Page images
PDF
EPUB

Lordship nor ourselves: the gratitude of the Church he has well deserved, and has hardly earned.

There is one question more, which we would put to Mr. Gisborne, and we have done. We read of the establishment of Bible Societies in all parts of the globe; in Russia, in Sweden, in Denmark, in Prussia, in Germany, in Switzerland, in Calcutta, in Bombay, in the Mauritius, in the Massachusets, in New York, in Nova Scotia, in Philadelphia, in Virginia, in Jamaica, and in various other places, of which the reader will find a full catalogue in the Society's last Report. We are willing to suppose that these institutions are generally in a flourishing condition, and that they increase in proportion to the riches and power of the several countries in which they are established. With all these growing and independent Societies, which, as we are triumphantly told, are daily rising in every part of the world, and with a Society of our own, whose revenue, as Mr. Gisborne informs us, amounted in the year 1814 to NINETY-NINĖ THOUSAND, EIGHT HUNDRED AND NINETY-FOUR pounds; we would ask for what one good, honest, or Christian purpose, are the labouring poor to be taxed at the rate of one penny per week, as a contribution to its funds? "To buy a Bible," it is answered, “first for themselves, and then for their neighbours,' Is not a Society with an annual income of nearly an hundred thousand pounds, of itself fully capable of rapidly supplying the poor of this kingdom with Bibles sufficient for every practical purpose, to say nothing of the activity and the resources of its rival at Bartlett's Buildings?" But its foreign department requires a perpetual and an increasing support." Even allowing this draught on its finances, we cannot see any reason why the paupers of this kingdom are to be taxed to supply foreign nations with Bibles. But it appears that Bible Societies (now more than fifty in number) are establishing in most countries of the civilized world to supply their own poor. The draught upon England must, therefore, speedily be diminished into almost nothing.

1

Now it appears from the Report of the Bible Society that in the course of the last year 26,6871. 16s. 5d. were expended in the foreign department, by contributions toward the establishment of Bible Societies abroad, the gratuitous dispersion of the Scriptures in various languages, and other grants, the wisdom and utility of which we are not disposed at present to question. Many of the items in this account will not recur, many new ones may be said, will be added, which may cause this part of the Society's expenditure to be annually the same.

it

It appears from the Report published in 1815, (which Mr. Gisborne has not noticed) that the income of the Society for the

last

last year has increased to 124,0191. 7s. 7d. leaving for home consumption annually the sum of 97,3311. 11s. 2d.

It appears also from the same Report, that the Society, on the 28th April, 1815, in addition to its income for the current year, was in possession of exchequer-bills, amounting with interest thereon, to the sum of 33,8221. 3s. 8d. ; besides funded property to the amount of 10,000l. more. If the poor of this country are "hungering and thirsting after the Scriptures," as the Auxiliary orators are constantly declaring, what shall we think of the con duct of a Society, which is established for the sole purpose of supplying the country with the Scriptures, in suffering such a surplus to remain unappropriated.

[ocr errors]

With an unappropriated surplus of FORTY-THREE THOU SAND pounds and upwards, and with an income for home' consumption of NINETY THOUSAND pounds and upwards belonging to this Society, we repeat our question, for what honest, for what good, for what Christian purpose, are the poor of this country to be taxed to the amount of a penny a week each, in support of a Society whose income far exceeds its expenditure? There is no poor family in this kingdom to whom four shillings and fourpence at the conclusion of the year is not a real object, in the purchase of clothing for their children, in the payment of rent, or in procuring provisions and fuel. To deduct such a sum from a poor family, is a cruel, a wicked, and unchristian act. The pretence under which it is exacted is false, inasmuch as money obtained for an article which a man can claim gratuitously, is obtained under false pretences. And if the poor cannot claim a Bible gratuitously, for what reason is ninety thousand pounds taken every year, from the pockets of the rich. And so far is the tyranny of the Bible Associations carried, that even in the Lancasterian Free School (as it is called) in St. George's. Fields, the children are not permitted to attend, unless each child brings its penny on the Monday morning, and instances could be produced where three of a family have been turned away, owing to the utter inability of the parents to supply them each with their penny.

What then is the real purpose of this vexatious impost? We have no hesitation in answering, that its object is to puritanize the lower orders of the community. The under agents of the Bible Society have wit enough to know, that where the money of the poor is embarked, there is their heart also.

Whoever is desirous of understanding the vast and complicated machinery of these Penny Societies, should acquaint himself with the last Report of the Southwark Bible Society; he will there discover the extent of the engine, and the intimate connection and correspondence of its parts. The association is

H-h 2

divided

divided into committees and sub-committees even to the lowest dregs of the people, with secretaries, &c. the whole drilled and commanded by fanatics of various descriptions, and forming one connected and organized mass. How far in a political point of view, this disciplined organization of the lower classes, against the spirit and even the letter of the law, can exist, without the most imminent danger to the whole nation, we leave it for the serious consideration of our government to determine. It would be well for them to acquaint themselves with the magnitude of the evil, before it acquires power sufficient to resist even an enquiry.

We now come to the most serious part of the whole. We would not visit with severity any casual flippancy of expression, or asperity of temper which might betray itself in the heat of argument or the confusion of controversy. We would freely forgive what we have all of us too much necessity of being for given. But the following passage speaks in a tone, to which we have been unaccustomed. It contains neither nonsense enough to be laughed at, nor vehemence enough to be pardoned.,

"In this country, in particular, had we been told that men, from the midst of ourselves, men neither atheists, nor deists, nor sceptics, nor papists, nor heretics, nor destitute of understanding; -that men of talents, of learning, of respectability, men zealous for the truth of the Scriptures, members of our national church, ministers, dignitaries of the establishment, would oppose this Society; would oppose it, some with violence, some with bitterness, some with open calumny, some with secret machinations; would oppose it after ten years of meditation on its nature, and ten years experience of its effects:-could the information have been deemed credible? Not by those who theorize on the native goodness of the human heart: not by those who derive not their anticipations from the fountain of Scripture.

