good? What will be thought even of our present jealousies and disputes?

But zeal and activity, and attachment, are arms of no mean power-such as will often supply the place of money, and such as money cannot always purchase. I hope they do not belong exclusively to the Dissenters: but it is for the Church to determine whether she will avail herself for the noblest purposes of those qualities which they are admitted to possess, or run the risk of seeing them turned against her,

I should indeed agree with you in thinking the Dissenters formidable, if their spirit, and the spirit also of the rulers of the Church, were now such as in the unhappy times to which you have alluded at so much length.

But I think it altogether unnecessary to discuss the circumstances which attended the suppression of the Liturgy in the great rebellion, because they seem to me totally irrelevant to the present question.

Nothing can be more dissimilar to the state of government, and the political constitution of the country in the reign of Charles the First, than their actual situation. Nor have the ecclesiastical arrangements and the public opinions on religious subjects any greater resemblance. Compare the civil and military establishments, and all the means of influence possessed by the government at that time, and at the present, Compare the violent exertions of unsettled prerogative on the one hand, and the eager claim of undefined privileges and rights on the other, with the orderly and regular system which has been established since the Revolution. Compare the harsh exertions of ecclesiastical authority in the former period, of authority often striving, by means unjustified by the forms of English law, and still more repugnant to its spirit, to repress the turbulence and

ferment of a recent and unsettled reformation of religion, with the calm and mild exercise we have seen, for a century past, of the clerical jurisdiction, always directed by law, and guided by moderation; and then say whether there is now any reason to apprehend the renewal of that collision and conflict of passions and opinions in which the constitution of the Church and that of the State alike were overthrown.

The next subject to be examined is that of the foreign operations of the Bible Society; and upon this I began to hope we were agreed. Its operations abroad, you say,' are not only unobjectionable, but highly laudable. This praise is, however, qualified in the very next line in a manner which, I confess, struck me with some surprize, viz. that these operations have been described in terms which violate both truth and candor-surprise, not that you should make such a charge if you think it well founded; but that you should make the charge, and reserve the proof of it for an Appendix, not yet published, after the expiration of nearly two months. I have waited with some impatience for the publication of that Appendix, not only from regard to the character of the Society, but because I know no one who has described its foreign transactions in terms of higher commendation than myself: and though the general tone of the Inquiry, as well as of all our communications, convinces me that I am not designedly alluded to; yet I cannot feel easy under the idea of having, however unintentionally, fallen under the suspicion of a violation of truth and candor.

After waiting some time in vain for the publication of this appendix,I satisfied myself, by a careful review of what I had published, that I had asserted nothing but the truth;

and how far I have offended against candor I am willing to leave the public to judge. I have asserted (and this is the only fact I have asserted on the subject) that the Bible Society has afforded the means of preaching the Gospel in fifty-four languages, In this there is a slight error, but it is an error of defect. The real number (exclusive of the Ethiopic, which is in a state of preparation) is fifty-eight,' of

• Languages or Dialects in which the British and Foreign Bible Society has been instrumental in diffusing the Holy Scriptures.

which about twenty-five, and not, as you insinuate, five or six only,' are translations into languages in which the Scriptures have not been published before. I never said that the whole were translations made for the first time, nor could I be supposed to mean any such thing, as the English authorised version has always been included in the enumeration. But

I could not think it necessary to enter into an explanation on this point, because the history of each of these translations, and the authorities on which it is founded, are distinctly detailed in the Reports of the Society. It is also pointed out with no less exactness in what degree the Society has contributed to every publication of the Scriptures, of which it has not borne the entire charge. And, after making all these proper deductions, which are, indeed, necessary to bring the fact within the bounds of credibility, the exertions of the Society will still excite just astonishment when compared not only with those of any other English Society, for there is no other whose operations can be named in competition with them, but with the performances of the College de Propagandâ Fide, supported by the united zeal and labors of the monastic orders, and the unbounded liberality of the Catholic powers. powers. And it deserves to be further remarked that though in many instances, the Society has defrayed only a part of the expense of publishing a translation, yet that, in all those cases, the assistance of the Society has been most important, and, in the greater part of them, represented as absolutely indispensable to the execution of the work.

Total 58, exclusive of the Ethiopic..

The languages marked with an asterisk are those into which the Scriptures are not known to have been before translated.

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You seem, indeed, to consider some of these exertions, especially with respect to Germany, as superfluous. It is unnecessary to explain, why, in so extensive a country as Germany, divided into so many sovereignties, and greatly differing in the religion and manners of its several parts, the Bible might be almost unknown in some districts, while, in others, it was cheap and plentiful; it is sufficient to state, in general terms, that the Bible has been no where published or dispersed by the Society, except where the want of it has been greatly complained of, and where it has been received with the most lively gratitude. The supplications which preceded the gift, and the thankfulness which followed it, sufficiently prove its necessity. Your readers might, indeed, infer the contrary, from your observations respecting the Canstein Institution; but such of them as are unacquainted with the Bible Society will be somewhat surprised to find that the fullest, if not the only, account in English of the Canstein Institution is to be found in the second report of the Society; that the Head of that Institution was in constant correspondence with them, so long as correspondence could be maintained with the Continent, and that the Institution has been employed to a large extent by the Society whereever its aid could be available.

That hundreds and thousands have, as you say,' subscribed to the Society in consequence of its foreign operations (or as you are pleased to call them, pretensions), I firmly believe, and also that they have conferred an inestimable benefit on mankind by so doing and I trust, that not only thousands, but tens of thousands, will continue to subscribe notwithstanding the publication of the threatened Appendix, in which you have undertaken to prove those charges which without any proof you have now thought proper to allege.

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