Excerpt from Report of a Missionary Tour Through That Part of the United States Which Lies West of the Allegany Mountains, 1815: Performed Under the Direction of the Massachusetts Missionary Society

More than 700 dollars have been subscribed, since we came into the Territories, to purchase Bibles to give to the destitute. We have no doubt that these subscriptions will be very considerably increased. But a few of the people, disposed to favour the object, have had an opportunity to subscribe. Papers will be more generally circulated, when the societies shall go into operation. Some parts of the Ter ritories are settling very fast. Many poor people are among the num ber of'those, who go north of the Ohio. If those good men, who are disposed to favour the promotion of religion and morality, by the gen eral distribution of the Sacred Scriptures among the destitute, con tinue to exert themselves, as we believe they will, still resources cannot be collected probably by them, more than sufficient to supply the yearly increasing destitute part of their population. From the best estimate, we could make, with respect to the proportionate num ber of destitute families in the three territories, we are led to believe, that '10 or Bibles are necessary, in order to supply each desti tute family.

You will readily perceive, Sir, that living as most of the people in the Territories do, 1000 or 1500 miles from any place where the Bible is printed, very many of them must for a long time remain destitute, unless their necessities can be relieved, at least in a considerable de gree, by the Managers of Bible Societies in the different States. From the 600 Bibles committed to our care by the Committee of the Massachusetts Bible Society, 7 5 were ordered to the care of certain gentlemen in the Indiana Territory; 50 to Shawanee-town, to be dis tributed in the Illinois Territory; and 50 to St. Louis, to the care of Stephen Hempsted. Do, Sir, intercede with the managers of Bible Societies in your vicinity to aid in supplying the destitute poor in this portion of our country. The early part of December, we visited Lexington and Frankfort. Each of us at Frankfort had an opportu nity of preaching to a number of the members of the Legislature, and of presenting them with a view of the object of our/mission.

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