But our Saviour has prophetically taught us to expect, and ages have borne practical testimony to his warning, that the same influence of evil, and of the author of evil, by which the Jews would speedily be impelled to kill the Prince of Life, by which they would afterwards be instigated to exterminite his apostles, and would be persuaded that by the most atrocious iniquity they were doing God service, would induce misguided Christians, in later periods, vehemently to resist measures eminently conducive to His glory, and to resist such measures, under the delusion that to resist was to render service to God." P. 32.

It is to be remembered that these are not the extemporary effusions of a crack-brained fanatic, but the sober, cool, and determinate opinions of a Christian Minister; of one, to whom the public was ever willing to ascribe the exercise of those " duties of a man," which he has by precept so earnestly inculcated.

lu

1

In the character, then, of a Christian, of a Minister of the Gospel, of a Clergyman of the Church of England, and one, as his friend would assure us, of peculiar seriousness; Mr. Gisborne denounces all those who have dared to oppose the principle, or to arrest the progress of the Bible Society, as enemies of God and man, and as impelled by the same influence of evil, and of the author of evil, as the very Jews who slew the Prince of Life. ALL, we say, for Mr. Gisborne has made an exception in favour of none; nor do we see in what manner he will be able, even if future expediency should render him inclined, to shelter himself under a single clause of reservation. And for what crime is this denunciation thus solemnly made? For the crime of preferring one Bible Society to another, and for upholding the cause of that Church which they are sworn to defend, against the influx of that heresy and schism, from which both Mr. Gisborne and themselves daily pray to the mercy of God to be delivered.

A more decisive and alarming proof of the spirit which animates but too many among the patrons of this new Society, cannot be exhibited, than in the pamphlet before us. When a Minister of Mr Gisborne's meekness and sanctity, assumes not only so inquisitorial, but even so damnatory a strain, we shudder at the influence of the same cause on tempers more infuriated, and minds less disciplined. The accusing and the avenging spirit, we know, is one. We defy the records even of Popery itself to speak in a language more overwhelming. Mr. Gisborne, indeed, appears to have studied the Bulls of the Roman Pon. tiff, and to have borrowed almost their very expressions.-It is commanded, ex cathedrá, by the Conclave of Saints, that every soul in their dominions do contribute either according to, or ex.. ceeding his means, to the support of the cause of the Bible Society: Si quis hoc attentare præsumpserit, indignationem sancti Petri et Pauli et Apostolorum omnium noverit se incursurum *. The enthusiasm of Popery and of Methodism have before been brought into comparison; their resemblance is no longer incredible, nor their union mysterious.

Our readers have heard the denunciation of Mr. Gisborne upon the enemies of the Bible Society, they shall now hear, once for all, our judgment on its friends; and they shall be the judges which are conceived in charity the most christian, and most reşembling the spirit of that holy volume, whose very title is de secrated by the repetition of these disgusting disputes.

For the honest intentions, and Christian views of a great majority of those who are supporters of that institution, we have formed a very high respect, and if we should call their judg

* The general conclusion, with slight sanctions, of all Papal bulls.

ment

ment in question, we should do it with a tender regard to the weakness and infirmity of our common nature. The artlessness and generosity of some, the vanity and rashness of others, have led them into an error, not of intention, but of action, not of heart, but of judgment. But that there are those even among the foremost ranks of that society, whose aim and ambition it is to puritanize the whole community, and by this mighty engine of wealth and power, to raise the fabric of enthusiasm upon the rums of Church and State we will not deny.

We should now take our leave of the pamphlet before us, did not the name of the Prelate to whom it is addressed, claim for á moment our respectful attention. From the style and language in which he is addressed, the Bishop of Gloucester will form no very favourable idea of Mr. Gisborne's veneration for the Episcopal authority. Like those of his party, he will condescend to offer the incense of the lowest flattery to those among his Lordship's sacred order, who have expressed themselves favourable to the Society, in the promotion of which he feels so warm an interest. But towards those, who have considered it as their duty to oppose its progress, and to resist its allurements, he has expressed himself in terms, which can be designed alone to stigmatize and deride, not the individuals, but the order to which they belong. Quamdiu bene se gesserit, is the rule of action, which the friends of the Bible Society have universally adopted. As long as a Prelate is subservient to their views, he is approached with an adulation which a wise man will suspect, and a good man will despise; but the very moment he shall oppose even the slightest obstacle to the torrent of their zeal, he is pursued with all the rancour which malignity can devise, or fanaticism denounce, and the more so, because he is a Bishop. The Bishop of Gloucester will clearly perceive, that it is to his power, not to his order, that this offering is addressed. How far he will choose to submit to the leading-strings in which Mr. Gisborne would place him, we cannot determine; we are assured that of the spirit, in which Mr. Gisborne has uttered these anathemas, as a Christian Bishop he will never partake.

'

That the elevation of that Prelate to the Bench, was considered as an event most inauspicious to the interest of our national Church, we will not condescend to deny; but that the foreBodings of good and pious men, may, under the blessing of Providence, prove vain and unfounded, we cherish yet the warmest hopes. There are few who have been placed in a state of more awful responsibility. By strengthening the influence, and promoting the views of a self-constituted party, he may form a rallying point of discord and confusion, and draw, in still stronger characters, the fatal line which divides us within our very walls, and call in the unnumbered host of unholy fanatics, who wait

but

« PreviousContinue »