permanent position accorded to these documents, shows the sense of dignity that used to be attached to them; and the fact that during its last financial year the American Bible Society received some seven hundred gifts of thirty dollars each, to constitute as many new life members, would seem to indicate that this notion still lingers, to a considerable extent, in many of the rural districts.

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For a few years, in fact, for nearly a quarter of a century, while yet the machinery of these societies was new, it had the appearance of running according to the design of the projectors. Anniversary week" in New York and Boston was outwardly all that the most ardent hopes, at the beginning, could have imagined. In full processions, by costly and fatiguing journeys, the pilgrims thronged together to the solemn feasts. The doors of merchant princes, and of many a humble mansion, opened with generous hospitality to men and women coming on so noble an errand. Great churches were thronged day after day to listen to the narratives of missionaries returned from distant lands and regions, and to stirring appeals and acute discussions from the foremost men in church and in state, at home. For a week or two the religious newspapers would be full of nothing but the meetings, and in five hundred country churches the pastor would tell the people about the wonders and the sin and misery of the great city, and the great facts that he learn ed, and the words of Dr. A. and Judge B., that he heard, when visiting the anniversaries as a life member of something or other.

But as a matter of fact, the organic machinery of these societies never did work at all. Even when it seemed to be working its liveliest,it was like the wheels and ratchets that were exposed to view in Maelzel's automaton chess-player, which had nothing to do with the working of it, while the game was played by the little man inside who drew up his legs out of sight when the machine was opened for an investigation. The meetings that were attended by the members from near and far, and reported in the newspapers, and commented on in the

churches, were the show-meeting, at which it would be "Resolved, That we hail,” etc.; resolutions on which no difference of opinion would be elicited, but on which all the highstepping rhetorical parade-horses might be trotted out upon the platform and put through their best paces. The meeting in which the policy, the plans, the management of the society were decided was "only a business meeting," which the members of the society by the payment of thirty dollars were not interested to attend, nor the men that "ran" the society, and that knew the value of peace and quietness, interested to have them attend. So the existence of an efficient membership in these societies ceased to be a reality, and became only an ap pearance.

It soon ceased to be so much as an ap pearance. Some people date the decay of the New York anniversaries from the removal of the old Broadway Tabernacle. Doubtless there was a connection between the two events. Tenterden steeple did really have something to do with the cause of Goodwin Sands. But it is superfluous to look outside of the anniversaries themselves for a reason of their decline. They died for want of life. It took twenty-five years to find out that they were a sham, and after that people stopped going to them. Really earnest men would not travel to New York or Boston to "speak a piece," like a student's commencement oration, belonging in that category of rhetoric which Whately describes as being eloquent simply for the sake of eloquence; and as for the men who are not really earnest, and who are to be had for that sort of work, the public soon tire of them.

Anyhow, the anniversaries are dead. All parties have made up their minds to that. The coroner's verdict on the cause of death is of comparatively small consequence. The constitution devised for these societies sixty years ago has broken down. All the arrangements of the managers of them are made on this understanding. They accept the situation without a struggle, and with the more than Christian resignation of that cheerful philosopher, who being warned by the physician that his constitution was com

pletely ruined by his excesses, replied with beautiful equanimity, and with such a smile as Mr. Joseph Jefferson might be glad to imitate: "All (hic) right, old fellow; then we'll just go it on the (hic) by-laws." This is substantially the course that has been pursued in these corporations, to run them on the by-laws; and perhaps it is the best course that the case admits.

As an illustration of the state of affairs in the societies, take the case of the oldest and strongest of them, the most unimpeachable, as I believe, in the integrity and competency of its management, and in some other respects one of the worthiest-the American Bible Society. The members of the society, in whom is vested the direction of its policy and the annual election of the executive by whom this policy shall be carried out, number about forty-five thousand, more or less; an august assemblage, if they could be got together, albeit somewhat unwieldy for deliberative purposes. Of course, scattered as they are over the land, it is not to be supposed that more perhaps than ten thousand of them live within reach of the place of meeting. And (such is men's habitual neglect of these responsibilities) perhaps two thousand is as many as it could be hoped to draw together for the really grave duties of the annual meeting. It would be a difficult task, which the managers give up in despair, to provide any hall or forum sufficient even for so small a percentage of the members as this, or to make arrangements for a poll at which ballots might be cast for officers. What is actually done may be inferred from the language of the last Annual Report: "The American Bible Society held its SixtyFirst Annual Meeting at the Bible House, in New York, May 10, 1877, at half-past three

