Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1900-04-18
MILLIONS OF BIBLES.
ASTONISHING CIRCULATION OF
THE SACRED BOOK.
Number of Copies Printed Every Year
What Becomes of All the Old and
Worn Volumes Is a Conundrum-Edi-
tions In Foreign Tongues.

tions In Foreign Tongues.
The success of widely read novel
Invariably sets people talking about
enormous sales, and paragraphs find
their way into print recording the fact
that so many thousands of copies have
been sold. And we talk about it US If
1T were n nine days wonder. totally I'M
mindful of book which has run
through countless editions, and of
which nearly 100000 copies were
printed in New York last year. Tha,
book is the Bible.
OF course, everybody knows that
more copies of the Bible have been
printed and sold than Of any other
book, but few persons realize. or stop
to think about it If they do, just to
what extent the Bible is circulated.
What becomes Of all the pins?" is a
question that has never been satisfac-
torily solved. What becomes of all the
Bibles is problem more difficult of
solution. A pin assumes inf1nitesimal
proportions compared with bound
book, and when one considers that the
Increased publication of Bibles is out
Of all proportion to the natural increase
In population one cannot help wonder
Ing what becomes of all of them.
1t stands to reason that great many
copies find their way into the hands of
foreign missionary societies and are
sent to the heather of other lands. Pos
sibly the proportion is one-half. But
even then the balance for home con-
sumption, If SO purely mercantile a
phrase may be permissible, is very con-
siderable. One New York publishing
house alone. the American Bible So
ciety, issued during the last year 1885,
s92 copies, of which trife more than
one-half were sent abroad. And one
year is very much like another in this
respect. Times may be good or times
may be bad, but the printing Of the
Scriptures goes on.
Now, what becomes Of them all? One
seldom dlscards Bible, no matter how
old or worn. The ordinary book, ex-
cept to the bibliophile. is regarded as
an article of commerce-something to
buy and sell, something to read and
enjoy, and then. If necessity demands,
pass along that some one else may en-
joy its benefits. If this were not SO
there would be no secondhand book
dealers.
Not SO with the Bible. You may hunt
the town over, you may delve among
d1Yot.onvoro1 IN IN so
book stores until your head grows
dizzy, and l doubt If you will find
dozen secondhand Bibles in all New
York. asked the proprietor of one of
these old book shops If he could ex-
plain why 1t was. He shrugged his
shoulders and frankly admitted that it
had been a puzzle to him for years.
And he was man of ripe experience,
too.
At the offices of the American Bible
Society, was only bewildered by fig
ures without having any light thrown
upon the real question of what becomes
of all the Bibles-the Bibles that are
not sent to the heather. The figures
as to production were stupendous in
themselves. was told that the vari-
GUS Bible societies alone had distrib-
uted more than 2s0,000,0O0 Bibles
since the year 1904. and this number
did not include the output of indi-
yidual publishing houses, of which
there are about dozen in New York
alone, which issue Bibles.
The British and Foreign Bible So.
ciety of London operates on even a
larger scale than our own American
Bible Society. Last year 4,479, 4S0
copies We're printed and distributed,
and since 1904, when the society was
organized. 1t has issued no less than
18O.0O93 1893 Bibles.
When one comes to consider the
achievements of the American Bible
Society abroad the result is astounding.
The society publishes. and now has for
sale. copies of the Bible printed in Ger
man, French, Welsh. Spanish, Portu-
guesc, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish,
italian, Dutch, Hebrew, Greek, Let
fish, Arabic. Icelandic, Syrlac, Rus
sian, Hungarian, Bohemian, Polish,
Gaelic, Finnish, Armenian, Malay,
Arabo-T Turkish, Slavonian, Slavic, Bull
garian. Chinese and Japanese. For
Africa the Scriptures are printed in
eight different languages, while for the
Sandwich Islands there are seven DIFF
ferent editions in rs many different
languages. The North American In
dams have Bibles printed in Cherokee,
Choctaw, Mohawk. Dakotas. ARA
wack. OJibwa, Muskokee and Seneca.
The distribution of Bibles in foreign
lands is not accomplished without Sc
we're hardships and often danger to
life. The colporteurs, as the travelling
agents are called. are quite heroic in
their devotion to the work. especially
In lands where fanaticism holds sway.
China is just at present the theater of
the most interesting actlvity.-St.
Louis Republic.