the Committee feel convinced, that, instead of hostile opposition to its views and exertions, it would experience the most cordial co-operation and support from every virtuous and patriotic member of the British public. In the suppression of such offences as fall within its plan, the Society has carefully avoided the excesses of intemperate zeal; as may be fairly inferred from the circumstance, that, out of thirty-two prosecutions, not one has failed, its views extending only to such a practical restraint of vice as the legislature itself has deemed it expedient to attempt, and such as the proclamations of our gracious Sovereign have from time to time most earnestly recommended. Knowing the impracticability of entirely suppressing every culpable species of immorality and licentiousness, the Society rest satisfied with driving vice, when it assumes its gross and more offensive forms, into that obscurity, where it must be sought for before it can be found, and where its contagious influence is confined to those who are already abandoned and incorrigibly depraved; or to those wretched beings who seek to procure the means of a miserable existence by the temptation and seduction of others."

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE

SOCIETY.

It has appeared to the Committee of this Society highly expedient that a plan should be adopted for transmitting to the various societies in connexion with the parent, institution, more frequent communications than have hitherto been usual, of the interesting intelligence from time to time received, relative to the progress of the great work in which their efforts are united.

३

In proposing a plan for this purpose, the Committee acknowledge that they ave an object beyond that of conveyg satisfaction and delight. They are "eeply sensible of the beneficial influice produced upon their own minds, y the communications from distant ads, read to them at their periodical eetings, both in exciting their grati1de, and stimulating their exertions; ; d they are anxious to establish such 1 ans of intercourse as may enable em to extend, as widely as possible, se salutary impressions. Experience bstaught them to believe, that, if extcts from the most interesting parts CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 189.

of the Society's correspondence were read in the meetings of the local committees, and distributed among the members, for the information of others, it would tend greatly to enliven the spirit of those meetings, and to invigo◄ rate and expand the general zeal.

Under this conviction, the Committee have determined to issue, in the last week of every month, a sheet of brief extracts, from their articles of corres pondence, with a view to their being read at the meetings of the Committees of the different Auxiliary and Branch Societies, and Bible Associations, and distributed among their officers, mem bers of committee, and gratuitous collectors. These extracts will be transmitted to the Secretaries of the Auxiliary Societies, who are earnestly requested to forward, without delay, a due proportion of them to the Secretaries of the several Branch Societies and Associations within their respective districts; so as to ensure the receipt of them in time for the meetings in each ensuing month.

The Committee anticipate much good from this measure, if their views are followed up by their friends in the country; and they trust they may rec kon upon a diligent and punctual cooperation from the Auxiliary Societies, in giving it effect in the manner suggested,

As Auxiliary Societies may expect to derive considerable accessions of

strength, and even of pecuniary advan tage, by circulating, and encouraging their Branch Societies and Bible Associations to circulate copies of these: papers, greatly beyond the extent which the parent committee would consider. themselves authorized gratuitously to furnish, provision will be made for an extra demand; and Auxiliary Societies may, for that purpose, be supplied with any quantity, on application to the Depositary, Mr. Cockle, at the Society's House, Earl-street, Blackfriars, at the rate of four shillings per hundred, provided the order for them be received within the month immediately following the date of each Number.

The Committee add, that they cannot conclude their address without availing themselves of the opportunity which it affords, of earnestly recommending to the several bodies associated with them a strict observance, in all their proceed ings, of the simple principle of the institution-the circulation of the Scrip tures without note or comment. With 4 L

this view they beg to refer to the following sentiments, expressed in the Eighth Report, and to submit them to the serious consideration of the friends of the Society in every part of the empire. "It is the object of the Committee, in all their transactions, to adhere with the utmost strictness to the simple principle of the institution: and while they feel the

obligation to this duty increase with the increasing magnitude of the establishment, they trust that a similar feeling will pervade the several Auxiliary Societies throughout the United Kingdom, and that one correct line of operation will continue to characterize the whole body." (Eighth Report, 1812, p. 82.)

