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whereas during the three preceding years, these Exports amounted to less than fifty-four millions. But I think no Statesman would conclude from this circumstance, that the Berlin and Milan Decrees have no tendency to diminish the exports of this country even to the Continent of Europe. You would hardly argue in this case as you do of the Bible Society, and say, "If the Berlin and Milan Decrees have a tendency to diminish the trade with the Continent, the Reports of the Inspector General, laid annually before the House of Commons, must bear decisive evidence. We shall in that case find, that during the continuance of these decrees, the Exports to the Continent have been gradually lessening. But what is the fact? The average of the three years which followed those decrees, has exceeded by nearly one fourth the average of the three preceding years." You yourself must admit that such reasoning would be fallacious. If you express yourself in general terms, without a reference to any particular object, you will still more clearly perceive the fallacy of your reasoning. Substitute A. and B. for the two Societies, and the argument will stand thus. A. increases its motion in one direction therefore B. has no tendency to move in an opposite direction. Here you see at once that the premises and the inference have no connexion. What then becomes of your argument, and where is the use of fact, the mighty fact, which is supposed to have laid my whole edifice in ruins. I did not assert, that the tendency

your

of your your Society to occasion a neglect of the Liturgy, would produce the same effect at Bartlett's Buildings. On the contrary, the very circumstance, that the Liturgy was neglected by the former, would suggest the necessity of increased attention to it by the latter. Well then (you will say) if the desired effect is only produced, it follows that no harm is done. If the motion of A. does but in

crease sufficiently to counteract the tendency of B. the apprehended evil is prevented. True; but the argument then implies the existence of the tendency. And should not every Churchman prefer a Society, which has no such tendency? Is it not better to be free from defect, than to have one, however capable of remedy? And how advantageously does the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge appear from your very argument, which represents this Society, not only as free from the defect, of which I complain, but as correcting that defect in the other Society?

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But however true it may be, that the distribution of Prayer Books at Bartlett's Buildings has increased in the proportion of nearly three to two, this is not the only proportion which we must take into the estimate, in order to judge of the tendency of your Society. If, as I contend, it is the duty of Churchmen to distribute both Bible and Prayer Book, the defect, of which I complain, can be remedied only by such an increase in the distribution of the Prayer Book, as shall be proportioned to the increase in the distribution of the Bible; of the Bible, namely, as distributed among Churchmen. And an increase, according to this proportion, the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge has at present not the means of effecting.' We distributed last year more than twenty thousand Prayer Books; but then we distributed more than twenty thousand Bibles and Testaments. Your Society, according to the last Summary Account, distributed above a hundred

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1 The common annual subscription to the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge is one guinea: the cornmon donation at admission is two guineas. But when Churchmen contribute to the Bible Society, their generosity extends to benefactions of ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty guineas.

thousand Bibles and Testaments in the same year. And if only two thirds of them were English and Welsh, and only one half of that number were given to Churchmen, at least thirty thousand Churchmen were provided last year with a Bible or Testament, not one of which was provided by either Society with a Prayer Book. For our Society has been hitherto unable to do more for the distribution of the Liturgy, than keep pace with its own increased distribution of the Bible and Testament. That the Prayer Book therefore is neglected, and in a manner which it ought not to be, by Churchmen, appears from actual experience.

But I can state a fact, which bears still more strongly on the present subject. There is no place where the effects of your Society are more likely to have been felt, than the printing office at Cambridge, which has been particularly employed by your Society. The records, therefore, of our printing office afford the best criterion of judging of its effects. In the eight years which have elapsed since the formation of your Society to the beginning of the present year, the number of Bibles and Testaments printed at our office have amounted to 531,800: the number of Bibles and Testaments printed in the eight preceding years, namely, from 1796 to 1803 inclusive, amounted to 201,000. The increase therefore in Bibles and Testaments has been in the proportion of more than five to two. But has the number of Prayer Books increased in the same proportion, or has it increased at all? Quite the contrary. The number of Prayer Books printed at our office in the eight years have followed the formation of your Society has amounted only to 140,900; whereas the number of Prayer Books printed at our office during the eight years which immediately preceded the formation of your Society, amounted to 161,750. Here is not only a proportional, but an absolute decrease in the number of Prayer Books: a decrease of

