In France, though there may be some opposition to the dispersion of the scriptures, especially in the south, no danger can be incurred by the attempt. In the Sardinian dominions, the case is far different, and it ought to teach us to value our own privileges, when we reflect on the sufferings still endured by others, in their adherence to the testimony of Jesus. When your associates were at Nice last July, they heard of a very respectable man, a small farmer, who had just been released from the dungeons of the neighbouring Villa Franca, where he had been spending six months in a vault sunk in the rocky cliff below the level of the sea, for the crime of reading the bible to his wife, under his own tree on a Sunday. The gentleman who told them this fact, assured them also, that though P–’s affairs had suffered from his imprisonment, he was not a man to be daunted, nor was he likely to waver in his faith, or in his practice of studying the scriptures. Two other householders had also been imprisoned that spring for the same cause. Your associates could venture to give but few tracts and one or two testaments in their passage through Piedmont and Savoy. These however were received with much interest. The contrast was striking when they reached Geneva, and found a bible in every set of rooms of their well appointed hotel. They believe this is usual in the Protestant cantons, at least they found the same at other hotels, and Mr. Scholl the pasteur of Lausanne told them, they had been placed there by the committee of the Bible Society. A great work of religion is carried on by means of this society, and also of the Protestant Evangelical Societies of France and Swisserland, which combine the objects of bible, missionary, and tract societies. For the former, they chiefly employ the colporteurs or travelling salesmen, described by M. de Pressensé in his excellent account of the operations of the Bible Society in France, (printed in the appendix to the last report 1838,) and all that is there said of the usefulness of this devoted class of men, was amply confirmed by the information your associates gained respecting their labours. These too they perform for so small a remuneration, that it is clear they are only prompted by conscientious motives. 100,000 copies of the scriptures are now yearly distributed in France, and the directors of the societies find, that it answers much better to sell them at a low price, than to give them away. The people are less willing to surrender their bibles to be burnt by the priests, if they have paid a sum of money, however small, for their purchase. In some few instances, the Roman Catholic priests themselves have been willing to promote the sale of the scriptures. Amongst the countries which your associates most desired to see provided with the scriptures, should any opportunity offer of aiding the supply, were the valleys of the Alps, the people of which are confined by the