getically pursued for a long series of years, must result in an amount of good quite beyond the power of figures to enumerate or words to express. When to this grand idea is added that of the influence of a rich and abun- dant Sunday-school literature, diffused on business prin- ci|)les and through business agencies among the vari- ous Sunday-schools of the land, the mind strives in vain to comprehend the full extent of the significance and hopefulness of this system of effort. From the nature of its work, the American Siuiday-school LTnion is una- ble to take what may be called permanent statistics, or to follow the schools it has founded into their subse- quent changes and developments. Its office is usualh' that of a i^ioneer, making preliminary organizations which, in the course of years — and often of a very few years — expand, subdivide, and become merged in the more permanent work of the various churches.
3. In 1827 "The Siniday-school Union of the Meth- odist F>piscopal Church" was organized in New York, in a form which also contemplated the publication and dif- fusion of religious tracts and the Holy Scriptures. Al- though all these objects had been previously contem- plated and promoted by regular Church action as taken in 1784 and subsequently, it was thought pro))er, in 1827, to make special efforts in their behalf by the joint and special organization referred to. In 1840 the Sunday-school LTnion under notice was reorganized as a separate institution, and in 1844 its interests and functions were brought into greater prominence by the appointment of an official Sunday-school editor, who was also made corresponding secretary of the union. These movements were in harmony with the original policy of the Church that instituted them, namely, to promote Sunday-school instruction as a branch of reg- ular Church action. For such action on a large scale circumstances at the last-named period were highly favorable. The Church had then become extended throughout the whole country, so that it could reach almost any inhabited place by its regular agencies. Its plan, therefore, was to stimulate its ministers and members to universal activity, in accordance with its rules, adopted in 1784 and 1790. This plan saved the great expense of sending out and maintaining special Sunday-school missionaries, while it made sure of re- sponsible and resident agents Avherever the work was undertaken. By similar agencies it was sought every- where to promote a higher grade of Sunday-school ac- tivity and improved methods of iustructicm. For the production of an extensive and varied Sunday-school literature, provided under official editorship, the union was able to avail itself of an organized and most effect- ive publishing establishment, owned by the Church, with the best of facilities for diffusing its printed mat- ter. In these circumstances, all collections for the mis- sionary department of Sunday-school effort were ap- plied directly and exclusively to the distribution of books, at cost price, to be used by persons engaged in founding new or maintaining poor schools. Probably no more thorough and efficient system of Church effort in behalf of Sunday-schools was ever organized, inclu- sive of the system of statistics by which its workings are shown from year to year. Some of the results of the action of that system, running on in regular course, may be inferred from the statistical summaries given in the foregoing article.
4. " The Protestant Episcopal Sunday-school Union" was organized in New York, at about the period when the two unions last named had their origin ; but, for some reason, it never secured a strong support from the Church in whose interest it was founded and whose name it bore. It acted for a time as a publication soci- ety, being often aided by individual congregations in the issue of particular books. After some years of a rather languid existence, its interests were sold out to a private bookseller. A similar result occurred to the Evangelical Knowledge Society, an organization also projected, about 1850, by ministers and members of the
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Protestant Episcopal Churoli, in the idea of securing and diffusing a more evangelical literature than that furnished by the union last named.
5. It is proper to say here tliat neither the Presbyte- rian nor Baptist churches of the United States have organized Sunday-school unions. They have availed themselves to a large extent of the ])nblications of the American Sunday-school Union, and also, in jiart, of the juvenile literature issued by their respective boards of publication, as well as that of the American Tract So- ciety.
6. In 1832 " The Massachusetts Sabbath-school Soci- ety" was founded in Boston, by representatives of the Congregational churches of New England. Its modes of action were denominational, and its publications were numerous and good, but after some j'ears of independent existence the interests of the society were blended with those of the Congregational Publishing Society and the American Home ^lissionary Society. Neither of those societies publish Sunday-scliool statistics.
7. " The (Dutch) Keformed Smiday-school Union" was organized in New York about 1850, and for several years proceeded quite actively to promote the Sunday- school interests of the Chin-ch it represented. It pub- lished a small catalogue of Sunday-school books and requisites, but did not long maintain a separate exist- ence, its interests having been merged in those of a pub- lishing society of a more general cliaracter.