Part 2

And further, it is manifest that in our reading we should have respect to the nurture of our spiritual life. Secular instruction and mental improvement are proper ends to be sought by us all; but that which constitutes pre-eminently the welfare of our souls ought to receive our most serious and conscientious attention. To strengthen within us Christian faith, hope, and love—to bring ourselves into closer union with our blessed Saviour—to devote ourselves more thoroughly to his service and glory, ought to be the first and chief design of every one. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” But as to the course of reading to be adopted for these high and incomparable ends, it is difficult and even impossible to lay down rules; because, as men’s minds are so differently constituted, as dispositions are so differently formed, the class of books adapted to promote the welfare of some may not be suited to the needs of another. Biography, perhaps, most stimulates one person; psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, perhaps, most inspire another; plain, practical addresses to the heart and conscience may, perhaps, better stir and animate a third. Let each consult his own peculiarities, and choose accordingly what he shall read for his spiritual edification. We are quite sure that to mark out the same course of religious reading for all kinds of people is labour lost; it betrays great ignorance of human nature, of the wonderful varieties of spiritual life, and of the diversified exigencies and wants of different minds. What any one finds most helpful to himself, he is very apt to think will be found equally helpful to another; but this may prove a serious mistake, and may lead to injury where benefit was designed. Then, beyond stimulus and inspiration, there is needful for the healthful development of Christianity in human experience, character, and conduct, a plain, simple, solid acquaintance with the things of God—an acquaintance to be sought in a proper direction, in quarters, perhaps, where there is little to regale the fancy or gratify the taste, but much to feed the soul with knowledge and understanding. Surely no Christian man, no Christian woman, can neglect to consult in these ways the wants of spiritual life. Individuals who never ask in reference to what they read, “Will this be beneficial or injurious to my highest interests?” are culpably negligent and careless, and are running immense risks. They are in danger far greater than that of persons who, with delicate constitutions, set at defiance medical caution and advice, and are determined to eat and drink whatever they please. And before quitting this point, let me add that it is of the last importance we should apply to ourselves conscientiously, and in the sight of God, what we learn from the stores of Christian practical literature. For, whilst recreation and amusement may be wisely sought at times from other departments of reading, recreation and amusement are not the objects to be sought in the reading of strictly religious books: far higher objects come before us there—even the purification of our thoughts, the lifting our affections upwards to the supreme Author of all Good, and the fastening of our hearts on Christ, the only name given under heaven whereby we can be saved; and to secure these objects a different frame of mind must be maintained from that in which we indulge when we take up a volume simply to relieve a jaded mind or to while away an idle hour.

IV.

If one use of the many books in the world be our own edification, another use to be made of them is the spiritual welfare of others.

Although it follows as a necessary consequence that if Christian literature be available for the first of these purposes it is available also for the second, we find it very difficult to impress some minds with a due conviction of the value and importance of such instrumentality in promoting the highest interests of our fellow-men. There are many whom it is hard enough to inspire with zeal for the direct conversion of their friends and neighbours by means of circulating religious tracts; but there are more whom it is still harder to convince that spiritual benefit may be indirectly communicated to large classes of society by purifying the streams of general literature, and by promoting the issue and circulation of good books of various descriptions. Yet the former kind of zeal—zeal in circulating tracts for strictly religious ends—is supported no less by facts than by sound reasoning. A good man, Richard Knill, used to say in his own simple, emphatic, earnest style, “One tract may save a soul.” That simple saying he was wont to establish and illustrate by incidents which had occurred under his own notice; and incidents full of this evidential force, and fraught with heart-stirring influence, are accumulating every year. And as to zeal in the second direction, a conviction of the good which may be effected by the circulation and diffusion of works upon instructive and interesting subjects, imbued with a Christian tone and spirit, is deepened by a consideration of the present state of the world, with all its mental activity and inquisitiveness; the habit of reading now on the increase in all circles; and the instances frequently occurring, through the means just indicated, of the removal of prejudice, and the commenced preparation for something better in certain minds athirst for knowledge. I am perfectly sure, and my confidence is the result of long reflection and experience, that Christians have not yet paid one tithe of the attention which it deserves to this pressing claim of the present day. A great deal of money now injudiciously but benevolently frittered away with the hope of some immediate brilliant spiritual results, would, I am satisfied, be invested far more wisely, and, in the end, with a deeper and wider return of advantage, if devoted to the less imposing object of leavening our current literature more and more with the sentiments and principles of genuine Christianity.

