Where the Protestant Bible is extensively circulated, there you will find the Romish Scriptures may be purchased. But, in the face of the hundreds here to-night, I state it as a fact which may be substantiated by superabundant evidence, that the Church of Rome is still, as by her own showing she is not ashamed to own, opposed to the general circulation of the Word of God in the vernacular tongue, even according to her own received version. {11b} And now let us inquire into the reasons for this conduct. The first is, as the words just quoted bear me out in asserting that _they consider that danger and mischief would arise from the general circulation of the Word of God among the masses of the People_. Men and Brethren! I desire to put a bridle on my spirit and on my tongue to-night, but when I hear a man telling me that the Word of the living God—that that revelation which our Heavenly Father has graciously given to us his fallen sinful creatures, to tell us of his love, to make known his will, and to declare the way of salvation—that this is to be denied to the masses of the people, I feel within me (I trust a _holy_) indignation. Why is it not the very glory of the Word of God—is it not one of the best evidences of its adaptation to the wants of man—that while there are mysteries which neither a Bacon, nor a Newton, nor a Locke could fathom, and into which even an archangel can but desire to look—there are lessons which the simplest can fully understand, which a Timothy may learn at his mother’s knees. Is it not a blessed and irrefragable proof of the fact that God intended _all_ to have the Bible—that the Bible in its great and vital truths (I do not say its every mystery) is open, under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, not merely to the Priest or to the scholar, but to the most ignorant of men? And I will venture to assert that, so far from the Bible being above the comprehension of an uneducated man, whenever you find such an one become a humble, prayerful, reader of the Bible, it expands and strengthens the powers of his mind. Yes! You will find in the courts and alleys of this vast town, many a man who could not discourse to you of this world’s lore, but his eye would kindle, his mind would be all intelligence, and his tongue all fluency, as he began to talk of the wondrous themes of the Word of God. It is to me one of the strongest proofs that the Bible is the Word of God, that the mind of the most ignorant cannot come into contact with it without becoming elevated thereby:—_The testimony of the Lord is sure_, _making wise the simple_:—_The entrance of thy words giveth light_; _it giveth understanding unto the simple_.