a governor for life. Such governors will be entitled to attend and vote at all meetings of the committee. Donations and subscriptions were immediately raised, to the amount of 1301. "Farther subscriptions and donations will be received by the Treasurer, Joseph Fry, Esq. Mildred's Court; and by the Secretaries, Mr. Thomas Smith, 19, Little Moorfields; Mr. Richard Blakey, 28, Addle Street; and Mr. Samuel Dennis, 8, Aske Terrace, Hoxton. Persons of both sexes inclined to favour the Society with their personal assistance as teachers, are requested to make known their wish to either of the Secretaries." MARINE BIBLE ASSOCIATIONS. In a note in a preceding page, we have adverted to the subject of Marine Bible Associations. A paper has recently been circulated on the subject, to which we entreat the public attention, and particularly of all persons connected with ships, whether national or commercial. “The owners and commanders of vessels," it is stated, "must be aware of the great advantages derived from a sober and orderly crew; for they know by observation and lament able experience, that numerous ships have been wrecked, many valuable lives Jost, and a ruinous waste of property pecasioned, in consequence of the in attention, drunkenness, or disobedience of sailors. It cannot, therefore, be doubted, that any measure, which has a tendency to promote sobriety and good order, and to improve the morals of seamen, will meet with the warm ap. probation of the proprietors and masters of-ships, and obtain their immediate and hearty support. And such, it is confidently expected, will be the effects produced by the formation of Marine Bible Associations, by means of which the sailors may procure the holy Scriptures on the easiest terms, not only for themselves and families, but even for disposal in foreign countries. Deriving inestimable advantage from this inva luable book, they may become the instruments of conveying it to millions of their fellow-creatures, and thus greatly promote the glorious Christian object of the British and Foreign Bible Society, to extend the knowledge of the Gospel of peace and salvation to all the nations of the earth. "For eleven years the inhabitants of the British isles have manifested their zeal and liberality by assisting in this great cause. The receipts of the British and Foreign Bible Society, during the last year, amounted to nearly one hundred thousand pounds: it is surely, then, full time that an opportunity be afforded for the well-known generosity of British sailors to manifest itself, in aid of this noble undertaking. And if the pure and simple object be explained to them, it would be unjust to suppose either that their characteristic zeal, liberality, and activity, will be unemployed in forwarding this benevolent design, or that they will not equal, in every respect, the hitherto unexampled exertions of their brethren on shore. The plan has been already adopted, not only on board king's ships, but merchant vessels; and the effects on the morals and behaviour of the men have been such, as to encourage every true friend to his country, and to man. kind, to assist in the general establishment of similar Associations. "To accomplish this object, it is proposed that the captain or master of any ship should, by his example and recommendation, encourage his crew to subscribe, either monthly or weekly, at the rate of one penny a week, or upwards, from each person; and the captain or master may be authorized by the subscribers, to stop it out of their wages, if more agreeable to them. The whole amount received to be expended, from time to time, in the purchase, at prime cost, of such descriptions of Bibles and Testaments as the subscribers shall require and direct: and as Bible Societies are formed at all the principal ports in Great Britain and Ireland application may be easily made to any of their secretaries for the requisite supply of the holy Scriptures at prime cost; specifying that the application comes from a Marine Bible Association, and stating the name of the ship and her commander: any number of Bibles and Testaments may thus be obtained, not only for the supply of the crew, but in different languages, for sale in foreign lands.” To facilitate the establishment of these Associations, hints for their regulation are subjoined, together, with an Address to Mariners, the price and specimens of different editions of the Scriptures, and the proper forms for keeping the accounts of the Association; but for these we must refer to the paper CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY, The Rev. Missionaries, Norton,Green wood, and Schroeter, sailed for India In the Chapman, on the 27th of May. The Rev. Missionary Schulze, and his wife, sailed for Sierra Leone in the Kirkman, on the 224 June. Recent accounts from Africa announce the death of Mrs. Hartwig, and Mrs. Butscher, who were assiduously employ ed in the religious education of the fes