therefore, fail to engage new efforts on the part of those in whom a reverence for the great Author of their being begets a just regard for all who share a common nature with them, together with a zeal for the welfare of their country. "If this were the place for replying to the cavil in which we are sometimes reminded that the infidel will sow upon the ground which we prepare, the answer would be easy. We need not dread the conflict. The truth will maintain its influence, when it is once implanted in the human mind. The transcendent value of its own discoveries, and the need which we have of what is so revealed, in order to render our very being and existence of any real worth to us, will secure that triumph. "Above all, we must first persuade ourselves that God will forsake His own cause, before we can consent, for any timorous apprehen sion, to forego our part in the service which we owe to others, or to relax our labour in the welcome task of training many sons to glory.” RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY. THE following statements extracted from the last Report of the Religious Tract Society, cannot fail to interest every Christian mind.— At the fairs in the metropolis and its vicinity, 105,000 tracts have been circulated. For this object a tract has been printed, entitled "The Fair;" and 60,000 of these, and 2000 of a suitable placard, in addition to 5000 other tracts, were distributed at the fair in Smithfield last autumn. Considerable as this number may appear, it was by no means adequate to the demand. During the last summer an extensive distribution of tracts was made on Sundays, in the metropolis and its environs. The distresses in Ireland presented an opportunity which the Committee thought should not be neglected; and 48,000 tracts were placed at the disposal of those who were engaged in attending to the temporal wants of the sister country. The attention of the Committee has long been directed to the trash usually sold under the name of "Last Dying Speeches" of criminals; which, instead of conveying any useful lesson, were rather calculated to destroy the salutary impression which should be caused by the awful spectacle of our public executions. The Committee are enabled to report, that this class of publications is now exhibited in a form which, when compared with their prior state, must be gratifying to every reflecting mind. The venders are supplied with those printed under the control of the institution; and, during the past year, 206,000 of these papers have been sold. Much that was evil has thus been excluded from circulation, and replaced by a few words of important truth; and the plan has been acceptable to the purchasers, for the numbers printed by the Society far exceed the quantity which the venders formerly printed on their own account. These papers are not sold at the depository, nor classed among the Society's publications; as it by no means appeared desirable to turn the circulation of them into new channels, but to confine it to the usual venders, resting satisfied with rendering an instrument of evil subservient to the promulgation of good. One individual has completed an engagement of affixing twenty thousand Broad Sheets to the walls of cottages in the West of England. In the bundles of ribaldry and trash displaced, to make room for the Broad Sheets, the publication falsely and absurdly called "Our Saviour's Letter" was prominent: upward of thirty distinct editions of it appear. ed; and the marvellous effects attributed to its influence, by our un יד enlightened countrymen in the-present day, equal, if not exceed, the narratives of faith in talismans and charms, which appear hardly credible when related of the natives of Africa. These heaps, now committed to the flames, contained much to which the Committee dare not even to allude. It is most singular that not a single specimen of what is termed "Old English Ballads" appeared a fact, remark the Committee, which furnishes incontrovertible proof of the change in "popular literature," which has been effected of late years, by infidel and demoralizing principles. The number of Tracts issued from the depository, during the last year, amounts to 5,711,000; being an increase of nearly half a million. The whole number issued since the formation of the institution exceeds fifty-one millions; to which must be added several other millions printed abroad. From one of the circulars of the Society we extract the following:"The tract published with a hope that it might in some degree counteract the evils of Bartholomew fair, by restraining the young people of Sabbath Schools, and others, from partaking in its idle and destructive amusements, was distributed among the children of the Fitzroy schools. They were given on the Sunday afternoon before the fair, accompanied with such general admonitions as might, under the Divine blessing, further the important object which we had in view. We have 600 children in these schools; 400 boys, and 200 girls: and, upon the strictest examination toward the close of the week, we found that no more than three girls and five boys had been to the fair; and that these would not have gone, had not their parents taken them. Two or three cases occurred, in which the children begged their parents not to take them, saying, that their teachers would be sorry to know that they had been, and that they were sure no good could be got by going. We have every reason to be satisfied, that the parents, in general, were suitably affected at this proof of our care, both of them and of their children; and that it had the effect of very generally restraining them from increasing the crowds who frequented that scene of all that is evil." The following notices refer to the continent :— "The Societies formed in Germany, during preceding years, continue their labours, which extend over every part of that country: their efforts have been considerable, and crowned with much success. "The Prussian Tract Society continues its labours with much energy. Since its formation in 1814, about half a