The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-05-10
The AnniveTsaTies-Chri BenevO-

lence.
THE annual anniversaries of a large number
of our great religious and benevolent socie-
ties are now being held in New York. Their
proceedings, including reports, addresses, dis
oussions, ETC., are the features of the day.
The magnitude of the operations of some of
these societies is remarkable. Thus, the Anne
rican Tract Society reports its receipts during
the past year to have been $544, 5l'43, q sum
exceeding the receipts of any former year by
more than one hundred thousand dollars. 1t
has published during the year S37676
volumes, or an average of 279O per day. 1t
has circulated of the monthly periodicals.which
it publishes, The american Messenger and The
CAilfS Paper, an aggregate of $40, 749 copies
monthly. The value of publications dis
tributed gratuitously during the year was
$53,25431. Colporteurs, or travelling mis-
sionaries and preachers, have been employed
to the number Of 2l9, in twenty-one of our
own States and in the British Provinces, A
large work has been done among the needy
and destitute of the South.
Another branch of the American Tract So
oiety, the Boston BRANCH, and which has long
made labors for the enlightenment and reI-
gious instruction of the blacks a speciality,
reports receipts to the amount of 81, GO, 569.7S.
It has issued during the year 1924, 800 copies
of tracts and similar small publications, 3S9, $50
volumes of larger size, and 3, l63, 900 copies of
papers.
Here we have an expenditure of over seven
hundred thousand dollars in the single work
ofpublshing and distributing Christian lite
rature.
The American Bible Society reports receipts
during the year to the amount of 1874, ,089'14.
1t has printed during that time, in our coun-
try and in foreign lands, 1,24O, 31S volumes.
The American Home Missionary Society
reports the receipt of s2l2, $50 SO during the
year. 1t has employed SAG missionaries in
twenty mine different States and Territories.
These items are sufficient to afford some
idea of the vast work that is being performed
by these societies. And all this is sustained,
or has been built up in the past by voluntary
contributions, mainly in small amounts. So
firmly established have these organizations
become in the confidence and affections of the
Christian public, that their revenues from this
source are as reliable almost as though OBJ
tanned from fixed investments. No argument
for the voluntary principle, as opposed to the
union of Church and State, in religious
matters, could be stronger than that which
is furnished by the activity, zeal, and pros
perity of our American churches, and especi-
ally in connection with those great religious
and benevolent organizations which the Ameri-
can churches have built up. 1t is found that
the spontaneous liberality of Christian men
and women, managing their own affairs in
church matters, is sounder and safer basis
to build upon than subsidies from Govern
ment, or tithes wrung from an unwilling and
reluctant people by the power of the civil
magistrate.
Facts, too, such as those brought out by the
reports above alluded to, are a sufficient COM
mentary upon the shallow and flippant criti-
cism of the activity and benevolence of the
Church, which is so often INDUCED in. Here
are organizations reaching all over our land,
and all over foreign lands carrying light and
knowledge to the homes of millions who would
be reached in no other way. The mass of the
contributions Wnlcn sustain Ihls Work come IN
little sums, from here and there and all over
the country, from donors whose names are
never heralded to the applause of men, who
seek no earthly reward, but who are aotuated
by motives of Christian duty and benevolence
alone. Until those who sneer at the Church
can point to a similar liberalty on their part,
or any similar effort to do good to the masses
of the ignorant and needNof their fellow-men,
they should preserve discreet and becoming
Hence