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good and perfect gift, to sanctify to us and to them, as well as to kindred organizations of Christian benevolence, this dispensation, and to stimulate us all to trim our lamps and gird our loins anew for more thorough and earnest devotion to the duties devolving on us, we would reverently bow before his footstool, and from the heart say, "The will of the Lord be done!"

WARREN CARTER, Rec. Secretary.

B. T. WELCH, President. Other deaths among directors, members and supporters of the Society, echo the same solemn lesson.

HOME OPERATIONS.

Notwithstanding considerable embarrassment and hindrance in the performance of our accustomed duties, forced on us by the unwelcome necessity of removal from our established place of business in Broome St., where for so many years our friends had been accustomed to resort from all parts of the country, to premises temporarily occupied in Park Place, and but imperfectly known; more than an average amount of prosperity has on the whole been experienced during the past year. The sales of Bibles and Testaments from our depository, for the reasons just adverted to, and from other causes of a temporary character, have been considerably less than in some former years. Legacies also, always a very uncertain and widely varying source of income, have been less than the preceding year by more than 3000 dollars in actual receipts; while it has come to the knowledge of the Board, that unusually large bequests have been made to the Society, which will come into its possession in future years. The following twelve items constitute our receipts from this source for the year just closed.

LEGACIES.

Josiah Burke, late of Brooklyn, N. Y.,. .......
Thomas McCall, late of Washington Co., Pa.,..
Mrs. Polly Malburis, late of Skowhegan, Me...
Mrs. L. Taylor, late of Baltimore, Md.,...
Charles Dally, late of Washington Co., Pa.,-
Timothy Sabin, late of Medina, Mich....
Mrs. Eliza Skaats, late of New York city,..
James Vanderpool, late of Newark, N. J.,-
Arnold Whipple, late of Providence, R. I.,..
Mrs. S. B. Pierce, late of Middleboro', Mass.,.
Daniel Valentine, late of Washington, Pa.,-.
Pliny Phelps, late of New Berlin, N Y.

$100 00

500 00

50 00

48 00

506 5

175 60

1000 00

100 00

200 00

30 00

25.00

50.00

2,785 17

The same tendencies in regard to receipts from Auxiliary Societies except the comparatively few vigorously engaging in Scripture distribution, thus keeping alive and increasing their zcal in the good work, which were commented on at considerable length in our last report, have still continued to operate to nearly the same extent as in the preceding year. The following comparatively meagre list of such of the number as have forwarded to us efficient aid for the last two years, is here presented for the double purpose of encouragement to those who have done well, and of gentle admonition to others, who as they do not find themselves included in this list, may readily understand the cause. So far as practicable the entire sums paid into our treasury by these auxiliaries in the whole period of their connexion with us, is also appended. There may be some mistakes and unintentional omissions in this list but they will be promptly corrected whenever they are pointed out to us.

REMITTANCES

From the following Auxiliary Societies and others, (omitting those for books,) to the American and Foreign Bible Society, ending with April 30th, 1853.

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The augmented amount received from churches and individual contributors the past year, viz.: $27,905, or about $5,000 more than in any previous year

Aug., 1847

23 00
30 50

76 31 962 64

Aug., 1850

120 00 160 00

Jan., 1851

from this source, becomes, therefore, a most cheering and satisfactory proof of continued and increasing confidence and coöperation.

In another aspect the above amount may indicate the success of our indefatigable agents, toiling on in their respective spheres, often greatly impeded by having laboriously and repeatedly to remove misconceptions from the minds of our friends. Such obstacles have, no doubt, increased the labors and expensiveness of our agency in some parts of the country greatly. Hence the more praise is justly due to those indefatigable servants of this good cause, who through evil and good report, have patiently and successfully persevered. The health of some of them or of their families has suffered considerably during the year, and one of their number, the Rev. Joseph Wilson, of Maine, for many previous years a successful agent of the Baptist Missionary Union, has died, after being for some eight or nine months in our employ. We commend all these laborious and selfdenying men to the sympathy and cooperation of the churches. We know that in many, indeed in almost all instances, they have been cordially welcomed. and have well approved themselves, and successfully advocated the cause of Christ's Word committed to their hands. It can excite no especial wonder that frequent changes take place in this agency corps. Our sedulous efforts will not be spared to secure the utmost practicable amount of permanency and efficiency as well as true economy in this important branch of the service. The special attention of our General Agent is expected to be unremittingly turned to this part of his duties. After much and successful experience in such labors himself, he will be able more wisely, and with a truly fraternal spirit, to superintend them in all parts of the widely extended field; while both he and the Corresponding Secretary as far as his engrossing duties at the rooms will allow, may be expected to aid this agency labor by cooperating with the brethren employed in it more or less fully as circumstances require in all parts of the country.

