repeatedly made, and the further and more radical changes to which it so recently seemed to threaten to commit the denomination which supported it, are prepared to dispense with it altogether, to confine the operations of the Society to foreign versions, and to look to other quarters for a supply of English Bibles.

But, as your committee have already intimated, this measure cannot now be treated as a new question. The Home Department has been for so long a time an integral part of the Society's operations, that it cannot be suddenly abandoned by merely crediting its assets to the foreign work, and suspending all future operations in English Bibles. There is some weight to be attached to the argument in favor of continuing, drawn from the indirect service it is supposed to render to the missionary work. Nevertheless your committee do not consider that this service is so important as to require the maintenance of a large publication house, with all its complicated machinery of business, unless indeed there are other and more obvious advantages which it serves, besides the doubtful one of advertising the benevolent designs of the Society with respect to the nations of the earth. Whatever indirect advantages of this sort may flow from the present arrangement, your committee do not suppose that they alone can be regarded as the main reasons in favor of adhering to the old system. Those reasons, if they exist, must be found in an existing demand for the issue of English Bibles for the destitute, and in the ability of this institution to enter on the work of a supply which would be neglected were this Society to suspend its operations. How far a demand of this nature is likely to arise, can only be ascertained from the past history of the Society. Your committee have given careful attention to this point, and the result of their inquiries will be presented in a subsequent part of this report.

The department called the Home, or Publication, or Book Department, is a branch of the Society's operations, with no treasury of its own independent of the general treasury. Its work is two-fold. It is a publishing house, manufacturing its own books to a large extent, and entering the market like any other similar house, and offering its books at fixed prices to all who choose to become purchasers. Besides this, however, it is a benevolent institution, and under the guidance of general regulations, makes donations of books to the destitute, and annual grants to Life Members and Life Directors, who apply for their volumes.

During the first fourteen years of the Society's existence the sales of books amounted to $78,858 82; while the donations amounted to only $13,464 29, of which $3,631 86 were for books claimed by Life Members and Life Directors, leaving not quite $10,000 given away.

Through the assistance of the present Depository Agent, Mr. U. D. Ward, who has had the charge of the account books of the Society since October 1, 1850, and who has taken special pains to become well acquainted with the history of the money operations of the Home Department, your Committee have been able to obtain tables of figures, and data on which their present report is in part founded. Your Committee have the best reason to believe that the accuracy of these tables may be relied upon, they having been carefully compared with the original books and Annual Reports, from which they have been compiled.

The accompanying paper, marked "A," (see page 17,) is a "Statement showing the amount of Receipts and Expenditures of the American and Foreign Bible Society from the first year of its organization down to April 6, 1850." An abstract of this statement is here presented :—

The whole amount of the Society's receipts for the first fourteen

years of its existence is

And the disbursements,

Leaving in the Treasury, April 6, 1850,

$411,510 87

411,121 19

$389 68

Expended for paper, printing, stereotype plates, books, reports, &c., 118,789 94

$411,121 19

The operations in the Depository and Publishing Department will be better understood by an examination of the following

Statement showing the amount of receipts and expenditures of the Book Department, as rendered in the several Reports of the Treasurer, from April, 1839, to April, 1850.

DR.

April 6. To cash received from the sale of books, as per Treasurer's

Reports,

To cash supposed to have been received for books, and car-
ried to Foreign Department account through mistake, $500
per annum,

To am't due for books, as per Ledger,

$58,058 82

1850.

6,000 00 14,800 00

To appropriations in books,

9,832 43

Delivered to Life Members and Directors,

3,631 86

Bound and unbound books on hand this day, as per Stock
Ledger,

14,252 45

Stereotype plates on hand, valued at

11,726 48

Certificate plate paper,

Boxes, cases, desks, shelves, &c., &c., valued at

500 00

To a loss to balance the account, April 6, 1850,

24,582 99

$143,475 03

CR.

