ARCHDEACON MIDDLETON, whose Address to Mr. Jacobi we noticed in our last Number, has been appointed the new Bishop for India-the most important charge with which any English Clergyman ever left his native shores!

SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL. THE Annual Sermon was preached before the Society, and the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, on Friday the 18th of February, at the Church of St. Mary-leBow in Cheapside, by the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Ely: after which the Annual Meeting was held in the Vestry, when the proceedings of the year were reported. We shall lay these before our readers when the Report appears.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY.

IN the Number for May of our First Volume, we gave a short account of this Institution, and of the

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Proceedings at its Ninth Anniversary; and at pp. 384-387, we stated, from authentic documents, the editions of the Scriptures printed by the Society, the number of Bibles and Testaments issued, its grants of money, and its receipts and expenditures.

We wish to put our readers in possession of a succinct and comprehensive view of the character and proceedings of this magnificent Soceity, which bears so important a part in the enlightening of the world. From a multitude of documents, which we have been long collecting, we propose to bring this subject before them in a series of papers. In these papers we shall detail, as much at large as our limits will allow, whatever may be most important in the History of the Society to the close of its tenth year its Origin, Object, Constitution, Proceedings, Influence, and Prospects.

A Convict Ship become a Christian School! We insert, with great pleasure, the following letters, from "Select Extracts of Correspondence," just published by the Committee.

From the Surgeon of the Three Bees, on a Voyage with Convicts from Cork to Port Jackson, New South Wales, to the Assistant Secretary.

Dear Sir

Falmouth, Nov. 25, 1813. This morning I was presented with the accompanying letter, and a written request that I would forward it to the British and Foreign Bible Society. It may be proper for me to observe, that, when I first presented the Convicts with the Holy Scriptures, many of them conceived they were furnished by Government in the same way as their clothing and other necessaries. I then felt it my duty to inform them to whom they were indebted for the Bibles and Testaments with which they were supplied; and, having established a circulating library among them, I added thereto the Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Two months have now elapsed, and the enclosed

voluntary effusion of gratitude is a part of the conse quences. As soon as the matter was proposed. (by a Roman Catholic who had never perused the Holy Scriptures before he came on board this ship), they all flocked with gratitude and anxiety to subscribe their names; and I have good reason to suppose that not a few of them acted from principle in so doing. I do not despair of having almost every Convict able to read the Bible before we arrive at Port Jackson; and it affords me heart-felt satisfaction, that I can present a Bible to every individual on board who is capable of reading it.

Your grateful and obliged servant,

Letter referred to in the above.

T. A.

To the Right Hon. Lord Teignmouth, President; the Vice-Presidents, Treasurer, Secretaries, Committee, and Friends of the British and Foreign Bible Society of London.

Lords and Gentlemen

We, the Convicts on board the ship Three Bees, venture to approach your venerable Society. We acknowledge, with grateful hearts, the receipt (at the instance of our humane and respected Surgeon) of your valuable books; and humbly beg of you to accept our unfeigned thanks.

Your gift (appropriate to our situation) gives us a new train for our ideas; a new object to our hopes: convincing of the necessity of seeking the kingdom of God, it assures us, we, "in no wise, are cast out.' Formerly, to the wealthy and the literati alone, the Word of God was accessible; the fountain of salvation was polluted ; ignorance poisoned the source, or debased the margin.

Your Society, like the sun, arose, and pure light was dispensed equally on all; but half the world was not its object, the universe is at once enlightened prejudice no longer seals the book; and poverty, in your days, is not an obstacle in the way of spiritual knowledge.

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We humbly beg, through the medium of your Society, to convey our grateful acknowledgments to the Edinburgh, Dublin, and Cork Bible Societies, and to the worthy individuals who have contributed to the laudable cause by supplying us with the Holy Scriptures. But for your Societies we should take with us, to a rude country, a store of ignorance and barbarity, while we bear the name of Christians. You gave to our solitude "The

Book of Books," and we have no longer dreary, immured thoughts. We see that God is with us; you have put his candle in our hands; "it shineth on my head, and by his light I go through darkness."

Yours is an epocha brighter than any in history: there we see the red mark of vengeance-the black track of war or if religion was the pretence, a sect was upheld— or a particular form was sometimes propagated by the point of the sword.

You propagate the Spirit of the Lord with his own book. We take it with us to a country where the natives have not yet felt the first shame that ever assailed mankind-the shame of nakedness. Let us leave our gratitude here; let our names reach you as marks of our humble veneration and sincere thanks. May the western light, which shines over the world, increase in splendor, and extend over the whole earth! May it guide and direct us all!

Lords and Gentlemen,

We are your truly humble and very grateful servants, (Signed by 169 persons.)

This singular letter carries its own evidence with it that it is genuine. The excellent man, who is such a blessing to the ship in which he sails, is known to us; and we are well persuaded that this letter is, what he describes it to be," a voluntary effusion of gratitude."

But what a spectacle is here! Did any country. before ever exhibit such a scene? While, in the majesty of justice, Britain casts forth her vicious and degraded children from her shores, in the greatness of her mercy and pity she provides them with the Book of God in their solitude and sorrow, and her more honourable sons become teachers and interpreters!

It is well worthy of consideration, whether, among the numerous charitable institutions which do honour to our country, there be not yet wanting

A PRISON AND CONVICT SOCIETY.

In benevolent plans, as in all human labour, those undertakings are best conducted which are most simple and best defined in their object. An Institution which should charge itself with the supply of the Scriptures and Religious Books, with Christian Instruction, so far as it might be practicable, to all the Prisons throughout the Empire and to every Convict Ship which left its shores, would have a most powerful influence, with the Divine Blessing, on the morals of the worst portion of society at home, and might render many of her convicts blessings instead of curses to her distant possessions.

Bible Society in the British Army. From a Correspondent at a Sea-port, to the Assistant Secretary. Dear SirNov. 1, 1813.

I had a letter lately from a Lady in the Dublin Militia, mentioning, she had reason to hope there was much good doing in the Regiment, in consequence of the distribution of Bibles to them when in England. I had proposed to her a plan for procuring Bibles, by a subscription of a penny per week or upwards, which she adopted; and, on their passage home, had taken down the names of 150 men for Bibles, principally Catholics;-she meant to procure them from the Bible Society at Dublin when she got home.

A pious soldier here, told me he had heard that, in Lord Wellington's army, there was a kind of Bible Society among the soldiers, and that the Spanish priests had heard of their having the Scriptures, and expressed an earnest wish for them in their own language. I asked him if he could vouch for the truth of it; he said he had seen a letter from a pious soldier in Lord Wellington's army, in which it was mentioned.

I saw several pious men among the Life Guards before they went out, who I should hope would exert themselves for the good of others. If this account be true, it is a great encouragement to the Directors of the Bible Society to send out not only the English Scriptures, but the Spanish also, with those who go on foreign service. I remain, &c.

C. B.