consequences; and that there are views of policy equally clear for abstinence and conciliation on the part of England.

"America is a new and rising country; its progress, which is unprecedentedly rapid, may be retarded, but it cannot be stopped; therefore whatever bad consequences may result, they will be but momentary. It is not so with Britain, which is a country already risen so high, that the question is not to rise higher, but to remain as it is. Should hostilities with America. prove seriously injurious to England, they may never be remedied; thus the case is of much more importance to Britain than it is to America. I mean not to say that America may not suffer most severely in the first instance, but the consequences can only be transitory; whereas, with respect to Britain, they may be such as never to be done away."

Considering this author's perfect acquaintance with America, his transatlantic predilections, but his ignorance or forgetfulness of the fatal consequences likely to result to the United States from the ruin or subjugation of England; we think this extract quite conclusive as to America, and not unworthy the serious attention of a British statesman.

ART. VIII. An Inquiry into the Consequences of neglecting to give the Prayer Book with the Bible. Interspersed with Remarks on some late Speeches at Cambridge, and other important Matter relative to the British and Foreign Bible Society. By Herbert Marsh, D. D. F. R. S. Margaret Professor of Divinity. Cambridge, Deighton, Nicholson, and Barret. London, Rivington. Octavo, pp. 80. 1812.

ALTHOUGH the space which we usually allot to subjects of a religious nature is already occupied in this number, with matter too important to be omitted in favour of any other, yet the pamphlet before us, from the powers of reasoning displayed, appears calculated to make so many false impressions on timid minds, and to check the progress of so much and such extensive good, that we cannot possibly let the occasion pass, without using every exertion which our limits will allow, to point out what appears to us to be the errors of the novel objections contained in it;—leaving to a future opportunity the full discussion of the extensive operations of the British and Foreign Bible Society. We confess, however, that our previous respect for the author of this pamphlet lays us under some difficulties con

cerning the mode of treating its contents. When we see per sons, to whose soundness of judgment, and acuteness of reasoning, we have been accustomed to defer, advocating a cause which appears to our limited capacities to be absolutely unsupported by the principles of common sense, we cannot, in general, help suspecting that the fault lies in the density of our perceptions; and even after a long and anxious scrutiny of the' grounds upon which our judgment rests, it is with great modesty that we venture to state its results. Modesty, however, in this particular case does not imply doubt; for, in truth, not a shadow of it rests upon our minds; and if Professor Marsh found it "of all subjects on which he ever undertook to write, the most intricate and perplexed," (p. 53.) we are persuaded that the circumstance arose from his having unluckily advocated that side of the question, on which it would have perplexed an angel of controversy to have found a solid argument; or from his having, in the solitude of the cloister incident to a vacation' at Cambridge, contemplated a little spectre of his imagination, till it assumed the grini and portentous aspect of a giant.

Professor Marsh had entitled himself to the gratitude of his country, and the respect of all good churchmen, for his successful exertions in favour of the national system of education upon the principles of Dr. Bell; and it is not the least evil likely to result from the present pamphlet, that it will weaken all his former arguments, by implicating his name and authority in what must appear, to a large portion of his former admirers, to be the labyrinths of bigotry and error. Accordingly we find that the advocates of Mr. Lancaster, with their usual alacrity, lost no time in sending a circular letter to the members of the Bible Society, endeavouring to draw them into an opinion that their objects and interests were now identified with his; and it is with the deepest regret that we perceive in the pamphlet before us a positive assertion to the same effect. When we consider the results which the professor's reasoning is calculated to produce on the minds of many of those, whose plain sense and enlightened zeal attach them to the principles upon which the Bible Society is founded;-and when we contemplate the additional shock, which such persons must receive by the discovery of the danger, which has lain quietly hid in the professor's brain for the last seven years*, and by a somewhat rough intimation of the mischief they have been doing during that long period, by circulating the authorized version of the Bible (an expensive

• The British and Foreign Bible Society has been established seven years.

book), at a reduced price, to the members of the church, because they have left the circulation of Prayer-books, and of explanatory tracts (which are comparatively cheap and easy of acquisition), to other hands less full than their own;-we cannot help exclaiming,

Who but would smile if such a man there be,

Who but would weep if Herbert Marsh were he.

But it is not by the indulgence of contemptuous indifference, or of unmanly sorrow, that the evil can be counteracted. We shall therefore proceed, with all the plainness and earnestness which the importance of the subject demands, to make a few brief observations upon the two points principally insisted on. First, on the danger of associating with dissenters, for the purpose of promoting the circulation of the authorized version of the Bible alone, without note or comment: and secondly, on the supposed identity of interests and objects, between the Bible Society, and Mr. Lancaster's committees.

1. The whole of Professor Marsh's argument seems to rest upon this assumption; that in associating with Dissenters for the purpose of widely circulating the Bible alone, such of the members of the society as belong to the Church have directly countenanced the extensive omission of the Prayer-book; thereby indirectly admitting its inutility or inexpediency, as the best and safest commentary for the instruction of the people. Now this appears to us to be a very disingenuous conclusion; and something like finding fault with a society established to feed the hungry, for giving a poor man a loaf of bread at half its original cost," because they do not also give him an ounce of cheese upon the same terms; or like blaming the ladies who associate to provide soldiers wives with child-bed linen, and caudle, because they thereby countenance an extensive omission of flannel waistcoats for the use of the soldiers themselves. In distributing those things of which there is the greatest need, and which the objects of the bounty find it the most difficult to procure, they are far from wishing to preclude them from the possession of other ar-. ticles of comfort; but they think, that by confining their own exertions to the most obvious and pressing wants, they will interest more persons in the charity, and thus effect the more extensive good.

