The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-02-28
a C0LPORTEUR nv TURKEY
The American Bible Society's
Beginnings Were VeryI
Modest

of the New Testament. Each size is
bound in from four to six styles.
Like the majority of great com
mercial enterprises, this American
Bible trust" had modest beginning,
| its first place of business being a
room in New York that was exactly
7Xo feet in dimensions. It's next quar-
tiers were 20 feet square, and the third
3oxIOo feet, where it stayed until
1852, when the people Of New York
gave the society the Bible House in
Astor Place. This is six stories high,
700 feet around, and is as much of a
show place as Cooper Union, opposite
which it stands.
Starting so modestly, very soon a
mighty system grew up with the one
purpose of placing the Book. Two
thousand branch houses-Or auxilia-
ries, in Bible Society phraseology-
were established in every part Of
America. These at once created a de-
mand for Bibles. An unwritten chap
ter in American history is this pour
ing out of Bibles into the stream of
travel and transportation, until north
erner and southerner, immigrant and
sailor, soldier and civilian have been
supplied; and the end is not yet, as the
100000 for America last year indi-
cate.
A chance traveller, stopping for
night at some shack on the head wa
tiers of a western river, or in the
woods of Michigan, or perhaps on the
pra1rles of Texas, would be quite apt
to find that Bible Society man had
been there before him and left the
book. -Four times a systematic can
vasS OF the country has been made,
millions of families visited, and the
destitute supplied with the Bible.
1T is gratifying to note, as the result
of two Of these costly and protracted
efforts" Rev. DIR. Edward Gilman
modestly wrote in 1000, that the en-
tire number of families reported to be
visited was II,7644I6, and that out
of I,290,I5o of those which were found
destitute of the Bible, 85o,o6I were
supplied by sale or gift, End 5o8,o24
persons besides"
The Foreign Branch
Began
Modestly, Zoo t.4
Like its endeavors at home, the
societv's foreign work had a small
beginning. American missionaries be-
gan to translate the Bible; the ques-
ton of printing arose; the American
Bible Society offered to print for mis-
slonary organizations in other Ian
guages. A few hundred volumes were
printed; then by leaps and bounds
this branch of the society's work
gained on the aggregate of English
Bibles printed, until now nearly two
thirds of the output is used by people
unacquainted with the language of
Shakespeare.
In this foreign work, which in
cludes IoS languages, branch houses
or agencies have also been established
i'll many parts of the world. Constan-
tlnople, Beirut, Bangkok, Shanghai,
Seoul and Yokohama are turning out
Bibles by the hundreds of thousands
with the Bible Society imprint.
The getting of Bibles to the people
of America is a comparatively easy
matter; the railroad runs almost
everywhere. But elsewhere the prob
lem is difficult one; hence, the col
porteur.
The society employs 400 colpor-
tours, whose sole work year in and
year out is to place the Bible in the
hands of the people. One million and
three hundred thousand Bibles were
handled by these men last year-a
matter of $50 tons, almost two tons
to a man.
Scattered the world over, these
men know their own countries like
open books, and use the method of
carrying most available and economi-
cal. In that caravan of camels cross
ing the desert of Arabia, you are likely
to find colporteur of the "a. B. So
Here comes an elephant approaching
city in Eastern India. Perhaps It
bears John Darlington with load of
Bibles 1900 miles from headquarters.
Reindeer, bullocks, oxen, mules and
horses, llamas and dogs, with sleds
and sledges, canal boats and canoes
all know the colporteur and are
pressed into service in the transporta-