And now we are brought face to face with the Religious Tract Society and its very powerful claims upon our sympathy and support. It has been in existence upwards of seventy years, and is one of those vigorous institutions which struck their earliest roots into the Christian mind of England when our fathers were terrified by the storms of the French Revolution. Those institutions were not the seedlings of a fanatical panic; rather did they arise as healthy offshoots from God’s Tree of Life, to be planted by the hands of disinterested charity and cheerful hope. It was a movement of Christian philanthropy, taking a specific form, but instinct with large-hearted and manifold zeal; for out of the early conferences of its friends sprung the idea of the British and Foreign Bible Society; and it was in the committee-room of the Tract Society that the memorable words were uttered, “Bibles for Wales”—“Why not for the world?” The Tract Society may be regarded, if not as the mother, yet as the nurse of the Bible Society. The elder breathes the unsectarian temper, the Catholic spirit so pre-eminently manifested by the younger; and, like it, it aims only at bringing souls into the all-comprehensive flock of the one all-sufficient Redeemer. It eschews controversy on controversial questions, and throws its energies into a great crusade against infidelity, falsehood, sin. “Controversy at times,” it was remarked in the report for 1869, “may arise, or local circumstances may exist which tend to divide sections of Christians one from another; but should not this tendency be resisted in presence of the weightier controversies which the whole Church in all parts is called to wage against ignorance and error—against superstition and unbelief—against the practical godlessness of the pleasure-seekers and mammon-lovers amongst all classes?” This last is the only controversy in which the Tract Society engages; and it may be expected, therefore, to rally to itself all those who deem the spread of the truth of higher importance than similarity of opinion on the politico-ecclesiastical questions which are disturbing European society. And this the Committee have no doubt that it will do. The Society’s motto is—“Christ Jesus, and Him crucified,”—the only Saviour of the lost, the only and the all-sufficient Prophet, Priest, and King of his Church. To bring every thought of both young and old, rich and poor, scholar and teacher, into subjection to Him, is its one object. And it therefore claims the prayers and the support of all who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity and in truth.

The object of the Society is twofold—embracing both the purposes which I have just been enforcing:—The conversion of souls, sought by direct and appropriate means; and the general benefit of all classes of society, by a supply of works in general literature purified by the presiding power of Christian truth, righteousness, love, and wisdom.

The first object was originally the only one, and has ever been the chief; and the good done by the religious tracts which the Society has circulated, nobody can calculate. Who can tell the blessings conveyed in “The Dairyman’s Daughter” and “The Young Cottager,” tracts which, though old, can never be out of date—tracts which have been very rarely equalled, and, I believe, never surpassed? Others less striking have been the instruments of vast usefulness. The annual circulation from the London depot, I see, is 41,044,772; the total of issues, including those which are from foreign societies, connected with this, 49,000,000. The total circulation of tracts for seventy-one years reaches the enormous amount of nearly 1,335,000,000. It would seem, looking at these almost incredible numbers, as if the world could not contain so many books written of Him; and yet how many, many millions of the men and women in the world know nothing of Him, and have never yet been reached by any of these publications! What shoals have been and still are coming forth on the other side, full of infidelity and superstition and vice! So that, after all, the work of this Society is not half done.

The second object—the hallowing of literature with a Christian spirit—has increasingly occupied the attention of the Society of late years, but never, in the slightest degree, to the neglect of the first. The catalogue of its published books includes, besides solid divinity, lively histories, pleasant biographies, sparkling fictions, religious, moral, and descriptive poetry. Old works are brought out in modern dress under the care of competent editors; works entirely new are issued under the sanction of the Committee, which renders itself responsible for their contents. The pencil of the artist, the burin of the engraver, are employed in the illustration and adornment of many of the publications; and in an artistic as well as literary respect, “The Leisure Hour” and the “Sunday at Home” stand deservedly high amongst our popular periodicals. They are making way amongst the intelligent and the tasteful, conciliating prejudice, producing favourable impressions of Christian truth, and guiding the young into right paths.

