$7,500 have been appropriated to assist in publishing Yates' excellent version of the Scriptures for the Hindoos, and in other languages in Central India. A recent communication from Bengal assures us, that any amount which we are able to bestow for that object, may be immediately employed in distributing the bread of life to perishing multitudes.

Rev. Amos Sutton, Baptist misssionary in Orissa, remarks: "I need not tell you how much the life-saving word is needed in this land of darkness and the shadow of death. I have just returned from the annual festival of Juggernaut, distant from Cuttuck about 50 miles, and though it was the thinnest attended of any similar festival I have seen, yet there were probably not less than 100,000 immortal beings prostrated before that bloody Moloch. But we had not a single Gospel to bestow upon them-nothing of the Scriptures but a few bound Testaments and a collection of passages from the whole Bible printed as a tract. I laboured hard to get an edition of Mathew printed off in time, but sickness and the loss of types prevented its accomplishment. I leave it with your Committee to determine, when looking over the waste places of the earth, whether Orissa does not demand their aid. We distribute a great many portions of Scripture in a variety of languages: these we can usually obtain from Calcutta: but Orissa is the language of the province."

A letter has been received from Rev. Mr. Yates of Calcutta, accompanying a beautiful copy of the Bengalee New Testament, 500 copies of which were printed for the American and Foreign Bible Society. He remarks: "You will find a wide field before you in this country, as we have no doubt, if life is spared, in the number and quality of versions of the New Testament, of being able to keep on an equality with the Bible Society, though they receive contributions from all denominations except ourselves. The extent of the copies of these versions printed must depend upon the amount contributed."

The aid of the A. and F. B. S. is also demanded in Africa, where 100,000,000 of our race are living without God and without hope in the world. In Greece, too, where our distinctive sentiments will be appreciated by every reader of a correct copy of

the Bible; God has in his providence opened a door for this society at Patras, which we believe will never be closed. Russia, with her 60,000,000, who acknowledge no baptism but immersion, is also a field which demands the culture of the A. and F. B. S.-From Norway, Sweden, Denmark; and Germany, also, have we been cheered by tidings of the spreading light of truth. A few extracts from the letters of brother Oncken, who resides in Hamburg, will show not only what has been done and suffered during the past year, but the imperious necessity for future and greater exertions.

GERMANY AN APPROPRIATE FIELD FOR BAPTISTS.

In August, 1837, brother Oncken writes: "I meet with much opposition, but I hope God is about to effect something good and glorious for this country. We need not fear as long as we keep close to the word of God, and pray for the life-giving spirit in our own souls. You will rejoice to hear that in May last, a Baptist church was formed in Berlin." At another time, he writes: "I beg you will present my warmest thanks to the Board of the A. and F. B. S. for their first donation of $500 to the cause of pure scripture circulation in this country. I have distributed during the last 8 years upwards of 22,000 New Testaments. These are particularly acceptable to soldiers and travelling journeymen, (Handwerksburshen,) but I want Bibles for families and schools.

There is such lamentable ignorance in this country, as to what is and what is not the word of God, that the Apocryphal books are read with the same authority as the books of Holy Writ. There are parts of Germany where, out of 400 preachers, not 20 can be said to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have travelled much in this country, but have not met with more than 10 or 12 families who were in the habit of reading the Scriptures at family worship. Tears gush from my eyes while I write it: the great bulk of the people are totally ignorant of the way of salvation. I converse with people in the city and in the country, on the high ways and in the fields; and when I put the simple question: which is the way of salvation? or: how do you expect to be saved? The answer is: I do not know. This a man told me in the

garden in which I am now writing these lines. Others tell me, "When I die—If I behave myself well”—“I have a good heart," &c. But not in one instance out of a hundred is the answer given through faith in the Son of God. O my brethren, can we let them perish for want of the Bible-God forbid! It is true there is not so much novelty in giving a Bible to a heathen in Germany, as in India or Burmah. But shall novelty be the moving spring of Christian zeal and benevolence? The soul of a sinner in Germany is of equal worth with the soul of a sinner in China. Besides, we have

easy access to my countrymen; the churches of our denomination at Oldenburgh, Hamburg and Berlin, and also many other dear brethren are ready to assist us. Let us therefore be up and doing, no time is to be lost-the present opportunity is favourable-how long it may last, none can tell.

