American Bible Society

“ At the recent anniversary of the City Bible Society in Atlanta, Ga., it was reported that the colporteur, who had just commenced the canvass of the community, had found that of the first one hundred and fifty-eight white families visited in the first ward, twenty-six were destitute of the Word of God; and that of the first one hundred and seventy-two colored families visited in the same ward, forty-eight of them have no Bibles. ”

“ A lady, once a teacher in our schools at the South, and who has a great interest in the welfare of the colored children, suggests that in this way the pupils of our day and Sunday-schools may be supplied with the sacred Scriptures. We cordially second the suggestion, and will be glad to receive the written authorization of any of the Life Members of the Bible Society for the use of their current gift for the purpose above indicated. The officers of the Bible Society, as we understand, acquiesce in this plan so far as it may seem wise to the Life Members to co-operate with us. ”

“ The society has attempted to send the Bible to all the inhabitants of the earth, accessible to its agents. It has established depots in almost every place where the American churches have missions. It circulates the Scriptures in more than eighty different languages and dialects. In 1856, in compliance with a special request, and by means of a special gift, the Society's Imperial Quarto English Bible, bound with extraordinary care, enclosed in a rosewood case, and accompanied by a courteous letter, was sent to each of the reigning monarchs and other chief magistrates of the world. ”

“ Eight hundred missionaries or agents are required for the American Board of Missions, for the Presbyterians, the Baptists, and all the other churches. Now, they cannot send them to the four quarters of the globe without providing for their wants. The Bible Society, which prints three hundred thousand Bibles annually, the Religious Tract Society, which publishes every year five millions of tracts, and which, in New York alone, employs a thousand visitors or distributors ”

“ Often in going up the mountain we would stop and rest on some shelf of the rock, while Alice would take her Bible from her pocket, and read the beautiful descriptions of the majesty and glory of the mountain heights, their grandeur and splendor, and then of the great God, creator and ruler of the universe, and kneeling in the cleft of the rock, she would commit herself to him with such a sweet, childlike confidence, I used to weep without knowing what I was weeping for, wishing and longing that I could understand for myself. ”

“ It seemed to two young New Englanders who traversed the vast region from the Western Reserve to New Orleans in 1813, in the interests of missionary societies, that the people were wrapped in spiritual darkness, "being ignorant, often vicious, and utterly destitute of Bibles and religious literature." The General Bible Society of the United States was founded in 1816 to dispel this irreligious gloom. Within five years this organization and its numerous auxiliaries had distributed one hundred and forty thousand Bibles and Testaments through the new States. ”

“ Corruption of manners and morals too, how rapidly it will spread under the operation of this poison! Nor can religious principle stand long before the overwhelming inundation; and just in the degree in which alcoholic liquors are used, will the Sabbath, and the institutions of religion, and the Bible be neglected and trodden under foot. And when the morality, and religion, and the conscience of the majority of our nation are gone, what but a miracle can save our liberties from ruin? Corrupt the majority, and what security is there in popular elections? ”

“ There seemed to be but one step between Tidy and perfect happiness. If she could only have a hymn-book and know how to read it, she would ask nothing more. She didn't care so much about the Bible. If she had known, as you do, children, that it is God's word, no doubt she would have been anxious to learn what it contained. But this truth she had never heard, and therefore all her desires were centered in the hymn-book, in which were stored so many of those precious and beautiful hymns which she loved so much to hear Uncle Simon repeat and sing. ”

“ My Bible and the house of God had been long entirely neglected. Mrs. Mason perceived that I was affected, and moving towards the door, said, “Yes, James, it is a slippery, down-hill path that leads to ruin, and many there be that walk therein. Heaven may be said to lie upward, yet ‘its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace.’ But come, it is broad daylight, and I must hasten home.” ”

“ Tidy had lived to be ten years old in this Christian land, and had never heard of the God who made her. Miss Lee, with all her kindness, was not a Christian, and never read the Bible, offered prayer, or went to church; so that the poor child had grown up thus far as ignorant of religious truth as a heathen. ”

“ All Christian sects, without exception, recognise the Bible as the text-book of their religion. They all acknowledge it to be a book given of God, and replete with the most excellent sentiments, moral and religious. None will admit that it is unfavourable to their peculiar views, but, on the contrary, all claim that it promotes them. To the use of the Bible, then, as the text-book of religious instruction in our schools, there can be no serious objection on the part of Christians of any sect; and even unbelievers very generally admit it to be a very good and useful book. ”

“ Such is the will of God, as the Catholic Church has received the same, and the facts of history prove that she is right. For when Protestantism arose, its great aim was to spread the Bible. Its history has been the history of Bible-circulation, and in the Bible Society has culminated the Reformation. These societies have labored bravely,0. We read that previous to the year 1834, a single society in Germany had distributed nearly 3,000,000 copies of the entire Bible, and 2,000,000 more of the New Testament. ”

“ The missionary societies have found by long experience that these mission schools in which the vernacular is taught, especially in remote places, are the most effective, and in many cases the only modes by which the people can be reached by the Gospel. The pupils are taught to read the Bible and it is carried by them to their homes. Now we ask, is it the function of the Government of the United {121} States to dictate in matters so purely religious and to override the Christian churches in the choice of their most approved methods of disseminating the Gospel? ”

