mulgation. Till this point is not only conceded but felt in common by all parties, vain will be the endeavour to reconcile the Biblist and the Anti-biblist by the mutual surrender of prejudices. And we believe, on the contrary, that where a common feeling on that fundamental point exists (and far be it from us even in thought to limit that feeling to the bosoms of those who think proper to support the Bible Society), the removal of supervening prejudices on lesser points will be comparatively easy, or at least the attempt to remove them will be fully worthy the pen of our excellent and judicious letterwriter. We are at a loss, however, to discover what prejudice, at least of an improper kind, there can be, in wishing for the universal distribution of the Scriptures, and supporting a Society formed for that sole object; though there may, we readily confess, be some degree of prejudice in deciding that all who oppose it do so from unworthy motives.

Having said thus much in general, we really know not what extracts to make in particular from the three letters on this subject, where there is very much that is worthy of note, and that is pregnant with admonition to that church which it especially concerns. It occurs to us as the only method for putting our readers in possession of the whole subject-matter of these letters to give their table of contents entire; after which, we may perhaps indulge ourselves and them with a single specimen of the admirable temper in which the discussion is conducted. The heads are:

"The Bible Society.-Of the Bible Society, as connected with the general subject. -Circulation of the Bible, a Protestant principle; and the distinction of all the Protestant Churches.-Some objections noticed.-Principles and practice of the Reformers, with respect to the circulation of the Bible. Subsequent abuses, an occasion of prejudice. Decline of religion

under Charles II.-Revival under William and Mary.Religious associations con

nected with the Church. -Jealousy entertained of these associations. - Origin of the Societies for promoting Christian Knowledge, and for the propagation of the Gospel. Similarity of the history of these institutions, with that of the Bible Society. Distinctions, and their causes. — -The open principle of the Bible Society, a recommendation to the first eminent churchmen who joined it.

"Letter xvi. The Bible Society.The same subject continued. -Jealousy entertained by the Church, of the Bible Society.-Union with it, the best security against the dangers apprehended.-Real danger to the Church, consists in the revulsion of sentiment, produced in the advocates of the Bible Society, by the vehemence of some of its opponents.-Principle of the Society, not objected to, in its foreign relations. - Domestic objections. -Association with Dissenters. - Encou

ragement of self-sufficiency and conceit.Consequent alienation from the Church jections, and of others connected with and Ministry.-Examination of these obthem.-Jealousy entertained by the friends of the elder societies.-No necessary incompatibility of interest between them. Proof of this, in the simultaneous growth and prosperity of various charitable institutions.

The

"Letter xvii. The Bible Society.sion of sentiment, produced by the opposame subject continued.-Revulsition to the Bible Society.-Depreciation of all comment upon Scripture.-Fallacy of this objection.-Warmth of both parties.

Principle of popular association, objected to.-Purposes of such association, should be considered.-Possibility of abuse, and necessity of guarding against it.

Indiscreet language at public meetings -has been discouraged, and might be still further restrained.-Final triumph of the Bible Society, probable-And desirable, in the present state of religion.— The Church might have stood, and might yet stand, at the head of this Society.Conclusion." Letters, vol. i. pp. xiii.—xv.

It gives us pain of the deepest kind in rising from the perusal of such remarks as occur in the course of these three letters, to reflect that there should be amongst Christians, even on such a subject, a difference of opinion; and one so great as even to threaten us with the worst consequences. Most heartily would we recal the least expression that may have tended to irritate or in

tians on either side upon this most afflicting, and we must say surprising, subject. And, with almost tears of heartfelt regret, we join in the terms of lamentation which our candid brother adopts on the existing state of affairs; though we can by no means allow with him that the opponents of the Society had the causes for complaint which his charity for their principles and motives is ready to hypotheticate. To the monitory tone, however, which the last letter assumes towards the injudicious advocates of this Society, we cannot too seriously call the attention of its friends and supporters. But to all alike we would present the author's concluding remarks.