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more than twenty thousand since the formation of your Society, compared with the same period preceding it. Nor must I omit to mention, that in 1802 and 1803, no Prayer Books were printed at our office, the 161,750 having been printed in the six years from 1796 to the end of 1801. So much fairer was the opening for the printing of Prayer Books in the eight following years: and surely eight years afford a very fair trial. There is also another circumstance which must not be forgotten. Though the number has decreased in the last eight years, it had been previously on the increase. In the four years ending with 1795, the number of Prayer Books printed at our office was 101,500 ; in the four years ending with 1799, the number was 116, 750; and in the four years ending with 1801, the number was 133,000, which is nearly as many as have been printed in double that time since the formation of your Society. Whether we judge therefore of its tendency by argument or by fact, the inference is in

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favor.'

'Mr. Simeon, who has addressed me in a tone of defiance not usual among gentlemen, except in repelling a gross personal attack, says, page 2, that my "argument is altogether founded on an assumption of a fact as true, which, if inquired into, will prove false:" this fact, as he himself states (p. 5) from a passage of my Inquiry is, "the practice of neglecting to give the Prayer Book with the Bible;" on which he says, no one but myself "has had the hardihood to affirm the existence of such a fact, and much less to assume it without a shadow of truth." At p. 40, after a long dissertation about Calvinism, he returns to the charge, and quoting a passage from my Inquiry, where his Society is described as one" which not only has a tendency to bring the Liturgy into neglect, but already, as we know by experience, produces that effect," he immediately adds, "The reader is requested to take especial notice of these words: for on your proof of this assertion I am content to rest the whole question."-Now when a Society, by its very constitution, excludes the distribution of the Liturgy, we should suppose, that to a common understanding no proof would be wanted that such a Society had at least a tendency" to bring the Liturgy into neglect." And

But before I conclude the examination of facts, which have been represented as fatal to my whole Inquiry, I must notice one of a different description, though produced by another opponent, lest any thing, which bears the name of fact, should be considered as valid for want of notice. It is not the result of calculation, nor of the actual distribution of the Prayer Book, but is designed as the foundation of an argument to disprove the tendency in question. At New York, it seems, there is a Bible Society, and a Bible and Prayer Book Society: both of these Societies have applied for assistance to your Society in London, and both of them have received assistance; whence it has been inferred, that

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that such a Society, in its corporate capacity, does neglect to give the Prayer Book with the Bible, must either be true, or the Society is not what it pretends to be, a Society for the distribution of the Bible alone. Where then was the hardihood, as Mr. Simeon is pleased to call it, of affirming, that such neglect existed? Where was the absurdity of inquiring into the consequences of that neglect? But if Mr. Simeon really wanted facts to prove the tendency in question, the Inquiry itself contained facts of this description: for every instance, in which the distribution of the Bible alone, or without the Prayer Book, is vindicated, is an instance of a fact, which corroborates that tendency. What are the numberless examples of objection to the position, that Churchmen should distribute both Bible and Prayer Book, but so many proofs of a tendency toward a neglect of the Prayer Book? Mr. Simeon's appeal to the increased distribution of the Prayer Book at Bartlett's Buildings, I have already shown to be perfectly irrelevant to the tendency of his own Society. But my appeal to the Printing office at Cambridge, which has been devoted to the service of the Bible Society, exhibits a fact, which is perfectly in point. It is not the distribution at Bartlett's Buildings, but the number printed at Cambridge, which affords the true criterion for judging of the effects of his Society. And as Mr. Simeon (p. 41) "dares" me to the production of a proof, and is "content to rest the whole question" upon it, I hope he will be satisfied with the FACT, the incontrovertible FACT, that since the Institution of his Society, the number of Prayer Books printed at Cambridge is more than TWENTY THOUSAND less, than the number which was printed there during the same period, previous to the formation of his Society.

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