CONTINENTAL INTELLIGENCE. THE meeting of the French legislature is announced for the 1st of November; and in the mean time a fifth part of the chamber of deputies is to be replaced by fresh elections, regulated according to the law of last session, prepared and brought forward by M. Laine. The framer of this law, himself a member of the administration, doubtless intended that it should increase the preponderance of ministerial influence in the choice of deputies; and it was probably framed with a direct view to the exclusion of what is called the ultra-royalist party. The number of electors throughout France is reduced by it to about 200,000, and a great portion of these is said to consist of the purchasers of national domains, the functionaries of the government, and petty tradesmen. One of the absurd enactments of this law confines the choice of the electors to persons who have attained the age of forty, The operation of the law will now be put to the test of experiment; and if we may consider Paris as furnishing a fair specimen of the prevailing sentiment among the electing body throughout the kingdom, there is reason to apprehend that the ministers have miscalculated its operation, and that they will be found to have opened the doors of the lower house to the Republican party. For although they appear to have taken great pains to secure the return of members favourable to their own views of national policy, the majority of votes in that city has hitherto been in favour of such revolutionary characters as Lafette, Manuel, Constant, &c. &c. If many of the persons returned should be of this complexion, it will serve to illustrate the wisdom of the councils of the allied powers in having resisted the urgent solicitations of the French ministry to reduce, if not wholly to

withdraw, the army of occupation. Nor would such returns as these be a solitary indication of the extensive diffusion through France of a spirit adverse to the existing government. The insurrectionary movements at Lyons and Grenoble required a military force to repress them; and few weeks elapse without the trial and execution of persons detected in seditious and treasonable practices, compromising directly the safety of the king and the royal family. It is under these circumstances that Louis XVIII. has made a farther change in his administration, by the removal of the duc de Feltre from the war-office, and of viscount Dubouchage from the charge of the marine department; and the substitution in their place of Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr and M. Molé, names which make a conspicuous figure in the imperial annals. The period of this change was further signalized by the re-admission of the famous Marshal Davoust to the presence and favour of his sovereign, by whom he was presented with a marshal's staff. These various occurrences seem to confirm the impression given by intelligent travellers who have lately visited France, that the throne of the Bourbons cannot be regarded as stable; and that the party desirous of overturning it is large, and probably kept in check only by the presence of a large foreign force; while the king,at the same time, is immediately surrounded by persons whose attachment, to say the least, is dubious and of very recent growth,*

*In a work which has recently appeared from the pen of a traveller in France, who seems by no means friendly to revolutionary principles, we have met with some curious information respecting the state of public feeling in that country. At Paris, he says, "it was easy to observe that the French

The Concordat which had been signed at Rome by the French minister, we are happy to learn, has been rejected unanimously by the king's council, and

cherished a much greater attachment for Bonaparte than they did for the Bourbons." "The French even make an appeal to our reasons, and demand whether it can be doubted who is the desired, Louis or Napoleon. The former, they say, was seated on the throne with the help of 300,000 foreign bayonets, From Brussels to Paris he waded in the blood of Frenchmen, and made his triumphal entry into the capital over the carcasses of the men who died in defence of their Emperor. They add, that the contributions paid by the nation to the allied powers is the return which Louis makes them for re-establishing him in the government." "A trifling incident frequently enabled me, without uttering a single word, to sound the inclinations of the French respecting Bonaparte. I bought two or three snuffboxes with his likeness on the lid of them. One I carried constantly about me. In going to a shop to buy snuff, I have often seen the women take the box and kiss it. In other places where I might display it, some person or other would generally take it into his hands, look at it with attention, and then return it to me with an emphatic Ah! or some other observation indicative of good will towards Napoleon, In one or two instances, I met with persons who exclaimed against my carrying about me the likeness of the Tyrant; but this rarely happened." Again: Any one travelling through France, who would wish to court friendly attention from the people, will certainly find it his interest to appear favourably inclined towards Bonaparte." In the villages in the country, "nothing pleased people more than seeing my snuff-box: men, women, and children flocked round me to see the likeness of l'Empereur"-" for so his partisans continue to style him." Jorgenson's Travels.

66

If Mr. Jorgenson's statements be correct, the truth ought to be known. It ought to be clearly understood, both in this country and throughout Europe, how ripe the population of France is for renewed revolutionary movements; and how necessary it is, therefore, for the tranquillity of the universe to keep a watchful eye on what passes in that country.

will not therefore be ratified without undergoing considerable modifications.

