the Committee feel convinced, that, in stead 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. Kuowing the impracticability of entirely sup-, pressing every culpable species of immorality and licentiousness, the Society rests 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 seduc. tion of others." read in the meetings of the local com mittees, and distributed among the members, for the information of others, it would tend greatly to enliven the spirit of those meetings, and to invis gorate and expand the general zeal.mrsl 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 beings read at the meetings of the Committees of the different Auxiliary and Branch: Societies, and Bible Associations, and distributed among their officers, mem-1 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, due proportion of them to the Secra taries 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 suge BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE gested. 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. In proposing a plan for this purpose, the Committee acknowledge that they have an object beyond that of conveying satisfaction and delight. They are deeply sensible of the beneficial influence produced upon their own minds, by the communications from distant lands, read to them at their periodical meetings, both in exciting their gratitude, and stimulating their exertions; and they are anxious to establish such means of intercourse as may enable them to extend, as widely as possible these salutary impressions. Experience has taught them to believe, that, if extracts from the most interesting parts of the Society's correspondence were CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 189. As Auxiliary Societies may expect to derive considerable accessions of strength, and even of pecuniary advan- › tage, by circulating, and encouraging. their Brauch 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 followings 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 insti tution: 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. 32.) ༄། །༈ * VIEW OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS. 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. Lainè. 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 counsels 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 bé a solitary indication of the extensive diffusion through France of a spirit adverse to the existing government. The insur rectionary 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 ap peared 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 reason, 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 Napoléon. 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 to wards Bonaparte." In the villages in the country, (6 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 partizans continue to style him." Jorgenson's Travels. If Mr. Jorgenson's statements be correet, 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. I The secular festival of the Reforma tion is about to be celebrated on the Continent with much pomp and solem. nity. 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 appellatious 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 Lin coln 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 fumour. 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 reduc ions are stated to have taken place in his armies. GREAT BRITAIN. 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 21d. 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 pic ture; 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, doubt-, less, like most pestilential disorders, in the reduced and emaciated state of the half-famished poor, and has been aggra. vated 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 ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. B. W.; and A RECLUSE; are under consideration. The Memoir of the Rev. William Gurdon will appear. We should think that Scott's Bible would best answer the purpose of HYPO DIDASCALUS. We are requested to state, that the sum already collected on behalf of the Moravian Missions by no meaus covers the debt which hangs upon the Society, Further contributions will be most gratefully received. RELIGIOUS COMMUNICATIONS. For the Christian Observer. THE GOOD EFFECTS OF RELIGIOUS CHARITY OFTEN IM PEDED BY THE FAULTS OF ITS AGENTS. T. no period in the annals of A Christian Charity been more acknowledged and acted upon than at the present moment. Scarcely is there a town, or village, or neighbourhood, in which benevolent individuals are not to be discovered labouring with zeal and diligence for the temporal or spiritual wants of their fellow-creatures. It does not, however, always follow, because a considerable impetus has been given to any moral machine, that therefore it has taken the best and most efficacious direction. Great powers may be so mismanaged as to lose much of their proper and intended effect, while a less effort, wisely applied, may be attended with results far beyond the apparent insignificancy of the agents employed in their production. It is a very certain though a very mortifying fact, that the efforts of charity, and especially religious charity, are far from being, in general, adequate to what a sanguine spectator might feel disposed to anticipate from the potency of the machinery and the benevolent zeal of the individuals who direet its movements. A minister often labours for years in his parish, or a private individual in his neighbourhood, without seeing any good effect that can be considered as equal to what might have been fairly expected from an impartial CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 190. review of the circumstances of the case. The benevolent visit, though often repeated, appears, perhaps, to have been made in vain; and Charity itself, at length, almost loses sight of her companions, Faith and Hope, in the ineffectual making against the vice, the igno. rance, and the irreligion with which she is surrounded. Now it is very easy to resolve all this disappointment into its final causes; and assuredly no one who considers, in a scriptural point of view, either the nature of the agents themselves, or the quality of the materials on which they operate, or the extraneous impediments which lie in the way, can be greatly surprised that all is not achieved which is attempted by Christian Charity. If it be true that the hearts of men are deeply and radically corrupt and depraved; that sin and temptation are ever at hand with their seductions; that the world, the flesh, and the devil are allied in a triple confederacy against the human soul; that all that is holy or heavenly is entirely of foreign growth, while all that is earthly and sensual is indigenous to the spot; it becomes more a subject of wonder that any thing succeeds than that a large part fails. Indeed, were it not for a firm and unshaken belief in a merciful and over-ruling Providence, and in those gracious influences of the Divine Spirit which alone can render effectual the most zealous and disinterested exertions for the spiritual welfare of mankind, we might despair of seeing any fruit from: the labours of religious benevolence. 4 M |