male youth of that country. Their loss, it is feared, will prove irreparable. The Rev. Daniel Corrie has arrived from India, and brought fresh and encouraging accounts of the progress of Divine Truth at Agra, and its vicinity. He gives the following account of Ab dool Messee's method of promoting Christianity. Abdool's method is, to read and ex plain the Books of Moses, and the Gospels. Where the customs of the natives appear to have been taken from the Bible, he points it out to them. He never enters into the histories of their supposed prophets or gods; but he asks them, if they can shew him any whose life and doctrine can be compared with that of Jesus, and points out the character of a true Saviour. Their own consciences usually make the application; and he has often been asked, What, then, do you say our prophets or gods are liars? His usual answer is, Do you yourselves judge. I tell you plainly, that I have ceased to honour them; and I know there is no salvation but, in Jesus.' He takes usually whole chapter to explain, rather than a single verse, and reads the chapters as lessons between the prayers.” We shall hereafter give an abstract of his journals, and some account of the progress of schools in India. VIEW OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS. TRANCE. THE general regards of mankind are still necessarily fixed on Paris. There are assembled, either in person or by their ministers, the confederated poten. tates of Europe; and while their armies, traverse the plains of France, garrison' her cities, and gnard her throne, they are doubtless occupied in devising the means of securing the future repose and happiness of the civilized world. What progress has been made in this work, is as yet concealed from the public: there are, however, some unambiguous indications that its accomplishment is impeded by considerable difficulties. Buch difficulties, indeed, were to be expected from the' peculiar character of the French Nation, and from the singu Jarly anomalous relations which subsist between its sovereign and the allied powers; and they have doubtless been enhanced by the want of a frank explanation on the part of the allies of their views and final purposes, and by the unavoidable distrust entertained respecting some of the individuals who form the present administration of France. It would have well become the allies to have made a distinct and manly declaration of their intentions, which would at once have put a period to all those doubts and fears which now agitate the population of that country. It would have well become the king in concert with those allies to have laid down clearly the principles of his future government; to have formed to himself a ministry on which he could rely as being attached to his person, and as possessing a community of interest with himself; to have boldly singled out the guilty leaders in the late Revolution for trial and punishment; to have dissolved the rebel army, and to have environed himself with troops of whose fidelity he was assured. Had this conduct been adopted with promptitude and decision in the first instance, and pursued with firmness; and had the allies, in thus concurring to punish the guilty, abstained at the same time from all violation of private property, and adhered rigorously to the terms of their Declaration, the public mind would sooner have been tranquillized. All would have known precisely what they had to expect, and there would have been less room for those agitations which necessarily re sult, among a people like the French, from the irregular exactions and disor derly conduct of a licentious soldlery, and still more from uncertainty as to their own future fate; and which are capable of producing a dreadful reäetion. The allies, however, bave made no distinct declaration of their purposes, or of the grounds and motives of their Conduct. The king has surrounded himself with mẽn who are known only as the confidential instruments of Bona parte in all his plans of foreign aggres sion and domestic demoralization, and Who can have no sympathies in common with him. So little, indeed, are they disposed to incur responsibility on his account, that even in tardily adopting the grand and necessary measure of the dissolution of the rebel army, instead of at once issuing a decree to that effect, founded on existing and palpable grounds of policy, they choose to found it upon a decree issued by the king from Ghent, in March last, and which probably was never heard of in Paris until now; thus throwing on him and his personal adherents the odium of this unpopular act, instead of boldly taking it on themselves. Their other measures of apparent vigour seem marked with the same character of tardiness and indecision. They do not seem to flow from the prompt and spontaneous counsels of the king's government; but to be imposed on them, after discussion, delay, and resistance, by the controul ing fiat of the allied