~L Bu ‘ é Sy dhced A f a ; ‘ pA fv Ont Se te oes THE WAY OUT The world has had a year of effort and experience in after-war reconstruction. Tre- mendous things have been proposed and ‘undertaken. Nothing small or limited has been at any time or anywhere admissible. Unless you could report a World Vision and a World Grasp and faith for a World Victory you were not interesting. Tens, hundreds and thousands are figures and totals wholly insufficient as our register numbers are running into the millions and billions. Challenge after challenge has been issued as to what ought to be done and how to do it. There is, however, but one problem. It is the eternal human problem. There is but one objective. It is the human objective, namely: the transformation of the individual man with his fullness of human nature into the Christly Nature and Life. Institutions of every kind and nature whatsoever are but instruments. Organizations, whether religious, benevolent or humanitarian, exist to mould and _ fashion human lives for companionship with God. This is the one and only purpose. There is but one way out. It is the Christ way. Our civilization has been for more than a generation and continues to be utilitarian and materialistic. The emphasis all along has been at the wrong place. Thé individual must be reached and every human life coupled or linked with God as revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. No amount of education or socialistic plans and effort will meet the situation. Each individ- ual must be brought into personal contact 2 American Tract Society with the life of our Saviour. World-wide re- sults can only be realized through the reaching and conversion of human units to Christ in all lands and nations. Ninety-five years ago this month, five or six Christian men met in a down-town office for conference and prayer, seeking more efficient means for giving the Message of Salvation to the individual unit of society. The decision was . reached that the Gospel or Good News of Jesus should be proclaimed through the printed page for all classes and conditions of men. They also had the faith to believe that pastors, Sunday School workers, free tract distributers and thousands of professed Christians would be both ready and eager to sow the good seed in waiting and responsive hearts. Thirty thousand dollars were subscribed for the proposed work. During the first year 697,900 tracts were pub- lished totaling 9,053,000 pages. PUBLICATIONS. Among the earliest publications was “The Dairyman’s Daughter,” and it is known that through the distribution of this single leaflet many revivals of religion had their origin and that tens of thousands of souls were won to Christ. “The Swearer’s Prayer” has been in- strumental in delivering scores of thousands from the sin of profanity. “Jesus Christ For Everybody,” by Dr. Theodore Cuyler, has been published in a score of languages and dialects and its total issue runs into millions of copies. The Society’s publications are suitable not only for Christians and inquirers but also for the bringing of conviction to the indifferent and unawakened sinner. Its effort is to issue books *uO}SUIYSe AA JO 938}1CG JY} Ul 19}10d]O_D INO jo a}NoL 9Y} UD SuIppoaA\ UeIpUT ystuIoyoyS V7 Out > iss} = © Ae H 4 American Tract Society and leaflets that shall meet all the varying con- ditions of life, consequently its publications enter into the entire range of human experience, from the cradle roll with “Songs for the Little Ones at Home” to messages of comfort pre- pared for those who are seeking for “light at evening time.” NEW PUBLICATIONS. There have been added during the year to the Society’s already extended list seven new publications, five of which are volumes and two envelope tracts, as follows: “The Furnace for Gold,” by Emma §&. Allen, and “The Victory Life,” by John T. Faris, D. D., the former win- ning the first prize and the latter the second prize in the Society’s contest for the best manu- scripts available for publication; “A Manual of American Citizenship,” by Rev. Edwin Noah Hardy, Ph. D., and “The Resurrection and the Life Beyond,” by David James Burrell, D. D. The tracts were “The American Home,” by Edgar Whitaker Work, D. D., and “The Ameri- can Church,” by Dr. Burrell. “Las Notas Explicativas” is a volume of notes on the Inter- national Sunday School Lessons in Spanish for 1920. The total number of publications for the year, including volumes, tracts and periodicals, iS 2,045,875, many of which have been in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and in the dialects of India and Africa. The grand total of the Society’s pub- lications in all languages and dialects issued at the home office during the ninety-five years of its history reaches 804,843,750 copies, and the number of languages in which the Gospel Message has been published by the Tract Society totals one hundred and seventy-eight. The Way Out 5 MISSIONARY COLPORTAGE. Missionary colportage means carrying the Gospel to those who are not receiving it through any other channel. The name col- porter came into use more than two centuries) ago, at the time when Protestant Christians in Switzerland carried packs on their backs into France in which were hidden Bibles, and when- ever opportunity presented the pack was open- ed and