I do assure you, Sir, that my jealousies on this particular are quite as much alive as yours can be. I know how apt Societies are to depart from the principles upon which their original association was formed; and I am half inclined to think, that in this and other parts of your pamphlet you are reading a lesson to some Societies in the metropolis, that I could name. However, I do not absolutely affirm that such is your intention; for though I might take advantage of your own axiom, and suspect your “declaration in print” to be one thing and your real object another, yet I should think it scarcely decorous to say so. Besides, it is very possible after all, that the whole may have been the result of accident; and that you had no design whatever of publishing the actual state of one Society, when you were merely predicting the future state of another.
But, Sir, let me ask you now, in the best humour in the world, what security you would require for the maintenance of an original object which the Bible Society has not already given you. I grant, if you had been invited to join a Society, whose object was the promotion of Christianity, the reformation of manners, or the suppression of vice, you might reasonably enough have doubted whether the nature of the object sufficiently explained the views of the associators, and gave you any competent pledge for the purity of those measures which they might in process of time adopt. You might then have argued with some show of plausibility, that “the real object will take its colour from the opinions and pursuits of those effective members, who shall contrive, either by an actual majority, or an assiduity and activity equivalent in force to the power of a majority, to give direction to the energy of the association;” [12] and the event, in certain cases, would have proved, that you were not very greatly mistaken. But in the case under consideration, the object is definite. For the Bible (which and which alone constitutes that object) is specific; and is further secured, by its authorized translation into all the languages of the United Kingdom, against the possibility of losing its specific character. Now since the Society are bound, by a law of their constitution, to circulate the authorized version of the Scriptures, and that alone, their object must remain so uniform and determinate, that no deviation from it can occur, without a perceivable, an obvious, a felonious sacrifice of justice, honor, and good faith. Of such departure therefore, if ever it should be attempted, the public will most infallibly be apprized. For those respectable characters at least, with whom you would be proud to rank your name, will be the witnesses, the opposers, and (if unsuccessful in their opposition) the reporters of such apostacy; and I hardly need remind you that the efficiency of their exertions under all these characters, will be diminished in the same proportion, in which you may contrive to reduce their numbers, and discredit their association.
So much for that security which the object of the Society affords. But let us hear what sort of security you, in the exercise of your moderation, are disposed to require. “If Lord T. will pledge himself that the six hundred members of his Society are, like himself, honourable and upright men, who speak what they mean, and practise what they profess, who abhor duplicity and deceit, and know no discordance between the object they profess and the object they pursue—if Lord T. can assure me this, I shall be proud to rank my name, and make exertion under his protection.” [14a]
And are these really, Sir, the lowest terms upon which the benefit of your name can be obtained for the British and Foreign Bible Society? If they are, I must fairly own, humiliating as the confession may appear, I have no hope of hearing that the Secretary has been called upon “to insert your name and accept your donation.” [14b] No Sir; his Lordship cannot go such lengths as you require. I dare say he would do every thing in his power to satisfy you; but I think I may venture to say, without consulting him, that this exceeds his power. His Lordship is a student of human nature, and the situations which he has filled, have afforded him opportunities of pursuing his favorite study. How he has employed those opportunities, and what fruit he has derived from them, I need not tell you. I dare say you have not lost your respect for the biographer of Sir William Jones, in your resentment against the President of the Bible Society. But, with all his powers of discrimination, his Lordship has his limits as well as other men; and I hope you would not wish him to vouch for or against a large class of individuals, as you may have found some people inclined to do, merely on account of certain peculiar specimens which he has seen, or some indistinct reports which he has heard.
But surely, Sir, I may be excused for doubting whether you “be in jest or earnest,” [15] when you meet his Lordship’s proposition with such exorbitant demands. Did you ever know a President who could engage for quite so much as you require? Or did you ever see “six hundred” names together, that stood for nothing less than so many “honorable and upright men?” I am sure I venerate every useful Society throughout the kingdom, from the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, down to the Society for superseding the Necessity of Climbing Boys; and yet I should not be surprised if their respective Presidents should decline bearing their testimony to the individual characters of the first six hundred members of those several Societies upon which I might choose to lay my hand. Besides, Sir, consider—a rule for one, in such a case is a rule for all. What you require before you subscribe your name, others may think themselves justified in requiring after you have subscribed it. And what will be the consequence?—His Lordship will next be called upon to pledge himself for you; and though I dare say he could do it with perfect safety, yet I think he might have reasons for wishing to be excused.
