of the Metropolis, places of meeting, the avowed purpose of which is hostility to Christianity.

It will be sufficient to state, without a minute description, that there are exhibited scenical representations of the most sacred subjects, in which are combined actions and expressions of the darkest blasphemy, and, at the same time, of the grossest buffoonery : these excite the passions and draw forth the applause of audiences, which continue to be numerous, and which, with deep regret it is added, are by no means drawn from the low. est class of society. The result of the Committee's observations on the present efforts of the Anti-Christian Party is this-that, while the printed Publications are so deficient in knowledge and reasoning as almost to supersede the necessity of refutation, the blasphemous orgies with which they are accompanied, so inconsistent with the public morals of a Christian Community, give to those efforts a contagious power which argument cannot of course countervail, because it is not the reasoning powers to which these open desecrations of Revealed Religion continue weekly to be addressed.

Revision and Increase of Publications.

The Society is endeavouring to render all its Publications still more conducive to their great object, and still more worthy of general circulation. None of its old Tracts are re-published without a careful revision; and the Committee are employed in filling up the places of those which are not thought worthy of being reprinted, with others more suitable to the present times.

The point to which their attention has been chiefly directed, during the present year, has been the improvement of the Society's books on Christian Education and Schools... Works are in progress, which, is is hoped, will, when completed, leave nothing materially deficient in this branch of its designs. Reward Books for Schools, and, afterward, some educational works of a higher class, will engage their attention.

Society on December 13th, His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Chair, when the following Resolutions were unanimously adopted :-

1. That this Special Meeting sincerely concurs in the deep feeling of sorrow for the death of Bishop Turner expressed at the last General Board.

2. That in the ten years which will have elapsed between the death of the first Bishop of Calcutta and the time of the earliest possible arrival of his Fourth Successor at Calcutta, the Church of India will have been deprived of Episcopal Superintendence during periods amounting, in the whole, to nearly six years.

3. That it is impossible not to anticipate a frequent recurrence of a like injurious deprivation, so long as the duties of that vast Diocese shall be imposed upon a single individual.

4. That the arguments urged by the Society in a Memorial formerly presented to His Majesty's Government, and to the Honourable Court of Directors of the East-India Company, have acquired great additional force from the recent loss which the Indian Diocese has sustained in the death of its Fourth Bishop, who sank under his labours at the close of his First Visitation.

5. That the Society, having been engaged for more than a century in promoting Christianity in the East, feels it to be its bounden duty again to represent, in the strongest manner, the necessity of making more effectual provision for the discharge of the Episcopal Functions; the advantages of which, while they have more than realized the Society's expectations, have been officially recognised and put on record by the Authorities in India.

6. That, in the opinion of the Society, this object can be secured only by the division of the Diocese of Calcutta, and by the appointment of Additional Bishops; an arrangement, which, if not immediately attainable, the Society earnestly hope will at least make a part of the approaching settlement of the affairs of India.

7. That a Letter be addressed by the Society to His Majesty's Government, enclosing a Copy of these Resolutions and of the above-mentioned Memorial; and that His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, President of the Society, be respectfully requested to present the same to the First Lord of the Treasury and the President of the East-India Board.

lution:

That the Committee deeply deplore the loss which the Church of Christ has sustained in the death of the late Right Rev. John Matthias, Lord Bishop of Calcutta, whose combination of high literary attainments with great devotedness to the service of his Heavenly Master eminently qualified him for the exalted and arduous station which he occupied; and that, while the Committee bow with submission to the will of Almighty God in this dispensation, they desire to record their grateful sense of the extensive benefits which the Society has derived, and which it may yet anticipate, from the judicious counsels of the late Bishop, at the Meetings of its Corresponding Committees in India-from his pastoral exhortations to the Missionaries, and that paternal and social intercourse with them which will long live in their affectionsand from the bright example of fidelity, zeal, and unwearied labour which he has bequeathed to those who survive.

Resolution and Memorial on the Increase

of Bishops for India.

The Memorial of the Committee of the Church
Missionary Society for Africa and the East,

HUMBLY SHEWETH

That your Memorialists have now, for nearly twenty-five years, been engaged in promoting the knowledge of the Christian Religion in India, by means of Missionaries, Catechists, and Schoolmasters.

