Article February 4, 1928 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from W. Russell Bowie, Ditman Larsen

[From the Literary Digest, New York, New York]

Of all the books in the world the Bible still has the largest circulation. At the recent one hundred and eleventh annual meeting of the American Bible Society it was announced that the circulation in 1926 was 9,917,361 copies, an increase of more than a half million over the preceding year, making a total circulation under the auspices of this society of 184,028,860 volumes. This does not include the circulation through other agencies. The one hundred and twenty -third meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society, recently held in London, celebrated the purchase in China alone for last year of "well over 4,000,000 volumes," and its own publication in all of 10,128,087 copies of the Bible in no fewer than 592 languages. On all of which the New York Times comments: "When a million members of a single denomination in America are asked to read a chapter a day in one of the books of the Bible, it is easy to understand why the circulation mounts; for what is true of one is in a measure true of all. It is to be noted also that in this state credit may now be given through 'Regents' counts' for the study of the Bible outside of the schools, and that under a decision of the Court of Appeals all public school pupils may be excused for attendance upon religious instruction, also outside of the schools. This is permitted in several other states. The Bible is likely to keep its place in a nation the foundations of whose society and government, as President Coolidge has said, rest to such an extent upon the teaching of the Bible that 'it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings should cease to be practically universal in our country.'"

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