I am sorry that I should have felt any obligation to draw up what may bear even the semblance of a charge against the Society, at Bartlett’s Buildings, of which I am a member. That Society has many merits, and in its own sphere is capable of doing much good. But, when an attempt is made to canonize this Society; to apply it to objects which it can never reach; and to erect it on the ruins of a Society of wider basis and far more extensive capabilities, it is difficult to be entirely silent. It was heartily to be wished, that these two Societies should never have been brought into invidious comparison, for, in a comparison, one of them must fail; and, which ever suffers, Christianity suffers with it, because the promotion of Christianity is the object of both. As, however, these two Societies have been brought into comparison, by the author of these “Reasons,” it seems requisite now to show, that the New Society has certain peculiar and exclusive advantages, which justify churchmen in supporting it. In the first place, then, _the constitution of the Old Society disqualified it from the universal supply of the Word of God_. It had existed for near a century, and during that time, I venture confidently to say, it had, even _at home_, done little of what was necessary for the distribution of the Scriptures; and, _abroad_, scarcely any thing at all. _At home_, when examinations were made as to the circulation of the Scriptures in many parts of England, especially in Lincolnshire, there were villages where the Bible was alone to be found in the church; within about a mile of the depository of the Old Society, full one half of the families were without a copy of the Scriptures; in this diocese alone, it was calculated that ten thousand families were destitute of the Word of God; in that of Durham, seven thousand five hundred; and, which is a certain proof of this assertion, since that time, nearly one million five hundred thousand copies have been distributed, principally in our own country, without, at the same time, the demand for the Scriptures being by any means supplied. _Abroad_, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge has been able to effect still less. It had, indeed, only in one instance, attempted the distribution of the Scriptures. This was in the year 1720, when it printed, but not altogether at its own charge, an edition of the Psalms and the New Testament in the Arabic language. And such was the want of facilities for foreign operations, that, till lately, a part of that edition was mouldering in the cellars of the institution. Except this, and the assistance it has given to the Danish mission in the East Indies, it may be said to have done little or nothing for foreign countries. Nor let me be conceived to impute it as blame to this Society that it has done no more in a sphere, from which, from its constitution, it was excluded.