tion of the secular periodicals was one for 5 inhabitants, in 1870 one for 2 inhabitants. In 1850 the circulation of the religious periodicals was one for 218 inhabitants, in 1870 one for 8 inhabitants. The increase in the circulation of the secular press was 2.86 per cent. from 1850 to 1870, while the increase in the circulation of the religious press was 3.45 per cent. It is not a small gain for twenty years. It should not be forgotten that in the year 1800 there were 200 secular papers in the country and not one religious paper. That the religious public are now sending out more than one hundred and twenty-five millions of copies of religious periodicals annually in the United States is an occasion for encouragement and devout thanksgiving to God.

The number of the periodicals positively arrayed against Christianity is very small--less than thirty-with a circulation not amounting to 125,000, or one twenty-fifth as large as the total circulation of the religious press. The Roman Catholic periodicals number 76, with a circulation of 586,058, or about one-sixth part of the circulation of the whole religious press. The Methodist press alone numbers 77, with a circulation of 591,605.

Besides this, it has been an occasion of frequent remark within a few years that Christianity is now commanding the attention and respect of the secular press as never before, notwithstanding their occasional sneers at religion. Not many years ago religious matters were almost wholly ignored by the secular press. When the leading papers in New York city, the Times, Herald, World and Tribune, in the great revival of 1857 and 1858, reported whole pages of revival intelligence, it awakened surprise and remark. But the papers only met a demand in the public mind and showed how deep and general was the religious interest. Since that time reports of the most spiritual movements of the churches have been more common. Revivals of religion, the number of conversions and baptisms, abstracts of sermons and whole sermons, missionary intelligence, and reports of conferences, associations and assemblies, are gathered up by eager reporters and crowded into the columns of the secular papers. Whole columns of religious intelligence are common in the Saturday's and Monday's issues. These things all show that Christianity is identifying itself with the advancing intelligence of the age, and that Christ is fast ascending the thrones of power and influence the world over.

The American Newspaper Annual* for 1885, which contains the list of all the periodicals in the United States which insert advertise

*N. W. Ayer & Son, Newspaper Advertising Agents, Philadelphia, Pa.

RELIGIOUS PUBLICATION HOUSES.

721

ments, gives 522 religious periodicals of this class, which we have collated and tabulated, with the circulation of each as given in that volume:

2. The Religious Publication Houses.

The publication houses of any country exert a great influence upon its character. The sphere of a publisher's influence is not restricted to the limits of a parish or a literary club, or the precincts of a college, or the boundaries of a nation. "The ancient Roman Empire was not so broad as the field traversed by the books of many modern publishing houses. They sway an amount of mind which cannot be estimated, and under their control have been, in no inconsiderable degree, private character, public institutions, government, law, religion, and, indeed, all the dearest and most profound interests of society."

Will the churches of Christ subsidize this engine of such immense power, and employ it in the service of his kingdom? This profound inquiry once engrossed the attention of far-seeing men and led to frequent anxious consultations as to the means and measures for its accomplishment. It has now been in a good degree favorably answered.

The increase in the circulation of religious books during the last century has been incalculable. The impulse which has contributed

Circulation.

No. not report

ing circulation.

to this result has been threefold-improvements in the art of printing, the increase and more general diffusion of wealth, and the new spirit of religious enterprise that has pervaded the churches. The principal advance has been within the last sixty years. The extent of the book trade in this country seventy-five years ago may be judged from the following fact: The paper manufactured and used for book printing in 1810 was about 70,000 reams, equal in weight and size of that now used to about 30,000 reams, a considerable part of which was used for spelling-books and other small books.* Estimated at $3 50 per ream it would amount to $245,000, and its weight was about 630 tons, which is about the quantity now used in a single year by two great religious houses-—the American Bible and Tract societies. In the year 1826, 17 religious books were noticed in the columns of the New York Observer, under the head of "New Publications;" in 1835, the number was 24; in 1841 the number was 125 works published by the trade, besides those issued by the religious houses; in 1848 there were 168 of this class. Now, besides religious publication houses, there are numerous and extensive establishments of an individual and private character, engaged in sending forth almost exclusively religious publications.

These religious publication societies are intimately connected with the missionary work, both foreign and domestic. They have been characterized as "the right arm of the missionary enterprise." The domestic missionary who wisely pursues his work will avail himself of their aid. He will employ Bibles, tracts, Sunday-school books and other religious publications as appropriate means both of salvation and edification. A part of these societies have carried on a system of missionary colportage, in which the distribution of religious books and tracts has been united with personal religious conversation and prayer in the families of remote and destitute localities. To furnish a religious literature to the world in an age like ours is a stupendous undertaking, and has required large wisdom, steady zeal and great liberality. The work has been nobly begun, with sublime determination that an evangelical literature of sterling worth, in the English language, shall be made "the heritage of the reading world," and that both way-side and fire-side preaching, through oral and printed truth, shall supplement the more formal proclamation of the Gospel. We here give a summary of the pecuniary receipts of these agencies:

* History of the Art of Printing. By Isaiah Thomas.

RELIGIOUS PUBLICATION SOCIETIES.

723

RECEIPTS OF THE RELIGIOUS PUBLICATION HOUSES OF THE EVANGELICAL CHURCHES OF THE UNITED STATES, FROM ALL SOURCES, FROM THE ORIGIN OF EACH.

The exact figures, in the last period, as per table, are $4,343,426; but the large publishing house of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the twelve Lutheran publishing houses, the Reformed (German) Church, the Disciples, the Second Adventists, etc., etc., are not included in the column for 1881-1887, being given only in the aggregate. The total yearly average for 1881 to 1887 cannot fall below $5,000,000, but would probably considerably exceed that sum. Some amounts given in response to our inquiries have been given only in aggregates.

Grand total for all the decades, $144,392,068.

Section 5.-Higher Education and the Churches.

In our sketches of the Colonial Era the origin of the educational institutions of the country was narrated, showing that these great agencies of enlightenment and culture grew out of the religious life of the people, and largely as direct results of the organization of the churches. The influence of the churches upon scholarship and culture, and the share of the churches in founding and maintaining institutions of learning, is a topic so directly related to the history of Christianity as to call for extended notice in these pages. A religion that fails to identify itself with intelligence, science and the best progress of the age can have no hold upon the future. It is the mission of Christianity to enlighten. It has been freely asserted of late that the churches, especially the evangelical churches, are perceptibly losing their hold upon the intellect and scholarship of the age; that few young men in the colleges are Christians in the usual acceptation of the term; that denominational colleges are relatively declining, and that they are destined to be superseded by State universities and other large institutions founded by individual munificence. What are the facts?

By referring to pages 436-7 the reader will find statistics of the colleges for 1830 of the most reliable character, from which the following table is compiled: