question now is, what are the best means to effect this end? and this, I venture to suggest, is the British and Foreign Bible Society. I shall endeavour to establish in the first place as a principle, that it is only by a _system of co-operation of all parties_ that the work of universally distributing the Scriptures can be effected. Let us look to a fact upon this point. In our own country, a society was instituted, about a century since, which is now called the Bartlett’s Buildings’ Society, or Society for promoting Christian knowledge. The object of this society was to distribute the word of God over the world, and to promote the preaching of the gospel. This society is confined to our own church, for it admits no members who do not give good security that they are churchmen. The _object_ of this society was as pure as possible; the administration of that branch of it at least which has been employed in the circulation of the Scriptures, has, as far as I know, continued faultless; but the operations of the whole society have been necessarily contracted, because it was confined to the church. The effect produced by this society may be seen by examining the result of an hundred years’ trial. It was found about twelve years since, that in many villages of England, the Bible, except in the churches, was hardly known; within a mile of its depository, not one half of the families were in possession of the word of God; and in this diocese it was calculated, that ten thousand families were without a Bible. At this period the principle of the co-operation of all parties, who took the Bible as the basis of their religion, began to be understood, and the Bible Society was formed, which admitted all subscribers of whatever denomination into its ranks; the most astonishing results have thus been obtained. This society has distributed, in the course of eleven years, nearly one million four hundred thousand Bibles and Testaments; and the Bible has been translated and printed, in whole or in part, in fifty-five different languages or dialects. By this fact we may see the _comparative power_ of the two societies; and also it is manifest, that a society, even carried on by the largest and most opulent part of the community, _could not_ effect the object intended; and that therefore no society, made up of only one class in the country, could accomplish the great work which it is our hope to perform. {6}