BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20173, 27 February 1931, Page 18

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY.

ANNUAL REPORT. The Now Zealand annual report for 1930 gives witness to the virility of the . British and Foreign Bible Society. - The preface outlines the world-wide distribution of the Scrip- • turcs, as follows: —The volumes of Scripture distributed, 12,175,292, showing- an increase -on the previous""yea*" of 775,752 copies. Twelvendw versions have been printed during the year, bringing the total to 630 different translations. During the 126 years, of its activity, the Society-has distributed 409,413,087, volumes. This is. a remarkable achievement, one point tq notice being the fact that the Society is now selling more than double the number -of copies in the languages ,of Britain than it sold ten years ago. Last year over 1,800,000 copies of English, and over 66,000 copies of Welsh versions were issued. Dealing more definitely with the work in New Zealand, the report states that the Society commenced its activities in 1827. In that year the New iSoutli Wales auxiliary printed at Sydney a volume of Scripture extracts translnted > into the Maori language by O.M.S. Missionaries. The New Testament. translated mainly by the ltev. W. - Williams (afterwards Bishop) was first printed by the C.M.S. in 1837, the Bible Society contributing largely to the cost. In 1846 an Auxiliary wasformed in Auckland, and another in Wellington in 1848. In 1850 'Sir George Grey was president of the Auckland Auxiliary. As indicative of the growth of the work in New Zealand, the financial returns may be vfated. In 1900 the contribution raised was '£4lo, while last year the figurtf reached £8254.

Regarding the distribution of Scriptures in l the Dominion, the output for 1930 through the Wellington Bible , House reached the total of 34,967 copies, and 2864 Bibles were placed m ythe hotel bedrooms, bringing the number up to 6SBB. During the year the Scriptures were sold in 20 different languages, namely Arabic, Cantonese, Danish, , English, French,, German, Greek. Gujarati. Hebrew.. Italian, Latin, Marathi, Maori, Norwegian, Polish., Russian, Spanish/ Serbian, Swedish, and S.v^'iac. I The renort acknowledges receipt of legacies from the estates of the late Richard Merediih. Waimatfe. £100; the late Geo. Morgan, Cliristchurch, I £220: and from the late Mrs Catherine i Schmidt, Christchurch, £125 19s 10d.