to your spiritual and eternal welfare that she has not provided to your hands. Beware then that you abuse not your high privileges; beware that bu neglect not so great salvation. The ministrations of the church are an ordinance divinely appointed of God for your best and eternal interests; and great will be your guilt if you fail to avail yourself of them with zeal and humility, with faith and prayer, that you may grow in grace, and in the knowledge of your Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and at length through his infinite merits obtain everlasting life.

We had concluded our review, and sent it to press, when we received Dr. Chalmers's new and admirable work, entitled "Political Economy in connexion with the Moral State and Moral Prospects of Society." We wish that intelligent Christian laymen, and still more clergymen, would occasionally look into such books, that they might better understand the practical workings of society, and thus be enabled to construct their arguments and appeals with more of truth and efficiency. There is too much of common-place and fallacious declamation on almost every subject which relates to the temporal, moral, and spiritual welfare of nations. Nine tenths of the popular speeches, essays, and sermons, which happen to touch upon such subjects as the treatment of the poor, poor laws, tithes, taxes, church establishments, free trade, corn laws, prove that the writers have never taken the pains to understand the matter; and above all, what are called practical men are in general the most fallacious of reasoners, their practice and theory being confined to what passes within eyescope of their own purblind retina, instead of taking in the large field of induction which comprehends all the elements necessary to determine the problem. But this is not our theme, though we shall be glad to resume it if we find an opportunity of reviewing Dr.Chalmers's work; but we intended only to notice the chapter

on tithes for the sake of quoting the concluding passage which relates to the general subject of the present paper. Dr. Chalmers had shewn, what every reasonable political economist allows, that tithes ultimately fall, where they ought, on the estate, and not on the farmer or consumer, except so far as they keep out of cultivation some poor lands, and cause better lands to have a smaller dose of capital expended on them. He had also proved that it would be highly beneficial to all parties, and especially to the landlord, to have them commuted for a charge upon the estate; by which means the church, without being impaired in its emoluments, would be relieved of much odium, and the agriculturalist lose a fruitful subject of discontent. But he also shews with equal clearness, that as to the general well-being of society, neither tithe commutation, nay, nor tithe abolition or tax abolition, would be of itself any permanent benefit; since, if the same improvidence prevailed under the new as under the old system, the soil would soon be as much over peopled as before, and the same distress again ensue.

Still, for the moment, benefit would arise, since more persons could be maintained in proportion as imposts are taken off, and the trade in corn set free; but in a few years the vacuum would be filled and over-filled, and the population be as wretched as before; unless education, religion, and the extension of public intelligence and habits of providence and forethought, prevailed, so as to keep down the population under the starving point. Why is sterile Sweden flourishing, and fertile China in a state of modified starvation? The same may be asked of Switzerland and Ireland; and the answer is to be found in the moral and economical habits of the people. But we must not digress, but content ourselves with our intended. extract, which forms an excellent sequel to the present article. As the much respected writer is not of our own communion, we the more

confidently refer to his concluding remarks on the absurd exaggerations which have gone abroad relative to the amount of the existing revenues of the Church of England.

"We cannot afford to expatiate on the superior efficacy of a church establishment a lesson which we have abundantly urged and expounded elsewhere. But never, without the peculiar facilities and resources of such an institution, will there be a full supply of Christian instruction in the land. A practical heathenism will spread itself over the rural provinces ; and will deepen and accumulate more and more in our cities. When the people are thus left to themselves, and, in great majority, have forgot and forsaken the decencies of a Christian land, all economic or external resources will be of no effect on the comfort of families, given up, by this time, to profligacy and utter recklessness. It is vain to look for a well-conditioned peasantry, when brutalized into a state of moral and religious indifference: they are wholly bent on animal indulgence, and, in reference to all the higher sensibilities of our nature, are in a state of hopeless and immoveable apathy. The expense of a well-organized and purelyadministered church, otherwise lavished, in unproductive consumption, on the luxuries of the affluent and the idle, would be repaid many times cver, if we, in consequence, beheld among the people a higher standard of character, which never fails to be accompanied by a higher standard of comfort in society. But when once the moral interest is sacrificed, there is no enlargement of the economic interests or capabilities which can possibly make up for it. A church may be so conducted, as to secure and perpetuate the one; and it may be so provided for,

as not to trench, by the slightest iota, upon the other. In these circumstances, its overthrow were a most grievous perversion-an act of national madness, having its rightful consummation, first, in the anarchy of the state, and then, in the growing vice and wretchedness of the people.

