Tracts, Bibles

"GOOD NEWS FOR YOU! GOD LOVES YOU!"

"MUSTARD-SEED FAITH." "INFIDELITY'S WORK, A True

Story."

"THE SWEARER'S PRAYER. . . .

Swearer, this is thy prayer. Oh, dreadful imprecation! Oh horrible, most horrible! . . . Oh, let thine oaths be turned into supplications! . . ."

Such pious words, on little leaflets and pamphlets, are the stock in trade of the American Tract Society, an interdenominational, evangelical body founded 109 years ago. Meeting last week in Manhattan, the Society announced that during the year past it distributed 5,889,103 pieces of Christian literature in 25 languages, a gain of 369,277 items over the year before. Since its foundation the Society has distributed 855,000,000 tracts in 181 languages. Its missionaries have visited 2,500,000 homes, conducted 650,000 religious meetings throughout the world. The Society works not in competition with ministers but among the unchurched. in what it calls "No Man's Land." At Ellis Island and other points of debarkation, "colporteurs" (distributors) for the Society hand tracts to immigrants in their native languages. Tracts go to the unemployed, to sailors, to inhabitants of lumber camps, CCC camps, prisons, hospitals and "religiously neglected areas . . . especially among the Mormons."

Last week the Society re-elected its general secretary, Rev. Dr. William Henry Matthews, and its second vice president, plain, plump Mrs. Finley Johnson (Helen Gould) Shepard, famed for her riches and good works.

Last week the American Bible Society held its 118th annual meeting, in Bible House. Manhattan. During the year it distributed 7,800,766 Bibles, Testaments and scriptural excerpts in 155 languages and dialects. Though this total was 266,390 fewer than the year before, the distribution of whole Bibles increased 78,597 or 50%. The Society's income jumped from $582,865.15 in 1932 to $752,275.90 in 1933.

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