Shanghai, Apr. 9. Herbert Phillips, H.M. Consul-General, occupied the chair at the annual meeting, held yesterday at the Union Church Hall, of the British and Foreign Bible Society.
Mr. Phillips said that his residence in China had often brought him closely into contact with the various British missionary societies working in this country, During the lengthy period. during which he had served in the British consular service, he had travelled over a great part of China, and had lived in many of the great centres of population, and he looked back with pleasure to having been from time to time able to render some small service to many of his friends in the missionary community.
There was one society, continued Mr. Phillips, which was. auxiliary to all the other societies, without which all the other societies would lose much of their efficiency. This was the British and Foreign Bible Society. The missionary had beer called the "man of the book," and without the "book" his message would be very much less intelligible and lose much of, its permanent value, "The Word of God is not bound," said St. Paul, and so today missier aries might have been withdrawn, bhut the Word of God remained with its comfort and testimony. When he pointed out that, in the last ten years, something, like 42,000,000 copies and portions of God's word had been distributed throughout the length and breadth of China, it was surely con-vineing proof that the Bible Society deserved their fullest support.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.