What the American Bible Society Has Done, and is Doing.
The American Bible Society was instituted in May, 1816. It has translated the Scriptures, or parts of them, into nearly sixty different languages; printed and put into circulation an aggregate of twenty-six and a half millions of copies of the Scriptures, in our own and foreign countries; and it has all the various appliances for printing and binding six thousand copies of the Bible per day; or nearly two million copies per year. Bibles and Testaments gratuitously bestowed by the Society, without including those granted to feeble Sunday-schools, Seamen, the Army and Navy of the United States, or those printed at its expense in foreign lands, are over two million volumes. Its pecuniary grants during the last thirty years amount to over one million of dollars. The amount of its donations to feeble auxiliaries in destitute frontier districts since the year 1848, is over three hundred thousand dollars. It has printed and distributed 5,000 copies among the Blind. Without including what its auxiliaries have done, it has granted several hundred thousand volumes among destitute Sabbath-schools. It has given thousands of volumes to immigrants of the Old World. It has thoroughly supplied all the criminal and humane institutions of our country. It has distributed the Scriptures largely among the Roman Catholics, both at home and abroad. It has placed many thousand copies in Hotels and Boarding Houses. It has given millions of copies to the destitute poor of our land. It has distributed many thousands among the Indian Tribes within our borders. And at this very time, millions of hands in Spain, Austria, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, China, and other foreign countries, are stretched out toward the Society for this precious gift of God to man.—Sel.