the Bible read to anxious listeners and inquirers. The name was spelled “colporteur,” from the Latin collum, meaning the neck, and portare, meaning to carry. From that day to this the colporter has been an important factor in proclaiming the Gospel Message. The colporter is, indeed, a_ traveling preacher and a part of the infantry corps of Christ’s Army. He visits from house to house, distributes religious literature suitable both for parents and children, and often conversion is the result. He also conducts. preaching services in the district schoolhouses and or- ganizes Sunday Schools which grow into churches. If the American Tract Society were provided with sufficient funds it would be able through its missionary colportage to carry the Gospel Message into every home of the nation. The Society’s missionary colporters during the year have made 207,644 family visits, distrib- uted 47,459 volumes of Christian literature and conducted 3,418 religious meetings. ~ The grand total of missionary colportage for the eighty years since this line of service was en- tered upon is 19,400,069 family visits, 17,607,583 volumes distributed, and 611,249 religious meet- ings held. 6 American Tract Society WITHOUT PRICE. When Jesus sent forth the twelve he said, “Freely ye have received, freely give.’ From the beginning the American Tract Society has distributed many of its religious tracts without money and without price. Only through free tract distribution can the thousands and even millions of our country that are unreached by the pastor. and missionary hear the Gospel message. The call for free Gospel literature is answered through the giving out of tracts by Sunday School teachers, street preachers, workers in missions, and by many earnest Christians, also by the Tract Society sending forth its millions of pages of leaflets to the Army and Navy, the seamen in our ports, to the reformatories, penal and charitable institu- tions, and to the lumbermen and miners and the ranchmen in the West. Examples of conversion have been frequent, and have included some of our most prominent preachers and laymen. Ralph Wells, the great- est Sunday School power in his generation, was converted through receiving gratuitously one of the publications of the American Tract Society, and Dr. George Lorimer, at the age of eighteen, was given one of the Society’s tracts as he left a theatre in Boston, and through the reading of it became soundly converted and entered the Christian ministry. A young man who had been born and grown up on a ranch in the farthest West, when asked if he knew Jesus as his Saviour, answered, “I have never heard of Him.” He was given a gospel leaflet and through it won to Christ. A unique feature of free distribution is at Ellis Island where Mr. Carol, one of the Society’s colporters, "so[qoy Jej10djo_ Aq pasta “ooryy OO g ‘opiele yj ut jooysg-Aepung 1\y-uedO uy 3 O > w = © ot H American Tract Society | ie) speaks upwards of 14 languages and dialects and distributes the gospel message in a still larger number of languages. An immigrant who was given some tracts wrote: “In the immigrants landing-place there in New York we received a number of tracts from the agent or missionary in the port. We saved the papers to read in our new home in the West- ern Colony. In entering this country we learned that the distributed tracts there in the landing-place are given from the Tract Society, all for nothing. We got some in English, in Polish, Swedish, French, etc. Our colony people, 50 families, read the aforenamed lan- guages. We will just from the start become a good pious Republican people.” (Signed) A. Kopittke, Chicago, Ill. The total value of free distribution for the past year was $14,739.42, making a grand total of free distribution since the Society’s organi- zation of $2,706,797.41, the equivalent of 5,376,- 220,081 pages of tracts. AMERICANIZATION. Americanism and Americanization are words born out of the throes of the World War. Patriotism necessarily ran at high tide and all in our own country were called upon to be 100 per cent. American. Because the 100 per cent. was not attained by all, and also because prop- aganda opposed to the war and for the un- settling and breaking up of our institutions— in short, because a propaganda of Bolshevism was vigorously entered upon—it followed logically and of necessity that a counteracting propaganda must be made in behalf of Americanism. The Way Out “SYIOM YIIUICG Wq stouely 19}JOd]OD 104M SOMYWON SY} JO suIqey pelenesg 24} jo 39uC—) 10 American Tract Society The question has many times been asked, “In what does Americanization really consist?” Numerous answers have been given, many of them falling far short of being a proper and sufficient definition. It may be asked, Can any man be a good and true citizen of any country, unless he is himself as true and complete a man as it is possible for him to be through the influence that surrounds him and the forces operating within him? And it has been abun- dantly proven that social environment, educa- tion, wealth, culture and the greatest advance possible in the arts and sciences do not and cannot produce the kind of individual or citizen required to make certain national perpetuity. Man, by the act of creation, isa child or son of God, and Jesus came to teach