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 accusation!

"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!

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!

"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

to our ministry; and another, by the substitution of your own services to the disparagement of our's, to make it appear useless, nay obstructive to the propagation of the Gospel. The former of these methods of dealing with us we solicit with all the ardency of desire: the latter we are bound to discountenance, or we shall betray our Master's cause, and incur his heaviest indignation. For the dispensation of the Gospel is committed to us,' (1 Cor. ix. 17.); and our Divine Master's engagement to us is, Lo! I am with you always, even to the end of the world,' (Matt. xxviii. 20.): his charge, Occupy till I come,' (Luke xix. 13.): I appoint you my ambassadors,' (2 Cor. v. 20); I appoint you the stewards of my household,' (Luke xii. 42.) the overseers of my flock,' (Acts xx. 28.); I place you as watchmen (Ezek. xxxiii. 7. Heb. xiii. 17.) over my people, and you are to give account to me' of all the souls thus committed to your care. We cannot therefore, however powerfully moved to it by the love of peace, and by those importunate cravings of human infirmity to be disentangled from anxiety-we cannot make any compromise, which shall even imply an acquiescence in the devolving upon unconsecrated persons its fearful responsibility, however inconsiderately precipitate they may be to take it upon themselves: for woe will it be to us if we do not raise our warning voice against all invasion of our sacred charge; if we do not deliver, and continue stedfast in delivering, without mutilation, this apostolical summary of our Divine Master's message to the world; this compendium of the doctrine and discipline of Christianity, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.' (2 Cor. v. 19.)——— (P. 55-57.)

If the distribution of the Bible alone in the unrestrained manner in which this is done by the British and Foreign Bible Society, and its auxiliaries, could operate injuriously to the ministry of the Established Church, without any forgetfulness of the care of the Church being imputable to the legislature, or any neglect to afford instruction equal to the growing state of spiritual inquiry being imputable to the clergy, we should be tempted to suspect some serious defect in the ecclesiastical part of our constitution on the other hand, if we could perceive any collateral or insidious tendencies in the frame and constitution, or in the proceedings of these Bible Societies, of a nature to menace our Church Establishment, we should be disposed to join heart and hand with Mr. Norris, and other opponents, in their endeavours to discredit them in the eyes of the public. But as long as "the Bible, and nothing but the Bible, is the religion of the Church of England;" and as long as the Bible, and nothing but the Bible, is the thing which Churchmen and Dissenters have thus formed themselves into one body to uphold and disseminate, it

seems to us to involve the most desperate of paradoxes to affirm, that the plan or operations of the Bible Societies can interfere with, or supersede, or obstruct, the wholesome ministry of the constitutional Church of this realm.

The objects, or rather the object, of the Bible Society is so specific, its purpose so simply one, that as long as it consists both of Churchmen and Dissenters, it is impossible it can be made instrumental to any indirect and sinister designs, or serve as a cover to any stratagems against the Church. But if churchmen could be induced to withdraw from the Society (and this is all that Mr. Norris can have in view it is scarcely possible for a man of sense to think of arguing the Society itself out of existence), there might, indeed, be some reason in these apprehensions for the Church of England. Has Mr. Norris revolved this consequence seriously in his mind? Has he reflected upon the power that a Society like this, even in its defalcated state, would retain, and by whom that power would then be directed?

. Mr. Norris's argument against co-operation with the Disşenters would be equally strong against an association with them for any purpose whatsoever, unless he means to say to them, we will not concur with you in the distribution of the same Scriptures, because you do not understand them in some particulars in the same way that we do. Men might as well refuse to join together in bringing the blessing of water into a city, because they do not agree as to its component parts.

It might be expected, that at the general meetings of a society so composed, sentiments and expressions would occasionally fall from some of the speakers not quite agreeable to the dictates of a wise discretion; but what would become of the character of the House of Commons, or of any other assembly, if the injudicious sallies of a few of its speakers were to determine the character of the whole? and yet Mr. Norris, upon no better or broader foundation, erects one of his principal batteries against the Bible Society.

Nothing but the irritation of Mr. Norris's mind upon this subject can excuse his rash and ridiculous assertions in respect to this Institution. Having discovered that an Unitarian or Socinian had sometimes taken a part in its transactions, he scruples not, upon a most injurious assumption that the opinions of such persons have received countenance from it, to introduce a display of their activity and ardour in the propagation of their errors, as an argument against the Society.

In the same spirit, Mr. Norris brings every thing home to the Bible Society which has been said at the meetings of Dissenters,

because Dissenters make a part of this devoted body; and having hazarded an unfounded assertion, that a Bible Society existed in the reign of Charles the First composed of Puritans, he shows that at any rate there might have been a Bible Society in those days, since the Puritans were so like, in all their proceedings, to the promoters of the Bible Societies. Having found this likeness for the Bible Societies in the associations and plans of the Puritans, he reminds us how dangerous and mischievous they were, and consequently how dangerous and mischievous must be the Bible Societies. Counterparts are also found for them in the United Irishmen, and the Illuminati of Germany, and the Revolutionists of France. It is, not obscurely, insinuated, that the great increase of vice which Mr. Norris has discovered to be characteristic of the times, is partly chargeable on the Bible Society; and the dreadful murders committed at the east end of the town, some time ago, are considered by him as fit to be alluded to in demonstrating the demoralizing, and disorganizing effects of this pernicious Institution. But we must really spare all this effusion of nonsense out of charity to a good man, who in the agitation produced by apparitions of danger, the morbid progeny of his own brain, has lost the balance of his understanding, and forgotten what is due to himself and others. We shall leave him to the wise and gentle castigation of Mr. Dealtry, whose excellent pamphlet at the head of this article has seemed to us to settle the controversy concerning the Bible Society.

The pamphlets which stand the fourth and last in the list on which this article is founded, take up the cause of the Bible Society against the late Charge delivered by the Bishop of Lincoln to the Clergy of his Diocese. The writer of the first of these little tracts has withheld his name, but the reader will find in it the internal evidence of a virtuous origin. We are ignorant of the Author, and ignorant of his reasons for keeping his name concealed. We can only say, that there is nothing in his pages that good sense and delicacy may not safely avow. He has performed his task in a manner worthy of the object for which he contends.

Mr. Gisborne has given the authority of his name, and the stamp of his abilities, to the same great cause. The Letter which he has addressed to the Bishop of Gloucester, has just been put into our hands in time to enable us to say, that if we can persuade our readers candidly to peruse it, together with the anonymous pamphlet above mentioned, and Mr. Dealtry's masterly productions on the same subject, they will want nothing but the examination of the correspondence between Mr. Freshfield and Mr. Norris, and of that latter gentleman's pon