But the Bible has overtaken these miserable fugitives, it has crossed their paths, it has told them what they are, and whose they are: with music of sublimer efficacy than ever sounded from the lyre of Orpheus, it has brought them back to the Shepherd of their souls. In plain language, it has disposed them and prepared them to become the members of some congregation or assembly of worshippers. But whither are they to resort? The Bishops and Clergy say, surely to the Church-to that Church so simple in its worship, so pure in its creed, so pastoral in its care; whose liturgy breathes the very spirit of holiness, whose discipline is composed of the soundest ordinances, whose doctrines are those of peace and salvation;-to that Church which stretches towards them its maternal arms, and which gives to its faithful children the blessings of a religious education. To these endearing solicitations the most favourable answer can be no more than this: We are disposed to come to our National Church, but it has not room for the hundredth part of us.

Some of us are too old, and some are too young to travel far; our Parish Church we cannot reach, and if we could, we might not find a seat. The chapels are occupied by those who can afford to pay for the privilege of worshipping their God in public. Such must be their answer. In the mean time the door of the conventicle stands widely open before them. The access is easy and undisturbed to every religious assembly of whatever creed, except to the Churches of the Establishment. To the affecting invitations and remonstrances of the Church, the chapels of the dissenters oppose the practical argument of warmth, room, welcome, and quiet. The choice of the multitude cannot long fluctuate between these opposing arguments; practicability must decide the preference in favour of the dissenters; and in proportion as the Bible Societies, and the new systems of education (and it matters not in this view by whom the Bible is given, or by whom education is promoted) elevate the feelings of the people towards spiritual objects, the scale of numerical importance must incline on the side of religious dissent. If by any means the sense of the necessity of prayer increases, and the floor of national worship preserves its contracted boundary, no penetration is necessary to foresee the consequence to the Church of England.

But is this consideration to check the diffusion of scriptural knowledge, and starve the cause of Christianity through the world? Is the catholic career of the Gospel to wait until the Church of England expands itself to the growing wants of the spiritual world? If it ought it certainly will not. Again we say the Church is lost, for ever lost, unless, instead of opposing, it lends itself to the present state of things; unless, while bustle and activity prevail in every department of knowledge, intellectual and

spiritual, it enlarges its dimensions, and opens its stores to meet the exigencies, and to profit by the genius of the crisis.

At a moment when all should be stirring and busy and animated in the great emporium of our faith, into and from whose ports the spiritual commerce of the world is pouring continual accessions, and demanding continual returns, it is unlucky to be obliged to confess a want of warehouse-room, or a scarcity of effective hands; and disgraceful to complain of the general activity as calling upon ourselves for increased exertions.

In this view of the state of the religious world, and of the operations of the Bible Societies, is necessarily comprehended the imperious duty which now presses upon the legislature, of succouring the Church Establishment-aduty which has been so well illustrated and powerfully inforced by the treatise which stands first at the head of our present article, that it will by and by give us much satisfaction to introduce our readers to an acquaintance with it. At present we must bestow a little more consideration upon the production of Mr. Norris. His objection to the British and Foreign Bible Society, and its auxiliaries, involves three arguments. One of a negative, and two of a positive kind.

He tells the Bible Society that the world has no occasion for its interference, because the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, already long established, and long in vigorous operation, and withal a society framed in unison and correspondence with our Established Church, was all-sufficient for the purpose for which the Bible Society has been instituted. And he tells the nation at large, that the universal and unrestrained dispersion of the Scriptures is detrimental to the cause of sound religion, and injurious to the ministry of the Established Church. Ŏf which two arguments one must be taken exclusively of the other. They cannot both be relied on; for if the universal diffusion of the simple authorized version of the Scriptures be objectionable, the objection is as applicable to the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge as to the Bible Society. In this respect the two Societies agree in their principle. If this argument therefore is to prevail, there is an end of the question of preference. The other objection is to the frame and organization of the Bible Society, as affording, by its admission of dissenters of all descriptions, the means and opportunities of a dangerous combination against the safety of the Church of England.

The first and the third of these objections are perfectly consis→ tent with each other and tend the same way. The one urges a defect of plan, the other a defect of constitution. One advantage which the Bible Society has in the very position of the argument

is this, that the foundation on which it supports itself involves no accusation of any other Society. It confesses itfelf by its constitution unqualified for undertaking the whole plan of the Christian Knowledge Society; but for the furtherance of one part of its plan viz. the universal diffusion of the word of God, it tenders a most powerful co-operation. And it manifests very superior advantages. for the prosecution and accomplishment of the object common to both Societies, arising out of that very peculiarity of its constitution which is charged upon it as a defect. In the language of the Bishop of St. David's, "it promotes Christian Knowledge by distributing the pure Word of God to an infinitely greater extent, both at home and abroad, than could have been done by any Society not acting upon the single principle of distributing the Bible."