this great fact. In order to grow into the Sonship of God a man must have the germ of divine life in his soul planted there through faith in Jesus, God’s only Son, sent from heaven to save sinners. In this fact you have solved, once and forever, the whole problem of true citizenship for all peoples in all lands. The work, therefore, of Americanizing all who live in our own country and of making real citizens for all countries where men dwell, consists in teaching them their true relation to their Creator and Father, and with this initiative bringing into their lives all that may be brought to them through the resultant moral and spiritual uplift and the most advanced and refined civilization attain- able. . The publications of the Tract Society dur- ing the past year issued in behalf of Americani- zation have been most helpful and effective. The “Manual of American Citizenship” has The Way Out II been especially helpful for the reason that it not only gives information as to the settling and development of America, but also teaches the truths proclaimed by Jesus. It tells of sin and temptation, the way of Salvation, the meaning of prayer, the Christian life, the Chris- tian Church, and the relations of the teachings of Jesus and true democracy. The tracts on “The American Home” and “The American Church,” by Rev. Drs. Work and Burrell respectively, and the one on “The American Workman,” by Rev. Charles Stelzle, are very timely and should be widely read. LATIN AMERICA. In the present-day world-movement Latin America looms large, and cannot be left out of the accounting. Eighty millions of people are living upon the continent south of us, and there is not a more needy people anywhere in the world. It has indeed been said of this vast population that many millions of them are more degraded than the inhabitants of Africa or of any heathen country. The commercial interests are well looked after; the business re- lations were never more promising and en- couraging. New steamship lines are being established, and new vessels added to the old ones, and the volume of trade is steadily in- creasing. .There is, happily, a better under- standing between the peoples of both countries. The great task yet to be performed is the social, moral and spiritual uplift of the un- christianized millions living in Latin America. The American Tract Society began the publication of Christian literature in the Span- 12 American Tract Society ish and Portuguese languages almost at the opening of Protestant missions, and from that time until the present has furnished the prin- cipal amount of literature used by the mission- aries. It has been said that wherever a - missionary was carrying forward his work there were sure to be found some of the pub- lications of the Tract Society. A most earnest appeal is made for special and generous gifts in behalf of this most essential line of mission- ary service. The issuing of the Sunday School Notes in the Spanish language for 1920 has been one of the most needed and long-sought publications that has been prepared for the mission churches and Sunday Schools, and it has been received with enthusiasm and strong commen- dation. The manuscript for the Sunday School Notes in Spanish for 1921 is in process of prep- aration. The Tract Society has issued during the past year 1,084,200 volumes, periodicals and tracts in Spanish, making the grand total of publications in Spanish and Portuguese 19,216,- 663 amounting in value to $709,351.41. CHRISTIAN LITERATURE SUNDAY. It was the purpose of the founders of the American Tract Society to establish a central agency, inviting the co-operation of Evangelical Christians of all denominations in publishing and circulating religious literature that would most effectively “diffuse a knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of sinners and promote the interests of vital godliness and sound morality,” it being understood that the Society’s publications should be “calculated to The Way Out 14 American Tract Society receive the approbation of all Evangelical Christians.” Sixty millions of non-church-going people in America and the hundreds of millions in non-Christian lands who never heard of Jesus can be reached through the printed page. The American Tract Society, conscious of this ever-growing need, has been persuaded that a particular Sunday should be set apart during each year in order that churches, Sunday Schools, young people’s societies and Chris- tians generally might have their attention called specially to the religious literature branch of service so necessary to the extension of Christ’s Kingdom. Accordingly, the last Sunday of January of each year has been the date ap- pointed, henceforth to be known as “Christian Literature Sunday.” The imperative need for the publication and circulation of vast quantities of religious reading in the form of books and tracts carrying the Message of Salvation and moral and spiritual uplift is made painfully evident by the propaganda of Socialism and Bolshevism now so extensive throughout our entire country. It is believed that there is ° scarcely a foreign-speaking person in America who is not regularly receiving printed matter setting forth the evil doctrines espoused and proclaimed by those commonly known as “Reds.” Under these