more than six thousand blind in the United States, has applied to your board for means to publish the New Testament. After satisfactory inquiries, the managers have granted one thousand dollars towards the accomplishment of this interesting object, and have promised farther assistance during the coming year. The entire expense of this Testament will be about six dollars, and the contemplated edition of five hundred copies, three thousand dollars. To aid this publication, the Massachusetts Bible Society has contributed one thousand dollars, and the New-York Female Bible Society, with a characteristic liberality, has ventured to promise the sum of eight hundred dollars. It is ascertained, that after a season of practice, a blind pupil will read this raised letter with much facility. How great and unanticipated must be the blessing which this publication will bring to multitudes, shut out from the beauties of the material creation, and doomed to so many hours of mental solitude. In the appendix will be found a communication of Dr. Howe, which will give additional information on the topic presented

above.'

It is a lamentable fact that wherever the Roman Catholic religion has obtained the predominancy, there the Holy Scriptures are denied the people in their vernacular language. Protestantism, in its renovating operations, enlightens the mind, by banishing the darkness of popery, and awakens a spirit of inquiry among all ranks and orders of the people. Though we cannot subscribe to the maxim that the Bible is the religion of Protestants,' yet we know that wheresoever the Bible is read, understood, and its truths felt, by being applied to the heart through the energies of the Holy Spirit, there the religion which it prescribes as the remedy for the evils of our nature is enjoyed, its blessings duly appreciated, and all its holy fruits are seen growing and thriving to maturity. Though therefore the Bible is not religion itself, yet it describes what religion is, how and where it may be found, and what must be done to disseminate it among mankind. Let then this bright lamp shine in all its Divine lustre-let its truths be understood and felt-its holy precepts experienced and practised, and the destructive errors of popery shall disappear-civil and ecclesiastical despotism shall be prostrated-and the genuine principles of civil and religious liberty shall prevail and triumph.

Who does not therefore rejoice at every successful effort to send the Bible into Roman Catholic countries? South America, so long cursed with the blighting influence of Romanism-so long torn to pieces with civil discord, as if the just retributions of Divine Providence were now visiting this land where the detested Cortes and his sanguinary associates inflicted such summary vengeance upon the defenceless natives -South America is receiving the word of life by the instrumentality of the American Bible Society. The following extract from the report will show what is doing in this benevolent enterprise in this interesting portion of our continent :

From Mr. Isaac Watts Wheelwright, the society's agent for Spanish America, several communications have been received in the course of the year. He reached the republic of Chili in March, 1834, with about 2,000 copies of Bibles and Testaments, mostly in the Spanish tongue. In the course of seven months he visited Santiago, the capital, Valparaiso, Conception, Aconacgua, Quillota, Coquimbo, and many other of the larger towns, carrying with him a supply of books for each place. The civil officers, the common people generally, and a part of the priesthood were highly favorable to his benevolent object. One clergyman, a member of the senate, expressed his full conviction that the Bible ought to have an unrestricted circulation. The bishop of the diveen, however, summoning the agent before him, expressed his disapprobation of his labors, and requested him to desist from farther distributions. The consequence was, that two boxes of books which had been left with a native agent for disposal, were received back to save them from the flames. In the south part of the nation less opposition was manifested, and a good number of books disposed of, many of them for the use of schools. The total distribution in that republic amounted to about twelve hundred copies.

'The agent next visited Lima, the capital of Peru. Here he found less of direct opposition to his work. Indeed some of the clergy and others manifested a willingness to organize a Bible Society for the purpose of circulating the Scriptures, a measure, however, which your agent did not, on the whole, think it wise to adopt. A lamentable apathy toward the Bible is found to prevail by the agent in all places which he visits, even where no opposition to him is found. Few place such a value on this blessed book as to be willing to purchase it, unless at a price greatly reduced, and many will not purchase on any terms, In the course of a two months' residence in Peru about 400 copies have been disposed of, a part of which went to interior villages. Your board have forwarded to the agent an additional number of Bibles and Testaments, and also copies of the Gospel of Matthew. There is reason to expect that for the latter there will be found a more extensive demand. As the agent appears to your board to be judicious, economical, and persevering, as he has now the language of the country, and as the need of Bible influence is painfully obvious among the people where he labors, it seems desirable that his services should be prolonged another year, at least until a full experiment is made, whether the word of life is there to have free course or not. Your board cannot but indulge the hope that the more discerning of those countries will, ere long, see that the stability of their civil institutions, as well as the growth of true religion, is never to be realized by them, nor by any people, unless based on a knowledge of Divine truth, widely diffused and deeply reverenced.