The objection to the quantity and universality of the distribution, is nothing more than an objection to the higher degree of vigour and success with which the Bible Society carries on the very same object which the elder Society prosecutes to the full extent of its means, in the prosecution of which it prescribes to itself no specific boundary, and towards the prosecution of which it invites subscriptions to an indefinite extent. Thus it is another great advantage which the Bible Society possesses in the very constitution of the controversy, that by one simple argument it is able to meet the various forms of objection by which it is assailed, and to found its defence upon the principles and admissions of its adversaries. Every institution must have a limited purpose, and what is left undone cannot be a fair question respecting its specific merit; the proper questions are-whether it leaves others unimpeded in doing the good which it omits; whether that which it undertakes to do is good; whether it is formed for attaining it, and for attaining it by legitimate methods. The only question, however, which Mr. Norris has with any distinctness discussed, has been that which a fair controversialist would have left alone. The only point which he has proved, has been that which has never been disputed the fact of the Society's omissions. In these very omissions consist the beauty and the perfection of the Society. Nothing but the naked purpose of distributing the Bible without note or comment, could have united such a diversified body of professing Christians; nothing but a body so numerous, because so various, could have carried the object to such a splendid consummation.

With respect to the far greater part of Mr. Norris's argument, we must frankly declare, that among all the specimens of controversial reasoning which in the course of our critical labours have

come under our view, scarcely one occurs to our recollection so defective in every property of fair argument and logical arrangement. In his blind eagerness to bring every argument which has ever been used or abused in the various attacks which have been made upon the Society, he has failed to observe their ludicrous inconsistency. The sum of the absurd self-contradictions which in general characterize the attacks upon the Society, and most of which are characteristic of Mr. Norris's book, has been stated with very humorous effect in a page of Mr. Dealtry's Review, to which we have given a third place in the list of productions at the head of this article.

"It does not circulate the Bible: it disseminates tracts.

"When this was no longer tenable, the enemy turned round, and proscribed the Society, because,

"2. It does circulate the Bible, and disseminates no tracts.-The fact of distributing the Scriptures was converted into a ground of accu

sation!

"3. It is a Dissenting Society!

4. It is not a Dissenting Society! Happy would it be for the Church of England if such were the case! We should no longer be exposed to the hazard of baneful communications!

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5. It disseminates the Scriptures with comments!

"6. It dares to send Bibles into the world without comments! to the marvellous increase of heresy, and the manifold danger of Religion and the Church!

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"7. It contains within itself the seeds of dissolution: it is a bubble that must presently burst!

"8. It is a powerful confederation, and will subvert the establishments both of church and state!

"9. Its machinations are secret!

"10. It is the most noisy and clamorous creature upon the face of the earth!

"11. It introduces every where a false and spurious charity!

"12. Wherever it goes it excites nothing but quarrels and debate! "13. It is a new institution: history tells of nothing that is like it! "14. It is an old institution, established by Pharisees and revived by Puritans!" (P. xix, xx.)

We suspect that Mr. Norris must have been put to some difficulty to find for the multifarious mass of hostile matter which he has pressed into his service, a title sufficiently appropriate and commensurate. His title-page is an elaborate performance, and presents, after all, a very unintelligible prospectus of a most prolix and confused compilation. So far, and only so far, there is consistency and correspondency in the ponderous fabric. The portico well represents the body of the edifice. It is impossible

to understand how the "practical exposition," or "the tendency and proceedings of the Bible Society," can have "begun in a correspondence between the Editor and Mr. Freshfield," or what a practical exposition of proceedings can properly imply. We only know that in fact nothing practical is demonstrated, or fairly deduced, throughout the volume, involving any justifiable ground of complaint against the Society in question.

Mr. Norris illustrates the evil of notes and comments' of which he is so great an advocate, in his use of them as an accompaniment to the correspondence between himself and Mr. Freshfield. The correspondence ought to have been left to speak for itself, and we cannot esteem it a fair and liberal way of dealing with a correspondent, to publish the letters on each side, with a commentary upon the language and reasoning of our antagonist, which he has no opportunity of answering, and which is calculated to warp the opinion of the public. They have not, however, had that effect upon our's, since it appears to us that the erroneous reasoning which distinguishes the whole of Mr. Norris's epistolary argumentation, is still more observable in his notes, where he writes no longer under the awe of Mr. Freshfield's judicious surveillance.

There is one assumption, or petitio principii, running through the whole of Mr. Norris's argument, if argument it is to be called, against the Bible Society, which is this-that it usurps the office of teaching, and thus interferes with the authorized ministry of the Church; and yet the fundamental complaint against the same Society, in the mouth of all its adversaries, and of Mr. Norris himself, is its abstinence from note or comment. Upon this subject he thus expresses himself:

"I am very anxious here to guard against a misconception of my meaning, which might lead you to suppose, that I am jealous of the co-operation of the laity with us in our spiritual labours, and that I count their interference in it an intrusion: and this anxiety is awakened by your representing the presentation of a Bible, or any other book of instruction, to a poor neighbour,' as a parallel to that proceeding of your's which I have felt it to be my duty to reprehend; and by your citation of 1 Tim. vi. 18, where the genuine exercise of Christian benevolence is so explicitly and comprehensively commanded, as your full justification. Now, so far from discouraging this valuable co-operation, I beg to assure you, that I am most tenderly alive to its incalculable importance; and my friends amongst the laity will, I am sure, bear me witness, that I am not deficient in my importunity with them to provoke them to yield it to me on all occasions. But it is one thing to aid our labours, and another to supersede their operation. It is one thing to act, in due Christian subordination, in giving effect