95,127 dollars which is nearly 10,000 dollars more than those of the year previous, but less by about one-third than the demands of the institution.

Bibles and Testaments issued. The number of books issued is 134,937, making an aggregate since the formation of the society of 2,488,235 dollars. The issues of the past year, including books imported, were in seventeen different languages.

Local Depositories.—Books have been left with the society at Buffalo, at Detroit, Chicago, Alton, Louisville, and a few other places, These books are to be safely kept without charge for storage, and to be delivered only for cash, or on order of the Parent Society or one of its agents.

Books imported.-Ŏwing to the great number of foreign resi dents, Bibles are often called for which the society does not publish. Such are consequently ordered from abroad. They have been imported the past year in Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Danish, Welsh, Swedish, Arabic, and Syriac.

These statements are followed by a brief sketch of domestic operations, by which we learn what has been done throughout the different States. The prospect of a more widely extended distribution of the Bible is encouraging.

Agents. Fewer agents than usual have been employed in the country the past year. Only five have been employed the whole time, and the remainder a part of the time.

The foreign agent, Rev. S. H. Calhoun, still makes Smyrna his bome. In the course of the year, he had made two excursions into the interior of Asia Minor among the ruins of the Apocalyptic Churches, has visited the Isle of Patmos, also Constantinople and Greece. He has become deeply interested in his work, and is putting very many copies of the scriptures in circulation. This agency is so useful that the Board feel more inclined than ever to establish another at Singapore, to superintend the society's affairs in that part of the world.

In concluding their report, the managers, after alluding to many obstacles in the way of circulating the Bible, such as the apathy of auxiliaries at home, the prohibitions of civil and ecclesiastical rulers abroad, still find great encouragement to persevere in their work. While, say they, these various causes, at home and abroad, exert their retarding influence, there are other motives which prompt to action, and other instrumentalities at work, which give promise of the ultimate glorious triumph of this cause.

AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.

THE following report of the American Anti Slavery Society, is from the New York Commercial.

The meeting was opened by the reading of a portion of he Scriptures, by the Rev. Mr. Allen of Massachusetts.

After which a Prayer was offered by the Rev. Mr. Grosvenor, of the Baptist Church, Massachusetts.

An abstract of the annual report was read by one of the secretaries of the society. By this document it appears that the present number of abolition societies is 1650-of which 304 are new societies, formed since the last anniversary. The number of presses devoted, or open to the discussion of slavery, increased, and now amounts to nine weekly, one semi-monthly, and two monthly publications, from which are issued 25,000 sheets weekly, and for the support of which 40,000 are anually received from subscribers.

The receipts into the treasury for the year, show a handsome increase over those of the previous year. The total of the publications by the society, for the year, amounts to 724,862, of which about 213,000 were copies of the Emancipator, 148,000 of Human Rights, 19,958 bound volumes, the remainder, tracts, &c.

A considerable portion of the abstract, is devoted to the discussion of the emancipation of the slaves in the West Indies. It is assumed that the experiment has been successful there, and from thence is drawn the inference that it must be successful here.

The abstract recommends pressing the subject of abolition to the ballot box, and cites various instances in which it has been done with effect during the past year, and avows the opinion that the time is not far distant when the influence of political abolition will be more strongly felt.

The Rev. John Rankin, of the Presbyterian church of Ohio, advocated the adoption of the report in a speech of some length. After which, the question was taken, and the report adopted without a dissenting voice.

The Rev. Mr. Lee, of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Utica, was addressing the meeting when we left at 12 o'clock.

The building in which the meeting is held, (the Tabernacle,) is respectably filled, but not crowded. A large portion of the audience is composed of females, and we noticed that but very few persons of colour were present.

SIR,

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the Bible Christian.

With reference to the Comber Controvery, I beg to inform you, that an address of condolence on the onslaught made by that furious Philistine the Rev. W. H. Doherty, on the Rev. R. F. Jex Blake, Curate of Comber, and of gratulation on his escape, has been hawked from door to door for some time past, by the Rev. Mr. Blake's servant and others. If presented to that Rev. Gentleman in time, I will furnish you with a copy of it for the Bible Christian of next month, also a few remarks on the object of its promoters; the part which gratitude probably has compelled the Rev. Isaac Nelson and his congregation to take in

the affair, and will conclude with some specimens of the newest, and therefore, I suppose, the most fashionable, mode of consigning Unitarians to perdition, invented by a most Christian minister in this neighbourhood, belonging to the Synod of Ulster, for the spiritual edification of his most Christian hearers.