In addition to the books sent to Mr. Wheelwright, and to the newly formed auxiliaries in Texas, 500 of the Spanish Gospels of Matthew have been sent to the Hon. Joaquin Marquesa, of New-Grenada.This gentleman, it will be recollected, is a vice president of the American Bible Society, and is now deeply interested in the establishment of our new schools in his own country. Another grant of 500 Gospels has been made to a mercantile friend in the city of Mexico, for sale or distribution. Others, if required, are to be forwarded. Another grant

of the same number has been made, under similar circumstances, to a gentleman residing at Havanna; and others have been forwarded to Buenos Ayres.'

Nor is the following account of the progress of the work among the Cherokees less cheering. It is an extract of a letter from the Rev. Cephas Washburn, a missionary among the Cherokees west of the Mississippi :

'If time would permit, I could communicate some facts of an interesting character, relative to the Bible cause. At present the following must suffice. The next Sabbath after our last Bible Society's meeting, I went out into a neighboring settlement, where I have a stated appointment to preach to the Cherokees. Most of my small auditory were members of the Bible Society, They had just received their books, and you might see each one furnished with a copy of Matthew, the Acts, and a hymn book, and each regarding these books as a most precious treasure. I was particularly interested with one full Cherokee woman. She had her Matthew, Acts, and Hymn book, very carefully wrapped in a new silk handkerchief. Before the exercises commenced, she would carefully unfold the handkerchief, read a verse or two in the book of life, then carefully fold up the books, and press them to her breast, while tears of gratitude for the invaluable treasure bedewed her sable cheeks. When the text, which was Matt. iv, 18-22, was announced, all of them took their books and turned to the passage. Never did I address a more deeply interested company. Among them were several consistent professors of religion who are members of the mission Church. At the close of the exercises, sixteen others publicly expressed a determination to forsake all, and "straightway" to follow Christ. When I had mounted my horse to return home, the woman alluded to above came out and detained me. Her face was bathed with tears, but her eyes beamed with thankful joy. She said, "Have you made the paper (meaning this letter) to the society of good people in New-York, who are helping us to get the word of God?" When I told her I had not, but should do so soon, she said, "Do not forget to tell them that my heart is glad for the books I have obtained, and is full of love and thankfulness to them." "Tell them," said she, "I cannot speak how much we are all glad and thankful, and we pray much for those good people every day." So you see, my dear brother, "the blessing of many who were ready to perish" is come upon your Society. This woman is an instance of the rich grace of God. Her first serious impressions were produced by reading the word of God in her own language. These impressions resulted, as we had the best reasons to hope, in her conversion to God, and she was three years since received into the mission Church. At the time of her conversion she was living in a state of widowhood. Subsequently she was married to one of the chiefs, who was much opposed to religion, and grossly intemperate. Her example and exhortations, joined to her prayers, were the means of his hopeful conversion, and of a revival of religion in the neighborhood, which resulted in the conversion of thirteen individuals. She is again a widow, is poor, and is in very feeble health, but is rapidly growing in grace. She is one of the most faithful Christians in the Church. She lets no opportunity for benefiting

the souls of her people pass unimproved. When she goes to a neighbor's house, or when a visitor calls upon her, religion is almost her only subject of conversation, and every interview is closed with prayer, unless her visitors refuse, and in that case they are the subject of her earnest cries to God in secret. I attribute the prevailing attention to religion, in the neighborhood where she now resides, in a great measure to her instrumentality. How grateful it is to put into such hands the word of life!'