April 6. By cash paid for books, paper, printing, binding, including reports and circulars, as per Treas

"loss on the depreciation of the value of stereotype plates,
one half the loss of interest, discounts, and bad money, as

2,526 48

expense of agency in collecting about $20,000, balance as

loss to the Home Department,

2,870 00

$143,475 03

In the preceding statement it will be seen that the amount appropriated in books is credited to the Publication Department. Notwithstanding this allowance, this department is still indebted to the general treasury in the sum already named. That is, the sum of $24,582 99 has been taken from the funds received for general purposes, or more strictly, from the Foreign Department, to meet the losses which have been constantly arising in the Publication Department. It is impossible to regard this as a proper loan to the Publication Department, inasmuch as there has never been a time when that Department was in a condition to offer any security, or to expect from its profits on sales to be able, first to meet its own expenses, and then to reimburse the Foreign Department to the amount of its present indebtedness.

That the Board of Managers should persevere in these operations, and that the Society from year to year should approve and continue them, appears at first somewhat strange. The only explanation which has presented itself to your Committee, is found in a remark of a distinguished individual, who has been connected with the Society from the time of its organization, that if the Publishing Department had cost the Baptist denomination many times the sum already lost, the investment would have been a good and economical one, provided the Society had been able to employ this agency in giving to the world a new and faithful version of the Holy Scriptures. The statements and explanations of many of the leading Managers of the Society, made at the last meeting, show very clearly that this has been a leading object with them from the beginning. The gradual alteration of the text, in many editions, which was practised notwithstanding the Society's prohibitory resolution, points to the same explanation. As the Society has taken gronud on this subject which can no longer be mistaken, it cannot for a moment be supposed that the further existence of the Publication Department is made necessary for any such reasons,

We come now to the examination of the reasons for continuing this Department, which are found in its existing operations. These are, the making of English Bibles to sell again, and also to give to the destitute.

1. In the first class of operations, the accounts show that the sales have amounted to $78,858 82, as follows:

Cash received from sales of books,

Cash supposed to have been received for books, but credited to the

Donation Department through mistake,

Amount due for books, as per Ledger, April 6, 1850,

58,058 82

6,000 00 14,800 00

$78,858 82

If these books could be procured by auxiliary societies and merchants, who buy at wholesale, and by individuals who buy at retail, at no other places, or could not elsewhere be obtained of as good quality and at as reasonable rates, it would have been, and it will still be the duty of this Society to continue in the business, if not greatly to enlarge it. But your Committee cannot suppose that this is the case. Aside from other Societies, British and American, enterprising publishers in both countries are engaged in the same business, and are ready to fill all orders, whether from our Branch Societies, or from others, at rates as favorable to purchasers as those which this Department has established.

But this is not all. The books sold prior to the financial year which has just closed, have actually cost the Society more than the sum for which they were sold. The expenditures of the Publication Department, during the period named, for all purposes, amount, according to the most careful estimates of this Committee, to $143,475 03.

After deducting from this sum the amount in books appropriated and given away, and the amount of stock on hand, consisting of bound and unbound books,

stereotype plates, fixtures, &c. &c., in all amounting to $40,033 22, there remain $103,441 81, an excess over the sales and cash value of the books sold, of $24,582 99, as follows:

Total expenses of the Publication Department, to April 6, 1850,

From this deduct,

For amount in books appropriated,

66

66

appropriations previous to 1842,

amount delivered to directors and members,

$143,475 03

8,662 00

1,170 43

3,631 86

14,252 45

11,726 48
90.00
500 00

40,033 22

103,441 81

78,858 82

$24,582 99

This excess, as will be observed, is the sum already given as the difference between the receipts and expenditures of the Book Department during the period now under review. But the cash value of the books appropriated to the destitute, and claimed by Life Members and Life Directors, must have been below the actual cost in like proportion. In order then to ascertain the actual loss on all books issued, it is necessary to add the amount of appropriations and grants to the amount of sales. These together make $92,333 11;* a sum which represents the estimated value of all the books issued from the Society's Rooms during the first fourteen years of its existence. But these books actually cost the Society, according to the estimate of this Committee, the sum last named, plus the ascertained loss on all the operations of the Department for the period under review; that is, were estimated and either sold or given away, at rates 26 per cent. below the actual cost.