"It may further be considered, that whatever prejudice may have been excited, by any freedom of speech at public meetings, or by the apprehension of other local abuses, it is NOW TOO LATE, even if it were

advisable, to arrest the progress of the

Bible Society. This great institution, recommended as it is, to all ranks and parties, by its comprehensive principle, will certainly, though perhaps slowly, introduce itself into every district that can support it, and, by the unquestionable excellence of its object, will engage the judgment of all classes in its favour, while it interests their imaginations and affections, by its annual assemblies and reports, and anecdotes and orations. Popularity and publicity are, in fact, inseparable; and a certain degree of exhibition (if I may call it so) is necessary to the success of every public institution. It is not therefore by a secession from this Society, or by any alteration of its general plan, that injury to the church seems likely to be prévented; but by the zealous and unanimous co-operation of all the pious members of the church, to promote its great object, while they resist its abuses. The torrent which the church CANNOT RESIST, she MAY LEAD; and God forbid that she should arrest it, if any partial or secular interest could tempt her to obstruct the progress of truth*." Letters, vol. i. pp. 430, 431.

The full support given to the churchman's views, on all occasions, in these Letters is the best warrant for the sincerity of their author in every remark tending to the welfare and prosperity of the

the contest stirred in a Protestant church by the distribution of the holy Scriptures might seem; even this is less ominous than some other contests to which the second volume of these Letters alludes, as exhibiting the result, and characteristic operation of religious prejudice. It has often struck us, in common with our letter-writer, as a very remarkable operation of Religious Prejudice, some where, that such different views have been taken of the theological writings of the past age; and also, we should add, of that which preceded it. Our author dedicates much of his second volume to the vindication of Tillotson and Barrow, with Clarke and his brethren the Boyle Lecturers, from the dislike or at least neglect with which their writings are received by one class of religionists: we may add, that he might with much effect have appended some corresponding remarks on a similar prejudice entertained by another class against such writers as Howe, Baxter, and Owen; not to mention our own Hopkins, Reynolds, Usher, Hall, and other worthies. Even the respective prejudices of Calvinism and Anti-Calvinism are not enough, of themselves, to account for the phenomenon here alluded to. Nor indeed can this operation of reli

church. A distinct avowal is made at p. 407 of the importance of the alliance of the ecclesiastical and civil establishment in this country; and the following note is added from Judge Blackstone :

"It is the glory of the Church of England," says Blackstone, "that she inculcates due obedience to lawful authority; and hath been, in her principles and practice, ever most unquestionably loyal. The clergy of her persuasion, holy in their doctrines, and unblemished in their lives and conversation, are also moderate in their ambition; and entertain just notions of the ties of society, and the rights of civil government. As in matters of faith and morality, they acknowlege no guide but the Scriptures, so, in matters of external polity and private right, they derive all their title from the civil magistrate.”

gious Prejudice (we mean always, so far as it is a prejudice) be fully developed without searching higher for still more active and terrific operations of the same principle. Our letter-writer, therefore, after stating the fact of this later prejudice in the first letter of the second volume, proceeds, in five more, to give certain prefatory sketches of still earlier times. The Calvinistic and its antagonist spirit are traced to the period of the Reformation itself. Here, the popish excesses, met no doubt in some instances by opposite excesses, are traced through their different ramifications in our own,as well as foreign countries. The wretched conflicts respecting Puritanism are sketched out in their bearing even upon the present feeling of our own theological generation. Opposite jealousies are adduced as successively producing and reproducing each other. At one time, the jealousy of popish good works is asserted to have given too exclusive a preponderance to the doctrine of justification by faith, as if no other part of Divine revelation was of any moment. At another, the jealousy of innovation in discipline is shewn to have inflamed the hierarchy against the Puritans; who were on

their parts sometimes almost exasperated into Antinomianism in their zeal against the hierarchy. This led to the doctrinal division of Calvinism and Arminianism. And in proportion as Calvinism had predominated at one period of our history, the next generation, embracing Barrow, Tillotson, &c. are shewn to have gone over very generally to the opposite code, with all its apparatus of reasoning and generalising abstraction; a measure very naturally resulting from the intermediate inroads of blasphemy and scepticism for which religious enthusiasm had paved the way. Here then we find ourselves landed again in the age to which so large a portion of this volume is devoted. But this is matter too important to be dispatched in the few remaining colums which alone we could devote to it in our present Number: we shall therefore reserve the subject for our next; when we hope to be able to conclude not only what remains for us to remark under this third head of our review; but also the fourth, in which we proposed to consider the cure, or at least the due regulation, of the prejudices we so deeply lament.

