REPORT OF THE BOARD OF MANAGERS.... 25 Bible Depository Account...... Life Directors and Life Members............ 29 Individual Donations....... New Managers.... 29 Congregational Collections..... 120 122 123 125 New Auxiliaries.. 29 Donations for Various Distributions........... 128 29 Returns for Books Donated... 128 30 Donation from Society not Auxiliary........ 129 31 Remittances from Societies not Auxiliary 129 32 Sales by Agents..... Receipts and Payments.. International Exposition... Translations.. New Plates.. New Books.. Other Publications.... 129 33 Receipts and Issues during the Year........ 130 Scriptures Manufactured and Printed..... 35 Compendium of Bible Societies....... 132 134 35 Common Inquiries and Answers............. Bible for the Blind.. Sales.... Gratuitous Work... 37 The sole object of the Institution is to encourage a wider circulation of the Holy Scriptures without note or comment. Its friends may aid its work 1. By buying and circulating its books. Those books are attractive in binding and typography. They are variously adapted for all classes of persons: books in large type for the aged; in raised letters for the blind; parts of the Bible for the convenience of readers who prefer not to hold a heavy book; reference Bibles for those who compare Scripture with Scripture; Bibles in various languages for foreigners; and of various sizes for pulpits, families, travellers, scholars, and others. Being offered for sale at cost, these Bibles do not often make their way through the ordinary channels of trade, and are seldom advertised in newspapers. Still they are widely distributed through the country, and may be found or ordered through the county depositories at numerous points. Whoever becomes a purchaser and distributer helps in this work. 2. By commending the Scriptures to others, and convincing men that they owe it to themselves, their families, their country, and their God, to own, read, and study this Book of Truth. 3. By entering heartily into arrangements providing for a thorough and economical resupply of districts with the Bible. This home-work of exploration and supply falls properly within the province of local societies auxiliary to the American Bible Society. Their efficiency and success depend mainly upon the voluntary co-operation of churches and individual Christians. 4. By remitting donations to the American Bible Society for its benevolent work in our own and in foreign lands, that it may sow the seed of truth in the great and accessible field which opens before it. The facilities of the Society for circulating the Scriptures were never greater than now. Through auxiliary societies, through benevolent and missionary organizations, through varied instrumentalities and agencies, it is holding forth the word of life for the people of the United States and of the world. The value of its grants for the home field in the last ten years is $1,058,253. ITS BENEVOLENT AND UNSECTARIAN CHARACTER. Richly favoured in the past, it is still dependent on the sympathies, the prayers, the gifts, and the co-operation of those who love and prize the Holy Bible. Not only is it called upon for grants of books and of money, but its entire work is essentially gratuitous, and not remunerative. It is thoroughly unsectarian, circulating only the commonly received version in English, and the most faithful translations in other lands, without note or comment, and everywhere helping the poor to procure and own the Bible. RECEIPTS AND ISSUES. Its total receipts in sixty-one years are $17,772,721 86, and in that time it has issued, in various languages, 34,006,822 volumes of Scripture. It is now circulating the Scriptures in about seventy different languages and dialects. SPECIAL EFFORTS IN THE UNITED STATES. It has thrice instituted and helped forward a general exploration of the United States: in 1829, when every accessible family in the more settled portions of the country is supposed to have been visited; in 1856, when within two years 500,000 destitute families were supplied with the Bible; and again in 1866, since which time 418,225 destitute families and 315,279 destitute individuals are reported to have received the Scriptures through the agency of auxiliary societies, besides a very large number supplied through churches and benevolent associations not auxiliary. FOREIGN WORK. The expenditures for foreign work in the year ending March 31, 1877, were $78,655 00; and in the last decade the cash outlay in foreign lands has been $790,944 60, besides what has been expended at the Bible House in printing the Scriptures in foreign languages for circulation abroad. SIXTY-SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OF THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY, PRESENTED MAY 9, 1878. WITH AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING A LIST OF AUXILIARY SOCIETIES AND THEIR OFFICERS, AND ALSO Life Directors and Life Members of the Society NEW YORK: AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY, INSTITUTED IN THE YEAR MDCCCXVI. 1878. Sent by mail, on receipt of five cents for Postage. The work of Scripture distribution in this and other lands has been greatly promoted by the wise and liberal legacies which the American Bible Society has received. It is gratifying to observe that for the past eleven years the cash receipts from this source amount to 1,573,222 dollars. The following suggestions in regard to the drafting of Wills are made for the information of those who desire to leave bequests to the Society, and thus to perpetuate the work when their own personal efforts are ended. FORM OF A BEQUEST. I give and bequeath to the American Bible Society, formed in New York, in the year eighteen hundred and sixteen, the sum of to be applied to the charitable uses and purposes of said Society. The Will should be attested by three witnesses [in some States three are required-in other States only two], who should write against their names their places of residence [if in cities, their street and number]. The following form of attestation will answer for every State in the Union: "Signed, sealed, published and declared by the said [A. B.] as his last Will and Testament, in presence of us, who at the request of the said [A. B.] and in his presence, and in the presence of each other, have hereunto subscribed our names as witnesses." In some States, it is required that the Will should be made at least two months before the death of the testator. The Society is incorporated by a special act of the Legislature of New York, passed March 25, 1841; and by an act passed April 24, 1872, it is, in addition to its other powers, authorized to take and hold real estate by gift, bequest, or devise, provided the said Society shall alienate the same within three years after the same shall vest in the Society in possession, and provided that every such bequest or devise shall be subject to the provisions of the act of April 13, 1860 (Chapter 360)." This act provides that "No person having a husband, wife, child, or parent, shall, by his or her last will and testament, devise or bequeath to any benevolent, charitable, literary, scientific, religious, or missionary society, association, or corporation, in trust or otherwise, more than one-half part of his or her estate, after the payment of his or her debts (and such devise or bequest shall be valid to the extent of one-half, and no more)." The Society, by the general and special powers given to it by the Legislature of New York, can, in the absence of local statutory restrictions, take and hold real estate in other States by gift or devise. It is not known that there exists any restriction in the laws of any State except in Illinois, and there the testator may accomplish the end in view by leaving the property to his executors or other persons, in trust, to sell and pay the avails thereof to the Society. |