety-fifth year. It is a notable circumstance that the total issues of 1911 are almost twice the issues reported in 1906.

We have been providentially prepared to meet the demand which such increase of issues implies. During the last five years large legacies and gifts have enabled the Society to do more than ever before. It is necessary to remember, however, that the heavy expenditures implied by the larger extension must quickly use up the available funds, that is to say, those not specially dedicated to purposes of endowment. The budget for which the Board of Managers has this year undertaken to provide amounts to nearly $815,000. This necessarily implies that urgency must be used in presenting the Bible cause to the American churches of all denominations. The missionaries at least, sent out by these churches, know that they cannot dispense with the aid rendered by the Bible Society.

NEW PRESIDENT

It was with profound sorrow that we recorded the death of the venerable and beloved President of the Society, Theophilus Anthony Brouwer, on the 15th of June, 1911. He had been connected with the Society for more than a generation, first as a member of the Board of Managers, then as Vice-President, and more recently as President. His name was a synonym for Christian devotion to every good cause, and his death a loss to the Society not easily to be measured.

Mr. James Wood, since 1896 a member of the Board of Managers, and for the last eight years a Vice-President of the Society, was elected President of the American Bible Society on the 2d of November, 1911. Mr. Wood is well 'known on both sides of the ocean as Chairman of the Five Years' Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in America, as deeply interested in the work of reformatories and improvement of the management of prisons, and as active in the government of several institutions of higher education, the most recent of which to avail itself of his services being the new University at Cheng-tu, China, of which Mr. Wood is a member of the Board of Governors. Under the leadership of the new President the Society goes on hopefully to its centennial.

TRANSLATION AND REVISION

In the Philippines the Ibanag New Testament has been completed. This makes an additional language, or dialect, which has been brought under subjection to the Gospel. We have co-operated with the British and Foreign Bible Society in a revision of the Tagalog New Testament, which is eagerly awaited by the Philippine people.

The Society has joined with the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society in bringing out the Old Testament in Panayan-the translation of the Rev. Dr. Lund, of the Baptist Mission in the Philippines.

The Pentateuch in Pampangan and Cebuan is also completed and ready for the printer.

The Book of Acts has been brought out, in addition to Mark, Luke, and John, as the beginning of the Kurdish New Testament.

The Union Revision Committee in Japan, representing equally the British and Foreign Bible Society and the American Bible Society, has made progress with its work.

Revision work is also being carried forward by similar Union Committees in the Wenli and Mandarin in China, and in the Old Testament in Portuguese in Brazil.

The revision of the Scriptures in Siamese has made progress, as also the revision of the Zulu version in Africa.