undergoing the strictest examination of the most learned and orthodox men. Which must undoubtedly be, to those churchmen who do not pretend to be wise above what is written, nor wiser than any that have gone before, nor above being guided, a very great recommendation. From what has been observed, it will, it is to be hoped, be allowed, that the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge holds forth superior advantages to the churchman; when it is considered, that it is composed of churchmen only; that it furnishes Bibles with notes and comments; that it sells those Bibles at a much cheaper rate; and that it provides Prayer Books and Religious Tracts. The British and Foreign Bible Society is composed of churchmen and dissenters. The dissenter of every denomination is admitted into it, and allowed to have at his disposal an equal number of Bibles with the churchman. And if there be, as every dissenting minister must acknowledge, some parts of the Holy Scriptures, which the poor and unlearned cannot understand without assistance, and the Bible be distributed by such a variety of persons, professing different religions, and consequently affording very different explanations, what confusion must be occasioned! How must the poor be tossed about by such various and strange doctrines! The British Critic for November, 1815, in the remarks upon Mr. Gisborne’s letter to the Bishop of Gloucester, says, “As the most absurd and fatal errors which ever disgraced the Christian Church, have every one of them been deduced from a perverted interpretation of the Holy Scriptures; to place Bibles for distribution in the hands of those who preach such doctrines, and who can prove to the satisfaction of their deluded hearers, that such doctrines are derived from Scripture, is to increase the progress of error; and every such Bible becomes a curse and not a blessing to its possessors. Most dangerous, therefore, is it to the souls of the lower orders, by an union of churchmen with such men as hold forth these fatal perversions, to supply them with arms for their own destruction, and to give them influence sufficient to use them with success. We do not say that all dissenters are thus inclined; many, especially of the older sort, are good and worthy men; but the daily increasing numbers of furious fanatics are unhappily more than sufficient to warrant our assertions.” A churchman must believe, that, in the Established Church, Christianity is to be found, both as to its doctrine and discipline, in its purest form: and he must also believe, that the further the doctrine of any sect recedes from this standard, the further must it degenerate into error. And the more the sectaries are increased, the more will the Established Church be endangered. It may be said, that if the doctrine and discipline of the Church be founded on the Bible, why should it be alarmed at the extended distribution of that Bible on which it is