History of the M.E. Church, Vol. IV - Media Sabda Org

In our day (1866) the Methodist Book Concern, aside from that of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South, which was founded by a division of its funds, comprises two branches, eastern and
western, and seven depositories, with an aggregate capital of more than $837,000. Four "Book
Agents," appointed by the General Conference, manage its business. It has twelve editors of its
periodicals, nearly five hundred clerks and operatives, and between twenty and thirty cylinder and
power presses constantly in operation. It publishes about five hundred "General Catalogue" bound
books, besides many in the German and other languages, and about fifteen hundred Sunday-school
volumes. A Tract Society is one of its adjuncts, and its tract publications number about nine hundred
in various tongues. Its periodicals are a mighty agency, including one Quarterly Review, four
monthlies, one semi-monthly, and eight weeklies, with an aggregate circulation of over one million
of copies per month. Its Quarterly and some of its weeklies have a larger circulation than any other
periodicals of the same class in the nation, probably in the world.
The influence of this great institution, in the diffusion of popular literature and the creation of a
taste for reading among the great masses of the denomination, has been incalculable. It has scattered
periodicals and books all over the valley of the Mississippi. Its sales in that great domain, in the
quadrennial period ending with January 31, 1864, amounted to about $1,200,000. If Methodism had
made no other contribution to the progress of knowledge and civilization in the New World than that
of this powerful institution, this alone would suffice to vindicate its claim to the respect of the
enlightened world. Its ministry has often been falsely disparaged as unfavorable to knowledge; but
it should be borne in mind that its ministry founded this stupendous means of popular intelligence,
and has continued to work it with increasing success up to the present time. They have been, as we
have seen, its salesmen, and have scattered its publications over their circuits. Wesley enjoined this
service upon them in their Discipline. "Carry books with you on every round," he said; "leave no
stone unturned in this work;" and thus have they spread knowledge in their courses over the whole
land, and built up their unparalleled "Book Concern." There has never been an instance of
defalcation on the part of its "agents;" it has never failed in any of the financial revulsions of the
country; and it is now able, by its large capital, to meet any new literary necessity of the
denomination. Among its agents and editors have been some of the ablest men of the Church, some
of whom have been noticed, but most of whom pertain to dates beyond our limits. Ten of them have
been called from its service to the episcopate in the northern Church alone. [5]
The Sunday-school system of the Church has been closely allied to its Book Concern. I have
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heretofore given some account of its origin, showing that Methodism shared in that important event
in England; that it first incorporated the institution in the Church; that Francis Asbury established
the first school of the kind in the new world in 1780, at the house of Thomas Crenshaw, in Hanover
County, Va.; and that this first attempt prefigured one of the greatest later advantages of the
institution by giving a useful preacher to the denomination. In 1790 the first recognition of
Sunday-schools by an American Church was made by the vote of the Methodist Conferences,
ordering their formation throughout the Church, and also the compilation of a book for them.
Methodism for many years made no provision for the general organization or affiliation of its Sunday
schools. Its Book Concern issued some volumes suitable for their libraries, chiefly by the labors of
John P. Durbin, who prepared its first library volume, and its first Question Book; but no adequate,
no systematic attention was given to this sort of literature. It was obvious, on a moment's reflection
that an almost illimitable field for the enlargement of the business of the Concern, and the diffusion