ENCYCLOPEDIA
Bible Societies
although they did not publicly appear, had much to do with the preparatory work. On Mar. 7, 1804, a public meeting was held at the London Tavern, on the call of Mr. Hughes. Three hundred persons attended the meeting. It was quickly evident that a society for increasing the circulation of the Bible presented common ground, upon which all sects and parties could stand. Dissenters met churchmen, and in their interest in the needs of the masses, they forgot for a time their divergent interpretations of the same book. The sole condition necessary to union of action was that a text accepted by all should be issued without note or comment.
At this meeting a hastily drawn up set of by-laws was adopted. An executive committee of thirtysix laymen was chosen, fifteen from the Church of England, fifteen from the Dissenting bodies, and six foreigners residing in London. The Rev. Joseph Hughes (Baptist) and the Rev. Josiah Pratt (Church of England) were elected secretaries. Seven hundred pounds were subscribed for the work of the society, and the Bishop of London, Dr. Porteus, was elected President.
The constitution of the society was soon afterward prepared; the Rev. John Owen, of the Church of England, was added to the staff of the society as a third secretary, and on nomination of Lord Teignmouth, a former governor-general in India, the Rev. C. F A. Steinkopf was appointed secretary for foreign lands. Besides the Bishop of London, the Bishops of Durham, Exeter, and St. Davids, and many other influential persons, among whom were William Wilberforce and Granville Sharp, long known as antislavery leaders, joined this movement.
As at present organized, the business of the society is directed by a committee made up as indicated above. Every subscriber of five guineas annually is a governor, and every subscriber of one guinea, annually is a member of the society. Every governor, and every minister 2. Present who is a member, has the privilege
Organiza- of attending and voting at all meetings tion- of the committee. The president, the vice-presidents (numbering more than a hundred) , and the treasurer are considered ex officio members of the committee. There are two secretaries and three superintendents charged with different departments of the work besides several assistant secretaries. To excite wider interest and to facilitate the distribution of the Bible, auxiliary and branch societies are formed, which pay their collections into a common fund and receive back a certain proportion of the sum collected in Bibles for distribution. There were in 1906 more than 5,800 of the auxiliary and branch societies and associations in England and Wales alone.
The society began its career by first meeting the wants of Wales. Twenty thousand Welsh Bibles and five thousand Testaments were printed. Providentially but a short time before this, the art of stereotyping had been invented. When in 1806 the first wagon-load of Bibles came into Wales, it was received like the ark of the covenant; and the
people with shouts of joy dragged it into the city. The society also distributed the Bible in an improved Gaelic translation in the Highlands of Scotland, and turned its attention to the Irish; in short, it undertook to supply Great Britain and Ireland with Bibles.
But the society did not forget that it is a foreign as well as a British Bible Society. When it began operations Europe was convulsed with war and not so much was done as would otherwise have been accomplished in the way of supplying the destitute in European countries. Mr. Steinkopf and Robert Pinkerton made extensive tours through Germany, Switzerland, and Russia, and everywhere local
Bible societies sprang into existence
3. Foreign in their wake. Many of these societies,
Work. formed in 1812 and later, have done
good work, being aided with funds and with grants of Bibles by the British Society About the time of the formation of the British Society two Scotchmen, John Paterson and Ebenezer Henderson, went to Copenhagen, intending to go out as missionaries to India under the Danish- Halle mission at Tranquebar. Their plan fell through, but they met an Icelander, Thorkelin, in Copenhagen, who told them of the destitution of his countrymen. There were said to be only fifty Bibles in Iceland for a population of fifty thousand. The two Scotchmen laid the matter before the British and Foreign Bible Society, which promised to pay half of the expense of printing five thousand Testaments in Icelandic. The printing was stopped by the outbreak of war. But in 1812 Mr. Henderson received permission to remain in Copenhagen to complete the printing of the whole Bible in Icelandic, and, notwithstanding the war, to correspond with the Bible society in England regarding this work. The confidence thus shown in the motives of the society was certainly remarkable at that epoch; and it had much to do with the founding of the Danish Bible Society in 1814.
The British Society extended its work gradually to the British colonies, where it works through auxiliary societies. In Canada, the Canadian Bible Society, which has united a large number of local auxiliaries in one, is a society auxiliary to the British Society, and has a secretary appointed by the parent society in London. In Australia the society has fifty-two auxiliaries with nearly 500 branches. In India, with the exception of Burma, the society carries on its work through six strong auxiliary societies. In Cape Colony the South- African auxiliary has for its field the whole territory south of the Orange River. The whole number of auxiliaries and branch societies affiliated with the British Society outside of the United Kingdom exceeds 2,200. The whole number of these local societies, in Great Britain and abroad, which the British and Foreign Society aids and from which it receives donations, is over 8,160. Besides these auxiliary societies the parent society makes use of agencies, each in charge of a special agent, devoted to the increase of the circulation of the Bible in his own field. These agencies cover the continent of Europe, and Turkey, Siberia. China, Korea, and Japan in Asia. In the three last-named coun-
Bible Societies