Repository Tracts." Those who have seen the stories of "Giles the Poacher," and "Widow Brown's Apple Tree," will wonder how the elegant scholar, the daily associate of Johnson and Garrick, could so bring her style of thought and diction down to the level of a rank of intellect of which, among free adults, we in this age and land have little idea. Among her private papers was found this thanksgiving:-" Bless the Lord, O my soul, that I have been spared to accomplish this work. Do thou, O Lord, bless and prosper it to the good of many. I have devoted three years to it. Two millions of these tracts were disposed of during the first year."

Mrs. Rebecca Wilkinson, of Clapham, in Surrey, engaging in the same labour of love, was instrumental in distributing, either gratuitously or at reduced prices, nearly half a million of tracts and prayerbooks. The Rev. John Campbell, in 1789, seems to have originated, though on a small scale, an organization more like a modern tract society than anything which had gone before it. Thus by degrees the minds of the pious were turned to the important duty of preaching the Gospel by means of the press; and various plans for bringing every heart and mind in contact with the word, were gradually assuming shape.

The Rev. George Burder, of Coventry, has the honour of having originated the Religious Tract Society. He began by publishing at his own charge tracts for gratuitous distribution or for sale at very low rates. After a short time, a personal friend of his, the Rev. Samuel Greatheed, united in his plans and responsibilities. The failure in business of their publishing agent, a London bookseller, caused them to wish for something on a stronger, more permanent basis, for the prosecution of their plans. At length, on the 8th of May, 1799, at a missionary meeting held at Surrey Chapel, of which the celebrated Rowland Hill was then the pastor, Mr. Burder submitted his plans to the ministers present. The enterprise was hailed with so much enthusiasm and hearty zeal, that in two days from that time a constitution had been adopted, a board of officers elected, and the "Religious Tract Society" was complete in all its arrangements. A fact not devoid of interest is, that the board of officers first elected, twelve in number, all lived to meet again at the twentyfifth anniversary of the society. The total income the first year was about $2,400, and the issues were about two hundred thousand tracts. In the year 1849, the income reached $240,000, and the publications were eighteen millions in number. The receipts of the first fifty years were five millions of dollars; and five hundred millions of publications, in one hundred and ten languages, were distributed Moreover, principally through the agency of the leading spirits of

this organization, the British and Foreign Bible Society was established in 1804, which has scattered among the nations thirty millions of Bibles and Testaments, in one hundred and sixty-two languages.

While Christians in England were thus at work, the American Churches were not inactive. In 1825, the American Tract Society was founded, an organization which at half the age, far exceeds the English predecessor in the magnitude and completeness of its arrangements, and in the energy with which its affairs are managed. From the London society we have nothing later than the Jubilee Memorial, and consequently we cannot compare the two with much exactness. In 1849 the income of the London society was $240,000, of which $30,000 were received in donations, and the rest from the sale of publications. The income of the American Tract Society for the year ending May 10, 1854, was $415,000, of which $156,000 were received in donations. In 1849 the London society gave away books and tracts to the amount of $39,000 cash value; in 1854, the American society distributed gratuitously 136,696 volumes, and 73,000,000 pages of tracts, besides giving $20,000 in cash for foreign distribution, worth in all about $115,000. During the same year, the American society employed six hundred and nineteen colporteurs, who held over twelve thousand public prayer meetings, sold half a million of good books, and visited five hundred and sixtyeight thousand families, of whom thirty thousand were found destitute of the Holy Scriptures.

The American Baptist Publication Society was established in 1824. The Annual Report for 1854, states that the receipts for the year were $49,612; about $35,000 having been received from sales, and the rest consisting of donations to the society. Their colporteurs, sixty-seven in number, are half of them ministers, who not only preach as they have opportunity, but baptize converts and organize Churches. The report notes the organization of nine Churches in this way during the year. It may not be out of place to add that the entire corps of workers seem strongly imbued with denominational spirit, though not uncharitably or offensively so, so far as it appears from the document. Many of the books sold by them are controversial in their character, and much zeal is shown to get the community right on the controverted question. The operations of the society are carried on with commendable energy, and the results are good.

The Presbyterian Board of Publication employed the last year one hundred and fifty-one colporteurs, who put in circulation one hundred and thirty-five thousand nine hundred and eighty-three bound volumes, and one million three hundred thousand pages of

tracts. Number of families visited, sixty-eight thousand one hundred and eighty-five. The total income for the year was $103,544.

The Protestant Episcopal Society employs no colporteurs, and consequently its business operations are on a comparatively small scale. The income of the society the last year was $20,915, of which $1,278 were donations and collections.

The Board of Publication of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church has been recently organized. We should infer from the Report that their well-devised plans will be pursued with energy. One rule in relation to colporteurs is worthy of notice, as its general adoption might be attended with good results:-"No colporteur under the employ of the Board, shall be allowed to interfere with other denominations, and in no case to visit the families of such until he has called upon the pastors and obtained their consent." This publication society has not yet erected buildings for a printing and binding establishment, but has effected an arrangement with the Presbyterian Board of Publication, by virtue of which books and tracts may be procured on the same terms upon which the Presbyterian auxiliaries are supplied. Our brethren of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, are also moving with spirit in the tract enterprise. They have lately organized a society for extended operations, and placed at its head one of their ablest men, Rev. J. Hamilton, D. D. All the modern appliances which other Churches have found so efficient, are provided for, conference agents and colporteurs included. As in the operations of the society of our own Church, the publications issued from their General Book Rooms are included in the movement, and the people are thus supplied with all the Methodist books which they want. Their enterprise is not yet fairly inaugurated, and they have not yet published their first report; but from what we have learned of the society, we anticipate extended usefulness as the result of its labours.

