most depressing description, he was always at his post, ready with his pen, or with the still more effective instrumentality of his living voice, to forward the interests of pure and undefiled religion. In a state of health, which, to most men, would have furnished an irresistible plea for seclusion from the excitement of public business, he paid a visit to London; where, if he did little to place the ground of controversy between the two societies of London and Edinburgh in its proper light, before the religious public of the metropolis, the failure is to be ascribed to some other cause than a deficiency of zeal, of exertion, or of eloquence on his part. Inconsiderable as was his success in the metropolis, he had at least the satisfaction of doing all that was in his power, to bring the cause of the integrity of divine truth to an issue, in that quarter where it was most desirable that the question should be fairly heard and tried.

It is but justice, however, to the opponents of the cause in which Dr. Thomson was embarked, to say, that while his labors, and those of his associates in the cause of pure Bible circulation, failed of the grand object in view, they were not altogether destitute of success. While it is difficult to account for the conduct of the abettors of conjoint Bible and Apocryphal circulation, on any principle that will entirely save them from an imputation, unfavorable to the soundness of their moral perceptions, it is not to be forgotten, that the best of men are not exempt from serious frailties; that in some minds there seems to be a sort of natural deficiency of moral tact, which nothing can entirely supply; and that in others, a deficiency of the same

sort is liable to be induced, by habits of deference to authority, or of judging of the morality of actions by a reference to their consequences. On principles such as these, we are to account for the conduct of many of the official personages intrusted with the management of the funds and operations of the British and Foreign Bible Society; and to explain their blindness to the serious error in point of principle, and the no less serious mischief in point of consequences, involved in their departure from the primary law of the institution; and the pertinacity with which they still seem willing to adhere to their mistaken policy, in spite of the warnings and remonstrances which have been addressed to them. It cannot be doubted that, in the hearts of many even of those who seem resolute in error, the love of the Bible is really seated; and to this cause we are willing to ascribe the disposition, tardy and reluctant as it was, to compromise the question at issue between them and their antagonists in the north. And, though in such a case as that in which the honor and integrity of the divine word are involved, anything short of a return to the principle, of giving no countenance, direct or indirect, to a corruption of the sacred volume, must be regarded as less than the obligations of duty demand, still we are not to overlook any approximation to the principle, nor be unwilling to recognize in it the presage of better things in time to come, when the heats of excited feeling are allayed, and the lights of experience are brought to bear on a subject darkened by the contentions of rival opinions. To such an issue, despite of many discouraging appearances, we doubt not, things are rapidly tending. It were to despair of the

triumph of truth and righteousness, to imagine that the controversy between the London and Edinburgh Societies could always remain as it is. Time alone is required to inform the public mind of the nature and importance of the objects at stake, in order to work a change on the feeling of the people of England with regard to it. We have but to look a little way into the future to see the clouds that at present hang over the part taken by the several combatants cleared away; the cause of divine truth vindicated; the asperities produced in the course of the discussion forgiven and forgotten; and some of the very men who have been most wedded to false principles, and a mistaken policy, hastening to repair their error, by doing justice to the characters of those by whom that error was first pointed out, and by returning to the broad highway of "simplicity and godly sincerity," from which it had been happy they had never departed. Till this desirable consummation arrive, the friends of the purity of the divine record must pursue their path alone, satisfied that while they keep the honor of the God of truth in view, they are following a pillar of fire and cloud, which cannot mislead, and will not forsake them.*

*

*Since these lines were written, the British and Foreign Bible Society has held its annual meeting for 1831. And, however little the proceedings of that meeting may be calculated to encourage hopes founded on the good sense, or Christian feeling of the directors, they open a gratifying prospect in another quarter. A reaction in the public mind can scarcely fail to be the consequence of such glaring indiscretion, and such culpable indifference to all that is distinctive in Christian principle and Christian character, as are displayed by the resolutions finally agreed to at the meeting. Already, unequivocal symptoms of this reaction have begun to appear; in proof of which we need only refer to the proceedings of the last annual meeting of the London Naval and Military Bible Society, at which the resolution, negatived only the week before at the British and Foreign Bible Society,

The manner in which Dr. Thomson managed his share in this controversy must not be passed in silence. It was with all his heart and soul that he entered into the controversy: he brought all his powers to aid him in doing justice to it; and for a time at least, his whole mind and time were absorbed in it. In the object contended for, he beheld a principle at stake, which, as a Christian, a protestant, and a minister, he was bound to vindicate and maintain. It was not merely whether certain funds had been wisely or imprudently applied; whether certain individuals, to whom the public had been taught to look up with confidence, had been faithful to their trust; whether a less degree of good had been done, than the world, who heard of the operations of the society, had been led to imagine. Important as these considerations were, they were not the questions which especially struck his mind, in the discoveries which accident had made, of the proceedings of the directors and agents of the British and Foreign Bible Society. In the conduct of the society, as represented by these individuals, he beheld the grand leading principles of morality and religion placed in jeopardy. He saw the marked line of separation, which the Divine Being has drawn between his word and the imaginations of his fallible creatures, trodden down, and, so far as the operations of the society on the continent were concerned, in danger of being obliterated: He saw the

was carried by an overpowering majority. Will such a fact as this have no weight with the directors of the last mentioned Society; or, unwarned and untaught, will they pursue their headlong career, till, deserted by all the genuine friends of the Bible, and of the religion of the Bible, they find themselves alone, in melancholy fellowship with Arians, Socinians, and Freethinkers, the dregs and the refuse of nominal Christianity?

broad seal of heaven wrested from the page on which it had been impressed by the finger of God, and placed unscrupulously, and without discrimination, on lying legends and on "the true sayings of God." In all this, he beheld an object fitted to awaken all the energy of a mind trained to tremble at the Divine Word, to rouse into indignant and irrepressible feeling all the sensibilities of a soul that was "very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts."

It is easy for those whom providence has destined to dull mediocrity, by the constitutional slowness of their apprehensions, or the coldness of their feelings, to perceive, in the ardor with which Dr. Thomson prosecuted his task of exposing and rebuking what he regarded as criminal delinquency, something to censure: easy too, for those who have never mingled in the strife of earnest contending for the faith once delivered to the saints," but have satisfied themselves with looking on, from the seclusion of their study, at the shock of arms, and the alternations of the battle, to be wise and charitable at the expense of the combatants: easier still for those, who have no sympathy in the object contended for, to reprobate the zeal with which the struggle for it is maintained. But, if we would form a correct estimate of the conduct of Dr. Thomson, in relation to the British and Foreign Bible Society, we must at once possess something of his character, and find ourselves placed nearly in his circumstances. The very features of his character as a controversialist, which may seem most to require softening, were connected with qualities for which his memory deserves most to be honored. If he assumed a decided attitude, and made use of strong