for a while, but in due season we hope to see the work with references and authorities for the several statements.' We should offer remarks on some important topics but that our author says, 'A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of the question; and this cannot possibly be here done.' Meanwhile Mr. Darwin anticipates small favour from many of the older and more eminent naturalists; his hopes chiefly rest on the young, and, as he would say, the unshackled. A few naturalists,' he observes, 'endowed with much flexibility of mind, who have already begun to doubt on the immutability of species, may be influenced by this volume; but I look with confidence to the future, to young and rising naturalists who will be able to view both sides of the question with impartiality.'"

Bible Society.

An account of the history of the founding The British and progress of the British and Foreign and Foreign Bible Society is also given on the 19th of November in a review of 'The History of the British and Foreign Bible Society,' by the Rev. George Browne. The Athenæum says: "At the close of the last century Wales was in a frightful state of ignorance and spiritual destitution. Frequently not more than ten people who could read were to be found in

a whole parish; and the only Bible to be met with in a district was one subscribed for by a number of families, which went from hand to hand among the hill people, and remained at each house for a fixed term, when it was read aloud on certain evenings by the fortunate few who could decipher it. Mrs. Beavan Mrs. Beavan's legacy. had left ten thousand pounds for the establishment and maintenance of 'circulating schools'; but since 1783 the legacy had been allowed to fall into abeyance, owing to legal difficulties, and there seemed no chance for the Welsh peasant on this side. The Christian Knowledge The Christian Knowledge Society, too, founded in 1698, certainly did what Society. it could, and distributed a few Bibles here and there among the people; still the spiritual and moral darkness was very great, and called for immediate aid. Deeply impressed by the urgent

Thomas

Charles.

nature of their great needs, the Rev. Thomas The Rev. Charles, 'the Apostolic Charles of Bala,' as he was called, a man thoroughly imbued with the missionary and Wesleyan spirit, bethought him of establishing a Bible Society, similar in principle to the Religious Tract Society already working; and, after taking counsel with certain practical men, the scheme was adopted, and on the 7th of March, 1804, the British and Foreign Bible Society was definitely founded. On that day it held its first meeting at the London Tavern,

Bishopsgate Street, when 300 persons attended, and 700l. were subscribed.

"The Bible Society has not had many troubles to encounter, but once it came near to shipwreck and dissolution on a question of orthodoxy and The the Apocrypha. The Apocryphal books have Apocrypha controversy. always been much venerated by the Romish Church, which, at the Council of Trent, declared them 'sacred and canonical,' and 'to be received and reverenced with the same sentiments of piety and respect' as the other Scriptures. Our own orthodox Episcopalian Church also received and venerated these books; but the Scotch Kirk, and almost all denominations of Dissenters, have set their faces dead against them. We ourselves heard a leading dissenting preacher of the day, not long ago, stigmatize them in his sermon as 'damnable.' When the Bible Society was formed, it omitted the Apocrypha from its issues: as Mr. Browne says emphatically, and in italics, 'No edition of the English Scriptures, adopted and issued by the Bible Society, has ever contained the Apocrypha. This omission did no harm at home, but when the attention of the Protestants abroad was called to the fact, a storm arose which had well-nigh ruined all. At first the Society allowed the foreign communities to judge for themselves, and to have their Bibles with the Apocryphal books inter

mingled with the rest, as in the Roman Catholic version; or relegated to a separate division, as in the Lutheran; but afterwards they limited their grants to the exclusive circulation of Bibles without the Apocrypha......

copies issued.

"Since its commencement in 1804, the Bible Society has issued 27,938,631 copies of the Number of Scriptures, either as Old or New Testaments, whole or in parts......It has expended over four millions of money, rising from 6917. 10s. 2d. in the first year to 119,257/. 15s. Id. in the fiftieth. Such a society as this must needs be recognized as a great fact and a great power-an instance of English energy and Protestant zeal, of which we may well be proud, and from which we may hope much good."

On the 3rd of May, 1854, the fiftieth annual meeting was held at Exeter Hall, the Earl of Shaftesbury in the chair, when it was announced that the total nett receipts for the year had been 222,6597. 5s. 10d., which included the Jubilee Fund of 66,5071. 7s. 9d., and the Chinese New Testament Fund of 30,4857. 195. 3d.

The Eighty-second Annual Report, ending March 31st, 1886, is a volume of nearly six hundred pages, containing sixteen maps, and giving a very detailed account of the work of the Society in all parts of the globe. It states that the amount received for the year was

Jubilee

meeting.

238,3917. 18s. 6d., while 4,123,904 copies of the Scriptures were issued, these being printed in 277 different languages or dialects. The total number of copies issued by the Society since its foundation amounts to 108,320,869,* the sum expended being 10,083,5517. 5s. Id. There have The Society's been only four Presidents. The first Lord Teignmouth was President for thirty years; Nicholas Vansittart, Lord Bexley, for seventeen years, followed by Lord Shaftesbury for thirty-four years, from 1851 to 1885 inclusive, when the Earl of Harrowby accepted the vacant chair.

Presidents.

the Bible.

Prof. Robertson Smith, in his article on Bible Societies which appears in the third volume of the ninth edition of the 'Encyclopædia Britannica,' states: "It is believed that there are altogether about 70 Bible societies in the world...... Right to print The monopoly of the right to print the Bible in England is still possessed by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and her Majesty's printer for England......In Scotland, on the expiry of the monopoly in 1839, Parliament refused to renew the patent, and appointed a Bible Board for Scotland, with power to grant licences to print the Authorized Version of the Scriptures."

*The issue of kindred societies during the same period amounts to 74,256,299 copies.