This is not the only oversight in the representation. Mr. Gorham speaks of an agreement respecting the Canon ás a term of union, a condition of membership, a sine qua non to be demanded of all whom we invite to association ;—although the Bible Society certainly never held such language, or insisted on any such terms, but has invited and gladly accepted the co-operation of Jews as well as Christians of all denominations who were willing to encourage a wider circulation of the Scriptures. But, waiving this, the above way of stating the matter, keeps out of sight the fact, that an agreement respecting the Canon is to be made a condition, not of uniting in the Bible Society, but of receiving the Bible. The question is not what terms we have a right to demand of those whom we invite to association in our object, but what it is adviseable and proper to exact of those whose benefit that object embraces, the unenlightened population of Roman Catholic and other countries. It is not simply whether we shall continue to assist Leander Van Ess, or the Greek Patriarch, or the Paris Bible Society, or the Syrian Church in circulating the Bible according to their canon,-or withdraw all co-operation with them till they come over to our sentiments on this point as Protestants ;-but, as to the principle involved, and as to the actual fact to a certain extent, the question is, whether we shall refuse to put God's word into the hands of Papists, Greeks, Lutherans, Syrians, Armenians, and others, till they, the poor, untaught multitudes whom we are anxious to instruct, shall be united to us by this common bond, a recognition of the same Canon of Scripture'-A sentence or two extracted from the paper edited by Mr. Venn, will shew this to be actually the case.

• When the Bible Society began its labours six years ago, the only Bibles ready for distribution were two editions which had been printed by some pious persons at Toulouse and at Montauban, which did not contain the Apocrypha. With these two editions the Society began its distributions; but soon there was a protest on all sides against the omission of these books, and a formal demand was made, that the apocryphal books should be added to these two editions. In order to conform to the French churches, the Society was obliged to print the Apocrypha at Toulouse and at Montauban, and to add them to the editions which had already been published there.

• What I have said of Protestant churches,' (continues Professor Kieffer,) applies with far greater force to the Catholic churches in France, who would not receive a single Bible without the apocryphal books, which are considered by them as canonical. The priests would eagerly seize this pretence for prohibiting the reading of the Bible; and the poor people, who receive with lively gratitude the Bibles distributed among them by your generous so

ciety, and who have no other means of gaining instruction in the true faith, will be again plunged into the ignorance and superstition from whence they were beginning to emerge through the reading of the Holy Scriptures.'

If such is the case in France, where there are both Protestant and Catholic churches, I think it must be the same in Switzerland, in Germany, in the Low Countries, in Denmark, in Sweden, in Prussia, in Poland, in the vast states of Russia, in Italy, in Spain, in Portugal, all countries where the Bible without the Apocrypha is never read, and where the people would probably have the same aversion to receiving it without these books."

You well know the attachment of our peasants to the Bible,' says a distinguished Swedish nobleman, but they will have their Bible; that Bible which their ancestors loved, and out of which their religious parents used to read to them as children. Perhaps the Apocrypha may be, at some future period, excluded from our Bible; but, for this step, things must be prepared, and our British friends must not press us too hard on this point, if our hands are not to be tied up, and our operations altogether to cease as a Bible Society. It is a most melancholy circumstance, that this question should have been started at this critical moment, as it may-which God avert ! —do incalculable mischief.'

'Considering,' says the venerable D. Van. Ess, that in the Roman Catholic and Protestant states of Germany, things have scarcely ever worn so portentous an appearance as at the present moment, when so great is the excitement visible among the members of both persuasions, that we cannot but be apprehensive of its leading to some important crisis ;-considering that, on the one hand, the power of Rome is, for the moment, greater than usual, and that it adopts every means of opposing the dissemination of the Bible among the laity, whilst, on the other, the desire of the Roman Catholic population to obtain possession of the whole Bible was never so strong and vehement as at present;-considering these things, and many other points immediately connected therewith, I beg leave to reply to your first question, Whether I am inclined to print the whole of the Old Testament without the Apocrypha,' by the following observations.

This proposal cannot possibly be adopted with respect to Roman Catholics. My reason for so saying is, that, as the proposed alteration affects the order and succession of the Biblical books, which has for so many years been prescribed, followed, and preserved, and would, if adopted, render any translation, so far as the order of the books is concerned, similar to Luther's version, it would cause a very strong sensation, and most probably irritate many weak-minded Roman Catholics both among the clergy and the laity. They would be inclined, under existing prejudices, to regard my translation as a Lutheran version, which would have the effect of preventing its being read by the majority of weaker Roman Catholics, and of causing it, moreover, to be immediately denounced and burned by the zealots of Rome, and of course proscribed by the bishops and their vicars in Germany. My own personal character and reputation, as well as my

adherence to canonical order, would immediately be degraded. The extensive operations which I have hitherto carried on for the dissemination of the Bible among Roman Catholics, and which God has most visibly blessed, would be put an end to and destroyed.'

