opposed, misrepresented and traduced, that all the important works in which it has been engaged, have been carried on with the utmost harmony and unanimity ; without any difference of opinion; without the slightest symptom of any hostile or treacherous design against the Church; and without any other idea upon their minds, but that of extending, as widely as possible, the knowledge of the Christian Scriptures. The Bishops of Durham and Salisbury attended several of their meetings, and were delighted with the decorum, calmness and good temper with which their proceedings were conducted. In short, all the apprehensions, to which this Society has given rise, are now found to be but vain terrors; and all the prophecies of the mischief and evil that would result from it, are falsified by facts. It is rising uniformly in reputation and

credit;

credit; gaining new accessions of strength and revenue; and attaching to itself more and more the approbation and support of every real friend to the Church and to Religion."

It does not fall within the plan and scope of these Memoirs to take a part in the controversy now subsisting between the advocates of the two Societies. I cannot however avoid expressing my regret, that such a controversy should ever have taken place: but, as it has taken place, it does, I confess, appear to me, that no one argument has yet been advanced against the Foreign and British Bible Society, which can at all be considered as proof, that it has any secret views injurious to the interests of the Established Church, or that it has in the slightest degree deviated from the original exclusive purpose, to which, in the face

of the world, it stands most solemnly pledged. The charge hitherto rests upon suspicion and surmise: and there must be some better and stronger evidence, before I can bring myself to condemn an Institution, of which the Bishop, in conjunction with many other excellent and distinguished men, entertained so high an opinion, and the avowed design of which is so strictly in unison with the labours and the spirit of the Christian Ministry.

I have before mentioned the active and zealous part which the Bishop took, in whatever could mitigate the hardships or improve the condition of the Negro Slaves in our West-India Colonies. After all, however, the object to which he had long most anxiously looked, and which alone could completely satisfy him on

this subject, was the absolute and total abolition of the trade itself; and this, to his infinite gratification and delight, was at last effected in 1807, by considerable majorities in favour of that measure in both Houses of Parliament. His sentiments and feelings on this occasion he has left upon record; and I should do great injustice to his memory, if I neglected the present occasion of laying them before the public.

“The Act,” he says, "which has just passed, has at length put a period in this country to the most inhuman and execrable traffic that ever disgraced the Christian world; and it will reflect immortal honour on the British Parliament and the British Nation. For myself, I am inexpressibly thankful to a kind Providence, for permitting me to see this great work, after such a glorious struggle,

brought

brought to a conclusion. It has been for upwards of four and twenty years the constant object of my thoughts; and it will be a source of the purest and most genuine satisfaction to me during the remainder of my life, and above all, at the final close of it, that I have had some share in promoting, to the utmost of my power, the success of so important and so righteous a measure. It ought to be remembered, however, in justice to a most worthy man, no less remarkable for his modesty and humility, than for his learning and piety, I mean Mr. Granville Sharp, that the first publication which drew the attention of this country to the horrors of the African trade, came from his pen; and that at his own expense, and by his own personal exertions, he liberated several Negroes from a state of slavery, who were brought over by their