P. M."

Those who are familiar with the room here referred to,-the chamber where the Board of Managers holds its regular meetings, and who consider how few individuals can be got into it, in addition to the officers themselves whose administration is to be reviewed, and whose term of office renewed or ended, will see the significance of this expression. "The American Bible Society" [consisting of 45,000 members]

Take the case of the more obscure societies, and it is worse yet. There, for instance, is the Seamen's Friend Society; useful institution, doubtless, and let us hope that if the managers of it should be brought to account before the body to whom they are constitutionally responsible, no shadow of abuse would be discovered. But they never are so brought to account-never can be-and (worst of all) they know it. The society to whom they are responsible consists of some thousands of members, some in the ends of the earth, and some far off upon the sea; and as for the rest, the nearer they live to the society's offices in Wall street, the less likely they are to trouble themselves about its affairs. The preparations for the annual meeting of this imposing body consist in dusting out the back office, and clearing some bundles of last year's Annual Report off the sofa. Several chairs and an office stool are cheerfully lent by the firm of Evangelical lawyers in the top-story, and the Reformed Dutch stockbroker in the basement; and now blow up the trumpet in the time appointed. course, they like to have a few friends from outside on this occasion, but the "Annual Meeting of the Society" is substantially a meeting of the officers of the society to listen to their own report of their own doings and to vote their cordial approval of it, and choose themselves over again for another year. Now this is a conjectural sketch, as concerns this society, against which I know nothing in particular; but if this society is exceptional on this point, it is a blessing to it to give it thus a chance of saying so. If there is a call for personal experience, I can give that, from a brief but useful member

Of

*There may be some to suggest that the universal abdication of the duties and authority of the members of the Bible Society has been favored, if not produced, by the decision of the Chair at one of the annual meetings shutting off all discussion and deliberation. As we remember it (it was many years ago) the decision did seem like a pretty high-handed

one, to be justified only by an argument ab inconvenientia, founded on the preposterousness of attempting to carry out an impracticable constitution. But the annual meeting was moribund before it got hit by this decision.

ship in the Board of Directors of the "American and Foreign Christian Union." It was amusing (and we needed amusement in that body) to see the Secretary popping up to points of order, and trying to keep the meeting clear as to its own identity. "We are not the Board of Directors now; we are the Annual Meeting of the Society." It was difficult, you see, to make the honest gentlemen see what was the use of adopting that Annual Report over again, when they had already adopted it an hour or two before.

But although in the ordinary course of things the society organization is inert, is not the existence of it important and valuable to meet emergencies as they arise? It is out of prevailing satisfaction and confidence in the administration of the societies that the inactivity of their members arises; if there should be occasion of dissatisfaction and distrust, would not the membership show itself effective again?

Hardly. That thing was tried in the case of the American Tract Society, twenty years ago, and may be considered as settled. In ordinary circumstances, the membership of these societies is nowhere. In extraordinary circumstances, it is a mob. In any issue arising between the members of the society and its managers, the members may as well give it up first as last. So long as the managers have any show of a party, they can so reinforce themselves by new memberships, through the operation of the whole force of secretaries and agents, as to defy opposition. The only recourse would be to lie quiet and then suddenly capture the society at its annual meeting by a coup de main. This would be easy enough, ordinarily; but it would not be a congenial way of operating, except as a joke. I have often wondered why our Irish fellow-citizens of the Latin obedience, with that cheerful hilarity of temperament which is one of their most amiable traits, have never thought how they might enliven the community by taking possession of the American Bible Society, and placing it under the patronage of His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop, and the presidency of the Very Reverend the Vicar General of the diocese of New York. It