The secular estival of the Reformation is about to be celebrated on the Continent with much pomp and solemnity. The king of Prussia appears desirous of signalizing this centenary of that glorious event by the abolition, as far as possible, of all distinctive denominations among the evangelical Protestants in his dominions-and this desire is said to be general throughout Germany. The Prussian minister of the interior has addressed a letter on this subject to the clergy of both confessions (the Lutheran and the Reformed) within the Prussian dominions, intimating the king's wish that their party appellations might be merged in the general term Evangelical; in the hope that sectarian feelings might thus be corrected, and that, by abolishing nominal distinctions, a spirit of harmony and mutual co-operation might be more widely diffused. The bishop of Rome, meanwhile, continues to issue his rescripts against the Bible Society, which appear, as far as we can judge, to be little more than transcripts from the denunciations of the same institution, by the bishops of Llandaff and Lincoln, in this country. In one case, indeed, namely, that of the prohibition of Bible Societies in Hungary, the report of a Charge delivered by the bishop of Lincoln two or three years ago, in which the British and Foreign Bible Society was denounced as hostile to church and state, appears to have been the specific ground on which the prohibition was adopted by the Hungarian government. Whether the communication of that report was made to the German journalists by the present bishop of Llandaff, is best known to his lordship. Such, however, is the general rumour. If this rumour be correct, the hostility of these two learned Protestant prelates to the Bible Society will have produced results, not such, perhaps, as they wished or expected, but results quite as fatal to the diffusion of the pure light of Scripture as have been produced by all the bulls which for the last twenty years have thundered from the Vatican.

The Emperor of Russia has set out on a tour through the different provinces of his widely-extended empire, which, it is said, is likely to occupy not less than eighteen months. Considerable reductions are stated to have taken place in

his armies.

The progress of our domestic affairs during the last month, though marked by no very extraordinary events,has been favourable and encouraging. Cheering accounts have arrived from all parts of the country relative to the harvest. The weather for gathering it in has been very seasonable. The grain itself, both as to quantity and quality, answers every reasonable anticipation; and the harvest having proved equally abundant on the Continent, a great reduction in the price of wheat, that prime article of subsistence, has already taken place. The rise in the value of the public funds, (the three per cents, being now above 80 per cent. and exchequer bills, bearing interest at only 24d. per day, selling at a premium of 30 per cent) has concurred with the bounty of Providence to infuse new life and vigour into almost every department of commerce and manufactures. The Bank has also announced its intention of paying in specie all its notes issued prior to the 1st of January last. In short, there are many very strong indications, on every side, of the near return of national prosperity. May we be humble and grateful!

One circumstance, indeed, has occurred to throw a shade over this picture; we mean the appearance, in various parts of Ireland, of a malignant fever, the ravages of which are said to be alarming. It had its origin, doubtless, like most pestilential disorders, in the reduced and emaciated state of the half-famished poor, and has been aggravated by the inattention to cleanliness, so prevalent among them. But its fatal effects have not been confined to the poor; persons of all classes have been its victims. The disorder, which originated in a want of wholesome food, has become contagious, and calls for

the most vigorous exertions to prevent its progress in this country, as well as in Ireland. The intercourse between the two divisions of the empire is so frequent, that without great vigilance we cannot be secure from its introduction. It is highly important that at such a time the Fever Institution of the metropolis should be in a state of unceasing activity, and that the public, from mere motives of selfishness, if better motives are wanting, should supply it with the funds which may be necessary to this end. A full account of this admirable institution will be found in our volume for 1808, p. 131, and in that for 1814, p. 743. Its object is the cure and prevention of contagious fever in the metropolis. A part of the Small-pox Hospital, situated at the farther extremity of Gray's Inn Lane, is appropriated for a fever house, where infected patients may be received at all hours: and, on the first intimation of the existence of the disease in any part of the town, means will be taken, by lime-washing and fumigation, to prevent its farther progress. Contributions for this excellent institution are received by R. Phillips, Esq. Treasurer, 32, East-street, Red Lion-square; and by the following bankers: Forster and Co.; Hoares, Fleetstreet; Goslings and Co.; Morland and Co.; and Herries and Co. Wherever the fever may appear, immediate recourse should be had to lime-washing the infected cottage, as well as the adjoining cottages of the poor, and to fumigation. The process of fumigation is very simple: Take six drams each of powdered nitre and oil of vitriol; mix them in a tea cup or saucer, stirring them occasionally with a tobacco pipe or piece of glass, and removing the cup from time to time to different parts of the room.

DASCALUS.