In closing, I cannot but express my joy at the happy termination of the meeting in Philadelphia in the formation of the A. and F. B. S. I am no prophet, neither the son of a prophet, but this is my firm conviction, that if our ministers and people in America are prayerful, unanimous in the principle upon which the Society has been formed, and depend on the Lord in this work, it will prove to be one of the most glorious events as connected with the spread of the Gospel and the ultimate unity of believers that will be found in the history of the church."

In September last, brother Oncken again writes: "Praise waiteth for God in Zion! We have had a glorious daylong to be remembered; nine new members were received. The Lord is doing great things for us, whereof we are glad." At another time he says, "Our dear brethren will probably meet with much opposition; a storm seems gathering about our little bark. But Jesus lives to save, and I will not fear what man can do unto me. The baptism of some recent converts has made a great stir here. Complaints have been made to the senior of the Lutheran ministry, and he has called upon the magistrate at the head of the police, and requested him to put a stop to our meetings. But, thus far the thing has only tended to the furtherance of the Gospel. Our meetings are now more numerously attended than

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before, and six new converts have decided to join the church."

If by the blessing of God upon the labours of our beloved brother, an appetite for the bread of life has been created, shall we refuse to supply their wants? If in that interesting land, Providence has opened for us a door of great usefulness, shall we neglect to enter it? With a population of 40,000,000, and Bibles in which the word baptizo and its cognates, are correctly translated, Germany as the centre of moral and literary influence to nearly the whole of Europe, presents a field for the labours of the A. and F. B. S. unsurpassed in any other part of the world.

HOME DISTRIBUTION.

Destitute as is the condition of many foreign nations, no one acquainted with facts, can doubt that our own beloved country is a field which this Society may cultivate with the prospect of an abundant harvest. Within the regions bounded by the Alleghany mountains and the Mississippi, the northern lakes and the gulf of Mexico, there exists a moral desolation, oppressive to the heart of every Christian.

What must be the state of our country when, in about 30 years, the present population shall have increased to not less than 30,000,000, if greater exertions than hitherto employed, are not made to give them the Bible? Probably not more than two-thirds of the population of the United States possess an entire copy of the Sacred Scriptures, while thousands of unenlightened emigrants are annually brought to our shores, the majority of whom must live and die ignorant of the way of salvation unless the friends of the Bible come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty.

Independent of the claims of the "far west," multitudes inhabiting the Atlantic states are yet under the dominion of sin. If therefore, we wish to secure the future prosperity of our existing religious and civil institutions, energetic measures should be immediately adopted, ere infidelity shall have rolled its waves over the length and breadth of our land.

The present is emphatically an age of free inquiry. The

humble cottager as well as the most opulent merchant looks to the press as a means of instruction and amusement. In no other nation is such power and responsibility placed in the hands of individuals. Here every man is one of the rulers of a mighty nation, and no p wer on earth can place a limit to his legitimate influence upon the destiny of this free and favoured country. If ignorant of the Bible, like a Bohon Upas planted in the garden of liberty, he will shed a withering influence over all around him. Thanks be to God, the catastrophe so much dreaded by many of the most enlightened may yet be averted, and the A. and F. B. S. is called upon by the providence of God to bear its part in this momentous work. Aided by the noble enterprise of the New England Baptist Sabbath School Union, and similar institutions about to be formed in other sections of the country, we may have access to every Baptist Sabbath School in the United States, and annually place thousands of New Testaments in the hands of our own dear children, and the youth committed to our charge.

It is an important consideration, that in the southern and western states, which will, probably within a few years give laws to the whole nation, we have greater facilities for circulating the Bible than all other denominations, because, there, Baptists are decidedly the majority. If our Home Mission Society is under obligations to traverse those destitute parts of our land and preach to them the gospel, is it not our appropriate work, to supply them with the Bible? Can it be the duty of American Baptists to send the Scriptures to foreign nations, and remain unmoved by compassion for their own countrymen. Shall we permit tens of thousands, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, to perish at our doors for want of the bread of life? Besides, suppose the American Bible Society should be restricted to the foreign field-how long would that institution enjoy the patronage of the American public? No objection has been heard against their publishing the English Bible, why then should an interdict be laid upon the A. and F.B. S.? Surely it cannot be because Baptists have more confidence in the managers of a pedobaptist institution than in the integrity of their own brethren,