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of Maryland had adopted that wise precaution long ago. Many 
precious documents would have been saved which are now irrecov- 
erably lost. This measure, of course, is not necessary where the 
capitol of the State has fireproof vaults in which such treasures may 
be safely kept, or where other measures of security are adopted, 
which is not the case in some State Houses we know. 
Some State societies have called the attention of their Legisla- 
tures to the propriety of publishing the colonial and other early 
records, to which they have liberally responded, and a few of them 
have even gone so far as to send competent agents to Europe to 
secure copies of old papers or catalogues of them from the record 
offices. Private munificence, in several instances, has rendered the 
same service, of which we have a notable example in our own col-- 
lection in Baltimore, as a gift from George Peabody, to whom we 
are indebted for other similar favors. 
State societies have been established in more than half of the 
States, and they are designated S/aze societies as different from local 
societies, either because they derive support from the State, or from 
the prominence which they give to the history of the State in their 
collections and printed contributions. Their place of meeting, 
their libraries and collections, and the principal seat of their opera- 
tions are usually at the capital of the State or in the largest city, 
and hence they are distinguished as S/aze societies. 
There are some, also, which limit their collections to the records 
of the church denominations of their preference. Some of them 
have formed denominational libraries, and collections of ecclesias- 
tical relics, manuscripts, pictures, Church journals, synodical pro- 
ceedings, photographs of their clergy, histories of individual 
congregations or parishes, busts of some of their distinguished 
ministers, catechisms, hymn books, catalogues of their schools and 
colleges, reports of their benevolent and missionary societies, all 
the writings of their authors in this country, and even the old furni- 
ture of the fathers of their Churches. Two of the most notable of 
these denominational historical societies, embracing all and even 
more of the specific subjects enumerated, which come within my 
personal knowledge, are those of the Moravians at Wazareth, and 
of the Lutherans at Gettysburg. There are some other Church 
historical societies, but they are almost exclusively confined to the 
collection of books and manuscripts. 
How are historical societies in general supported? Some have 
