Before commencing this journey to Andalusia I must take the liberty of making one humble request to my friends of the Bible Society, which is to be patient. It may not be in my power to send them for a long time any flattering accounts of operations commenced there. I shall be surrounded with enemies, bitter, malignant, and powerful, against whose efforts it is very possible that I may not be able to stand my ground; or the books which I carry with me may be seized and sequestrated, in spite of all the plans which I have devised for their safety. The great failing of Protestants, in general, is a tendency to spring suddenly to the pinnacle of exultation, and as suddenly to fall to the lowest bathos of dejection, forgetting that the brightest day as well as the most gloomy night must necessarily have a termination. How far more wise are the members of that object of my undying detestation, the Church of Rome; from mixing with whom I have acquired one principal point of wisdom, which may be termed, _Ever to expect evil_, _and ever to hope for good_; by attending to which maxim we find that Church ever regaining the ground which it has lost. Yesterday seeming a lifeless stick, as in the case of England, to-day it is a magnificent tree, glorious with leaves and fruit. Excuse these observations which, I assure you, are well meant. No one acquainted with me will lay undue partiality to the Roman Church to my charge, yet there are some points about it which I highly admire; and you know well enough that it is lawful to receive instruction from an enemy. I have been lately going through Morrison's Chinese Matthew. I confess that I am the merest tyro in the language, nevertheless I am compelled to state that upon the whole I do not like the translation. It appears to me that in various instances the characters are not grammatically placed; I mean, not as they are placed in the writings if the best Chinese authors to express the same ideas. Moreover he has translated the sacred Name by the character which the Chinese are in the habit of bestowing on the spirits whose idols they worship, and which is by no means applicable to the one great God, whom the missionaries of the Greek and Roman Churches for want of an equivalent in Chinese have always styled, and with justice [three Chinese characters] (_tien tsz hwang_), or King of Heaven. The Holy Ghost, he renders by _tching fung_, or Holy Wind, which is a Hebraism, and which can scarcely be understood by the Chinese. In Lipoftsoff's Mandchou version it is happily translated by the Holy Spirit. You will recollect that on my second return to Spain you requested me to look into Morrison's Testament, on which account I shall offer no excuse for these trifling remarks.