conditions it seems al- most unnecessary to urge pastors, churches, Sunday Schools, and Young People’s Societies, in fact all Christian organizations, to annually plan for the observance of “Christian Litera- ture Sunday,” and as far as is possible make an offering in behalf of this most essential depart- ment of Evangelism. The Way Out 15 THE WAY OUT. When the American Tract Society was or- ganized ninety-five years ago, it was with the fullest possible conviction that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and that other than Him there is no Saviour. To this line the Society has steadily and closely hewn. It has been affirmed in all of the Society’s pub- lications that the regeneration of human hearts and lives could be wrought only through faith in Christ and that by this means alone could men and nations be saved from sin and degra- dation. It has stoutly denied that environment, no matter how wholesome and helpful, was sufficient to transform sinners into saints. It has believed that the laying of a new pipe and the giving of a fresh coat of paint to the hydrant did not and could not cleanse the water at its source. Much has been written and spoken relating to the necessity of solving after-war problems, and the imperative need of reconstructing hu- man society throughout the world, and of bringing about a new alignment in the relations of all nations and peoples. It apparently has been forgotten that man is no different to-day as to his moral and spiritual needs than he has been from the beginning. Moreover God’s re- lation to man has not changed. The eternal God and loving Heavenly Father is still oc- cupied with the great task of redemption. He has not taken a journey nor is He slumbering. Out of the infinite depths of His nature He is still calling to men to come unto Him and to drink of the Water of Life. The one great essen- tial is the turning of the mind and heart of all men to God as revealed in Jesus. He is the 16 American Tract Society Way and the only way out. As a consequence we are face to face with the greatest problem of ‘modern times, namely, the winning of men to Christ as their personal Saviour and Redeemer. If we do not learn this central and eternal fact voluntarily, we shall be compelled to learn it through pain, suffering and sorrow. People seem to have become money-mad. On every hand there is the most persistent and earnest effort to obtain an increase of material things. The lust for gold is unparalleled and apparently dominates nearly all of human ef- fort. The only way of deliverance from what is sordid and destructive of the highest and best of which man is capable is for each individual of whatever age or condition to yield the keep- ing of his heart and life to Christ, the only Saviour of men and nations. For this great and glorious consummation the American Tract Society has been conducting a strenuous drive for ninety-five years through proclaiming the Glad Tidings of Salvation by means of the printed page. The results are beyond computa- tion. Publications have been issued in one hundred and seventy-eight languages and dia- lects, totaling 804,843,750 copies. If, as is generally believed, these have been read by not less than three persons each, 2,414,531,250 people have received the Gospel Message, and hundreds of thousands have been saved unto eternal life. fag oLaft Life Members and Directors ~The donation of $30 at one time consti- . tutes a Life Member of the American Tract Society; the addition of $70, or the donation of $100 at one time, a Life Director. Life Members may receive annually tracts to the value of $1; Life Directors to the value of $2, if applied for within the Society's year, from April 1st to April 1st, in person or by merits order (NG individualcan draw more than one annuity any year for himself. Gol- porte are not authorized to supply Life embers. Have You Remembered the American Tract Society in Your Will? FORM OF BEQUEST I give and bequeath to ““THE AMERICAN TRAGT SOGIETY,” instituted in the City of New York, May, 1825, the sum of... dollars to be applied to the charitable uses and purposes of said Society. Three witnesses should state that the testator de- clared this to be his last will and testament, and that they signed it at his request, and in his presence and the presence of each other. AMERICAN TRACT SOGIETY HOME OFFICE Park Ave, amd 40th St., New York, N. Y. Kimerican Cract Society PARK AVENUE AND FORTIETH STREET NEW YORK President: WILLIAM PHILLIPS HALL Vice-President: DAVID JAMES BURRELL, D.D. General Secretary: JUDSON SWIFT, D. D. Recording Secretary: REV. HENRY LEWIS, Ph. D. General Field Secretary: REV. EDWIN NOAH HARDY, Ph. D. Field Secretary of the West and Northwest: REY. P. MARION SIMMS, Ph. D. Treasurer: LOUIS TAG EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE; Davip JAMES BurRRELL, D. D. Rosert Scort Ineuis, D. D. Ep@aRk WHITAKER WoRK, D. D. Sinas F. Hauuock, M. D. FREDERICK H. KNUBEL, D.D. Davip WILLS, D. D. Rev. H. FRANCIS PERRY Epwakp L. SUFFERN Henry M. Brown, D. D. WILLIAM PHILLIPS HALL ROBERT M. Kurtz S. V. V. Hunt:neton Isaac W. Gowen, D. D. REv. EpGak FRANKLIN RomIG Robert Watson, D. D. S. B. CHapPin Donations should be forwarded to Louis Tag, Treasurer, American Tract Society, Park Avenue and Fortieth Street, New York, N. Y.