"Whatever the coming changes in the state of our society may be, there is none that would more fatally speed the disorganization and downfal of this great kingdom, than if a band of violence were put forth on the rights and revenues of the Church of England. Even with the present distribution of her wealth, it will be found, that the income of her higher, as well as humbler clergy, has been vastly overrated; and nothing, we believe, would contribute more to soften the prejudices of the nation against this venerable hierarchy, than a full exposure of all her temporalities, grounded on the strictest and most minute inquiry. And certain it is, that, with the best possible distribution of this wealth, it will be found hardly commensurate to the moral and spiritual wants of the now greatly increased population. If all pluralities were abolished, and the enormous overgrown towns and cities of the land were adequately provided with churches, it would be found, that the whole of the existing revenues would hardly suffice for a requisite number even of merely working ecclesiastics. We cannot imagine a policy more ruinous, than that which would impair the maintenance of a church that has long been illustrious for its learning, and that promises now to be the dispenser of greater blessings to the people, than at any former period of its history, by the undoubted increase of its public virtue and its piety." pp. 329–331.

THE NEW BIBLE SOCIETY. WE mentioned in our Number for last December, the formation of a new Bible Society, the conductors of which were pleased to entitle themselves, with the exclusive definite article, THE Trinitarian Bible Society, to be conducted on scriptural principles, thus accusing, as abettors of Socinianism, and every thing that is unscriptural, all those faithful servants of Christ throughout the world, who have hailed the circulation of the word of God by means of Bible Societies; all who could not in conscience join the little self-constituted party in Sackvillestreet; all those venerable and beloved brethren and fathers who have departed this life in the faith and fear of Christ,

thanking God for the labours of the Bible Society; and all who thought that the great body of wise, learned, pious, and heavenly-minded men in the Church of England, and every other orthodox Christian communion throughout the world, were quite as good judges of the character of new versions of the Scriptures as the generality of naval and military officers and modern millenarian divines. The announcement of such a society must have been a source of triumph to the Socinian; for it was to tell him that the circulation of the Bible could not be safely conducted without certain humanly-devised precautions; that it was necessary not only to have a Trinitarian book, but a Trinitarian test of distribution; or rather a mock

test, for the test is not to be acted upon: no questions are to be asked, so that a Socinian, if he pleases, may join the society and become a member of it, nay, a leader in its committee. We repeat, and it ought to be known, and we challenge any member of the society to disprove our words, that there is not, among all the rules, the slightest guarantee for the ultimate purity of the new society, the slightest guarantee to keep Socinians out of it, or even out of its committee, should they think it worth their while to go in; unless, indeed, the self-constituted committee have adopted some secret test not divulged to the world, and have formed a private irresponsible board of inquisitors, who are to sit in judgment upon men's faith and character. If this be so, it is a matter known only to the board; but as to any guarantee to their subscribers, or the Christian world at large, no such guarantee, we repeat, has to this moment been given. The committee say, Trust us; we are not like your Bible-Society people; all will be safe in our hands; and you may depend upon every thing being conducted upon scriptural principles.

The unfair and party-spirited assumption in the designation given to the institution, has justly caused a feeling of pity -for Christian men cannot indulge indignation or contempt-in the minds of all who love plain honest truth without party trickery. Many of those who wished for a change in the constitution of the old society, as regards the indiscriminate admission to membership of all who call themselves Christians, all who profess to have had a Christian name given them in baptism, all who in parliament swear" on the faith of a Christian," and who thought that a Bible Society ought not to use the word Christian in this popular sense but to define it by a test, were yet displeased and disgusted, that the leaders of the new

* But what human test will define it? Are all who profess the creed of the new society Christians? The society says that they are, and embraces them as such. We say they are not, except in popular language, as used by the old society; for is it only among Papists and Socinians that there are to be found ungodly men, heretical men, and soul-destroying men? But, says the new society, let them be what they will, they believe in (or may believe, for no questions are to be asked) "a tri-une God" ("a" as if there were more than one triune God), and therefore they are Christians. That is, there may be drunken Christians! Swedenborgian Christians! Duelling Christians! Antinomian Christians! Sabellian Christians! Such is the new society's nomenclature "upon scriptural principles." Or have they a new test not yet divulged for each of these classes?

institution, just for the sake of a claptrap, and of catching the unthinking multitude by an imposing title, should have descended to an artifice like this. They were willing, they said, to join a new Bible Society, which adopted a test, since they thought that the old one ought to have attempted a definition of the word Christian, with a view to exclude Socinians (though if Socinians are not in the only sense there meant Christians, they are excluded already, and no further rule is necessary), but they could not bring their minds to libel all the servants of God in all lands, and to blacken the memory of those holy men who sleep in Christ, resting from their labours in the service of their Divine Master, and for the salvation of souls, by means of this truly scriptural and blessed institution. No, they said, it were unjust, pharisaical, and a grievous breach of the Ninth Commandment, to call ourselves by an exclusive and invidious title; thus saying to our fellow-Christians, Stand by, we are more orthodox, more Trinitarian, wiser, holier, and more anxious for the glory of Christ than ye. They thought the adherents to the Bible Society wrong, but they did not wish to malign them: they considered them mistaken, but they did not consider them less entitled to the epithet Trinitarian than themselves; and they would not therefore connect themselves with an institution which began its course with this, and many other emblems of party spirit, as if determined to carry a point, whomever they might wound or injure by their proceedings.