Having thus sketched the origin of the tract enterprise, and illustrated the general subject by showing what is doing among some other branches of Zion, we come to the tract enterprise of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

At a very early period in his ministerial career, John Wesley was impressed with the vast power of the press, and the duty of Christians to employ it for God. He accordingly began the good work by publishing volume after volume of substantial works;-sometimes little more than abridgments of books whose reputation was established, but all calculated to promote sound knowledge and true piety. With this, he joined the beginnings of a tract enterprise, by sending forth little publications of two or four pages, entitled "A Word to a

Swearer," "A Word to a Sabbath Breaker," and the like; so that he could, as early as 1745, say, that "within a short time" he had "given away some thousands of little tracts, among the common people." To the last day of his wonderful life, he employed the same powerful agency. With an eagle eye upon the literature of his times, he watched the ebbs and flows, the tossings and the calms of the great mental and moral deep, ready at any moment to launch his life-boats to save the perishing. How well in at least one instance his auxiliary served him, may be seen in the result of the famous controversy of 1771, in which Fletcher of Madeley was, under God, the right arm of his defence, and the press the sharp sword with which error was cloven down.

The fathers of Methodism in America were awake to the importance of wielding this weapon in the cause of God. At the Christmas conference of 1784, at which the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized, arrangements were made for the printing of books. In 1789, John Dickens was appointed Book Steward, and the nucleus was formed which grew gradually into our present extended "Book Concern." But it was found that in the prosecution of the various publication enterprises of the Church a division of labour is expedient, as well as in many other departments of human effort, and in 1817, the Tract Society was formed. In his History, Dr. Bangs thus remarks: "The Tract Society was formed this year by some members of our Church, with a view to furnish the poorer classes with religious reading. It is true that a small society, managed by a few pious and benevolent females, had been formed a short time previously, but its operations were extremely limited. The society now formed took a wider range, and commenced publishing its tracts and distributing them with spirit and energy." Dr. Emory, in 1828, when he was senior "Book Steward," advocated the publication of cheap religious books, as well as tracts, and succeeded in creating a new organization called the Publishing Fund for this purpose. The plan was to erect a publishing house for the use of the Methodist Episcopal Bible Society, the Sunday-School Union, and the Tract Society, distinct from the General Book Concern. The framers of this project did not yet aim at gratuitous issues, but to reduce the price of Bibles and other good books to the mere cost of paper, presswork, and binding. The fund never amounted to a sum sufficient to warrant the erection of the contemplated buildings, but the moneys collected were applied to their object in connexion with the establishment already in existence. In March, 1833, the three societies were merged in one, and committed to the same board of management. The fusion gave too many interests into the keeping

of the same hands, and in 1836, the General Conference resolved to unite with other evangelical denominations in the support of the American Bible Society. The Sunday-School Union and the Tract Society remained united till 1840, when the Sunday-School Union was erected into a separate organization, and the tract enterprise was abandoned for the time to its fate. At the General Conference of 1844, Rev. D. P. Kidder was elected "Editor of Sunday-school books and tracts," and the bishops soon after uniting in a circular addressed to the annual conferences, urging the cause upon their sympathies and coöperation, a considerable impetus was given to the movement, and it began to assume more importance.

Still, our appliances were hardly up to the times, and we were not competing on anything like equal terms with other denominations. A local society was formed by the members of the Methodist Church in New-York, in 1846, and an experimental colporteur was sent forth, like the dove from the ark, to see if a new agency might find rest for the sole of its foot. At the end of three months he returned and reported that he had visited six hundred and eighty-six families, and had sold eight hundred religious books and over three thousand pages of tracts, besides making donations to those desirous of possessing but unable to buy. The conviction spread that we must not be laggards in the new field, into which other denominations were already beginning to enter with commendable zeal and great success. In fact, the preachers, especially on the Atlantic states, had become unable or unwilling to follow the example of the fathers in circulating books, and our people found it more easy, in many cases, to supply themselves with the books of other publication societies than with those of our own, and thus there was danger that our denominational literature would be thrust from the position which it ought to occupy. Dr. Kidder, to whom the Church is much indebted in this matter, advocated the formation of a new society; and when the General Conference of 1852 met, he addressed to it a memorial, setting forth strong reasons for the contemplated movement. The bishops had recommended it in their address, several annual conferences had formally approved the measure, and the project met with universal favour.

"The General Conference, with great unanimity, determined upon the organization of a Tract Society, prepared a constitution, and appointed an additional officer, Rev. Abel Stevens, editor of the Monthly Magazine and Tracts, and Corresponding Secretary of the Tract Society.'

"On the 10th day of November, 1852, the society began its operations under the most favourable auspices. Its energetic secretary, by direction of the Board, and in obedience to the orders of the General Conference, printed and sent out documents, circulars, and appeals to the Church in various forms; thoroughly revised the list of tracts, replacing those deemed obsolete by new