powers. We are unwilling, however, to say more on this head, lest we should appear to be preSumptuously stepping beyond our pro vince, and to be dogmatizing in a case which is as yet but partially known. Most anxiously do we desire the peace and happiness of France; and most happy shall we be to find every gloomy presage we may have been disposed to draw from present appearances, falsified by the event. Quitting, therefore, our speculations, we shall confine ourselves almost entirely to the plain statement of facts which have occurred during the month. Of the persons denounced by the king's decree of the 24th July, Labedoyere is the only one who has yet been tried. His conduct appears to have been most flagitious. Having been ordered with his regiment (which he had received from the king) to Grenoble, to oppose Bonaparte's progress, he instigated the soldiers to revolt, in spite of the entreaties and remon« strances of his superior officer. He was the first who joined the rebel standard p and so hostile was he to the Bourbon canse, that when he found the Chamber of Deputies indisposed, after the battles of Waterloo, to support Bonaparte, ne eagerly insisted on a farther appeal to the sword, and proposed a declaration to this effect, that every Frenchman who should quit Bonaparte's colours should be covered with infamy, his house razed, his family proscribed. He was found guilty, and condemned to be shot; and the execution of his sentence took place on the 19th instant.—Mar shal Ney has been arrested, and, it is said, will be forthwith brought to trial, Marshal Brune was also arrested, but has fallen a victim to the ungoverned rage of the populace of Avignon. Some other distinguished actors in the late Revolu tion have been recently apprehended. Immediately on the surrender of Bonaparte, an order was issued by our Government to put an end to all naval hostilities on the coast of France, and to permit French vessels, bearing the white flag, to navigate freely. The two nations are therefore restored to the same commercial relations which subsisted between them prior to the 20th of March last. Bonaparte himself has been sent to spend the residue of his days in the island of St. Helena, accompanied by Generals Bertrand and Montholon, and their families, M. de las Cases, and General Gourgand, together with ning domestics, He previously entered his solemn protest against this measure, which he affects to regard as a breach of faith on the part of our Government. We only hope that the arrangements which have been made for his safe custody, may obviate every chance of his re-appearance on the European stage. The king of France has issued decree for the immediate organization of a new army, consisting of 86 legions of infantry, of three battalions each 46 regiments of cavalry, of different descriptions, and 12 regiments of artillery; besides a corps of engineers. Each legion will take the name of a department, to which will be attached such of the soldiers, now serving in the French armies, as are natives of that particular department. We need hardly remark how very incomplete the mea sure of dissolving the old army is thus rendered; a measure which seems indispensable to the peace of Europe, and the stability of the Bourbon throne. The mere transfer of the officers and soldiers to other corps, will not change their spirit. On the contrary, they will thus form the elements of a new army, into which their feelings will, almost necessarily be infused, and which we should fear will prove as essentially Bonapartist as the old. The French Government has prohibited for the present the export of all grain, and provisions of every kind. On the king's return to France, the press was declared to be relieved from all the restrictions which the law of last year had imposed upon it. It was soon found, however, that the public peace required some important modifications of this hberal policy. A decree has accordingly GREAT The Prince Regent has issued an order for increasing, in favour of the army which gained the battle of Waterloo, the pensions appointed for the loss of limbs. Besides which, all who shared in the glory of that day, whether officers or men, are to be allowed on that account to reckon two years of service in all that regards the pay or pensions of their ranks. This is a liberality which will meet with the universal concurrence of the nation.