INVESTED FUNDS.

The Society holds in trust invested funds, only the income of which is at the disposal of the Board of Managers, for general benevolent purposes. On the 31st of March, 1893, the aggregate amount of these funds was $388,961 56. The income from these permanent funds for the past year was $16,973 06.

The Society also holds in trust a fund known as the Jonathan Burr Fund, amounting to $31,576 14, the income of which can be used only to supply the Scriptures in raised letter for the Blind. This income for the past year amounted to $1,733 20.

The income of the Fitch Shepard Bible Fund, amounting to $1,947 49, has, in obedience to the terms of the gift, been added to the principal, making the par value on the 31st of March, 1893, $62,820 42. Not until this Fund reaches the amount of $100,000 will the income be at the disposal of the Managers for the benevolent purposes of the Society.

Certain other funds, which represent the unexpended remainders of some large legacies, have been invested for some years, and are still available for the benevolent work of the Society. These funds amount, at par, to $107,398 72.

THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

The authorities of the Columbian Exposition have granted to the American Bible Society space for an exhibit in the gallery of the Building of Manufactures and Liberal Arts. Suitable cases have been erected and filled with copies of the Holy Scriptures in various languages and dialects, that the multitudes who visit the Exposition may gain an impressive object-lesson concerning the vast extent of the Society's operations.

Many thousands of copies of the Gospels in different languages, and an attractive pamphlet containing a brief account of the Society's history and work for seventyseven years, with specimens of 242 of the languages and

dialects into which the Holy Scriptures have been translated, have been printed for gratuitous distribution.

Special souvenir editions of Bibles and Testaments have also been prepared, for which orders will be received. An earnest appeal is made to the friends of the Society for liberal contributions, to defray the expenditures demanded by this special effort in connection with the Columbian Exposition.

THE LIBRARY.

Valuable accessions have been made to the Society's Library, chiefly by gift, consisting mainly of editions of the Scriptures in foreign languages. Among them are some interesting volumes presented by the Netherlands Bible Society, and a full set of recent publications from the Levant Agency.

A portrait of the late Isaac Ferris, D.D., LL.D. (painted by T. Schlegel in 1856), has been presented to the Society by his children, in accordance with the wishes of their father. Dr. Ferris died in 1873, having at the time of his decease been Chairman of the Committee on Distribution for twenty-six years. His long connection with the Society, and the eminent services which he rendered to it in various ways, make it peculiarly appropriate that his stately form and beautiful face should be represented among the portraits of other distinguished men who in former years have been conspicuous in the administration of the Society's affairs. The artist has represented him as standing, in clerical robes, with a book of devotion in his hand and an open Bible on the desk by his side.

TRANSLATIONS AND REVISIONS.

On the 28th of February, the Rev. H. B. Pratt completed the translation of the Bible into Spanish, upon which he had been engaged continuously for nearly seven years. The work has occupied a longer time than was at first expected, but has been done with great painstaking and assiduity, and amid bodily infirmities which did not

quench at all the translator's zeal. The Spanish version now in common use was made by Cassiodoro de Reina in 1569, and modified somewhat in 1602 by Cipriano de Valera, whose name it generally bears. It thus antedates the Authorized English Version by forty-two years, but, being prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church and printed only at long intervals, it has never exerted such an influence upon Spanish literature as was done by the version which has been read by so many generations of Englishspeaking people. In the course of fifty years from the publication of King James's Version no less than 261 editions of the English Bible or New Testament appeared, and as many more during the next half century. On the other hand, while Valera's New Testament was reprinted in Amsterdam in 1625, and again in 1708, there does not appear to have been any second edition of the entire Bible until it was taken up by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1861. The following year a revision of Valera by Dr. Lorenzo Lucena, of Oxford, was published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

