, the British
and Foreign Bible Society was able to report a total distribution of
Bibles, Testaments, or portions thereof, by that society alone, to the
number of 186,680,101--a total that, in 1910, had grown to upwards of
220,000,000 copies, in nearly four hundred distinct tongues.
To these totals must be added the millions of copies of the Scriptures or
portions thereof, in many languages, distributed by other Bible societies
and by various commercial agencies. The American Bible Society,--the
greatest of the daughters of the British parent society,--during the first
ninety-four years of its work, reported a total distribution of 87,296,182
copies. (See _Bible Society Record_, June, 1910.) According to
conservative estimates, about six million copies of the Bible are printed
annually by commercial houses, which, added to the combined output of the
Bible societies, gives a total yearly circulation of more than fifteen
million copies.
The Scriptures, in whole or in part, have been printed in more than five
hundred distinct tongues; and the work of translation into new languages
and dialects is still carried forward with unflagging zeal.
Page 288. FOREIGN MISSIONS.--Dr. G. P. Fisher, in a chapter on "Christian
Missions" in his "History of the Christian Church," outlines the
beginnings of the missionary movement, which, in "the later years of the
eighteenth century, ushered in a brilliant era of missionary activity, an
era which, in the history of missions, is only less remarkable than the
first of the Christian ages." In 1792, "the Baptist society was founded,
with Carey as one of its first missionaries. Carey sailed for India, and
there, with the help of other members of the same society, founded the
mission of Serampore." In 1795, the London Missionary Society was founded;
in 1799, there was formed "the organization which in 1812 became the
Church Missionary Society." Soon afterward, the Wesleyan Missionary
Society was founded.
"While the missionary activity was growing up in Great Britain, the
Christians of America were becoming animated with a like zeal." In 1812,
they founded the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions; and
in 1814, the American Baptist Missionary Union. Adoniram Judson, one of
the first missionaries to go out from America, sailed for Calcutta in
1812, and reached Burmah in July, 1813. In 1837, the Presbyterian Board
was formed. (See Fisher, "History of the Christian Church," pe
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