million of tracts have been printed at Berlin, in the German, Wendish, Lithuanian, and Polish languages, and circulated by that institution. "The Evangelical Society at Stockholm, one of the earliest institutions formed on the continent by the instrumentality of this Society, has circulated between two and three millions of tracts. "In Russia, since the year 1822, nearly 100 different tracts have been printed at St. Petersburg and Moscow; and about 600,000 copies have been issued, and are now in the hands of all classes in every province of the empire. "The attention of the Committee, in former years, was directed to the state of Poland; and recently has been again called to that country, where infidelity, and its inseparable companions, licentiousness and vice, are stated to prevail; and twelve millions of inhabitants are comparatively destitute of opportunities of instruction in those truths which alone can make men wise unto salvation. Considering how peculiarly tracts are adapted for usefulness, in a country where a great part of the population is thinly scattered over extensive districts, the Committee have appropriated 501. for printing tracts at St. Peters-. burgh, in the Polish language; and a further sum of 301. for the purchase of French and German tracts, to be circulated in Poland. Assistance has also been rendered to other parts of the continent; and to various places in Africa, the East, and America. LONDON HIBERNIAN SOCIETY. In the prefatory observations prefixed to their Seventeenth Report, the Committee of this Society remark, in-reference to their designs for the benefit of Ireland, that, "in selecting the plan of a strictly scrip'tural education, the Directors of the institution are satisfied that it proceeds by the simplest possible method to the administration of the only alternative which can render society either morally susceptible or politically manageable." In the progress of their Report, they develop the present plan of the institution, founded upon the basis of seventeen years' experience. The child whose services can be spared from the duties of the cottage and the farm, is invited to the benefits of the daily school; and where these services are indispensable on the days allotted to labour, the offer of the same advantages is held out in the establishment of the Sundayschool. The adult is accommodated by the institution of the evening school, where,, with others as ignorant as himself, he may sit down in unreproached attention to the task of his first lessons. The daily schools of the Society present a total of 553 schools and 51,889 scholars, and an increase of fifty-five schools and 5,217 scholars within the year. These schools are officially visited and examined every quarter by the regular inspectors. The scale of proficiency, with the number in attendance upon the day of inspection, regulate the teacher's stipend, and proportion the disbursements of the Society to the number and actual progress of the scholars. These schools are also inspected by the readers of the Society, and where they possess the advantage of local CHIRST. OBSERV. APP. patronage, by a higher superintendance. Measures are in train for the connexion of a Sunday-school with every daily school under the system. At present the Sunday-schools consist of 103 schools and 6,824 scholars, presenting an increase of no fewer than ninety-one schools and 5024 scholars within the last twelve months. Sunday-schools are taught by the day school-masters under the influence of Christian principles, and by ladies and gentlemen resident in the vicinity. They The Society had not been inattentive to the claims of the adult population; but it was not till the winter of 1820 that regular schools for them were organized. They now amount to 128 schools, containing 8,160 adult scholars, ninetenths of whom are members of the Romish conmmunion. This class of schools is taught by the local readers, and the more competent among the masters of the daily schools; and the progress of the pupils in reading and the knowledge of the Scriptures is truly gratifying. are subject to vigilant inspection... The system of adult instruction is found to interfere most directly with the ignorance and disorderly spirit of the peasantry, and promises the largest amount of benefit to the present generation: the Committee therefore recommend a strenuous application of the Society's influence to its extension. To adult schools are added a species of irregular or cursory schools, opened under circumstances where the exertions of a reader may succeed in collecting a sufficient number of pupils. They are generally held in situations where the indifference of the peasantry, or the force of per58 secution, is such as to forbid the hope of a more permanent footing. No direct result of their effects can be given; but it is known to be very considerable. All evening schools are confined to the male sex. The Society's readers form a most useful and important class of its agents. The local readers visit the particular district to which the parties are attached by residence: the itinerant class travel to the darkest and most impenetrable parts of the country, and proceed in the accomplishment of their objects by domiciliary visitation, a plan of intercourse which is greatly facilitated by the hospitable habits and communicative spirit of the peasantry. They are also charged with the inspection of such day-schools as may lie in the track of their journey. In their employment of reading the Scriptures they have been eminent ly successful, and in a multitude of instances, have proved the instruments of implanting the principles of the Gospel in ignorant and prejudiced minds. There are twentytwo of these useful agents in connexion with the Society, which is double the number of last year. An extensive circulation of the Scriptures has been effected through the medium of the Society's agents. The number of copies, English and Irish, disseminated within the year amounts to 13,044; making 92,600 since the institution of the Society. The introduction