That they have ever been anxious to conduct their proceedings in conformity with the Doctrines and Discipline of the United Church of England and Ireland.

That, before the last renewal of the Charter of the East-India Company, they requested the late Rev. Dr. Claudius Buchanan to urge on the Public and the Legislature the expediency and necessity of a general Colonial Establishment; in consequence of which, he publishedhis Work, entitled "Colonial Ecclesias-; tical Establishment," the first edition of which was printed and distributed, by means of your Memorialists, among the Members of both Houses of Parliament.

That your Memorialists regarded with gratitude and joy the provision made in the new Charter granted to the EastIndia Company for enabling the Crown to constitute a Bishopric in India.

That they have now established Mis

sionary Stations-in the Presidency of Bengal; in Calcutta, Culna, Burdwan, Buxar, Gorruckpore, Benares, Chunar, Allahabad, Agra, Meerut, Kurnaul, and Delhi in the Presidency of Madras; in Madras, Poonamallee, Pulicat, Mayaveram, Tinnevelly, Cottayam, Allepie, Cochin, and Tellicherry-in the Presidency of Bombay; in Bandora, near Bombay, and Basseen in the North Concan-in the Island of Ceylon; in Cotta, Kandy, Baddagame, and Nellore.

That, in these Stations, there are now twenty-eight Missionaries, who have received Episcopal Orders in the United Church, and who are labouring to bring

the Heathen to embrace the Christian Faith.

That there are under the charge of the Society's Missionaries and Catechists, within the Diocese of Calcutta, upward of 300 Schools, and nearly 12,000 Scholars. That the powers of the Bishop of Calcutta having been enlarged, on the appointment of Dr. Heber to the See, the Missionaries of the Society in English Orders were licensed by him, received under his Episcopal Jurisdiction, and summoned to the Visitation of his Clergy; which course was also pursued by Bishop James and Bishop Turner.

That, in consequence of the establishment of Episcopacy in India, the Converts connected with the Society have enjoyed the advantage of the rite of Confirmation, and its Churches have been consecrated; while very great and valuable benefits have resulted from the visits made by the Bishops to the Stations of the Society; their paternal counsels and exhortations, and their judicious instruction, eminently tending to promote the objects of your Memorialists, and to strengthen and confirm the Missionaries in their arduous labours.

That there is reason to believe that Bishops Middleton, Heber, and Turner, oppressed by the overwhelming duties of their responsible situation, successively sacrificed their lives in the performance of duties which they were anxious conscientiously to discharge*: and not only have the lives of valuable individuals been thus sacrificed, but many, and serious inconveniences have arisen from the successive and protracted vacancies in the See, which have been the unavoidable consequence.

That your Memorialists, persuaded that it is impracticable for any one Bishop duly to superintend so vast a charge, and deeply sensible of the great advantages which their own Missionaries bear testimony to having received from the personal visits of the lamented Bishops Heber and Turner, humbly and earnestly represent the urgent importance of appointing more than one Bishop to so immense a Diocese.

By Order of the Committee,
T. WOODROOFFE,
D. COATES,

(Signed)

Secretaries.

Church Missionary House, Salisbury Square,

December 12, 1831.

The Committee abstained from adding the name of Bishop James, it not being certain that his early death arose from the pressure of his Episcopal Duties.

RELIGIOUS-TRACT SOCIETY.

A Clergyman in Yorkshire supplies some excellent

Hints to Travellers.

A friend of mine, who travels annually, by stage coaches, about 6000 miles, takes with him Hand-bills and Tracts, in the distribution of which he is very zealous. To the coach-passengers, the coachmen, guards, stable-boys, waiters, chambermaids, and travellers, he hands Tracts: sometimes he is treated with kindness, and sometimes with rudeness; but he says, that whenever he is enabled to behave with mildness and to lift up his heart in prayer, he finds some good effect. In many instances, when he meets the same persons again, he has found that the Tracts had been useful to them.