Just so, the Bible Society have associated to circulate Bibles, which are very expensive to purchase, and of which there was a great dearth; not one family in fifty throughout the country having one in their possession. And they found that Christians. of every dénommation were so sensible of the utility of such an

object, that very extensive assistance, in zeal and money, could be procured by confining the charity to the bread of life alone. But can those who circulate, at little more than half price, a Bible worth six or seven shillings, be accused of neglecting or depreciating the Prayer-book, which may be had for fifteenpence; because they double their own means of circulating the former, by leaving the latter to the zeal of the individual, of the regular clergyman, or of other societies; or rather because they do not deprive themselves of the power of giving a poor man three or four shillings in a Bible, that they may eventually save → him seven pence halfpenny on the purchase of a Prayer-book? For, after all, no society can force a Prayer-book upon the people. All that any society can do, is to circulate such as are demanded by subscribers at a reduced price. Nor do we suppose that even Dr. Marsh would recommend that the acceptance of a prayer-book, at a stated price, should be generally made the indispensable condition of receiving a bible; because it is obvious, that such a regulation would by no means increase the circulation of Prayer-books, but only diminish that of Bibles. And the fact in the present case is, that from the comparative cheapness of the liturgy, and the extent to which it is to be procured from the ancient and venerable society for promoting Christian knowledge, the demand for that book is pretty amply supplied. Every one that wishes for it can procure it with a very little frugality; and we think that Professor Marsh, anxious as he is to depreciate the labours of the Bible Society, has admitted more than enough benefit from their exertions, to counterbalance the problematical chance of saving to a very few poor persons, seven-pence halfpenny on the purchase of a Prayerbook, when they desire to procure it. But the demand for Bibles is very far from being supplied; and we are utterly astonished that Professor Marsh should have ventured, in the face of notorious and recorded facts, to declare that "there were channels in abundance for the distribution of the Bible, long before the existence of the modern society." (P. 9.) Does he

*We are very happy to find, that this Society has had an accession of above 2000 subscribers within the last year; and we trust that the circumstance will tend to allay the fears of those, who foresaw its ruin in the success of the Bible Society. We are persuaded that the competition established, has acted as a spur to one, and a rein to the other. Long may the competition last! But let it not be a competition of words but of doing good. As Mr. Dealtry has well expressed it, "why should there be any other rivalry between these great institutions, but the generous rivalry of conferring benefits on mankind? Surely there is abundance of room for the labours of both. Every heart and every hand should be pressed into the service, and invited to partake of the reward." (Mr. Dealtry's speech at Hertford, Jan. 24, 1812.)

not know then*, that Wales had for more than twenty years been presenting reiterated and most urgent petitions for Bibles, without any adequate supply, till the establishment of the Bible Society? Does he not know, that the Bristol Society found a call for 4200 Bibles and Testaments in one year; and that of Manchester, for upwards of 7000 in little more than six months? Does he not know, that there are 300,000 persons who understand no language but the Gaelic; not one in forty of whom possessed a Bible, till the society translated and dispersed it in that language? Does he not know, that in many parts of Ireland not more than a third of the Protestant families possessed Bibles, till the society imported them; and of the Papist families, scarcely one in 500? Does he not not know, that in Jersey not a French Bible was to be had, though many families would willingly have purchased one? Does he not know, that at this moment, notwithstanding all the exertions of the two societies, and of the Naval and Military Bible Society, above 21,000 applications for Bibles from soldiers and sailors, now serving in his majesty's army and navy, have been ineffectual for want of funds? And does he not know that a great and increasing demand now exists throughout the whole kingdom; although above 300,000 Bibles and Testaments have been printed and circulated at home, within the last seven years, by the Bible Society only? It would be easy to multiply these questions from official reports, or from notorious facts; and Professor Marsh must surely have been acquainted with many of them; for he has himself told us, that he has spared no pains to get every information on the subject. What then shall we say of his assertion, that channels in abundance existed for the distribution

The history of the origin and progress of the Bible Society is simply this. -The extreme want of Welsh Bibles.in North Wales, and the despair of obtaining them without resorting to new and extraordinary means for the purpose, having been made known to many charitable persons, the means of supplying it became a subject of consideration. In the course of their communications they found that the want of Bibles was not confined to Wales, but that it was felt in other parts of the United Kingdom, and also in a greater degree abroad; and their views progressively extended to the supply of the deficiency wherever it prevailed. It was evident that the means for attaining this object must be proportionate to its magnitude; and the plan proposed for the purpose was accordingly calculated to embrace the support of Christians at large, by inviting the concurrence of persons of every description, who professed to regard the Scriptures as the proper standard of religious truth. The plan of the society was thus suggested by the single consideration of the deplorable want of the word of God, and the supply of that want was its sole and exclusive object; without the slightest disposition to rival any other society, or to depreciate the liturgy of the Church of England; or the most distant suspicion that such a consequence could ever ensue from it. In truth, the experience of seven years has shewn that no such effect has arisen, or was ever thought of, till the publication of the pamphlet before us.