१ approach, supported by her husband, the pillow of the sick Lascars on the deck of an Indiaman; to speak to them, in the spirit of the good Samaritan, comfort in their native tongue; to take the address of their families whom they had left behind; and 10 console the dying with sincere assurances, that their bereaved orphans should be sought out, and receive succour on her return to shore. Could this Christian philanthropy be misunderstood by the native bystanders of the crew? They would well know to, what religion to im, pute such an effect, and would with characteristic calm simplicity, assert (as they have done in similar in stances), that she paid them this at tention because God Almighty had sent her to help them.' bas established two or three of the former, and Julia, assists bervoWe have one for the half-cast descendants of the drummers, who are taught English, and have likewise an equal number of Christian origin, omany of the inhabitants here being Roman Catholics. Some of these are more advanced, and are taught English, on the Madras asylum plan, to capa citate them hereafter for nioral and religious usefulness-for rendering assistance in translating or printing the Scriptures for these countries, &c. I have been trying feebly what I could do, and have learut the lane guage to qualify me for teaching any native girls that might comes and some soldiers' daughters attend every day, who are, taught in Eng dish and had Mrs. H. been spared, how eminent would she have been in this vineyard-but she was a full corn in the ear," of bits goi I must now make my retreat, in offering you my best thanks for this indulgence to tread p DA COUNTRY READER. * P.S. In the above address to the Christian Observer, perhaps I ought to have specified more distinctly, that our pious fellow-country women destined for India, and who, endued with cultivated minds, and well-directed judgment, feel their hearts burn within them to serve God in a sphere of super-eminent usefulness, need not to fear that they are going where they must, hide their Lord's talent. In every part of Anglo-India, they have but to put the question in fervent sincerity, For what good work can I be useful? Here I am, what is there for me to do?" and immediately will they find themselves directed wherein they nay assist many an invaluable cha racter of their sex and nation, who have set themselves to make straight in the desart a high way;" as witness the further testimony of the private correspondence before alluded to:** Lady makes herself much beloved and respected for countenancing good she lately sent 254 for, Mcs, 's schools. who has instituted both a native and 20 English one. A 1 Helen 1 " To the Editor of the Christian Observer. AMONG your various corresponde ents, there are some, I observe, who address themselves to you, gọt, for the purpose of communicating infor mation to others, but to request for themselves a solution of their own doubts and difficulties. This is my case: having no great predilection for religious controversies, and, indeed no time for them, it has hit therto been sufficient for me, that whenever I have brought the Articles and Homilies of the Established Church to the test of the Biblend have found them to be in the ful lest sense scriptural, Thus circumstanced, I had no inquiries to make : my own principles were settled, and I was not called upon to investigate the opinions of others. noortest と But a new state of things has arisen, from the increased, and, in creasing activity of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, and from the institution of the Bible Sox ciely, and of that for distributing Prayer books and Homilies among the people, 19 These different d cieties press themselves upon the attention of every churchiman not wholly indifferent to the interests of religion. He is invited to give them his support, and the invitation is alluring; but before he can conscientiously obey the call, he is, I apprehend, bound to inquire how far they may, or may not, be capable of an application injurious to the principles of the Established Church. The objections urged against the Bible Society by Dr. Marsh and its other opponents,have, I must acknowledge, led me to make this reflection; for, however their arguments may fail to make good the position, that the mere distribution of the sacred Scriptures, without note or comment, is calculated to endanger the Establishment, yet there is enough in their observations to shew, that it is clearly the duty of every conscientious member of the Church of England to inquire into the probable and even possible tendency of every society, acting upon a large scale, of which he is requested to become a member. As a subscriber to the Bible Society, I consider, that whatever may be the peculiar bias of any of its members, have this guarantee, that I am before-hand aware of the principles of the book itself, and can, therefore, without difficuly, judge whether good or evil to the Establishment is likely to result from its more extended circulation. The two universities, acting under the authority of the state, print these same Bibles for the use of all his Majesty's subjects, and suffer them to find their way into the different booksellers shops without first uniting or binding them up with our excellent liturgy, without any restriction as to the persons by whom they shall be sold, or the mode in which they shall be distributed. The intervention of the Bible Society has the effect of increasing the demand for the Bi bles destined to be thus unreserved ly circulated, and of diminishing the price to the purchaser; producing, eds noqu avvisament 22919 89109to in my view of the subject, a result much the same as if more booksellers shops were opened, and the duties upon paper taken off; neither of which operations would, I presume, lessen the 'attachment of churchmen to the liturgy, nor endanger the Establishment. Sup posing, therefore, the