In August last, I had to pass through and stay at Hull, Scarborough, and York, during the General Election. I filled a bag with 1000 Tracts. After I had been about half-an-hour on board the packet which conveys passengers from Selby to Hull, I went to a part of the vessel where some humbler passengers were, and distributed some Tracts: they received them thankfully. On returning among the more respectable people, they

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one and all" begged Tracts: I gave one to each. They read them, and exchanged the different sorts with one another; and thus we sailed for miles, READING TRACTS. The greater part of them requested most earnestly as many Tracts as I could spare, to take home with them; so that I got my 1000 Tracts disposed of. I never heard an oath or an improper expression all the time-so completely had the Tracts awed the whole company. I had most interesting conversations of a religious nature, with many of them. At Hull I was obliged to fill my bag a second time; and, in my journey to Scarborough and York, many thought that my Tracts were ELECTIONEERING PAPERS; so I had customers enough for them. At York, I filled my bag a third time, and had it emptied again before I returned home. A man, the other day, stopped me in the street, to thank me for a Tract which I had given him at York. I told him to thank God. He said, "That I daily do: the Tract has saved my soul." It was "The Two Ends and Two Ways."

Great Efficacy of the" Swearer's Prayer.” A Correspondent writes

Being a short time ago thrown, by circumstances over which I had no controul, into profane company, grieved at the

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perpetual imprecations which were uttered, I resolved to hazard their more awful profanity by personal reproof. It immediately occurred to me that I had a few Tracts of the "Swearer's Prayer' in my possession, and that the perusal of them might be attended with far better effects than personal admonition: they were read over by the parties, in silence, and with apparent shame. A few days following, after again becoming involuntarily the dupe of his propensity, one of the company said, addressing himself to me, "I hope, Sir, you will forgive me for making use of oaths: I am unhappily so addicted to the practice, that I scarcely know when I do and when I do not utter them; and I should be sorry if I had thereby made you the least uncomfortable." "It is not my name, Sir," I replied, "that you blaspheme, but His who has solemnly declared that He will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain; and as the practice, to say nothing of its criminality, is highly ungentlemanly, I have been both surprised and grieved that my ears have been so often assailed with them in the society of persons of whom I had reason to anticipate better things: and the grief I feel is not so much on my own as on YOUR account. It is the decree of God, that no swearer, or liar, or Sabbath-breaker shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven."-" You have not heard ME swear, I think, Sir, since I have had the pleasure of your company, said a Young Gentleman by my side. "Indeed I have," I answered; "and, for various reasons, I have been more surprised and shocked at your imprecations than at any others which I have heard." He looked confused; and rejoined: "But you have not heard me make use of a profane expression for these few days past." "I am not aware that I have," said I. "No," was his reply, with emphasis, and with a tone of apparent great solemnity : that book which you gave me the other day has, I trust, for ever cured me of this abominable vice: it cut me to the heart." An opportunity being thus afforded me of pressing home on their attention the vast importance of eternal things, I did not fail to do so, I trust with a fidelity that will meet with the approval of the Judge of all. Evidences of external reformation I certainly beheld in FOUR of them; but as to REAL effects, of which these admonitions have been productive, that must be left to the disclosures of the eternal world, as it is probable that we

may never meet again in this. In reference to one of them, this must be the case he was in the last stage of consumption, when I was first introduced to him as a fellow-traveller, and scarcely called for a drop of water without an imprecation: in three weeks afterward he breathed away his immortal spirit into the hands of Him who gave it: he often, with eyes lifted up to Heaven, adored the Providence that brought us together; and the last words which I heard him distinctly utter were "I have no hope but in the atonement of the Saviour! God be merciful to me a sinner! Oh that I had before known the things that belonged to my peace! but I hope my poor soul will be safe. I trust to nothing but the precious blood of Christ."

Continued Self-denying Labours of the London Visitor.

The Agent employed in visiting the most degraded parts of the Metropolis makes reports of his proceedings, similar to those which we have quoted in former years. We subjoin a few extracts from the Appendix to the last Report.

Newington Butts - These parts are very numerously inhabited with some of the most vile characters. I met here with a Young Man who said my conversation gave him pain, as it reminded him of some of his past labours; as he had once been a Sunday-school Teacher, and an active Tract Distributor, but had been led to great declension, and was associated with a wretched herd of both sexes. listened attentively to my exhortation, which brought many of them around: some listened earnestly, and others scoffed: one wished to interrupt my conversation for some time, which he did in some degree; and at length they allured him away.