Later Spanish translations from the Vulgate have been made by Scio and Amat; but Mr. Pratt is entitled to the credit of having translated the entire Old Testament from the original Hebrew, and the New Testament from the Greek, aiming to reproduce with the utmost fidelity the meaning of the inspired text, in a style so simple that the uneducated may understand it, and so correct that the most fastidious critic will have no reasonable ground for faultfinding. In determining the meaning of the Hebrew text, he has been aided by the advice of the Rev. Randall C. Hall, D.D., of the General Theological Seminary in New York; and in perfecting the version during his residence in Mexico he had the counsel and co-operation of a large committee of revision. In still greater degree he has had invaluable assistance from the Rev. Henry C. Thomson, D.D., of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Tlalpam, Mexico, and the Rev. J. M. Lopez-Guillen, of New York.

After completing the revision of Mr. Ramsay's Muskokee version of Genesis, and correcting the proofs, Mrs. Robertson turned her attention to the Book of Psalms, and has made some progress in translating it for the benefit of the Creeks and Seminoles.

A translation of the Books of Genesis and Exodus in the Ruk language, made by the Rev. R. W. Logan and revised after his death by Mrs. Logan, has been accepted and printed by request of the American Board. It is understood that the inhabitants of Ruk, in Micronesia, for whom this volume is designed, have access to the New Testament in the language of the Marshall Islands, which is very similar to their own.

Large portions of the Scriptures in the Mpongwe language have been printed for Western Africa during the past thirty years, but the New Testament has not hitherto been issued in a single volume. The Rev. A. C. Good, Ph. D., of the Gaboon and Corisco Mission of the Presbyterian Board, has now forwarded the manuscript of a revised edition of the New Testament, in which important changes have been made in orthography as well as in the words, and the work has been put to press, the Rev. Robert H. Nassau, M.D., having remained in this country that he might read the proofs. The missionaries of the Société Evangelique of Paris, as well as those of the Presbyterian Board, will welcome this new edition of a book which lies at the foundation of their work among numerous tribes in the Logowe Valley.

Progress is reported in the translation of some of the Gospels into the Fang language, which is spoken by perhaps three millions of people not far distant from the coast, and back of the Ogove, Gaboon, Benita, and Campo Rivers.

The Rev. Mr. Bingham has spent ten months of the past year carefully reading the proofs of the Bible in the Gilbert Islands tongue, which he had the satisfaction of seeing completed at the Bible House on the 11th of April. It is a reason for devout thanksgiving that notwithstanding the

severities of the winter, such as he had not known for years, he has been able to pursue his work without interruption, and to carry to its consummation an undertaking which he began thirty-four years ago.

The difficulties attending the printing of the Modern Syriac Bible have detained Dr. Labaree in this country another year, but as the printing is now advanced as far as Hebrews it is hoped that the Bible will be completed at an early day.

In Constantinople, the committee having in charge the preparation of the text of the Ancient Armenian Bible have carried their work to the end of Jeremiah. The Gospels of Mark, Luke, and John have been translated into Koordish, and the Gospel of Matthew, which was printed in the Armenian character, has been so favorably received that an edition is likely to be called for in the Arabic letter for Koords resident in Syria.

In Bangkok, Mr. Carrington, besides carefully revising such portions of the Siamese Scriptures as were passing through the press, has himself translated the Song of Solomon from the Hebrew into Siamese; and among the Laos some progress is reported in translation, Mr. Wilson's version of the Psalms being nearly ready for the press, and Mrs. McGilvary and her son having other portions in hand.

A call comes from Korea for a new edition of Rijutei's version of Mark, originally prepared for this Society, with some changes which are approved by the translation committee in Seoul. Mr. Gale and Mr. Appenzeller have the translation of other portions in hand, but some time must elapse before any work of American missionaries will be ready for circulation.

In preparing plates for a new edition of the Zulu Bible, many typographical corrections have been made, but, as a union committee in South Africa has undertaken a general revision of the version as originally prepared by the missionaries of the American Board, it was thought best not to anticipate the changes which they may eventually propose.