Show THE BOOK THAT HAS LARGEST circulation of all the books that season by season are poured out from the teeming presses of the world to feed the voracious appetite of the reading public about one of three survives A three years term of life of all the books anve ever created a record few have ren clied a sale beyond copies and that is enough to make any publisher gasp ith a kind of unholy joy as of a poor man who suddenly facts himself in the presence of a goldmine yet there is one book whose sales are recorded in figures which are almost greater than the average human mind can grasp without mental dizziness which has circulated not by the ordinary thirteen to tho dozen not by hundreds not by thousands not by millions but by hundreds of millions a book so popular that it is read in the palace in the manor in the villa in the cottage in the hovel in the prison a book so fascinating that men have given their lives as the price of a single copy and are giving their lives to sell copies to others who have not yet read it it is a book of no local interest but it so stirs the heart whether it beat beneath a white or black or yellow skin it has been translated not only into the chief families of language en by the great races of the east and west but into barbaric tongues which have never befaro been crystal into written shape into dialect spoken in the bush and in the jungle HH the torrid zones and in the arctic regions i SMALL BEGINNING t A century ago about three hundred respectable per ons of different denominations a in the old london tavern in although the country at that was in a pani cand arming itself to the teeth at the pros of a great french invasion persons were busy with a vork of peace on that day the british and foreign bible society came into existence granville sharp waa in the chair william wilberforce was the orator and zachary macaulay was on the first committee three brothers in arms who were to win iho greatest victory of peace in the annals of our country the emancipation of the slave and who afre equally zealous in thia work of the first tack of ithe bible society was lo 10 issue a large edition of the scriptures in welsh eotha t the welsh people who kid been unable to obtain them in their own tongue might now leave the privilege for which many pious people had long yearned an eye wit nesa has described the reception of these welsh new testaments when completed in the town of bala when t the arrival of the cart which carried the first load waa the welsh peasants pe asante went out in crowds to meet it welcomed it as the israelites did the ark of old drew it into the town and eagerly boro off every copy as rapidly as they could bo dispersed during the first years work of the bible society they spent pounds and thought they had done a great thing so they had but they were to do more last year they spent pounds and sinco the foundation of tho society they have expended pounds those are largo figures but when translated into numbers 0 books they are bigger still the society last year issued over favo million copies of alio scriptures and since its commencement a total of one hundred and eighty millions think of ponder over it seven thousand volumes are sent out from london alone every day of the week through every week of the year the output from all the socie tys depots including london averages copies per day pile up the issues of one day and they would reach higher than the cross on st pauls A BABEL OF TONGUES where do all these bables and testa menu got who pays for them the answers to these questions are a chapter of modern romance to know where tey go pay a visit to the packing rooms of the Socie tys depot in queen victoria street it is a lesson in geography the oblong wooden boxes lined and strongly bound with tin are labeled with names of places over the hills and far away names which bring back memories me moriea of old renown and ancient faiths names which call up visions of horrid bloodshed and dark fanaticism names of the new world and the old of the east and of the west of tho civilized world and of savage land |