The prophet Ezekiel stood in the court of the Temple at Jerusalem, and watched the flow of waters issuing “from under the threshold of the house eastward,” and descending the slope of Zion into the Valley of Jehoshaphat; he watched and followed the man with the measuring line in his hand through the waters, which were first ancle and then knee deep, and which, as they proceeded along the limestone gorge, rose up to the loins, and then became waters to swim in—a river which could not be passed over. When it reached the Dead Sea it healed the waters of it, and where it came everything lived. Then the prophet saw, in vision, groves, orchards, gardens, rising on each side of this river. Such is the Old Testament type of the Gospel of Christianity. It may be applied to all forms of its influence and action. We venture to employ it as a figure of what this Society is doing. It issues fertilizing, life-giving, and healing streams, because it is filling the world with books written about the many things which Jesus did, and is doing, and will do for the sons of men. “And by the river, upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary; and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.”

ABSTRACT OF THE SEVENTY-FIRST REPORT OF THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY, FOR THE YEAR ENDING MARCH 31, 1870.

THE object of the RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY, like that of the public ministry of the Word, is to impress the contents of the sacred volume—its doctrines, its precepts, its promises, its prospects—separately, or in varied combinations, upon the consciences and affections of men according to their spiritual needs. In pursuing this object, it strives to imitate the Divine book itself, and to teach, not by doctrine only, but by history, biography, poetry, parable; and to tinge its information or instruction, as to the events of every-day life, with the spirit of pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father—disinterested benevolence and personal holiness.

There have been issued, during the year, THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-THREE new publications, of which ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-ONE were Tracts. The Books include a revised Quarto Paragraph New Testament, and two Parts of the Old; a historic Survey of the Papacy; a Grammar and Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, and many of a general character adapted for both adults and youth; and amongst the Periodicals, a new one entitled “_The True Catholic_.”

FOREIGN OPERATIONS.

EUROPE

FRANCE.

To the PARIS TRACT SOCIETY, the Committee have voted £100 to reduce the price of the _Almanach des Bons Conseils_, £120 towards the free circulation of 100,000 tracts, including a monthly grant to the agents of the Home Missionary Society, and £300 for the publication of various tracts monthly in editions of 10,000 each.

To Toulouse, £300 has been given; and to M. Puaux, £100.

Grants have also been made to the Strasbourg Society of £10; to M. Jenkins, of Morlaix, for Breton publications, £19 10s. 5d.; and to Pastor Maillard, of La Mothe, £20, for the publication of a Hymn Book.

BELGIUM AND HOLLAND.

The Committee have furnished the Belgian Evangelical Society with the means for publishing an edition of 3,000 of a new translation of the Rev. Newman Hall’s “Come to Jesus,” and 5,000 each of eleven Flemish tracts. They have also continued their subsidies to the Flemish Christian monthly periodical, and, for a period of the year, to the French _Chrétien Belge_.

ROTTERDAM.—M. HERKLOTTS has issued from the auxiliary—Tracts, 57,181; Books, 1,747; Handbills, 13,050; total, 71,978. The “Sinner’s Friend” has been reprinted, and 7,050 copies issued.

AMSTERDAM.—During the past year, a Workmen’s Exhibition was held in this city, and the Committee sent to Pastor Adama v. Scheltema £10 in English tracts, £10 in foreign, and £10 in Dutch tracts. A handsome kiosk was erected for their reception. They were wisely distributed and well received.

SWITZERLAND.

Grants voted to Switzerland, £146 14s.

RUSSIA.

ST. PETERSBURG.—Twenty-three new tracts have been printed—121,000 copies—at a cost of £80 to the Society. They are chiefly translations from English tracts, and all contain the Gospel of our Lord.