The object of this extravagant demand at length comes out; and it seems I was perfectly justified in doubting whether you were in jest or earnest when you advanced it. “All (you say) that I here assert” (and questions of a certain description are the strongest of all assertions) “is this; that your Lordship, for whose head and heart I have the highest respect, appears to have undertaken the patronage of you know not whom or what.” [16] Now, Sir, there is but one portion of this assertion to which I have any objection. His Lordship certainly does know what he has undertaken to patronize; for to the circulation of the Scriptures, the Scriptures as printed by authority, the Scriptures without any addition, deduction, or variation, both his patronage and that of the truly venerable characters associated with him, are restrained. The rest of the assertion is perfectly harmless. His Lordship has undertaken the patronage of he knows not whom: this is strictly true; nor would it be less so, if his Lordship filled the chair of any other Society, or if the Country Clergyman and his friends occupied the place of the six hundred members over whom his Lordship actually does preside.
It seems, however, that if his Lordship does not know over whom he presides, the Country Clergyman can tell him. Lord T. does not know “the men and their communication” to whom he has joined himself; but you, it should seem, can explain them both. No sooner do you cast your eye over the List of Subscribers which his Lordship has sent you, than you see “a very large proportion” of persons “with which, as an honest man,” you “can have nothing to do;” men of whose company you “have hitherto always been horribly afraid, being frightened at the idea of having the national establishment blown up, as one of them said, clergy and all;”—“wolves,” who design to worry your “poor sheep;”—“crafty beasts;” and, finally, “those who openly and fairly avow that their object is to eat up both sheep and shepherd.” [17] This is indeed, Sir, a very alarming discovery; and I could almost wish, for the honor of the Society, it had never been made. However, though I love the Society much, I love truth more; and therefore, whatever sacrifice it may cost me, I trust it will always prevail.
But now, Sir, though I make no doubt you believe every thing you say, what ground have you for expecting that I should? If you tell me you have seen a ghost, and that he frightened you out of your wits, I may have the best reasons in the world for believing that you have seen a ghost; and yet I may doubt all the time whether there were a ghost to be seen. In like manner, though I dare say you are a devout believer in the threats of these incendiaries, the howlings of these wolves, and the voracious declarations of these cannibals; yet, I may after all have liberty to doubt, whether such stories are entitled to a moment’s regard. Travellers, you know, Sir, with the best intentions in the world, often play a trick upon us; and I think it very possible, that a Country Clergyman, with no worse intentions, may be led to do the same. When Bruce described the Abyssinian as cutting a steak from the rump of a living animal, and then driving him on as if nothing had happened, the world smiled at the easy credulity of the honest traveller, and did not believe one particle of the matter: I am inclined to think that the marvellous tales of the Country Clergyman will scarcely meet with a better fate.
But let me, Sir, expostulate with you for a moment. I know how unreasonable a passion fear is, and I think it is always worth while to take every honest method of getting rid of it.
As a Country Clergyman, I dare say, you are a pretty good horseman; and though I do not suspect you of appearing upon a race-course, or galloping after the hounds, yet I suppose you are no enemy to a pleasant ride. Now it must have happened to you, at least once in your life, as well as to inferior horsemen, to be in imminent danger of breaking your neck by the sudden and unaccountable starting of your horse. Irritable and overbearing men will, you know, under such circumstances, make a furious application of the whip and the spur to the back and sides of the terrified animal. The consequence is, that if he was afraid of the object at first, he will be “horribly afraid” of it ever after. You and I know a better way; and that is, to lead the animal up to the object which occasioned his alarm, and to give him an opportunity of forming a more correct judgment of it. I cannot help thinking, that if you had adopted some such steps, under your first impressions of alarm at the Subscribers to the Bible Society; if, without venturing yourself “into the company of men of whom you have hitherto been always horribly afraid,” you had yet ventured yourself near enough to them, to see whether they were likely men to blow you up in the air, or bury you in their stomachs; you would have been saved from the humiliating necessity of soliciting “the charity of the Noble President to pity your weakness and excuse your unconquerable fears.” [19]