My first visit was to France, where I remained almost continually journeying for several months. It was a satisfaction to me to arrive at Paris in time to attend the annual public meeting of the Bible Society. I can truly say that the meeting was in the highest degree interesting. The character of the reports, especially those of the Ladies’ and Mechanics’ Society—the attendance of so many ministers of religion—the introduction of extempore speaking—the feeling of warmth and zeal which seemed almost universally to prevail—left me no doubt but that a deep interest pervaded the minds of large numbers on the subject of the circulation of the Scriptures. I afterwards visited many of the auxiliaries, great and small, of the Society in different provinces, and the hopes formed at the meeting at Paris were not disappointed. It happened to me to pass through one small village in a very solitary situation in the centre of France, where three associations had been formed—one of children, another of young women, and a third of the population at large. In this village, under a very pious and able minister, Mr. Duvivier, it was interesting to observe to what an extent education had gone hand in hand with the circulation of the word of God. Some of the children in the school repeated, as a Sunday task, not less than two hundred verses of the New Testament.
With many of the larger auxiliaries of the Society, I was particularly gratified. In some districts the circulation of the Scriptures was very considerable. In others, much still remained to be done. The Protestant ministers were the general agents and protectors of the institution; and, there were many of them full of activity. Two collateral benefits of the Bible Society were particularly obvious in France,—in the first place, the truly valuable object which it supplied to many pious, active, and benevolent minds, which powers might have been otherwise unemployed: and in the next place, the rallying point which it afforded for the really pious of all classes. It is difficult to say to what an extent the society has enlarged the efficiency, and strengthened the union of the religious body amongst the Protestants.
Such was the influence of these and other circumstances on my own mind, that I often found occasion to observe to my fellow travellers, that, if ever I had doubted the benefits of the society, those doubts must now have vanished.
Amongst both Catholics and Protestants much good has been accomplished by the British and Foreign Bible Society. By means of one of the most active agents of this institution, the late Mr. Owen, the society was regularly established amongst the Protestants. And, amongst the Catholics, even where the Bible Society has not been able to obtain any regular establishment by means of our agents, a large number of Bibles and Testaments has been distributed in the schools, hospitals, and prisons, and amongst the population at large. I have seen the Testaments of this society in various important schools; in the hands of the sick, and in the wards of the hospital. I have known them carried to the infirm and the dying by those who are so emphatically and justly called the Sœurs de la Charité. I had myself also the happiness of distributing five hundred copies of those so kindly committed to me by the society in a prison containing upwards of four thousand individuals. We cannot believe that these various gifts have been made in vain. Much of the fruit will be discovered only on the great day, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed. But in the mean time no man can follow the course of the Bible without perceiving the benefits resulting from its circulation. In one instance, I cannot but doubt that the conversion of a large body from Popery to Protestantism, in a city in the south of France, has been materially assisted by the operations of this society.
There are yet two points in connexion with France, on which I feel it necessary to trouble the Committee. In the first place, I have a debt of justice and gratitude to render to Professor Kieffer, your society’s agent at Paris. I will here say nothing on the subject of his opinions with regard to the distribution of the Apocryphal books, except that, whether he is right or wrong, he has found many both good and wise men on the continent and elsewhere, who agree in the views which he has adopted. With respect to his religious orthodoxy, which I understand has been most unjustly called in question in this country, I feel it right to say, that no one who knows him can entertain a doubt.
As to talents, diligence, vigilance, and zeal, as an agent of this society, he has few equals, and can scarcely have a superior. As a man of business, of regularity, vigour, and dispatch, he is very conspicuous—and those who know the immense deficiency of business-like habits on the continent, will know how to value such important qualities in the agent they employ.
The other subject respects the decision of the British and Foreign Bible Society, as to the distribution of the Apocryphal books. It would be unjust to deny that, when the question concerning the rejection of these books was first proposed to the Bible Societies in France, they almost unanimously declared their strong preference for Bibles with the Apocrypha. In the Lutheran, which is the smaller part of the Protestant church of France, this preference still, to a considerable degree, prevails. But among the members and ministers of the Reformed church, and especially those who felt the real value of the word of God, I was rejoiced to find, how few dissented from your late resolution. And I feel assured that, when the question comes to be presented to continental churches in all its bearings, and the danger is shown of thus commingling error with truth, their grounds of opposition will be removed; and they will feel it their duty to pursue the same course as that in which your society has so wisely taken the lead.