But though we noticed the formation of the new society, we did not intend again, at least very speedily, or without extreme necessity, to advert to its doings; and accordingly, in our last Number, we made no allusion whatever to the subject. But we are forced again to take it up; for grieved we are to say that this new committee and their friends, instead of endeavouring to serve God in peace in their own society, are casting firebrands throughout the land; and by means of inflammatory circulars, speeches, and pamphlets (query, does the fund raised from well-meaning persons for circulating the word of God pay for these mischiefmaking publications ?) are doing all they can to sow discord among brethren. many places where, till of late, the true servants of Christ of all names were living in peace and godly love, and supporting (never having had a Socinian or Papist among them) the cause of the Bible, and enjoying brotherly conference at their solemn meetings, one or more friends of this new institution, in a spirit of party animosity and rivalry, and reckless of all consequences, are throwing in heaps of these defamatory publications (the agents in their circulation often avowedly knowing only one side of the question, and never having perused the answers to the

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objections) thus distressing many tender, but not well-instructed consciences; misleading some weaker brethren, causing discords and every evil work, infusing grievous suspicions where there is not a shadow of reason for them, and above all, raising a stumbling-block before the worldly and the wicked, who rejoice to find the spear and nails thus made to their hands to wound the Saviour in the house of his friends. Oh, is this the spirit which becomes those who call themselves his disciples? To what purpose is it that they tell men that they come to shew them a new and better way of circulating his blessed word, if they come only to` cause warfare among his servants, and to furnish weapons forged in their own armoury to the worldly and profane? If, indeed, the Bible Society, and the holy men who have so long administered its concerns, were what these partizans describe them, there would be ample occasion for the triumphs of the wicked: but is it not grievous that such charges should be thrown out upon mere misconception, mistake, or party exaggeration; and this in quarters where, for want of information, they cannot be contradicted?

But it is not by those who objected to the formation of a new society, or by those who, though they wished for a new society, were conscientiously constrained to keep aloof from that in Sackville-street, that the strongest remonstrances are now raised; for some of its own earliest and warmest supporters have already become its most earnest opponents. It is an invidious task to notice such matters; but that task has become necessary, in order that those who have not already committed themselves to the new institution, though they might have wished for a change in the old one, may at least pause for a few months before they take a precipitate step in the matter, more especially by attempting to form auxiliaries and associations in connexion with an institution which they have not yet proved. The conductors of the new society are evidently well aware that such a calm investigation would be fatal to their cause; that a reaction will take place, as soon as their own procedure is better understood, and the well-meaning persons who have been deluded by false or exaggerated charges against the Bible Society have had time to inquire into the truth; and therefore they are trying to take the tide at the flood, and to get up packed meetings to commit themselves by forming auxiliary societies: at which meetings they practise the same trickery which has characterized all their doings; for they stifle discussion, will allow of no explanation, and having hired a room as private property for the occasion, they print on their cards that no person will be allowed to speak who does not approve of their proceedings; and then several out-and-out

partizans get up and utter all kinds of gross exaggerations and invectives against the Bible Society, and if any agent or friend of the society rises to offer a defence or explanation, the chairman puts him down: he is told that no opposition is allowed; he is hissed, hooted, and assailed with "off, off," and then goes forth a statement to the world, how a new auxiliary was formed, and the resolutions carried by acclamation by a large, intelligent, and Christian assembly; and the statement is industriously circulated at an enormous expense, with funds that had better been employed in circulating the word of God, and persons at a distance from the scene are told that all was done fairly, honestly, and upon " scriptural principles."

This system of preventing discussion, forbidding reply, and forcing matters in a truly" naval and military" manner, by bayonet and broadside, has justly offended many of those who at first, in a moment of haste, connected themselves with the new society. These persons were not aware, and the Sackville-street committee took special care to keep them in ignorance, that the new society was to be founded upon the principle of excluding from the board not only Socinians and Papists, but all whom the little knot of managers might not approve, all who should pry too closely into their concerns, or who should oppose any of their proceedings. In the British and Foreign Bible Society, as well as in all its'auxiliaries and kindred societies in America and elsewhere, every thing is fair and open; every subscriber or donor to a certain amount has a right to attend and vote at the committees, and to see with his own eyes that his money is rightly appropriated; besides which, every clergyman and dissenting minister who is a subscriber, has the same privilege, so that nothing could ever go materially and for a long time together wrong; or, if it did, not only must the committee, but hundreds of other persons have been to blame, who should have seen and checked it. These regulations have been unfairly used against the Bible Society, in consequence of the litigious spirit of one or two individuals, who have taken advantage of their privilege of attending the committee, to sow discords, and to misrepresent in speeches and pamphlets what had passed in conversation, catching up any hasty misunderstood speech of any individual present, as if it had been the act of the society, and ransacking with microscopic ingenuity the voluminous records of the institution, to see if there was any possibility of manufacturing some charge which should be made to tell plausibly against its conductors. We speak seriously, and could adduce names and documents to shew that the fact has been as we have stated. But notwithstanding some inconveniences