Total receipts, including the small balance on hand at the beginning of the year, from all sources, have reached the gratifying amount of $44,845.11. Disbursements $45,230.35. Had considerably more been received, it could have been wisely appropriated. Had any less come into our treasury, the painful necessity would almost for the first time in our history have been imposed on us of denying the aid urgently solicited of us. in giving to the perishing the bread of life. Four hundred and nine Life Members and Life Directors have this year been added to our lists.

RECEIPTS AND ISSUES OF BIBLES AND TESTAMENTS.

Bibles received into the depository, bound...

Testaments

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9.869

22.652

32,521

7.761

21,968

29.729

6,692 7.227

13.919

Those on hand, mentioned above, consist of the following kinds, viz: English, 10,131; German, 2,094; Welsh. 1,368; French and Italian, 320; Sweedish, 6. Unbound Bibles on hand at the close of the Year...

64 Testaments 66

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Total.....

7,791

9.689

17,450

Of the above number 1,904 are German, and 1,250 copies are French.

DISBURSEMENTS.

In dispensing the bounty comprised in the aggregate of these contributions, an unusually large number of interesting and important cases of destitution, have received requisite supplies of the divine word. In the home work, something

more than sixty distinct grants have been made, besides what has been done by the thousand official distributors among our Life Members and Directors. The whole number of volumes of the word of life thus sent forth, exceeds 13.000 at a cost of nearly $4,000. How widely these rills from the life-giving fountain have watered and blessed the waste places of our land, eternity only can disclose.

APPROPRIATIONS OF BIBLES AND TESTAMENTS.

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"Rev. W. N. Judd, of Purto Prince. Hayti, through the Am. Bible Society

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"Rev. W. N. Judd, of Purto Prince, Hayti..

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"German Sunday Mission School, in New York City, 38th street.

40

14 80

"Moses H. Jackson, for Liberia, Africa, Colonization Society. "Rev. W. J. Chapin, of Aztalon, Wisconsin..

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For Distribution in New York and vicinity, by the City Bible Society,

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"To Officers at the Rooms, for Publishers..

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"Life Members and Directors during the year, for gratuitous distribution among the destitute..

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The above list of these appropriations will give some indication of the wide

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extent and variety of objects embraced in these grants. Among them will be found United States troops in their remote cantonments; the keepers of lighthouses and light-ships on a portion of our sea coast; the depraved and degraded in our large cities; the immigrants to Liberia; and the large colored settlements in Canada; as well as the swarms of German, Irish, and other immigrants just reaching our shores from the Old World, who have shared largely in these benefactions. So have the young both in the city and in the wilderness, wherever Sunday Schools for the destitute are required, in which they may be taught to read and understand the inspired Guide-Book.

To all the 150 missionaries of the Am. Bap. Home Mission Society, and to the scores of colporteurs employed by the Am. Bap. Publication Society, the tender has been or will be made, that such grants of Bibles and Testaments as their several exigencies require, shall promptly be furnished to them on their requisition. In this way, the wilderness and the solitary place will soon be made glad for them, and with God's blessing the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.

FOREIGN APPROPRIATIONS.

The foreign appropriations remain now as they have been from the beginning the grand feature both of interest and importance in our operations. In other departments of our labor we are mere helpers, or we are participants with others in a great and good work, where in some cases at least, theirs is the leading and ours but a subsidiary instrumentality. But wherever we have been required to make versions into the languages of the unevangelized, from the days of Dr. Carey and his associates to this hour, all the Baptist translators have, without previous concert, found themselves constrained by an intense and uniformly operating severity of conviction, that they must give uncompromisingly the full, unveiled import of divine revelation to those expecting the oracles of God at their hands. If others choose to stand aloof, refusing their aid, and even frowning on what they call our pertinacity, we still must, as we have done, perform this work without their help, and even against their remonstrances. Hence the burthen-or the honor and privilege rather of this vast and momentous service, which God's providence and not our devising, has thrown upon us.

In India and China, to say nothing of the renewal of this work in Africa, some six or eight of the missionaries are wholly or a principal part of their time engrossed with the work of translating, revising and publishing the Scripture. versions required at their hands; and of course their support to just this extent, is made a charge upon the appropriations of the Am. and For. Bible Society. Then besides this, the entire expense of paper, printing, binding and distributing these versions is also sustained by us. These expenses of course vary considerably from year to year; and by the wide door now opening in Burmah as well as among the Karens and Peguans, the prospects are that a very largely increas ed demand upon this department must immediately be met.

As we look over the appropriations from our treasury of past years, amounting in the aggregate to $262,833 for the foreign work alone, we ought to be

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