varied agencies a corps of faithful District Superintendents has been employed. The results of these combined efforts will appear in subsequent pages of this Report.

II. WORK IN FOREIGN LANDS.

While it cannot strictly be claimed that the operations of the American Bible Society extend to the whole world, it is true that they are nearly co-extensive with the fields which are occupied by the Foreign Missionary Boards and Societies of the evangelical denominations in the United States.

The Society has its own Agencies in Mexico, Brazil, Central America, Venezuela, La Plata, Cuba, the Levant (including Bulgaria, European Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt), China, Japan, Persia, Siam and Laos; and in addition to these it has aided the missionary work of the various denominational societies in Germany, Sweden, Italy, Austria, Spain, Bengal, Madura, and Arcot; of the Bible Societies of France and Russia, and the Evangelical Society of Geneva.

Such is the field which God in his providence has allotted to the American Bible Society. To supply the people in our own land is a great undertaking, but when we add to these the millions in foreign lands depending upon it for the Scriptures, who can estimate the grandeur and importance of the work? What the Society has given, and what has resulted from its gifts, can be but partially recorded in this Report.

The various denominations have been increasing their contributions to Home and Foreign Missions. Each year larger amounts of money are called for to meet the exigencies, and the churches have nobly responded. But the contributions to the American Bible Society have not increased in the same proportion. The entire amount given for this work the past year, from individuals, churches, and auxiliary societies, was only $78,251 17. It cannot be that this represents the value which the Christian people of this country put upon the Bible. It cannot be that this represents their

estimate of the importance of the work in which this Society is engaged.

It is true that God has in a wonderful manner blessed this Society in all the years that are past, and during the last year his favor has been even more marked. The receipts for benevolent purposes from the sources indicated above are about up to the average of previous years, but the bequests of those who were generous contributors while they lived exceed those of any year in the history of the Society, amounting to no less than $247,159 36.

While the Board of Managers are truly grateful for the legacies already received, and most earnestly hope that there are many more who have remembered the Society in their wills, yet they would remind all its friends that this source of income is not a secure basis upon which to lay plans for the necessary expansion of the work. The various denominations cannot be assessed

for its support. Free-will offerings are the only dependence which an undenominational society can have. Upon these, as they have been in the past, it must chiefly shape its work. How inadequate these have been must be apparent to all who will compare the contributions with the vast extent of the field over which they have to be expended.

It is admitted that more could have been done had the Society had the assurance that the contributions would have been adequate to the necessary expenditure. But the prospect was that there would be a falling off in the gifts of the living, and therefore the work, especially in the home field, had to be restricted within much narrower limits than was anticipated at the beginning of the year. Nevertheless, the following details of the remittances to the Society's foreign Agencies, as well as the aid rendered to missionary and Bible societies for work in foreign lands, together with some of the more important grants for work at home and abroad, will show that the Managers have dispensed with a liberal hand the funds which have been intrusted to them:

1

Besides these cash remittances the value of the books

which have been consigned and donated is as follows:

To the Society's Agency in Mexico

$7,925 36

The grants of books to the home field have been on

the same generous scale, as will be seen from the following details:

To District Superintendents for Sunday school sup

ply, missionary societies, and individuals books

to the value of .

For Colportage

Life Directors and Life Members

$32,177 42

8,983 34

8,071 74

Brooklyn City Bible Society, N. Y. (for Marine work)
United States School Ship "St. Mary"

453

301

Congregational Sunday School and Publishing Society
Presbyterian Board of Home Missions

600

866

Committee Colored Evangelical Presbyterian Church,
South

335

The inquiry is an important one: What was done with these large donations in money and books for the home and foreign field? The answer will be found, in part, in the following pages of this Report, but it is impossible by statistics or statements to show what has been accomplished.

WORK OF AUXILIARIES.

These local societies are indispensable to the great object for which the Society was organized-to promote a wider circulation of the Scriptures without note or comment. The usual channels of trade will not bring them within the reach of all the people in this vast country with its many sparsely-settled districts. Even when an auxiliary, as is too frequently the case, only keeps a depository for the sale of the Scriptures, it does a much-needed work, and is a power for good in the community where it is established.

But many of the auxiliaries do far more than this. By their township committees they visit year by year every family in their field and supply them with the Scriptures,

while the State societies employ their own agents and resupply their own fields. The great trouble is many of them do not realize the importance of sending detailed reports of their work.

Other auxiliaries render faithful reports, showing that they have been carrying out the plans of the Parent Society in their own fields. Only 1,013 of the entire number have sent reports the past year, and only 218 of these have been conducting a general canvass of their fields.

The following is a summary of their work as tabulated from their reports:

Auxiliaries reporting during the year.

66 engaged in supplying their fields
Paid agents employed by them
Families visited

1,013

218

198

488,856

The Board of Managers continued the colportage work resumed near the close of the last fiscal year. Their aim has been to canvass only the most destitute and sparselysettled parts of the country, where the population could not be reached by any other agency. During the year thirty-one colporteurs have been employed, as follows:

They rendered 2,561 days of service, with the following