need not be an expensive affair, and there would be lots of fun in it. Life memberships, to be sure, cost thirty dollars each; but annual members can be made in any number, at three dollars a head, without regard to race, creed, or previous condition of servitude. Two hundred and fifty stout young members of the Father Mathew T. A. B. Society, properly organized and instructed would be quite enough, I judge, to occupy all the sitting and standing room in that chamber in the Bible House, against any attempt to interfere with their lawful rights. It need not take them fifteen minutes to fill the nine annual vacancies in the board of thirty-six managers with nine eminent laymen connected with the New York city government, and then adjourn the annual meeting without day. The conservative provision that only one-fourth of the managers should go out of office annually might seem to afford security against too complete a revolution, but for the childlike and trustful provision that "every minister of the gospel, who is a life member of the society, shall be entitled to meet and vote with the board of managers, and be possessed of the same powers as a manager himself." We are inclined to think, in fact, that the most effectual method of proceeding would be, without bothering with the annual meeting at all, simply to capture the board of managers, under this provision. A hundred conscientious and resolute clergymen from the Cathedral could do it for the trifle of $3,000; and then, acting promptly on another provision in this glorious constitution, could, by a single vote, "for essential services to the Society," appoint as members for life, each one having "the same powers as a manager himself," all the Roman Catholic clergy in the United States, together with the Pope, the College of Cardinals, and the congregation De Propaganda Fide. Aside from all religious considerations, the Bible House, considered as a piece of real estate, would be very cheap indeed at three thousand dollars, Why it is that our Irish Catholic brethren have not long ago taken measures of this kind can only be explained by the characteristic modesty of their race.

But, it will be asked, for all that these constitutions are such a crazy looking lot of documents, don't they, practically, work well enough? As a matter of fact such abuses as they seem to invite do not happen, and is it worth while to take any measures to remedy a merely theoretical imperfection?

Well, if people like to do business in this happy-go-lucky way, leaving millions of dollars and priceless social and religious interests lying around loose to be scrambled for by any handful of zealots who may think it their duty to take possession thereof in the name of the Lord, or to be drawn upon by some knot of managers to whom opportunity without responsibility presents too strong a temptation,-why, I suppose we must accept it as one of the evidences of their conversion that they are so much more foolish in their generation than the children of this world. No dozen or two of Baptist preachers has ever yet dropped in at a meeting of the Bible Society's managers and passed a vote ordering all the stereotype plates in foreign languages to be corrected in accordance with their views of hermeneutics. And no company of gentlemen of the "Christian" persuasion have ever yet made a quiet rendezvous at the Annual Meeting of the American Tract Society and effected a revolution in the administration of it with a view to the expurgation of its catalogue and the testing of the question whether in the eye of the law they are "Evangelical Christians or not. Whether there have been abuses and peculations in the management of the societies is not so certain; for this seems to have been the only useful object gained by the usual method of organization-to save the scandal to the Christian name, and the vexation of righteous souls, which results from having such matters brought to light. Still, one hears now and then a hint of queer things in the less conspicuous societies, which might lead to a better understanding of the whole subject, if it was anybody's business in particular to follow them up. There was a story about the "Society for Ameliorating the Condition of the Jews "-favorite institution for legacies from spinster ladies addicted to too much Daniel and Apocalypse with their tea. What the story was I do

not exactly remember, but it was about a dispute among some needy Gentile brethren as to the way of applying the income for the amelioration of their own condition; and inasmuch as the contestants and their friends mainly composed the Annual Meeting, they did not dare to quarrel above a whisper, for fear others would come in and vote them both down. I may not have got it quite right, but it was something like this. Officers of the various societies are habitually and from policy cautious in their remarks about other societies; but one used to hear in the corridors of the Bible House, hints that an inquiry into the affairs of the Colonization Society might bring out facts of interest. And as to the American and Foreign Christian Union it is unnecessary to say anything.

The sole security for upright management in these societies is the personal character of the men who are in charge for the time being. And some of them are happy in being under the conduct of men whose names are a better guarantee of wisdom and honesty, than any system of checks and balances that could be devised. And some of them are not. If we must needs have an honest man in our closet, whom would we rather name than (for example) any one of the officers of the American Home Missionary Society? But it is only expressing a rooted sentiment of the human heart to say that we do not want an honest man in our closet at all-that we will have no honest man in our closet.

The commonest evils arising from this total absence of responsibility and control are not so much vulgar peculation as inertness, obstinate tenacity of routine, neglect of vigorous prosecution of the society's business, and absence of intellectual force; in short, laziness. It is notorious to what extent the offices connected with these institutions are apt to become the asylums for incapables. No power ever approaches from outside to pry the machine out of the ruts; and the ruts grow deeper each year, as the lumbering, creaking old fabric comes once more trundling round in them.

To cite once more the American Bible Society; not as a bad example but as, by uni