upon to employ their funds for this object, for the time at least that such facilities are afforded. With respect to Tracts the case is different, and orders upon the Tract Societies will be granted, in answer to such applications as the Committee shall approve. It is requested, that the amount of the grant required may be specified in the application.

SCRIPTURE READERS.

The Society does not appoint Scripture Readers, but it will assist Clergymen and others to engage individuals who may be duly qualified to fill the office, when they cannot be obtained from those Institutions, by whom they are professedly employed. A certificate of qualifications, agreeable to the subjoined form,* with a statement of the salary required, and whether any part of it can be supplied from local sources, must be forwarded to the Committee. On the production of this information, the applicant will be entitled, for one year (renewable if necessary), to the assistance granted by the Society.

MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATION.

Under this head is contained every species of Publication, in the form of Tracts, Letters, and Circulars, calculated to excite local interest on controversial subjects; but the Committee request that every application for such assistance may be accompanied by a description of the nature and objects of the Publication, and the particular circumstances which suggested it.

PUBLIC OR LOCAL DISCUSSION.

Assistance in the promotion of Meetings for Discussion, and the publication of their proceedings, will be confined to such cases as bear directly on the Controversy, and are distinct from those which have reference to the objects of particular Societies. Such Discussions must be confined to the points at issue between the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches.

* We, the undersigned, have carefully examined A. B. with respect to his fitness for the office of a Scripture Reader, and are of opinion that he possesses the peculiar qualifications of piety, discretion, and knowledge of controversy, which are necessary.—Signed by three Clergymen in the immediate neighbourhood, or by authority of a Reformation Committee.

ANNUAL REPORT.

YOUR Committee, in presenting the Twenty-second Annual Report of the operations of your Society, have reason, on the whole, to adopt the language of thankfulness and hope. In no preceding year have the labours of its Agents been more varied, more extensive, nor their results, all things considered, more satisfactory and encouraging. The Committee can never forget the sacred principle on which the Society was originally founded, "the promotion of the Religious Principles of the Reformation," apart from all secular politics, all worldly views and objects; and in all their operations, they have strictly adhered to the letter and spirit of that principle. They feel convinced that it is the true Christian principle, and they are thankful to be enabled to say, that every day's experience only gives additional proof of its truth and soundness, as well as of its expediency, for that which is true is alone expedient in the long run.

The object of your Society is not to make proselytes, but Christians: it is not to influence votes in party struggles, but to influence hearts, to enlighten dark souls, and guide their feet into the ways of peace. If a man will be a proselyte only, to such an one your Society holds out no worldly inducement. All that come are welcome-none that offer are rejected; and the more that come the more your Committee rejoices, because from whatever motive they do come, the more likely they are to get ultimate good under the bright sunshine of Protestant truth, than under the dark shade of Popish delusion. It is on this principle alone that your Society can hope for God's blessing, and, accordingly on this, your Committee have endeavoured faithfully to insist and persevere. Your Agents, adhering strictly to these principles, carry with them the sympathies of all classes of British

Christians, and, generally speaking, find a fair and open field before them, on the platform, and in the lecture-room. Their objects being purely religious, political discussions are out of place vital questions cannot be blinked by the subterfuge of exciting appeals to party feuds and antipathies. That favourite weapon being thus wrested from the hands of Romish advocates, Popery is obliged to stand on its own resources; and these weak props being soon pulled away, the champions of the Papacy are forced, after one or two trials, either to listen in silence to the life-giving truths of the Gospel, or to have recourse to the shameful alternative of leading a dogged and turbulent clamour. And even this latter expedient, your Committee are thankful to say, is every day becoming more and more rare. It is felt to be a confession of defeat and the evidence of a weak cause. It is found to be alien to British taste and feeling; it is not pleasant in the retrospect; few consciences can approve of it, and it is often followed by remorse or regret; and hence, no doubt, it not unfrequently happens that in localities where your deputation at first cannot get a hearing, at their next appearance are listened to with marked and serious attention, and that even by some who before were not the least conspicuous in the clamour. And your Committee can add, that the growing experience of your deputations is, that the discussion of religious dogmas is becoming popular even with Romanists, and that those who from early association or habit would shrink away from all personal contact with Protestant churches and chapels, will feel no scruple at all to appear at discussional meetings and lectures, and will listen with calm and dispassionate minds, and patient reflection, to the arguments and reasonings of those to whom no other motive can in justice be ascribed, than that of a sincere love of the truth, and a zeal for the good of souls. All this is very encouraging and promising. It is evidently the result of what has already been done by your Society; it is the natural and obvious effect of stirring and agitating the stagnant waters of ignorance and error: it is something