In the wide range of the society's operations, the land of the east is not forgotten. And among the signs of the times,' which indicate the speedy prostration of idolatry and the uprooting of the foundations of the mighty superstructure raised by the hands of the false prophet,' we cannot but notice the glimmerings of light which are tipping the mountains of Mohammedanism, illuminating the dark valleys of eastern paganism, and even penetrating the denser clouds which rest on the hills and dales of Judaism. When the feet of the missionary shall tread unmolestedly the countries which have been so long polluted by Jewish, pagan, and Mohammedan impostures and delusions, with the Holy Bible in his hand, and the Gospel trumpet to his mouth, giving nouncertain sound,' we may hope the time is not far distant when these lands of desolation shall be cultivated, when these arid deserts shall become fruitful fields, and when their inhabitants shall be numbered among the Israelites who worship God in the spirit, and have no confidence in the flesh.'

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Thank God! these signs appear in the east. Along the hills and valleys of Palestine, where Jeremiah wept over the desolations of his country-where Isaiah sang so melodiously of the coming of Messiah, and His consequent victory over the Gentile nations-where this very Messiah appeared, preached, prayed, wrought miracles, suffered and died, and rose again-where Peter and Paul, and others of the chosen band of apostles and disciples, once lifted up their voices in praise and prayer ;-even here, amidst the abominations which make desolate,' set up by the enemies of God and His Christ, are the missionaries of the exalted Prince and Savior,' now proclaiming abroad the glad tidings of salvation,'—and here is the Bible also sent by the munificence of American liberality.

In different parts of the Ottoman empire, where the beast and the false prophet have so long held their undiminished sway, this same witness for God is wending its way, and speaking in a voice of thunder in the ears of those deluded and lascivious people.

6

. Within a few weeks,' says this able report, an interesting communication has been received from the Rev. William G. Schauffler, missionary of the American Board for Foreign Missions among the Jews at Constantinople, and countries around it.

"The object of this communication," says the writer, "is to make you acquainted, as far as I am able, with the state of the Jewish popu

lation in the Ottoman empire, from that particular point of view which renders them an object of the Christian charity of your society, and then to propose the publication of the sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament in the Hebrew and Hebrew-Spanish languages, to supply the perishing wants of these thousands and tens of thousands of immortal souls, all of them still heirs of many a glorious Divine promise, and members of a nation whose universal conversion is so evidently and so intimately connected with the coming of that promised happy period, when all shall know the Lord.

"Who will beforehand prescribe limits to the effects and consequences of the work of putting the whole Old Testament, intelligibly translated, into the hands of probably some 300,000 souls to read, or to hear it daily; a work to the execution of which no hand, nor foot, nor finger ever has been moved throughout vast Christendom down to this present day, although these people have lived and perished before our very threshold !

"But, dear sir, I have not felt satisfied with merely proposing, I have already put my hand to the work. I have begun to revise, in the manner above mentioned, the Psalms in particular, to publish them apart in a smaller form. As soon as this revision is completed, I shall, Providence permitting, print an edition of 3,000 copies, confidently hoping the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, who has declared the silver is mine, and the gold is mine,' will provide for the expenses, by moving the hearts of his people in Christian lands, and, may I not say, by moving your hearts?

"The reasons which have moved me to a publication of the Psalms are the following, viz. It is, in the first place, the book which the Jews most desire to possess, and to understand. 2d. It is peculiarly devotional, and pre-eminently calculated to prepare their hearts for a favorable reception of the whole of the Old Testament. 3d. It will probably excite less opposition or anxiety on the part of the rabbis than any other book not historical. 4th. We shall see, by this small attempt, what is the probability of success in the publication of the whole Old Testament. 5th. Our precious time is thus improved in some way, and something is doing for the poor Israelites. And, my dear sir, I am really unable to fear that Christians in America would forsake me in an enterprise so evidently called for, so limited, and so promising at the same time.

This

"I deem it a matter of gratitude to the good providence of God upon us, that we can print editions of the Old Testament here. advantage, which the Bible Society may enjoy freely, does not extend to the publication of tracts. For as tracts against the Jews must be more or less polemical, and as the laborers who set up the Hebrew type in the printing offices are Jews, they will obviously lend no hand to us in combating their cherished infidelity; while, according to the positive opinion, both of Arab Ogloo, the Armenian printer, and Mr. Castro, the Jewish printer, there will be no difficulty in procuring their labors in the edition of an Old Testament; and so confident are they that their men will not forsake them, not even at the threats of the rabbis, that they are willing to take the whole responsibility of that part upon themselves, and expect no pay until the work is carried through the press. But I must close this long communication. Let