--We are happy to observe that the Waterloo subscription amounts to upwards of 200,0007. The Government of the island of Ceylon, driven to the necessity of waging was on the King of Caudy, has suc appeared, which subjects the public journals to an examination by commissioners appointed by the king. The reason of this decree is stated by Fouche to be, that, in the existing state of France and Europe, in the midst of so much agitation, which it is the object of the governments to calm, it would be unsafe that those periodical works, which circulate so rapidly, and have so many millions of readers, should be al lowed without restraint to excite and nourish the passions of the people. "Experience leaves no doubt respect. ing the evils they are calculated to produce, and the danger of leaving them absolutely free: every day they commit us with foreign nations, awak, en distrust, and defeat the efforts of his majesty to unite all minds, and to heal the wounds of the nation." BRITAIN. · ceeded, with scarcely any loss, in getting possession of his person and territories. The whole of that island is now, therefore, subjected to the dominion of the British Crown, The British Government in Bengal has likewise been involved in hostilities with the kingdom of Nepaul. Military operations were proceeding on a great scale with the view of bringing the war to an early termination; but the resistance on the part of the Nepaulese appears to have been more vigorous than was expected. No decisive ge neral action had taken place at the date of the last accounts from that quarter. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. T.; J. J. HOLMES; J. B. L.; T. M.; P. C. F.; THEOGNIS; DIACONUS; CLERICUS OCCIDENTALIS; N. L.; J. N. C.; G. K.; are under consideration. We beg to thank A. H. Z. for his communication. To EDWARD we would briefly say, "We must obey God rather than man." J. S. has wasted his time very unnecessarily in labouring to disprove, what we never meant to assert, that Luther's reformation, speaking generally, arose from the profligacy of Henry VIII. The expression to which he objects was a quotation, with which we concluded that every intelligent reader would have been acquainted, and which referred merely to the extension of Luther's light to England. Surely it is not, as he affirms, a popish slander, that, in this sense, it sprung from Henry's lawless bcd. THE CHRISTIAN OBSERVER. No. 165.] septembeR, 1815. [No. 9. Vol. XIV. RELIGIOUS COMMUNICATIONS. LIFE OF BLAISE PASCAL. veral occasions, maintained the (Continued from p. 498.) reality of supernatural interpositions, as incontestable attestations of the superior purity of their sect, Treligion, in their endeavours or for the express purpose of con to establish the exclusive integrity and verity of their Church, insist strenuously upon the undoubted and almost uninterrupted continuance of miraculous powers among them, from the earliest ages of Christianity. As no other Christian church assumes the existence of a similar power amongst its members, the Roman Catholics adduce their testimonies, and contend for the reality of their preten sions, with an air of triumph and petulant superiority. There is, perhaps, no species of evidence of the Divine favour and presence with a society, or an individual, so obvious, intelligible, and in every way calculated to impress the mind and secure the attention of every class of mankind, as an exhibition of supernatural powers, or wellattested narratives of miraculous interpositions in their behalf; and as the particular evidence for Christianity derives most important support from the authenticity of its miracles, the partisans of Popery naturally avail themselves of this concession, and, assuming the undeniable credibility of their own histories, assert their right to the same deference which Christians yield to Divine Revelation. No specific claim to the gift of miracles has indeed been advanced by the Reformed Churches, in defence of their separation from the Roman hierarchy; yet it is to be regretted that various denominations of Protestants have, on seCHRIST. OBSERV. No, 165. ferring honour on some of their distinguished members. Hence, they have most unadvisedly concurred with the Church of Rome, in contending for the perpetuity of miraculous powers in the Christian churches; and, by opposing miracle to miracle, have furnished the enemies of religion with specious pretences for rejecting the records of Moses and the Prophets, the narratives of the Apostles and Evangelists. It is not here intended to insinuate, that all the relations of miraculous interpositions, since the first ages of Christianity, are fabulous, the fabrication of weak or designing men. Let the evidence by which many of them are attested, be allowed to be conclusive; yet it may be strongly doubted, whether the consequences insisted upon by their abettors can be unreservedly admitted. In perusing the histories of alleged supernatural interpositions, whether recorded by Popish or Protestant writers, it should likewise be considered that a man who declares nothing but what he believes to be true, may yet not be, a competent judge of what is and is not a miracle. The power of enthusiasm in perverting the judgment, and giving a colour to the circumstances, when any unusual event occurs, often misleads men into self-deception, and unintentional falsehood. Habits of thinking formed by early associations of ideas, exercise as forcible an influence over the judg 4 D |