My first visit was to France, where I remained almost continually journeying for several months. It was a satisfaction to me to arrive at Paris in time to attend the annual public meeting of the Bible Society. I can truly say that the meeting was in the highest degree interesting. The character of the reports, especially those of the Ladies’ and Mechanics’ Society—the attendance of so many ministers of religion—the introduction of extempore speaking—the feeling of warmth and zeal which seemed almost universally to prevail—left me no doubt but that a deep interest pervaded the minds of large numbers on the subject of the circulation of the Scriptures. I afterwards visited many of the auxiliaries, great and small, of the Society in different provinces, and the hopes formed at the meeting at Paris were not disappointed. It happened to me to pass through one small village in a very solitary situation in the centre of France, where three associations had been formed—one of children, another of young women, and a third of the population at large. In this village, under a very pious and able minister, Mr. Duvivier, it was interesting to observe to what an extent education had gone hand in hand with the circulation of the word of God. Some of the children in the school repeated, as a Sunday task, not less than two hundred verses of the New Testament. With many of the larger auxiliaries of the Society, I was particularly gratified. In some districts the circulation of the Scriptures was very considerable. In others, much still remained to be done. The Protestant ministers were the general agents and protectors of the institution; and, there were many of them full of activity. Two collateral benefits of the Bible Society were particularly obvious in France,—in the first place, the truly valuable object which it supplied to many pious, active, and benevolent minds, which powers might have been otherwise unemployed: and in the next place, the rallying point which it afforded for the really pious of all classes. It is difficult to say to what an extent the society has enlarged the efficiency, and strengthened the union of the religious body amongst the Protestants. Such was the influence of these and other circumstances on my own mind, that I often found occasion to observe to my fellow travellers, that, if ever I had doubted the benefits of the society, those doubts must now have vanished.