government and the universities to be right, I do not see that the Bible Society can be far wrong in giving effect to their intentions; and I have enrolled myself among its members, with the confidence of a man who knows before he gives it, to what purposes his contribution must be applied. The same confidence will, I find, accompany me as a member of the Prayer-book and Homily Society; because its objects and its move ments are in the same manner limited and defined. Heresiarchs, who, as is well observed in one of your Numbers," find it universally necessary to support their views of seriptural doctrine, by a large addition of appropriate tracts and mis-coloured statements," are not likely to be found in a society which must immediately bring their churchmanship to the test. But, supposing any persons of that description to insinuate themselves among its members, they would be so completely fettered and bound down by the very constitution of the society, that even they must fabour, and labour solely, in the beneficial work of counteracting their own dogmas, by circulating the authorized formularies of the church. These securities appear to me so simple and satisfactory, that I have been unable to contemplate, without surprise and pain, the conduct of persons calling themselves friends to the Establishment, who have shewn an anxiety to cry down these two societies; the one exclusively occupied in distributing that Bible from whence the religious principles of the Fathers of our Re formed Church were derived; the other in circulating the authorized golei P2 no dalgas e formularies in which those princis ples were by them recorded and set forthgoford thes jästruction" sofa the peopleport v Jesel is bis gr1 My attention, howeverjir has been recently called by some weigh bours of mine, for whose religious principles I entertain a high de gree of respect, to a district society of which they are members, în aid of the Society in London for promoting Christian Knowledge. Livs ing at a distance from the metro polis, I know little of the proceedings of that Society; but Dobserve, that it is strongly recommended in your publication, as meriting the contributions of your readers; and I find, upon inquiry, that the district associations in my own county are countenanced by persons of distinguished piety, and known to be well affected to the Establishment. Under these favourable impressions, I had actually set apart a sum of money for the purpose of uniting with my neighbours in giving aid to a society so powerfully recommended, when I was informed, by an extract from the Report of the Parent Society, that in the course of Jast year it had circulated no less than 488,7 10 small tracts, and upwards of 49,000 bound books of va rious descriptions. own I was startled; saw a mighty engine at work, and eagerly sought among its rules for those securities and limitations, without which it is obvious, that in improper hands, it might become a medium for circulating principles inconsistent with the Ar ticles and Homilies of the Church. Indeed, among its regulations, inserted in your volume for 1812, there is one, which seems to imply that it is an institution capable of being perverted to the injury of the Establishment; for the admission of members is conducted upon a printiple of selection and exclusion, in 2 order, doubtless, to prevent the introduction of any persons whose Sentiments are supposed to differ not those of the existing members bas revnice of the Society. There is, however, some hazardbeven in this, because the sentiments of a person so chosen may not always be fully ascertained, or he may change his opinions; but at all events, in leaving the selec tion of the books and tracts of the Society;s to the discretion of a com mittee, an infallibility of judgment; at least an orthodoxy of opinion, is pre supposed in thats committee, which cannot always belong to can elective and fluctuating body It is not enough to say, that the committee consists of members or ministers of the Church of England; or that all the books and tracts of the Society are written by members of the Esta blishment; because the distressing fact, that among churchmen there is great opposition of sentiment, is but too certain. I will not take upon myself to investigate the opinions of either party it is enough for me to observe, that both cannot be orthodox, and that whenever that party which holds principles inconsistent with the doctrines of our Reformers shall gain a predominance in the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, it may, by means of a majnrity in the managing body, keep the vantage ground, for a time at least, and inundate the country with publications socalculated sto spread the peculiar tenets of that majority rather than those of the Church of England. Of the members who at present generally compose this body, I do not even know the nor have I ever, to my knowledge, seen any of their pubknowledge, nor lications. But whatever present satisfaction and present security it might afford me to be informed, that of the 488,710 tracts mentioned in the Report, a large proportion consisted of selections from the Homilies and Articles of our Church, expressly circulated among the people to preserve their orthodoxy, that circumstance would not diminish my disquerade prospectively; because a few changes in the comfmittee might bring in persons der # 1820790 sda noqu tàias of au sirous of withholding the Homilies from the people, in order to supply their places with tracts less adverse to their own views. In a body so fluctuating, where is the guarantee for perpetual orthodoxy of opinion, or even uniformity of sentiment? Does the ballot afford that guarantee Have we not all seen a bishop, a member of the Society, unwittingly censuring, as Calvinistic and erro neous, a passage actually extracted from one of the Church Homilies? Doubtless, his lordship was not aware of