(To be continued.)

apprehension, yet exercises sway because it plights protection. They comprehend that to inspire confidence is to assert preeminence, because he who dispels alarm from another is the superior. They know that the observance and enforcement of equity is imposed on them, not by their cath of office alone, but by the eternal obligation which the Almighty has attached to power, in rendering man responsible for its due application. Conscience breathes a sublime dictate to our souls. She prescribes the extension of gentle, cheering, parental encouragement to the millions whom Providence has arrayed beneath our rule. Let it never be forgotten how that supremacy has been constructed. Benefit to the governed has been the simple but efficacious cement of our power. As long as the comforts and the gratitude of the Indian people shall testify that we persevere in that principle, so long may Heaven uphold the domination of Britain here! No longer!"

We could corroborate this pleasing testimony by numerous admissions of foreigners. At a late sitting, for instance, of the Institute of France, a memoir was read on the geography and state of Hindostan, from which we copy the following passages.

"Conquerors will doubtless favour their countrymen: and the English government raise theirs to the highest posts and appointments; but numbers of the natives are admitted into the army, and put into the exercise of civil power. Of enemies, the latter have become friends; and from the consolidation of interests, though different in colour, language, and manners, the English possess a force much superior in firmness to that of the Mohammedan dynasties.

"On the whole, notwithstanding errors and defects in public men and measures, a quick eye may readily discover, that the revolution which has taken place is greatly to the profit of the population at large, and (to the honour of the local administrations be it spoken) that solid improvements in principles and practice are rapidly advancing. Protection has been afforded against foreign depredations, and internal commotions; a double advantage, unknown in Hindostan during the lapse of many years.

"Superstition is rapidly declining in British India, and a surprising moral I change has been in progress. The effect of seven native presses, constantly at work in Calcutta, has been to triumph over many inveterate abuses, operating power

fully in reforms of various kinds. During the last festival of Jaggernaut, the pilgrims present were so few as to be unable to drag the car; nor could any devotee be persuaded, by the brachmins, to sacrifice himself to the idol. The priesthood are for removing the rath to a more central situation, from an apprehension that, without such removal, the bigotry of thirty centuries will disappear. A large portion of the population of Bengal are receiving the rudiments of an improved education, from thousands of elementary works that are circulating through the empire. Hindoo women, against whom widowhood and burning alive are denounced for learning the alphabet, and who must not read the Veda under pain of death, place their daughters at the public schools. The celebrated Hindoo reformer, Rammohun Roy, has long held public monthly meetings at Calcutta, wherein the tenets of their religion are freely discussed, and the cruelties which it sanctions are exposed and reprobated."

Direct missionary efforts and the translation of the Scriptures are not immediately mentioned in this passage; but taking only the preceding acknowledged facts, (especially if we compare them with the state of things in India, even so recently as when Mr. Burke made his celebrated complaint that nothing had been done for the moral or civil welfare of the country,) how loudly do they call upon British Christians to "thank God and take courage" in their efforts to benefit their fellow-subjects in that populous and important portion of the globe! A sense of duty impels us to insert the following account of one of those disgraceful scenes of inhumanity which are still permitted to take place under the toleration of our otherwise truly enlightened and benevolent government in India. Can it for a moment be doubted that a case like the following called for the interference of a paternal legislature and executive? Surely the option ought not to be allowed to a young woman thus circumstanced to consent, if she were ever so willing, to her own destruction: for as long as such permission continues, an opening will be left for her murderers to practise on her hopes and fears and credulity with their juggling incantations, or, should these fail, with intoxicating potions, to render her an easy victim of their su perstitious cruelties. The letter from which the following is an extract is dated July 1, 1822.

"Prompted by curiosity to endeavour to investigate the religious ceremonies of