The Watchman

For the Watchman.

VOLUME CIRCULATION
BY MR. SEELY WOOD.

I hope your cry for Money, Money, (writes Mr. Seely Wood, Agent for sale of American Tract Society's volumes in the state of New-York,) will not rise higher than the thrilling tones for Books, Books, Books, from every part of the country. By eight days labor, in four towns, with the aid of voluntary distributors, we have put in circulation, books to value of $290 52. I am laying plans for visiting all the important towns in Western New-York, and have the promise of the gratuitous assistance of an able and devoted clergyman to accompany me. I hope an interest will be awakened which will give an impulse to the volume enterprise throughout the country.

Acceptableness of the volumes—Family Library.

The Society's volumes are very acceptable to various classes of the community. Those who already have good books, are anxious to place in their library an entire set; and those who are destitute of such books, need, and are generally desirous to obtain them. The Family Library in half calf is in great demand, This Library is one of the grandest schemes the Society ever devised.

How the work is carried forward.

Our plan is to give every family, at their own doors, an opportunity to purchase as many volumes as they choose, at the same price as in New-York, and to do this by the voluntary efforts of Christians. The volumes are generally received better from the hand of an acquaintance than of a stranger; and in most places which I have visited during the last year, influential men—merchants, physicians, lawyers, clergymen, (and sometimes ladies,) have willingly proffered their services for this work. Those who have not the means of paying for the volumes are often supplied by the liberality of distributers and other benevolent individuals. Not unfrequently individuals purchase some dozens of Baxter's Call, Rise and Progress, Alleine's Alarm, and kindred works for their own private distribution.

Those who engage voluntarily in selling volumes from house to house receive a rich reward in their own souls. A Deacon laid down his cradle in harvest, spent one day in this enterprise in a very wicked neighborhood, placed a book by sale, or his own personal gift, in almost every family, and came back apparently full of the Holy Ghost. A farmer who engaged in the same work, was so delighted with the earnestness of a Universalist family to obtain a volume for each of their two children, though they had to borrow money of a neighbor to pay for them, that he enlisted at once for a supply of the whole town with volumes

Nor has the precious seed been sown in vain. Multitudes of professed Christians have been aroused to self-denying and holy action by the living truths and principles of the Gospel drawn out upon the printed page; and many impenitent sinners led to the Rock of Ages for salvation. An aged lady in L— put Baxter's Call into the hands of a young lady who chose to absent herself from public worship. She read—wept—and as there is cheering evidence, surrendered her obdurate heart to God.

Need of funds for gratuitous distribution.

I often find families entirely destitute of reading, except a Bible, and without means to purchase a single book. I called one day at a log hut on the shores of Lake Ontario, found the family had no book but a Bible; had not attended meeting of any kind for eighteen months; had no hope of salvation, and were unable to pay for one book. On presenting them Alleine's Alarm, the mother appeared very thankful, and immediately gathered all her children around her, and commenced reading it. The same day I presented eight of the Alarm and Baxter's Call to families in similar circumstances.

To Clergymen And Influential Christians.—Shall this work be delayed till the Society can send paid Agents throughout the land to call to it the attention of the churches; or will clergymen and others, who love the Savior and the souls of men, take it up, order the books, and present them to the families to whom God may make them the means

Expensiveness of the American Tract Society

The attentive observer cannot fail to notice the expensiveness of this Society's operations, embracing Tract distribution—personal Christian effort for the souls of men—supplying the country with volumes, and the spreading of its influence over almost every nation of the world. "The Society," says a Clergyman at the West, "reminds me of the mighty angel, standing with one foot on the earth and the other on the sea, as if to address the whole world, and in his hand a little book open. There is an expansiveness in its operations that fills the mind with heavenly emotion. Its field is emphatically the whole world. It co-operates with all foreign missionary Boards, and all the Home or Domestic too—aids Sunday Schools, Education, and almost every other benevolent design."

Some I know, who thought of contributing for China or some other country, but when they saw the Society was laboring for all nations, felt that they could not restrict their donation to one nation, however large. I send you enclosed a contribution of $10, from a lady, who, I think, has reached a higher elevation than Samuel J. Mills, when he said: You and I are little men, but before we die, our influence must be felt across the Atlantic -she gives it that, through the Society, she may 'send her influence across every ocean that is spread out on this mighty globe.'