The receipts from legacies during the closing months of the year were so encouraging that the District Superintendents were requested to look out suitable men whom they could recommend as colporteurs.

It is hoped that before many months a corps of efficient men will be found and commissioned, and that the gifts of the living will enable the Managers to continue without interruption this important service, so much needed in some parts of the land.

The few colporteurs employed during the year visited 10,100 families, found 3,533 of them destitute, and supplied 1,334 of them, besides 233 individuals.

Although three years have passed since this special work was inaugurated, the expectations of the Society have not been realized. The work has been everywhere commended and its importance acknowledged, but practical efforts have not been put forth to make effective the good resolutions which have been adopted by Sunday school conventions and ecclesiastical bodies. It is encouraging, however, to be able to mark from year to year an increase of interest as well as an increase of effort in this direction.

During the year nearly 10,000 Bibles have been called for by the District Superintendents for the Sunday school children in the more needy parts of their fields, and the call has met with an immediate response. Many of the auxiliaries have also engaged heartily in this work, although most of them have failed to report the number of children who have been supplied. Generous grants have been made to societies which are laboring chiefly among

the young-such as the Sunday School Department of the

Presbyterian Board of Publication, the American Sunday School Union, and the Sunday School Union of the African Methodist Episcopal Church-which, added to the grants made to our own District Superintendents, aggregate over 37,000 copies.

The proportion of Bibles specially adapted to Sunday school use, which have been issued during the year, is also a gratifying indication that the Bible is beginning to resume its proper place in many of the Sunday schools from which it was before almost entirely excluded. Much, however, remains to be accomplished in this direction before each of the 8,000,000 children gathered into the Sunday schools has a Bible of its own. We hope that the present year will be characterized by a still greater distribution among the rising generation.

GRANTS FOR OTHER PURPOSES.

Where there are no auxiliaries, the Board has made liberal grants to pastors, missionaries, and others for distribution. By these grants, the details of which are given in other paragraphs, Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Indian Territory, New Mexico, and Oklahoma have been reached.

SUPPLY OF IMMIGRANTS.

For many years, through the New York Bible Society, the Board has aimed to reach the immigrants as they came to this country to establish new homes, and, before they left for the different States and Territories, has supplied them with the Scriptures in their mother tongue. During the last year, through this agency, 60,100 copies of the word of God were distributed in nineteen different languages. Thus, those added to our population have been put in possession of that book which is the foundation of national prosperity, that they might learn their duties as future citizens of this great Republic.

The Board of Managers of the American Bible Society have thus availed themselves of these varied agencies for meeting the wants of the home field. The work of the Society is only limited by the means intrusted to it.

DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENTS.

The following list gives the fields, year of appointment, and post-office addresses of the District Superintendents:

GENERAL VIEW OF THE WORK IN THE UNITED STATES. ALABAMA AND FLORIDA.-At the close of his seventh year in the service of the Society, Rev. Z. A. Parker, D.D., of Birmingham, Ala., reports as follows:

We have come to the close of another year's labor for the American Bible Society, during which I have travelled nearly eighteen thousand miles and spent over two hundred days from home.

The past year a large part of my field suffered from floods, which almost entirely destroyed the crops for 1892. In nearly the whole of my district the crops were cut off about fifty per cent. This, in addition to low prices for produce and the general depression that is upon the country, has proved a serious obstacle to our work; but at the close of the year we find much to encourage us. The auxiliaries, all things considered, are more interested in distributing the word of life than at any time during my connection with the Society. Some of them are taking more interest in collecting than before. In addition to this the Sunday school supply is growing greatly in favor with the churches. A thorough supply of the Sunday schools of the country will very largely supply our entire population. I am sure that in my field this interest is growing into the plans of the various churches co-operating with the American Bible Society.

I enter upon the work of the new year with a hopeful view of the great missionary and benevolent work of the Society.

Books sent to Alabama, 8,991; of these, 3,055 were grants. Books sent to Florida, 2,268; of these, 153 were grants.

ALASKA.—While only seventy-four copies of the Scriptures were sent to this Territory directly from the Bible House, a grant of $100 in books was made by the American Bible Society to the Alaska Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and forwarded from San Francisco.

So few of the natives can read, that Bible distribution among them has chiefly to be confined to the children who have been gathered into the mission schools.

ARIZONA. It is mainly through pastors and missionaries that the work has been carried on in this Territory.

In response to their applications, 343 books were sent to them as grants and 7 on purchase account, making a total of 350 copies.

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ARKANSAS.-Rev. E. M. Pipkin, of Little Rock, reports as follows:

The second year of my connection with the work of the American Bible Society in the State of Arkansas has just closed. The year has been full of work, and, considering the general financial depression over the entire State, we believe the results indicate a fair degree of

success.

I have visited large sections of the State not hitherto visited by the Superintendent. I have travelled in the interest of the Society more than 15,000 miles, sent out more than 4,000 letters and documents, and have delivered in behalf of the Society 154 sermons and addresses.

Collections in this State have never been what they ought to be; but there are some reasons for this. Arkansas is still in the formative

stage of its existence. Schools and churches are building, and all public improvements are now to be made, and the calls upon the people for these undertakings are continuous. Then one-third, at least, of our population is colored, and from this class we have never received direct aid in the work of the Society.

I have visited more than twenty ecclesiastical bodies and Sunday school conventions. All of them received me most cordially, and granted favorable opportunities for the presentation of our work. Resolutions strongly commendatory of the plans, purposes, and work of the American Bible Society were introduced and passed.

As occasion has presented, I have urged the claims of our Sunday school work. Our Sunday schools are largely without the Bible, but there is a growing sentiment in favor of placing the sacred volume in the hands of all Sunday school children.

Our auxiliaries are not as prosperous as we desire, or as they ought to be; but there is progress and improvement in some of them. Though defective and inoperative as many of them are, yet through them thousands of our people are being supplied with the Scriptures.

With God's blessing upon our labors, we look for a larger degree of success during the year on which we now enter.

Books sent to Arkansas, 6,528; of these, 958 were grants.

CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA.-Rev. John Thompson, D.D., of Oakland, Cal., reports as follows from his distant field:

Another year of duties and responsibilities has fled, and it is hoped