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more than " one sowing and another reaping," and is a loud call upon us to take heart, and proceed in the good cause, which our good and gracious Lord has so far accepted and prospered.

Now, before we proceed to the particular operations of the Society during the past year, your Committee would call attention for a moment to the general aspects of the mystery of iniquity, the system of the man of sin. At our last anniversary the most popular potentate in Christendom was Pius IX., the head and representative of Popery, now his name is execrated, and cast out as evil in his own capital, the centre of Romanism, and the so-called "holy city." His advent had been hailed as the most auspicious event for the Church of Rome that had ever occurred since the accession of St. Peter;" and it was said, as quoted in your last Report but one, "With such great and good Pope to guide the bark of St. Peter, we devoutly believe that a new and important era is about to commence in the history and progress of God's Church; and we trust that the reign of Pope Pius IX. will be rendered memorable by the return of increasing multitudes of our separated brethren to the holy ark-to the one fold of the one Shepherd.” Now that hope is vanished, and the language of the popular organs of Italy is utterly the reverse, and that not against the man but against the Pope-not against John Maria Mastai Ferretti, but against the Papacy itself. A trustworthy and Christian witness thus writes:- "It is the Papacy itself that is now dethroned and cast out as evil and intolerable; and it seems quite impossible that it can ever be restored except at the point of foreign bayonets. No one seems to wish the Pope back as a temporal prince, and his spiritual power has received a shock from which it can never recover."-" Publish a vehement declamation against the Pope or an Archbishop, &c. and it is eagerly bought up and read." The Pope "is assailed in handbills, and pamphlets and newspapers, in a style and phrase in which few Protestants would indulge." "He is burlesqued and caricatured in prints in the style of the Charavari. His

threatened excommunications are met by counterexcommunications, and Italy is making herself merry with the woes of him whose praises she hymned but a year ago, as an angel of God, and as the founder of a better Rome." "The Bible is now an open book. The Bible is read, and the priests have scarce the power to prevent it." The Bible is appealed to, and "the popular version is not that of (the Popish) Martini, but that of the Protestant Diodati." The journalists now quote the Bible boldly, and appeal to the originals against Romish versions and the comments of the priests, and say, Read the Bible, and see how it has been misused to uphold a system of priestcraft." So speaks an eye-witness, who adds the strange but delightful marvel that he himself had the privilege of being present at the formation of an ITALIAN BIBLE SOCIETY at Florence. Is not all this very hopeful and very encouraging. It may be said that much of this is political only and infidel. Be it so that is but natural at the first outbreak, and first discovery of the delusion and priestcraft by which they have been so long blinded. Yet it is not all so, as the last fact evidently proves : and suppose it were all so, still they have the remedy; the Bible is read, and who would not have even politicians and infidels to read the Bible? For what says the Apostle? "What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice, yea and will rejoice." The following is still more hopeful: it is an extract from an article in one of the most popular journals of Italy, afterwards re-echoed in the Patria of Rome. "Weep, O Pontiff, while your fearful and timid spirit shelters itself under the splendid mantle of religiona religion which it was in your power to restore to its primitive purity; but you have preferred following the track of your predecessors, and like them to contribute your share of shame and ruin to its sacred

cause. ... •

Weep, O Pontiff, THOU LIVING AND CROWNED ANTICHRIST. In vain you pray to all your saints that Rome may be quiet. Have you not in