Assuming, as this Committee are disposed to do, that the business of this Department has always been managed with a due regard to economy, and with ordinary prudence and skill, and that the deficiency now found is to be attributed to the inadequacy of the demand for books, as compared with the expensiveness of the Society's facilities for a supply, the objections which occur to your Committee against the method adopted may thus be briefly stated:

1. It is unnecessary. The books published by this Society are in no important respects superior to those which are offered in the market by other Societies, and by individual publishers and publishing firms.

2. It requires the constant diversion of funds from the channel of the foreign appropriations, to meet the large deficit in the Publication Department. No funds, so far as your Committee are informed, have ever been contributed to supply this deficiency. It has always been held, as stated by the late Corresponding Secretary to the Society at its last meeting, that the Domestic Department is intended to support itself. The funds contributed to the general treasury have been considered by the donors as contributed to the foreign work, and, excepting the expense attending their collection and administration, they have supposed that they were so appropriated.

3. The method formerly pursued involves, in the annual appeals which are made for contributions, a representation of the necessities and wants of the Society, in the prosecution of its foreign work, which the above explanations show to be exaggerated. The actual income needed by the Society from year to year is not the amount paid in foreign appropriations, which is only 47 per cent. on all the Society's receipts during fourteen years, but it is this sum together with the loss occurring in the Publication Department.

A benevolent institution should always be in a condition to enable its supporters fully to understand the objects for which their contributions are solicited, and to those objects all contributions should be sacredly appropriated. That no funds have ever been asked or been given to meet a deficit in the Publication Department, is doubtless owing to the fact that the attention of the Society has not been earlier called to the subject. In view of all these facts, your Committee do not find, in such of the operations of the Domestic Department as relate to the publication of books for sale, the reasons which, in their view, will justify the Society, before the churches and the public, in continuing to maintain this Department.

II. There is, however, another branch of the operations of this Department. We allude to its donations, and to its grants to Life Members and Life Directors. This has already been referred to incidentally, but the question is here to be considered, whether the Department ought to be maintained for the sake of the good which is thus supposed to be accomplished.

The grants of the Society under this head, during the period of time already named, amount in all to $13,464 2.

On the supposition that the books sold, amounting to $78,858 82, should be regarded as having been sold not below cost, then the whole burden of the loss in the Department would fall on the donation branch of its operations. But, as has been shown, this loss ought to be distributed in like proportion over the two branches of sales and donations.

It will be perceived that the donations are of two descriptions: one, under a general regulation of the Society which authorizes Life Members and Life Directors to draw books annually from the Depository, and the other, the Society's grants to the destitute.

Respecting the first of these, namely, grants to directors and members, it cannot be an object with the Society to continue them at rates below cost. They are of the nature of a claim upon the Society, in consequence of the sums originally paid to constitute memberships and directorships.

Your Committee have been informed that the original expectation was that the persons who should avail themselves of this privilege would become distributors to the destitute, and would draw only low-priced books; but that this object has been gradually lost sight of, until few books are drawn for distribution among the poor. As the number of Life Members and Life Directors increases, the loss by this means is annually greater. The cash value of the books thus drawn, for example, during the year which has just closed, amounts to $1,089 41, which is a little less than one fourth of the amount drawn during all previous years.

Considering that there is good reason to suppose that these books are generally drawn for the use of those who ordinarily can afford to purchase, your Committee think it important, even if this Department be continued, that the practice of the Society in this respect be changed. On the point of the Society's obligations to Life Members and Life Directors, who may claim that they have given their money on the condition of an annual return in books, your Committee are unable to offer any suggestions which are likely to obviate the difficulty. A large number might be induced to relinquish their claim; and the Society might adopt a new rule for the future.

Turning now to the remaining appropriations in books, the only proper donations