of the vernacular tongue into the system of Irish education was first effected by a class of schoolmasters trained in one of the Hibernian Society's schools. These were afterwards distributed as teachers of those masters who could speak, but not read, the language; and this extension of the practice formed the basis of an Irish class in each school, in situations, at least, where a preference for such instruction was really discovered to exist. After summing up the aggregate of their exertions, the Committee add, that "much as the Hibernian Society has accomplished, and much as has been effected by the blessing of God upon the wisdom and the perseverance of kindred institutions, there are yet whole counties in a state of absolute destitution; and in Limerick, that cradle of revolutionary outrage, the Committee have reason to believe, that the total number under scriptural instruction does not stand in the proportion of one to 800 of the entire population. These delineations are appalling; but they present no real discouragement to the faith and the ardour of Christian enterprize." The Society state, that they find in the Irish peasantry a native sensibility of character and quickness of perception which gain for the objects of Christian benevolence an intelligent and grateful assent; but they lament that many of the priests continue to oppose the plan of scriptural instruction by every means and argument," from the monitory hint to the discipline of the horsewhip." In those districts of the country which have never been visited by the blessings of scriptural education, the same undisturbed and stationary ignorance prevails as distinguished the same districts at the most barbarous periods of their history; and the supply of education, as well as the quality of what is afforded, are regulated by the spontaneous demand of the peasantry themselves. This demand, to the extent in which it exists, produces what are termed the Hedge-schools, a considerable proportion of which are periodical. The instruction given in them consists in reading, writing, and arithmetic; but they afford no morally improving information; and the few books to be found in the hands of the children are usually of the most deteriorating description. The schools are wholly exempt from ecclesiastical interference; but whenever the economy of the system is disturbed by the influence of a scriptural school, the priests form a school, which differs from the hedge class by its authori tative establishment, and the compulsory attendance of the scholars; while it equally differs from the schools of the Society by the absence of the Scriptures, and, generally speaking, of every thing of a religious or morally improving tendency. These schools seem to be undertaken, not so much with a view to the advancement of the children, even in what they profess to teach, as for the purpose of interfering with their attendance upon the scriptural schools. So far, therefore, from regarding the great objects of religious and moral improvement, as advanced by the multiplication of these school, the Com mittee view their increase as among the most formidable obstacles to such a result. The Committee report a balance in favour of their treasurer: but their experience is strongly in favour of the practicability of opening five schools to one of the number which it would be possible to establish upon the foundation of their average income; so that they find themselves constrained to inculcate, with greater urgency than ever, the Society's necessity of increasing funds. The Appendix contains a number of interesting details, from which we may probably find an opportunity of making a few extracts. PRAYER-BOOK AND HOMILY SOCIETY. THE following is the substance of the Eleventh Report of this Society. The Committee are enabled to give a very favourable account of the proceedings of the institution during the year. The number of subscribers, and sum total of receipts, have been augmented: and the issue of tracts has been enlarged by nearly 60,000. Many very gratifying and encouraging communications have been also received; some of which will be more particularly adverted to in the sequel. Since May, 1822, the Committee have paid considerable attention to foreign objects. Their experience previously to that time had served to convince them, that much good might eventually be hoped for, by making the formularies of the Church of England better known in other countries. The principal advantages contemplated were, that much prejudice and misconception might be thus removed; that England, so much respected and looked up to upon other grounds, might be more highly esteemed in a religious point of view; that a spirit of devotion might be excited in some, and its tone raised in others; and, above all, that an increased feeling of brotherly love might be thus promoted among Christians throughout the world. How far that hope has been strengthened during the last year, may be judged by the following extracts from letters received.— "I presented two of your pretty little Italian Prayer-books," writes a clergyman resident on the coast of Italy, "to persons of a liberal education and enlarged mind. Some few days after they had perused them, finding how many things our English Church had retained of the ancient Liturgies, they not only expressed their astonishment, but seemed to feel singular satisfaction in being able to acknowledge, what they had hitherto been taught not to allow, that we were really Christians, and not heretics; expressing, however, at the same time, an ardent wish that we had gone somewhat farther and retained more." Another clergyman, resident in the same country, writes: "There are a great many foreigners, Swiss and Germans particularly, who admire our Liturgy and doctrines, and attend our service when in their power: for them copies of the French version of our Prayer-book are much needed. Geneva would be a good depôt for these, and for English Prayer-books; as at that place there are many English settlers, many English travellers, and very many |