is with pleasure I recognize the adoption and declaration of a similar opinion* in the publications of the Society in Bartlett's Buildings. "Although other sciences be good, and to be learned, yet no man can deny but this" (the knowledge of God's word) "is the chief, and passeth all other incomparably. What excuse shall we therefore make at the last day, before Christ, that delight to hear and read men's phantasies and inventions" (qu. Tracts?) "more than his most holy Gospel? and will find no time to do that which chiefly above all things we should do? and will rather read other things, than that for the which we ought rather to leave reading of all other things? Ignorance of God's word is the cause of all error, as Christ himself affirmed to the Sadduceest.

"Since God of his fatherly goodness hath revealed himself and the way to eternal life in the Holy Scriptures, it is certainly the duty of every Christian to study the same with all seriousness and application +."

Concurring, therefore, as I do, in these senti

* In truth, a very large majority of the Subscribers to that Society will, I have no question, agree with me in most of the opinions which I advance in this letter. Where I appear to censure the proceedings of the Society, I mean the censure to apply only to that very small body, who, unfortunately for its interests, are much upon the spot, and who, by inexpedient and injudicious measures, impede many of its objects, detract much from its utility, and prevent very considerably the augmentation of its members. This distinction is always in my mind, and I beg of you to remember it.

+ Religious Tracts of the Society in Bartlett's Buildings, vol. vii, art. i. p. 4, 5; being a quotation from the second Homily.

Volume vii. art. i. p. 7.

ments of our venerable Society, I cannot endure, that the dissemination of the Scriptures alone should be considered in the same light with the dispersion of sermons or of tracts; least of all that tracts must of necessity be administered as a corrective, or provided as an antidote. Think not that I condemn good Sermons and good Tracts; I only protest against the depression of the Bible by their unmerited elevation. My argument needs but this concession; that, for every purpose of life and godliness, the Scriptures are of a value and importance infinitely above all other works; and, therefore, that the dispersion of tracts can be placed in no competition with the dispersion of the word of God.

These observations are applicable, not merely to countries professing Christianity, but also to those where the light of the Gospel has never shone. It surely cannot be denied, by any man who admits the sacred oracles to be of divine authority and the words of consummate wisdom, that they furnish the best means of converting the world.

The reading of the Scriptures alone has ever been found of decisive and undoubted effect *; and I need not remind you, that in former ages, the first object of those who wished to pervert the truth, was to substitute human compositions in their stead. When was popery in the zenith of its influence? When the Scriptures were inaccessible. What broke its chains?

That the power of producing this effect, under the Divine blessing, remains with the Scriptures in the present day, may be inferred from the circumstance (among others) that the conversion of Nathaniel Sabat, the Arabian, is by himself ascribed to his perusal of an Arabic New Testament.-See "Buchanan's Star in the East."

-The translation of the Scriptures. Let the word of life proceed on its "healing and heavenly ministry*," and it will assuredly run and be glorified. If authority were needed in support of assertions so plain and undeniable, authorities could easily be found.

In no part of the world do so many obstacles present themselves to the diffusion of the true religion, as in India; yet even there, according to the opinion of Sir William Jones, whatever can be effected will be done by the Scriptures.

"The only human mode, perhaps, of causing so great a revolution" (the extension of Christianity in Hindustan) "is to translate into Sanscrit and Persian such chapters of the prophets, and particularly Isaiah, as are indisputably evangelical, together with one of the Gospels, and a plain prefatory discourse containing full evidence of the very distant ages in which the predictions themselves, and the history of the Divine Person predicted, were severally made public; and then quietly to disperse the work among the well-educated natives, with whom if in due time it failed of promoting very salutary fruit by its natural influence, we could only lament more than ever the strength of prejudice, and the weakness of unassisted reason †."

Whether Sir William Jones be correct in the whole of his opinion, is not now the question. The tendency of my argument at present, is to shew the paramount importance of the Bible. But "what

* Dr. Wordsworth, p. 29.

+ Life of Sir William Jones, by Lord Teignmouth, 4to. p. 364. -See other authorities to the same effect under the 5th head, and in Appendix K; some of which are taken from the Reports of the Society in Bartlett's Buildings.

(you will say) is all this to me? I approve of the dispersion of the Scriptures." I grant it: but do you not tell us (p. 90) that your other objects are "of almost equal importance and dignity?" This is what I doubt. My conviction is, that no comparison can exist between them; and that the object which every man should propose to himself, in reference to the world around him, infinitely before all other objects, is "the free dispensation of the word of life."

SECTION II.

II. A second consideration immediately arises. What was the state of the world with respect to the knowledge of the Scriptures about the period when the establishment of the British and Foreign Bible Society was first proposed?

Let any man, who feels as he ought for the interests of Christianity and the welfare of his fellowcreatures, look upon a map of the world, and his heart must sicken at the sight of kingdoms and continents immersed in the profoundest ignorance, without hope and without the knowledge of God. Whether we direct our attention to the myriads of China, and to the overflowing population of the civilized East; or pass through the barbarous kingdoms of Africa, and then fix our regards upon the superstitious inhabitants of the West; how little has been done to spread through those benighted lands the revelation of the Gospel! And if we

turn to those countries where the light of Christianity has in some degree shone, how faint are her beams and how partial is her influence! Even where her forms are acknowledged, in how many cases is her spirit entirely wanting and her records wholly unknown! Great Britain is the only nation in the world, which, before the establishment of the Bible Society, had in modern times shewn any anxiety for the dispersion of the Scriptures. Yet it must be acknowledged, that, in the distant Colonies of Britain, and in countries either under our own dominion, or accessible by our influence, there was such a want of Bibles, as is hardly consistent with that character of zeal which we are so ready to assume *.

Not only does this want of the Holy Scriptures appear in countries with which we are remotely concerned, but in Ceylon, under our own government, where there are upwards of 30,000 Protestant Christians; among the Romish Christians on the coast of Malabar; among the Syrian Christians in Malayala, who are very numerous, and possess fifty-five churches; and in the very centre of our own missions and among our own converts, And it is further to be remarked, that they are anxious beyond measure to procuré copies of the Bible; and that one of the greatest subjects of complaint, even with our own Missionaries, is the inability on their part to supply them.

The Rev. C. John, of the Royal Danish Mission at Tranquebar, addresses the Rev. David Brown of

* For particulars I must refer you to Appendix E.

E