The Portland daily press., 1892-05-30
MAINE BIBLE SOCIETY.
Annual Meeting of this Ancient Institu-
ton Held Last Evening-How the Work
of Supplying Bibles to Maine People is
Going On,


The annual meeting of the venerable
Maine Bible Society was observed at
Chestnut street M. E. church last eve
ming. This society has been doing its
work in Maine for So years, and the re-
port of the trustees made last evening
was the eighty-second. This report, and
the address delivered by Rev. Matt. S.
Hughes, constituted the principal por-
lions of the exercises. Besides the usual
reading of Scriptures, there was also an
opening address by Deacon S. L. LARA
bee.
The report of the trustees was made by
Rev. j. G. Merrill The report dealt in
the general facts pertaining to the So
ciety's work:
~ The long outstanding obligation to
the National Society has been cancelled
during the past year; (2) For the first
time this year the cooperation of the
Washington county society enables the
publication of full statistics of work done !;
81 During the past year also the society
has had the cordial endorsement of all
the denomination in the state, with con-
sequent good results in contributions !;
az The work must be continued as it
will never end, changes in population
making new canvasses necessary; (5)
Larger contributions are needed if the
society is to keep its present force of
laborers in the field; (0 The directors
believe that the coming year will mark
an advance along the whole line of its
work.
The fourth Sunday of September will
be Bible Society Day, from which excel
lent results are hoped.
The annual address was delivered by
Rev. Matt S. Hughes, and was a forcible
and thoughtful discourse, pertinent to
the subject. Some of the stastics set
forth by him are little startling. sDoes
it not seem passing strange said Mr..
Hughes, Sin old New England to speak
of houses without a Bible? We call our
land the land Of the open Bible Now
comes the Bible Society and gives us a
shock, by declaring that it proposes to
place Bible in every home in Maine. At
first thought we might imagine the So
ciety had better take the Bible to Africa
or the islands of the sea, and not waste
its time in the Christian state of Maine.
Any such idea is born of the lack of
knowledge. We are not so well supplied
with Gospel privileges as is generally
supposed. 1t is an astonishing fact that
fully one-half the people in the state like
two miles and further from any church
building, and more, it is also true that of
the one-half of our population thus widely
removed from the centers of Christian
influence, only here and there a family
overcomes the difficulty of distance.
More, we have here in this State of
Maine, seventy-two towns without a
church building, and large number
where there are no stated religious SER
vices. If such destitution exists in our
towns, what must be the condition of
those who live in the inland country dis
tricts. But thanks to the information
laboriously gathered by the agents of the
Bible Society during the past year, we
can judge approximately concerning the
spiritual condition of our people. The
nineteen agents employed by the society
visited over $1,000 houses last year.
Counting an average of five persons to
each house they can report accurately
concerning 10000 persons. One-half of
these homes sheltered non-church goers.
Speakino in roI,r,d num hers TX O00 ont
of the 100000 visited are persons who
hold themselves outside of church influ-
ences. 'But do they not at least possess
Bibles?' you may ask. Yes, many of
them do. But out of the 1000 families
visited more than 1,100 families were
found without the word of God in their
houses. and those 1,100 families were
Protestant families. 1 make these as
founding statements on the authority of
SuDt. StiiSon of tho Rih1e SOciety''