Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 285, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1911 — BIBLE STILL BEST SELLER [ARTICLE]

BIBLE STILL BEST SELLER

■ vR, .--v -J-' f *-.Jk ■ Continues to Hold Its Lead as thd Most Popular Book Ever Published. - ' 7 . .. one hundred--and, seventh . a*; nual report of the British and Foretgaj Bible society, the largest, if not thej. oldest, of such organizations, shows; that the Bible still holds its ancient! lead as the most popular book evert published. During 1910 the society distributed, in 432 languages and dialects,, no fewer than 903,827 complete Bibles., 1,199,239 New Testaments and 4.782,-' 720 single scriptural books. Its re- 1 eripts from these sales—for though its' prices are very low, ft seldom actually gives Bibles away—were more than; 3500,000, and in addition it received' about >700,000 as and don*-i tarns and from invested funds. Sinceits foundation, to 1804, j|t has distributed nearly 220,000,000 copies of the sacred writings. at a cost of fußy 350.000,000. its colporteurs today number 1,100 and its annual outpUt of Bibles Mfcta nearly 350 tons. ■ The American Bible society, says the Baltimore Evening Sun, -ably seconds the work of the great British society, and fs almost as'old, * having been established in 1816. Down to 1900 ft had printed and distributed 70,000,000 copies of the ’ New Testament and the complete Bible, and at the rate of nearly 2,000,000 copies a year. It has given espectal attention to the translation of tne Bible into the Indian tongues, and fs now ready to supply New Tentaments, at ) least in every such tongue as ’has been reduced to writing. Of late it has also given attention tofoe Philippines, and its' colporteurs n’ow distribute Bibles in Tagalog and all the other dialects of the islands. Altogether thtese’tWo great societies, with their Scotch, Prussian and Russisn rivals, are.now distributing-fully 2,009,900 complete Bibles, 3,000,000 New Testaments and 0,003,000 lesser portions of the -Scriptures a year. Just erwteesold in to be accurately determined, but the' most reat 5,000,000 a year. lathe United States alone the sales often exceed 1,000,000. No other book, . sacred or profane, comes wthin miles.'of this stupendous record. The Bthfo outsells^ all the other best sellers; ' As a matter of fact, it topes very’near outselling aft * of them taken together.