The sales, including nearly 8,000 German tracts and books, have reached during the past year 115,823 copies. The gratuitous circulation has been, in addition, 2,600 tracts.

At RIGA, M. LOESWITZ still pursues his tract publication in the German, Lettish, Esthonian, and Polish languages. His scheme involved the printing of 90,000 tracts and books in these tongues at a cost of over £300, towards which the Committee contributed £100.

SWEDEN AND NORWAY.

The Stockholm Missionary Union, of which the Rev. Mr. Wiberg is Secretary, has issued sixteen new tracts, in editions of 10,000 each, at a cost of £44, towards which the Committee have voted £20.

The gratuitous circulation during the year amounts to 80,000, by the hands of sixteen agents employed in various parts of the kingdom.

Through the Rev. J. STORJOHANN, the Norwegian Chaplain to the Port of London, the Committee have printed six tracts in Norse, amounting to 15,500 copies.

GERMANY.

HAMBURG.—The Lower Saxony Tract Society has received the usual grant of £350. It has printed during the year 870,000 publications, and circulated by sale and gift 1,060,000.

Mr. Oncken’s circulation for the year ending March 31, 1870, was 1,030,306. The grants made to him have been £300 for tract printing, £100 for the purchase of tracts from other German Societies, and £13 for Spanish and Russian tracts.

The Bremen Society, conducted by Dr. Jacobi, has received £85, principally for German versions of the Society’s English tracts.

The miscellaneous grants are two of £20 each to Mr. Lehmann, of Berlin, one of whose distributors has been imprisoned for giving away a tract under prohibited circumstances; £30 to Dr. Adelberg, of Erlangen; £10 to Pastor Tretzel, Nüremberg; £20 to Nassau; £30 to Baden; and £20 English books for the daughter of the late Dr. Fliedner, at Hilden.

HUNGARY.

The sums expended in this field amount to £460:—35,000 copies of tracts in Hungarian have been printed, and 13,000 in Slavonian.

ITALY.

The books printed at the Typographia Claudiana, at the cost of the Society, during the past year amounted to 40,500 copies.

Grants voted to Italy, £819 4s.

SPAIN.

From November, 1868, to February, 1870, 1,500,000 tracts have been printed at Madrid, at a cost of £1,490.

“Tracts are a mighty power _rightly_ used, but tracts can be wasted and the tract brought into contempt. The rule we desire to see carried out in Spain is, tracts given to all who purchase Gospels; an assortment to purchasers of Bibles and Testaments, given to those who can _read_, or who have sons or children who can read for them.”

TURKEY.

The works printed during the past year at the cost of the Committee by the American Missionaries in Constantinople, who have received the usual grant of £300, have amounted to 13,000 copies in Arabo-Turkish; 8,000 in Armenian; 3,000 in Armeno-Turkish; and 6,000 in Bulgarian.

ASIATIC OPERATIONS.

INDIA.

The report from India speaks of movement and progress both in printing and circulation.

Madras writes:—“The past year records the largest number of distinct publications that have ever been published in any one year. The average number of new publications has only been _seven_: this year _seventy-seven_ distinct publications have been issued, sixty-four of which are new tracts and books. The printing is about the average.”

From BOMBAY, Mr. Bowen says:—“Our circulation is much in advance of what it ever was. Our financial condition is good.”

From COLOMBO Mr. Murdoch says:—“The subscriptions are somewhat in advance of the preceding year; but the most encouraging feature is the great increase, amounting to 45 per cent. beyond former sales.”

The amount of paper granted to the various printing presses during the past year has been considerably increased, being 3,062 reams; while 754,110 books and tracts have been printed during the year by the various Indian Auxiliaries.

CHINA.

The total grants during the year have amounted to £247. Returns of publications printed not received in time for the Report.

BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.

The grants of tracts and Sunday-school libraries made to this part of the field amount to £546.

WEST INDIES, ETC.

Including Jamaica, Antigua, Turk’s Island, Demerara, Cuba, Brazil, Honduras, Mexico, have received grants to the amount of £169.

AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, TASMANIA.