Nor have we any reason to be surprised at the strength of this prejudice. The tenacity of the English Church in retaining the lessons from the Apocrypha in her service, notwithstanding the urgent remonstrances of the Presbyterians, and her own admission respecting those books, might prepare us to expect a similar stiffness of prejudice and jealousy of innovation in the Continental churches. Let us suppose that, in our own country, an edition was put forth of our Authorized Version of the Bible, that should disturb the present arrangement of the books; in which the chronological order, for instance, should be followed, the book of Job being placed next to the Pentateuch, the prophecies of Isaiah after those of Nahum, and Ezra and Nehemiah after the prophecies of Zechariah, the Epistles of St. Paul being transposed in a similar manner according to their dates, and let us suppose that this improved arrangement (for such it would be) had been first introduced by the Socinians, and that it externally characterized the Socinian Bible; we should then have something like a case parallel to that of the Lutheran arrangement of the sacred books, as it appears in the eyes of Roman Catholics. How many years would such an edition of the Bible require to make its way into general circulation among us? How long would it be before the Bartlett's Buildings Society would sanction such an innovation on the established order of the canon? With what distrust and jealousy would it be regarded by the orthodox, from the very circumstance of its being a Socinian improvement, whether as likely to pave the way for taking other liberties with the canon, or as endangering the insidious introduction of unauthorized versions! Socinianism cannot be in worse odour among members of the Church of England, than Protestantism is with members of the Church of Rome; and our canonical arrangement is not less closely identified with Luther and Calvin, than the "Improved Version of the New Testament" is with the Unitarians.

But, if the Church of England refused to expunge, at the request of the Nonconformists, the lessons taken from the Apocrypha, is it astonishing that the Church of Rome should exhibit a similar unwillingness to concede the point of arrangement to the Protestants? Was not the objection to the Apocrypha itself regarded by King Charles's bishops as much in the light of a Puritan tenet, as the Church of Rome regards its separa

tion from the canon as à Lutheran one? Suppose that King James's Translators had not deviated, in this respect, from the Vulgate, would it have been possible to make the separation at any subsequent period? If not, would the Bible Society have been allowed now to introduce so material an innovation, or to stigmatise as apocryphal, books appointed to be read in the churches, if the sixth article had not sanctioned the distinction? No one who is acquainted with the attachment to the Apocrypha which still prevails among members of the Church of England, can for a moment imagine that its rejection or even separation by the Society would have been tolerated. In fact, they would have had no power or control in the business. They must have taken the Bible, Apocrypha and all, as the Universities and His Majesty's printer should have chosen to issue it. In the Family Bible recently put forth by the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, and edited by the domestic chaplain of the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, the Apocrypha is included, and receives its share of annotations. The Bible as appointed to be read in churches, still comprises the Apocrypha; and the precaution formerly observed, of printing it in a separate type, is no longer uniformly attended to. Now, bearing these facts in mind, we ask, what could the Bible Society have done, had the separation of the Apocryphal books not been made at the precise period at which it was first happily and most Providentially accomplished? Either no such institution could have been formed, or it must have contented itself with giving away the canonical and Apocryphal books intermingled, Mr. Gorham will do well to consider what would, in that case, have been the path of duty. The printing of the Holy Scriptures is, in this country, a royal monopoly; and no Bible Society could have been established, that should not have made it a fundamental law to circulate the authorized version. The Church, we may be assured, would not have given way to the objections of a popular society, and have altered the arrangement of the canon at its instigation. In the case imagined, therefore, Mr. Gorham would have found him, self absolutely opposed to any Bible Society, and to the circulation of any Bibles, in our own country.

This imaginary case is but the counterpart of the real situation in which the Paris Bible Society is placed. That Society is bound by the primary article of its regulations, not to distribute any Bibles but those read in the churches. Now, says M. Monod,

from the Reformation to the first formation of Bible Societies, I do not think there has been a single Bible in our churches without

the Apocrypha. Were we then wrong in making this rule? Or ought we now to propose its abolition at our next general meeting? I am convinced we ought not.

But are our churches wrong? I will confess it. I will agree with you on this subject, still repeating, that it is not the province of the Bible Societies to become judges in this matter. It seems to me, that they ought no more to withhold the Apocrypha, when it is asked for by the generality of Christians, than they ought to give it when it is not desired. Our Reformers should have enlightened us on this point, as they have done on many others, and have relieved our Bible from this superfluity. After them, our synods alone are able to decide the question; but they have not, to my knowledge, meddled with it. Nor should the Bible Societies; nor ought they, in my opinion, to take away the Apocrypha, till the Church gives, at least tacitly, a general consent to it.'

Mr. Gorham says: We do not interfere with the liberty of ' other churches' by withholding our aid. This is not strictly correct, since he would have us require from them, as the price of our co-operation, a conformity to a theological tenet, and demand,' that what their own Reformers and synods, and ours, have left undone, the rejection of the Apocrypha, should now be carried into execution in compliance with the rules and regulations of a foreign voluntary society. He insists upon a basis of agreement and a bond of union such as no Protestant Church ever required; and while, professedly, the sole object of the Bible Society is, to encourage a wider circulation of the Holy Scriptures without note or comment,' his demand would couple with this another object,-to promote the separation of the Apocrypha from the canonical Scriptures; a very desirable object, we admit, and one which we ardently wish to see promoted by every legitimate means, but which we conceive not to fall within the scope and province of the Bible Society.

Mr. Gorham, however, contends, and so do the Edinburgh Committee, that the very terms in which the fundamental law of the Society is couched, prohibits the circulation of the Apocryphal writings. Here we are completely at issue with them. The law is as follows:

The designation of this Society shall be, the British and Foreign Bible Society, of which the sole object shall be to encourage a wider circulation of the Holy Scriptures, without note or comment: the only copies in the languages of the United Kingdom to be circulated by the Society, shall be, the authorized Version.

Now what does the authorized version include? Does it, or does it not include the Apocrypha? What are the Holy Scriptures appointed to be read in churches?' We need not, as Mr. Gorham imagines, appeal to the early Christian fathers,