this at the time he so expressed himself; but it is evident, that he could not so have stigmatised the quotation if he had entertained, upon that point of doctrine, the same opinion as the writer of the Homily whence it was taken. I am bound to suppose, that the venerable father of our church who wrote the Homily would not have been excluded from this society, if it had existed in his day; and yet, he would have been in great danger of circulating, under its sanction, tracts containing the same doctrine which he inculcates in the Homily, and of course, equally inconsistent with the opinions of the Right Rev. Prelate of our time. I need not, sir, multiply instances of this diversity of sentiment: stronger than this might easily have been selected; but the task is painful and somewhat invidious. The Society for promoting Christian Knowledge which numbers among its members all the archbishops, and bishops of England at least, gives, from that circumstance, to whatever is publish ed in its name, a stamp of authority of no common influence upon the religion of the people. Here is the important point, and it presents matter for much reflection. I have said enough, perhaps, to justify me in anxiously wishing to be informed what are the securities this society holds out to preclude the possibility of its becoming, at one time or another, a medium for the dissemination of opinions not in unison with the doctrines of the Established Church, as contained in its Articles and Homilies? If the securities are certain and sufficient, the society is eminently calculated for good, and ought to be supported; but if I am informed, that they are to be sought for only in the sentiments of the persons who take a lead in the committee at this or that particular time, I shall be of opinion that the securities are precarious and inadequate, and that some regulation obviating this objection should be introduced to obtain for the Society that universal patronage to which in all other respects, it appears to have so fair a claim. . 1 1 are not, often so conspicuously blar zoned on the ensign of a literary adventurer. But the duty of our office does not allow us to confine our attention to the able compositions of able men. The clumsy and im becile attacks, even of such a writer as Mr. Beresford, when directed against the vital points of Christie anity, ought to be exposed . It would have been well for this gen tleman to have contented himself with his celebrity as the author of a well-known jeu, d'esprit, entitled, "The Miseries of Hanian Life." How mucho soever, serious, and thinking men might lament the levity of spis rit, and the inclination to buffoonery, which the Rector of Kibworth proclaimed in that silly compilation, they might still have conscientiously forborne the chastisement with which they are constrained; to visit his theological essays. Nor will the shearts ands dunderstandings of menyitewere absurd to expect unanimity in truth, and foolish to desire it interrosqIt is gratefully to be as cribed to the providence, of an allwise Governor, that principles of discord are incessantly at work in the empire of falsehood and crime.‹ The conflicting waves of passionate prejudices prevent such a mass of feculence from gathering upon the surface of revelation, as would conceal, even from ingenuous inquirers, the precious pearls reposited in its depths.V 9.13 dfw trenquil Our Author disclaims, at the outa! set, any intention to "accept assistance from the volumes of human controversy," or any other writings than the holy Scriptures themselves Indeed, his composition affords no ground for apprehending that he is deeply versed in controversial theo logy. But he has done more than they deem it incumbent on them accept now aid from wiser lando to touch with any peculiar tender hetter men than himself; for he bas! ness a disputant, who, notwithstand boldly contradicted authebyexpress] ing his professed dislike to contro words in which the English Church versy, has not scrupled to adopting professes ber faith. Not only has his rash intrusion on the field of he borrowedunoTM weapons from the battle, a petulant and insulting tone, armoury of oor tovenerable: Reforwhich has been frebly answered mers and Fathers, but she has even t by his achievements. From what ventured to break a lance with that! camp this giant issues to defy the holy band of martyrs and confessors, armies of the living God, we care We would, however, suggest to Mr not to conjecture; but it will appear, Beresford, that it is possible, although before we have advanced many, he has scrupulously shunned the steps to meet him, that his hostility volumes of sound divinity,ɛfor hist is levelled at that venerable. Esta mind to have been biassed by the blishment of which he is an ordain- opinions he has casually! read ord ed minister, and at those momentous, heard from others, 50 Manyi a mánd and, salutary truths which, enshrined pretends to have drawn from them in our Articles, Homilies, and Li-o Bible alone, and claims your ready o turgy, are at once the ornaments assent to his deductions, without ad and bulwarks of the universal Pros verting to the possibility of their testant church. wond og ved contracting much impurity and bito Mr. Beresford begins with a cha492terness, in the course of transmittabo ritable wish, that interpreters ofdi throughisa sprejudicedo oro vitimed Divine writ were, united in their medium yads guid! 916 ebrow “ sentiments a wish, in the which we Our author, like the artist im Ratcan only concur by supposing the selas, after thus proudly waving his u hopeless case, that Divine truth pinions, leaps from his stand, and should have become the centre in an instant drops into a lakez-iHoo upon which all parties were baslimmerges intora, metaphysical @qoogu lanced. And, indeed, till a wonders mire, from whence oweshavgouainly ful change shall be accomplished in endeavoured to extricate; huisɔndig? 4 W |