The grants during the year to our brethren in these distant parts of the globe were as follows:—

Adelaide, £35 14s.; Goulburn, £5; Hobart Town, £13; Melbourne, £10; Victoria—Miscellaneous, £22; Sydney, £104 10s.; Launceston, £6; Queensland, £7 15s.; Miscellaneous, £10; Total, £204.

AFRICA.

The grants made to this continent amount to £73.

FUNDS.

The benevolent receipts, including legacies, amount to £15,479; but as £500 of this sum is by the will of the testator, Mr. William Hollins, directed to be kept distinct, the dividends upon it have alone been available, thus reducing the amount to £14,979.

The grants for the year, including money, paper, and publications, have amounted to £17,223, making the excess of grants over the receipts £2,244.

CIRCULATION.

The total circulation for the year is about forty-one millions of publications from the Home Depository; and about eight millions more from Foreign Depôts.

PRIVILEGES OF SUBSCRIBERS.

All Subscribers to the Parent Society are allowed a discount of 25 per cent. on all their purchases; while the Subscription itself is appropriated to the Society’s Grants at Home and Abroad.

* * * * *

DEPOSITORIES: 56, PATERNOSTER ROW; 65, ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD; 164, PICCADILLY; AND 31 WESTERN ROAD, BRIGHTON.

SOCIETY’S PERIODICALS.

THE TRUE CATHOLIC.

PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF SCRIPTURAL TRUTH. One Penny, Monthly.

THE COTTAGER AND ARTIZAN.

A MONTHLY PERIODICAL FOR THE LABOURING CLASSES. In large type, with fine Illustrations. Price One Penny.

The Volume for 1869, with cover printed in oil colours, 1s. 6d.

NEW SERIES OF THE TRACT MAGAZINE.

Monthly, price One Penny. FOR LOAN CIRCULATION AND FAMILY READING. Volume for 1869, 1s. 6d., with coloured Frontispiece and Engravings.

THE CHILD’S COMPANION AND JUVENILE INSTRUCTOR.

Published Monthly, price One Penny. Printed in small quarto size, and embellished with large tinted and other Engravings by the best English and Foreign Artists.

The Volume for 1869, 1s. 6d., fancy cover; 2s. extra cloth, gilt.

THE LEISURE HOUR.

A FAMILY JOURNAL OF INSTRUCTION AND RECREATION. Coloured and Wood Engravings. Weekly, One Penny; Monthly Parts, Sixpence.

THE SUNDAY AT HOME.

A FAMILY MAGAZINE FOR SABBATH READING. Coloured and Wood Engravings. Weekly, One Penny; Monthly Parts, Sixpence.

PARAGRAPH BIBLE, with Emendations.—THE HOLY BIBLE, according to the Authorized Versions, in Paragraphs and Sections, with Emendations of the Text; also Maps, Chronological Tables, and Marginal References. Royal 4to, large type. Part I., Genesis to Deuteronomy, 6s. Part II., Joshua to Esther, 8s.; together in boards, 16s. Part V., The Gospels, 4s. Part VI., The Epistles, 4s. 6d. The New Testament, complete in one vol., 10s. 6d., boards.

_This important work_, _upon which several eminent scholars have been engaged_, _has been in course of preparation for many years_. _The aim has been to give to English readers the benefit of all such emendations of the text as are valuable_, _and have the sanction of the best authorities_, _while avoiding such as are either doubtful or trivial_.

THE ANNOTATED PARAGRAPH BIBLE.—The OLD and NEW TESTAMENTS, according to the Authorized Versions, arranged in Paragraphs and Parallelisms, with Explanatory Notes, Prefaces, and New Selection of References. Maps and Engravings. Super-royal 8vo. Old Testament, 14s. boards; New Testament, 7s. Complete in one vol., 20s., boards. (_For other styles and prices_, _see Catalogue_.)

TRACTS PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY. {i}

FIRST SERIES—consisting of doctrinal statements, appeals to the heart and conscience, refutations of Romanism and infidelity, addresses to various classes and ages, etc. About 800 sorts, at the rate of 400 pages for One Shilling.