“ But, you see, the new congregation offers the most money, and that cannot be disregarded.
"My friends, these are a few of the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Are we displeased with anybody? No, not at all. All are at liberty to believe what they please. But we are placed under obligations to deliver the message which God has sent. We say we are not solely dependent on the Bible, because God has sent the gospel. We do not wish you to think that we regard the Bible lightly. ”

“ The reliance of the Hebrews on the beneficence of Jehovah, the testimony of Jesus to the enduring worth of charity, mercy, and love, have in nowise been injured by textual criticism. The Old Testament, fancifully imagined as the Word of God given by dictation to specially chosen amanuenses, appeals to me no more strongly than a Bible recognized as the vision of brooding spirits, who, in a time when the world was young, and earth was nearer heaven than now, were conscious of longings and dreams that were wonderfully realized in their own hearts and lives. ”

“ They have trouble enough without that, and I hope you will never, never do it. They like best to be called colored persons, and we should always try to please them. We should pity them, and try to relieve their sorrows, and not increase them. Don't you think so?"
"Yes, ma, and I do love Dinah, and I don't care if she isn't white, like you."
"Neither does God, our heavenly Father, care, Henry, about the color of the skin. The Bible says, 'God is no respecter of persons ”

“ Incidental references heretofore have suggested the importance of religion in a democracy. But there are none of the great branches of the teaching of the schools, public or private, which do not involve the Bible. It is impossible to teach history fairly and fully without a frank recognition of the influence of the Bible. Study the Reformation, the Puritan movement, the Pilgrim journeys, the whole of early American history! We can leave the Bible out only by trifling with the facts. Certainly literature cannot be taught without it. ”

“ Let not denominational feeling so far prevail as to lead us to destroy the greatest good while attempting to secure the less, as has so often been done in the Christian world heretofore. We are willing to give up much for the sake of peace and united effort; but the Bible, the word of God, the palladium of our freedom, the foundation of all our most precious hopes, we never can, we never will give up. Let all who love the Bible unite to defend it, to hold on upon it forever. ”

“ During the same time they have raised seven hundred dollars, with which they have built a house and furnished it. The other churches have had but little growth in membership, but in Bible study and intelligent worship there has been commendable improvement.
A Christian Church, worshipping God according to Bible rules, is a light of untold worth in any country. This feature of our work is encouraging. Even those who hate and persecute us gradually adopt our views and modes of worship. ”

“ It is assuring to discover that the American Bible League, which promises to do much to quicken Bible study among the people along lines of faith in its integrity as the revealed Word of God, has reached almost precisely the same conclusion as to method. ”

“ Again, in the New Testament the Church is called the Body of Christ, the kingdom of heaven, the Bride, and its people are declared to be branches of the one Vine Jesus Christ Himself. "The great thought running through all the New Testament descriptions of the Church is that of the Church's unity in itself through its union with Christ the Head." There is not the slightest warrant in the Bible for the present state of our divided Christianity, which is simply the result of sin and man's waywardness. ”

“ To say that we can not believe and profess the truth, understand one another, inculcate and vindicate the faith and law of Christ, or do the duties incumbent upon Christians or a Christian Church without a human standard, is not only saying that such a standard is quite essential to the very being of Christianity, and, of course, must have existed before a Church was or could be formed, but it is also saying, that without such a standard, the Bible would be quite inadequate as a rule of faith and duty, or, rather, of no use at all, except to furnish materials for such a work ”

“ In the first place, all children in schools, can be taught, that the Bible contains the rules of duty given by God, which all men are bound to obey. This is what all denominations allow, and if there is any dispute about which translation is the proper one, each child can be allowed to use the Bible his parents think to be right. ”

“ There is not another society or community professing to believe the Bible, embracing it in their faith, would consent, for one moment, to sell or give away all they have and travel half-way over the earth for the sake of assembling together. ”

“ More Bible is taught, and less tradition. The preaching is more of Christ, and less of the saints. The adoration of pictures has greatly lessened. All sects have been compelled to introduce schools, and to educate both boys and girls, to educate their priests, and to remove the restrictions from reading the Bible.
"The circulation of the Scriptures, and of religious books, has been wide-spread, and we have heard of some who have been enlightened by these silent teachers, and have through them found Christ as their Saviour, and died in joyful trust in Him ”

“ Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law."—David.
An American citizen does not need to go to far-off India or Africa to learn how people live without the Bible. Every heathen nation, living in ignorance and degradation furnishes a practical illustration. This illustration may be found by visiting the countries on the other side of the southern boundary line of the United States, where for several centuries under dominant catholic influence the Bible has been a forbidden book in the few public educational institutions of the country. ”

“ We are glad to find it to be the distinct aim of the Society to press its work of evangelization to its consummation in Christian churches, and that while its educational and industrial work must from the nature of the case be general in its character, the obligation is recognized to gather up the result, so far and as fast as opportunity affords, in a more specific and permanent form. ”

“ With great humility, however, I feel disposed to advise that provided at any future time the Society should think itself called upon to recommence its exertions here in the cause of a crucified Saviour, it employ, as its mighty instrument the Bible, the entire blessed Bible ”

“ They have been lead to preach the things contained therein, and if they had discovered the doctrine, this Bible cannot lay on hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. That part of the work that is necessary for man's salvation must be done by one whom God authorizes. Therefore the Bible alone is not sufficient. It contains the truth. It is the word of God. It contains the instruction of the apostles. But it does not contain the divine authority that is necessary to commission a man to baptize or administer in any ordinance pertaining to the house of God. ”