attending this privilege, it was a check which we should not wish to see done away with, though it might be well to regulate it, by not allowing these outvoters to come down in a packed party, and to carry a measure by mere numbers, as the malcontents in the Bible Society have sometimes done, without having gone through a full investigation of the question. We would allow all to attend, as at present, that nothing might be done secretly; but those only should vote who had been at the committee a certain number of times during the preceding year, that there might be no packing of jurymen for an occasion.

But be the

rule good or bad, it has been adopted by most of our modern religious and charitable societies, and in the case of the Bible Society, its existence is a complete answer to those who think that any thing has ever been transacted in secret; even the discussion upon the Apocrypha being conducted with open doors. Now, as Mr. Haldane and his friends had so well availed themselves of this privilege in the old society, the friends of the new society who were not in the secret of the Sackvillestreet conclave, especially clergymen and dissenting ministers, thought, of course, that a " scriptural" societywould be equally liberal, and that they, in right of their subscription and membership, would be allowed to attend and vote at the meetings of the committee, as under the old-fashioned Bible Societies. But they have discovered too late their error: they find that their Sackville-street friends have outwitted them; and they now learn that at a secret cabal, before the formation of the society, it was discussed whether there should be life governors, with a right to witness the proceedings of the committee, and whether clergymen and dissenting ministers should be allowed this privilege, and that it was decided that no such indulgence should be granted. Many who early joined the society, taking it for granted that allwas right, and not dreaming of this secret resolution, now complain that they were overreached,and that they had no idea of any such intention till they read, when it was too late, the published rules of the society, as professed to have been passed with intelligent acclamation at the public meeting. But the meeting knew nothing of this secret regulation; for it required time to find it out, being merely a negative; and all the leaders of the society cautiously avoided alluding to it. We have already stated that the intended rules and regulations of the new society were kept secret to the last moment those who attended the public meeting had not the least conception what they were to be; the name Trinitarian, and the exclusion of Roman Catholics, were novelties which, whether good or bad, they had never considered; much less the propriety of excluding clergymen, dissenting ministers, and governors from the

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committee, and yielding their purses and consciences to a secret board: which, however necessary in some other societies, could not be necessary in a society in which the only professed object is the circulation of the word of God without note or comment. The friends of the society fairly complain of these things: they were taken in, they say, in being called upon to vote at the moment they knew not what; they admit now, with us, that the provisional secret committee ought to have announced their plan and have allowed fair discussion if they really meant honestly and did not intend to entrap the meeting; they say that it was not Christian or respectful to carry the thing in an arbitrary military style, not permitting even their best friends to suggest any modification, or so far keeping up an appearance of respect to the meeting as to put the resolutions to the vote; for among the other extraordinary secreta monita of the provisional committee, as twice read by Mr. Perceval in the chair, when too late to oppose them, (see the Society's own paper, stitched up with our last Number top of page 3) no person was even allowed to "vote "against the rules and regulations proposed by the infallible founders. Our poor persecuted friends complain further that they were completely gulled on the occasion; that they had not the slightest idea that they had been holding up their hands to exclude clergymen, dissenting ministers, or governors from being present at the committee, thus consigning the whole management to a private junto of thoroughgoing partizans, and that the books, deliberations, and resolutions of the committee and the correspondence of the society were to be kept as secret as the grave. They thought, poor deceived men, that they might have gone and opposed any thing they disapproved of, whether the salaries to the officers, the private cabals about tests, the gossip and scandal about the characters and opinions of individuals, or the unchristian and cruel expulsion of their own chairman, Mr. Perceval, because he was prayed for concerning his motion for a fast in some church which certain of the secret committee objected to. They thought, also, that they might have been allowed to keep a check over the new society as they did over the old one, more especially as Mr. Haldane and his friends had so often stated, that had it not been for the publicity which the constitution of the Bible Society afforded, by an open committee, the alleged delinquences of its elected committee had never been brought to light. Thus, then, they say that they were deceived; that the Christian Observer was right in its charges and prognostications; and that they have promised their money to be managed in secret, knowing no more than the conclave choose to tell them; so that there might be twenty Haffner's pre