It remains only with regard to France, that I should take the liberty of urging upon the Committee the duties of the most strenuous and affectionate co-operation. It is impossible not to consider the general state of the Protestant churches as much advanced during the interval of five years when I before visited them. The political feeling of the Protestants appeared to me a good deal improved; and the government in general of France has done much to deserve their confidence and gratitude. The Protestants themselves seem to me much more sensible of the state of decay in their church; and are in proportion desirous of its restoration to life. It is true that heterodoxy of a very deplorable kind has, to a considerable degree, crept into the universities of that country. But I was often struck by observing, that when some of the clergy taught in those universities, entered upon the discharge of their pastoral office; and it became their direct object to withdraw the profligate from sin, and lead the miserable to comfort—to confirm the wavering, to meet the wants and wishes of our fallen nature, to assuage the sufferings of an awakened conscience, and supply a strong refuge in the hour of death, they have been compelled to desert their own ground, and seek, within the enclosure of orthodox and evangelical religion, the weapons of their warfare, and the means of consolation and of joy. I was delighted indeed to find some of those who had been instructed in the Neological school, among the most zealous promoters of the truth as it is in Christ.
I shall next beg of the Committee to pass on with me from France to Italy. To the northern parts of this country, however, my visit was alone extended; and there I found the same obstacles to exist against the free circulation of the word of God, of which other travellers have complained. One exception however may be stated, and that with regard to a people whose cause has excited a warm and most honourable interest in this country—the Protestant inhabitants of Piedmont. They, in common with the other Protestant subjects of the King of Sardinia, are now permitted to receive books of every kind, on payment of duty, and, on the condition that they are neither sold, lent, nor given to Catholics. This concession came at a time of peculiar importance; as it facilitated the introduction of the large grant of Bibles lately made by this society to the Protestant inhabitants of the vallies. And I learned from the principal agent of the Bible Society in those quarters, that they had received nearly 5000 [6] Bibles and Testaments from different institutions. These grants are of greater value at this moment, when the Vaudois Committee in London is so wisely and assiduously labouring to establish schools of various kinds in these vallies. I am requested to present the cordial thanks of the ministers of the Vaudois church to this society.
The next point to which I would call the attention of this Committee, is Geneva. The character and services of the Bible Society in that city have, it appears to me, been grievously misrepresented in some of the recent publications in this country, on the subject of the Apocryphal controversy. From the fact of the society in Geneva not discovering much zeal for the distribution of the Geneva version of 1805, of which the orthodoxy was called in question, the consequence has arisen, that the friends of that version have gradually seceded from the ranks of the institution. And, let it be recorded to the praise of the society at Geneva, that, when the great mass of the continental Bible Societies were anxious, by establishing counter resolutions of their own, to manifest a spirit of resistance to the Anti-Apocryphal resolution of the London Committee, the Geneva Society opposed this measure, and publicly manifested its fidelity towards the British and Foreign Bible Society, and its lively gratitude for the favours bestowed upon it through a series of years. Assisted by powerful auxiliaries, and especially by that of Satigny, under the administration of a most enlightened and devout member of the church, M. le Pasteur Gaussen, they are doing much for that part of Switzerland, and supplying an example on the continent, of sending money for the distribution of books in remote parts of the world. Of two individuals, occupying distinguished posts in that society, I must say a few words. Its president, M. Vernet, is a person who has experimentally felt the value of the Bible, and manifested, in circumstances of deep trial, his confidence in its instructions and consolations; and the secretary, M. Gautier, is an individual in whose friendship as a Christian, and zeal as a member of this society, I have found much cause to rejoice. That the Committee is not framed upon a more comprehensive and generous principle, is to be regretted; but it labours assiduously and successfully as to the great object for which it is brought together.