He

Whitechapel-These are very deplorable places, and are occupied by very vile characters: the houses are chiefly lodging-houses for travellers, such as hawkers of various descriptions, and many unhappy females, many Jews, many of the poorer Irish and sea-faring men, chimneysweepers and dustmen, crimps, and a herd of artful thieves: there are many artful youths, very rude and vile. It is a matter of thankfulness to be preserved from harm among such an infamous herd: some of them received the Tracts readily, and others rejected them with much reviling. I had some religious con

verse as I passed on, and gained some attention.

George-Yard &c., Whitechapel-This is a most infamous spot, and there is much wretchedness and woe: it is the principal resort for the chief banditti of thieves and harlots, and some of the poor Irish among them that are very vile; and there are some Jews: they received the Tracts very readily; but are continually moving from place to place in the vicinity of the metropolis, and frequently to the cells of Newgate and other prisons; but I do not think that they are so glaring in their profaneness on the Sabbath, but keep more within doors.

Whitechapel-Road-I distributed Tracts here on Sunday, where there were many persons assembled, and formed a kind of market for the sale of fish, birds, flowers, gingerbread, cakes, &c.; likewise in the gin-shops and public-houses in Brick-lane. I proceeded down Sun-, street, into Finsbury-market, Long-alley, Crown-street, and to Butcher-row, White chapel, where the shops were pretty well attended, and much marketing business done here; and Finsbury-market was greatly stocked with vegetables and fruit. The profanation of the Sabbath is very great here in these places, and the Tracts and Hand-bills which are designed to counteract it were received readily.

Poplar-Many of the public-houses in this place are pandemoniums of Hell, for there is nothing but infernal swearing and deplorable drunkenness, dreadful frays, and bruised eyes: the scenes in these places are often too shocking to be described.

Bethnal Green-I was led in providence to a man who had been an Infidel Writer, named J.B.; who was convinced of his folly, and had forsaken the practice of writing such vile Publications, and now highly values the Bible: he received me and my friend very affectionately. When we were shewn into his room, we found the Bible open before him; and he mentioned some of the Scriptures which were pleasant and profitable to his soul. He listened very attentively; and appeared to receive all that was said eagerly and with much gratitude, and very cheerfully united with us in prayer; and he expressed a wish to counteract those Publications which had done, and might do, great mischief in the world.

Bartholomew Fair—I went round to all the different inlets of the Fair re

peatedly, and to the various publichouses, and repeatedly through the Fair, each day; and gave Tracts to the buffoons and players of the different shows, and to the numerous spectators, and they were received willingly in general, with some few exceptions. I got surrounded, sometimes, with groupes of harlots: they were decent in their outward garments, but their conversation was most obscene and filthy: this bitter stream is flowing every way, and its deadly effects cor rupting and destroying the youths, which are very numerous at this Fair, as well as those of mature age. I begged they would be wise and consider their latter end, and ask themselves whether those ways would bring peace at the last; for they would soon appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ, to give an account to God of the things done in the body. I begged them to call upon the Name of Jesus Christ for repentance unto salvation; for without it they would fall into perdition, living and dying in the love and practice of their sins: after such faithful admonitions, they would be more culpable than the Heathens, in rejecting the counsel of God against their own souls; as many of the Heathens have not had these privileges, and, of course, could not be laid to their charge. I desired they would give earnest heed to these things. It checked their levity.

Fairlop Fair-The booth and stall keepers commenced their old practice of roviling; and seemed rather surprised that I should proceed among so much mire and opposition, as they considered my design was to put down and prevent the Fair. I came in contact with many Infidels; and one man made a snatch at my books, and was very abusive. I met the procession, which is a boat on wheels, drawn by six cream-coloured horses driven by three postillions, with upward of twenty persons on board: I gave them some of the Publications, particularly

Eight Reasons for not going to Fairs, "Turn or Die," "Beware of Thieves and Robbers ;" and they gave me a song in return, which they were giving away to the multitude: but some of them, after they had looked at my Publications, disembarked, and wanted to know what business I had there. I told them, to exhibit the opposite side of the case to theirs, which I considered it right to do; and, as they were diffusing destructive errors, it was proper that light and truth should be disseminated, to counteract it: and one of them acknowledged that mine