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Thursday, the 3d of August, the National Schools of Great Marlow and the Vicinity attended Divine Service.

About eight in the morning, were to be seen in all directions waggons filled with Children neatly dressed, on their way to Marlow Church, where before prayers commenced, eleven hundred were arranged. In the course of the Service, the Morning Hymn and the Old Hundredth Psalm were sung by the Children. An animated and appropriate discourse was preached by the Rev. Isaac King, Vicar of West Wycombe. The Countess of Orkney, Viscountess Hawarden, Mrs. Bruce, and Miss Grenfell, held plates at the Church Door, where nearly 50%, was collected; after which, in a field behind the Crown Inn, the Children, seated on the grass according to their respective parishes, were supplied with proper refreshments. Notwithstanding the number brought together from various parts, the greatest order and decency prevailed. At the dinner at the Crown Inn, where the Vicar presided, the Secretaries of the Aylesbury District of the Society, the

Rev. C. Turner and the Rev. Basil Woodd, were present. Mr. Woodd detailed the claims of the Society on the friends of the Establishment, and more particularly on the Clergy of the district; and was heard with marked attention. Two Committees were held during the day, at which measures were taken for maintaining the same spirit of liberality in which this District Committee had been instituted, and for promoting the great objects of the Society, which is distinguished as having been the first Institution for the establishment of Charity Schools on an extensive scale above one hundred years ago; nor has it ever overlooked an object which so many have at heart in the present day, the propagation of the Gospel by means of its Missionaries.

CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

The Fifteenth Report

Was published this month. The Committee particularly request that the Lists of the respective Associations, prepared in the manner of those now printed, may be forwarded to the Secretary, every year, by the 31st of March. If this regulation be punctually attended to, the Report may appear annually in a few weeks after the Anniversary.

Most of the details on which the Report is grounded have appeared in our pages. We shall content ourselves, therefore, with a few extracts, referring our readers to the Report itself, which is of considerable length, and opens to us scenes of great interest and promise, while it casts new light on subjects with which we were before acquainted.

This Report completes the Fourth Volume of the Proceedings of the Society.

Income and Expenditure of the Society

We have heard of some misapprehensions respecting the wishes of the Society with regard to its income, as though it was thought desirable, at all hazards, to create a Funded Stock. We extract, therefore, the following passage from the Report, as it fully explains the Society's views on this subject.

Your Committee close their remarks on the Society's resources, by reminding the Meeting, that its average annual income, for 12 years, was 2000.; that its 13th year yielded 8000.; that its 14th sprung up to 11,000/,: and they now report, with unfeigned thankfulness to God, that its 15th year amounts to 16,000l.

Your Committee will now advert to the increased EXERTIONS of the Society.

They have detailed the rapid augmentation of its funds, and they have now the happiness to report that the opportunities for exertion have kept pace with the increase of the resources: and your Committee derive great encouragement from this fact, remembering that when the tabernacle was to be reared, it pleased God to put stance. the hearts of his people to give willingly of

their

it

On this ground your Committee can unfeignedly congratulate the friends of the Society. Its extending funds are not contracting rust in their hands. The expenditure of the last year has been about 10,000l.; and the consequent increase of the Society's stock about 6000l. But this expenditure of 10,000l. has laid the foundation of a greatly augmented expenditure in future years. And it must be considered that, in institutions like ours, we cannot, as in the Bible Society, arrest the motion of our machine. We are solemnly pledged to every faithful Missionary, that his widow and his fatherless children, if he leave such behind him, shall find a husband and a father in you. And, in the common prudence of Christians, we are bound to remember that our liability to claims of this nature grows with the growth of the Society.

Y

We are authorised to add, that the Committee will never withhold themselves from any exertions to which they may seem justly called, by a desire to preserve a Funded Stock, otherwise than as regulated by the 27th law of the Society, which provides that the subscriptions of the existing members for life shall be placed in the public funds.

For ourselves, we think that this is precisely the line to be adopted on this subject by all Missionary Institutions, and that it is enforced upon them by the history and experience of them all, We should be sorry to see any one of them accumulating a fund, which should make its conductors feel independent of the continued support of their fellowChristians for the necessity of maintaining the zeal of others perpetuates and increases our own; and the diffusion of intelligence and the animated appeals, by which the annual income of these Societies is to be supported, is acting with incalculable benefit on the mind and heart of the country, and would be ill replaced by that supineness and inac tivity which would be very likely to attend the acquisition of a large funded property.

And yet Christian Wisdom, while it justifies and demands the most implicit reliance on Divine Providence in the absence of all human aid where Faith is justly called to the trial, will nevertheless truly condemn as presumptuous the neglect of those measures which may have been in our power.

Translation of the Scriptures into Persian, Arabic, and Hindoostanee,

There is a very interesting passage in the Report on this subject. It is as follows:

"

The translation of the Word of God into the various languages of Mahometans and Heathens must depend on the talents and exertions of Missionaries. Your Committee view, with pleasure, the progress which other Societies are making herein; and they are anxious that the Members and Missionaries of the Church should take their full share in this labour. The British and Foreign Bible Society will most readily employ its powerful means in dispersing such translations throughout the world.

Your Committee have ever regarded, with peculiar interest, the learned and elegant labours of the lamented Martyn. Having early devoted himself to the promotion of Christianity in the East under this Society, though he ultimately embarked for India with the full concurrence of all his friends as Chaplain to the Company, his admirable translations of the New Testament into Ilindoostanee and Persian will be ever considered as honourable to the Church and the Society of which he was a distinguished member; and will prove a stimulus, it may be hoped, to other Clergymen in India, whether Chaplains or Missionaries, to dedicate, with the same piety and zeal, their talents and acquirements to the opening of the treasures of the Divine Word to the Natives.

The wide circulation and the general acceptableness of the Hindoostanee New Testament have been already mentioned. It has been a great instrument in the hands of Mr. Corrie, of Abdool Messee, and of their associates, in awakening inquiry and diffusing Christian Truth, at Agra, Delhi, Lucknow, and many other places. Measures are now taking by the Corresponding Committees at Calcutta to complete this Translation by the addition of the Old Testament.

The Society felt, very early, a great desire to present to Persia a translation of the Scriptures; and some measures adopted for this purpose are recorded in the Second and Third Reports. The admired Translation of the New Testament into that refined language by Martyn was, therefore, an object of special interest to your Com-" mittee. They could not but feel thankful to God, that, though called to his reward at an early age, he had been yet spared to accomplish so ably the first part of this great design.