The AMERICAN B. S. is. in the magnitude and importance of its operations, next to the British and foreign Bible society. It was founded at New York in 1817. and still has its headquarters in that city, in the Bible House, a very large and magnificent building, erected by special subscription. It reckons fully 2000 auxiliary societies, in all parts of the States. Its income now amounts to about $700,000 (£140,000) a year, rather more than one half being derived from sales of Bibles and Testaments, and the rest froni.donations, collections, etc. The American B. S. bas for some time issued annually more than 1,000,000 Bibles, New Testaments, and other por tions of Scripture, and has in all distributed about 31,000,000 copies. The funds of the society have been • chiefly expended in supplying the wants of the inhabitants of the United States, amongst whom the Indian tribes have not been neglected. "The Bible Association of Friends in America," founded at Philadelphia in 1829, has also distrib uted the Bible extensively.
Of the numerous Bible societies of Germany, the most important and extensively ramified is the Prussian central B. S. (llauptbibc(gae/4chajt) hi Berlin. It was founded is 1514, has branches in all parts of the Prussian dominions, .and distributes annually nbo.-t 35,000 Bibles and 14,000 New Testaments. There are besides numerous hide pendent Bible societies in other parts of the German empire. A large number of Bibles arc still, however. annually supplied to the people of Germany by the agents of the British and foreign B. S.—Bible societies were prohibited by the Austrian govern ment in 1817, and some which had already been established in Hungary were dis solved.—The Bussrax 13. S., founded at St. Petersburg in 1813, through the exertions
of Dr. Paterson, and under the patronage of the emperor Alexander 1., entered upon a career of great activity and usefulness, co-operating with the British mid foreign B. S. for the printing of the Scriptures in the numerous languages spoken within the Russian dominions; but its operations were suspended in 1826 on the accession of the emperor Nicholas. its stock of Bibles, and the whole concern, being transferred to the holy under the pretense that the sacred work of supplying the people with the holy Scriptures belonged to the church, and not to it secular society. The Bibles and Testa ments in stock were indeed sold, and very large editions were thus disposed of, but the activity of a society which had no equal in continental Europe was at an end. A Prot estant 11. S. was then formed for the purpose of providing editions of the Scriptures, and circulating them among the Protestants of all parts of the empire, which now reckons about 300 auxiliary societies. But the action of this society does not touch the members of the Greek church, or, if at all, only slightly and incidentally, and it makes no provision of the Scriptures in the language spoken by the great mass of the people. It is merely designed to meet the wants of colonists and others, who do not use the Russiaa language." Of the translations of the Scriptures published by the original Russian B. S., the greater number have never been reprinted since its suppression.
There can be no doubt that Bible societies have contributed very much to the prog ress of Christianity and civilization since the beginning of the 19th c., and their influ ence is continually increasing and extending.