Really, Sir, in reading over this extraordinary morceau, which I do assure you I have done again and again, I have found my astonishment continually increase, and am now as much at a loss as ever, to account for your raising up again those notions, which have been buried by public authority for so many ages. An old parishioner of mine, who scarcely reads any books but the Bible and Fox’s Martyrology, was ready to swoon when she came to this part of your pamphlet; and I could not, for the life of me, prevail upon her to go any farther. She was utterly astonished at my being able to smile at what she was pleased to call, the _rankest Popery she had_ ever read. I told her, it could not be Popery; for it was written by a Country Clergyman: she said, the whole was a trick; and that the Papists abounded in such tricks. It was in vain that I repeated to her my conviction, that the author was a Protestant Clergyman, and that, I feared, he was not singular in holding these opinions: I could not get her to believe one syllable of either. She persisted in her declaration, that, whatever you might call yourself, you were some Romish Priest in the interest of the Catholics; and that you only wanted to prepare the people for parting with their Bibles. Now, Sir, though I by no means go the same lengths as my orthodox parishioner, yet I am free to confess, that I agree with her in the main. I dare believe, that you have no more intention of bringing back the Pope than I have; and yet I do not know how you could have written more to the purpose, if you had wished to accomplish such a measure. The dangers which you point out as accompanying the perusal of the Holy Scriptures by the unlearned, were matters of constant anxiety to his Papal bosom all the time that he acted as visible head of the English church; and many a Country Clergyman was employed, under his direction, to enforce upon Lords and Commoners that prudent caution against _distributing Bibles_, which you so earnestly press upon the Noble President of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Our forefathers, however, were too much of his Lordship’s way of thinking to yield to such considerations: having derived so much benefit from reading the Bible themselves, they would not endure the thought of refusing it to others; and they were, therefore, among the foremost “to promote the circulation of the Scriptures at home and abroad.”