AN INHABITANT OF COMBER.

DIED In the 47th year of her age, JANE, wife of Mr. Leonard M'Caw, Ballycross, near Banbridge.

DIVINITY SCHOLARSHIP.

THE PRESBYTERIAN BOARD give notice, that they have established FOUR SCHOLARSHIPS of FIFTY POUNDS per annum each, for Students for the Christian Ministry among Protestant Dissenters of the English Presbyterian Denomination, to assist them in the prosecution of a Theological Course of Study of three years' duration, in such Theological School, or Institution, as the Board shall approve.

Candidates, to be eligible to these Scholarships, must have attained the age of eighteen years; declare their intention to devote themselves to the study of Sacred Literature and the office of the Ministry; and produce the highest testimonials as to their moral character. They must also have taken the degree of Bachelor of Arts at the University of Dublin or London; the degree of Master of Arts in one of the Scottish Universities; obtained a General Certificate in the Belfast Royal Academical Institution; or passed with the highest approbation of their Tutors and Examiners, through a complete course at one of the English or Welsh Academies for the Education of Students for the Christian Ministry among Protestant Dissenters.. -Candidates will likewise be eligible who, having taken the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the University of Oxford or Cambridge, may wish to devote themselves to the Christian Ministry among the English Presbyterian Dissenters. Preference will, in all cases, be given to the sons of English Presbyterian Ministers equally qualified.

Application to be made to the Treasurer of the Board, James Esdaile, Esq., No 24, Upper Bedford-Place, Russell Square, or to the Secretary, Dr. Thomas Rees, No. 39, Woburn Place, Russell Square, London.

“YE have made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition," said our Saviour to the Jewish teachers who tempted him; and the very same words may, with peculiar propriety and truth, be applied to the advocates of Calvinistic theology in the present day. The ancient "Scribes and Pharisees" had by their tradition endeavoured to excuse or encourage perjury and the violation of filial duty; thus rendering of "none effect" two important commandments of God; and we shall presently show that those who have assumed a like authority over the consciences of men in later times, have, by their traditions, rendered nugatory and inefficient the great fundamental commandments of all religion, both natural and revealed. We find these primary commands stated by our blessed Lord himself in words so plain that "wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein." "Then one of them which was a lawyer asked him a question tempting him and saying: Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment; and the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."-(Mat. xxii. 35-40.) Now, it can very easily be shown, that the doctrines peculiar to Calvinism have a direct tendency to discourage or destroy the sentiment of love to God and to our neighbour, that the "tradition" makes the commandment " of none effect."

Y

1st, We are commanded to love God with the most devoted and confiding affection of which our nature is capable; but the representations of the Almighty with which Calvinism supplies us are so stern, so cold, so repulsive and ungenial, that any feeling of "love" upon our part becomes not merely difficult, but positively impossible. It is an unchanging law of the human soul, that no sentiment can exist in it, unless the object of that sentiment has, or is believed to have qualities calculated to call it forth. No human being ever did or ever will entertain a feeling of confidence in one whom he knows to be false and deceitful, a feeling of respect for the known profligate, or of esteem and admiration for the base, the mean, and the dishonest: and no man ever did or ever will entertain a feeling of love towards a being whom he is taught to consider partial, tyrannical, vengeful, and cruel. In such circumstances, the sentiment of affection cannot, by any possibility, exist, and any command enjoining it must, in the very nature of things, be "of none effect." With just as much probability of being obeyed, might a lawgiver order the people to believe that darkness is light and light darkness, that pain and pleasure, evil and good, are synonymous. God has so created us that deeds of injustice, cruelty, and vengeance necessarily excite fear and hatred. And, indeed, this original constitution of our nature is so well known, that no tyrant was at any time so silly as to command his oppressed slaves to "love" him. The most insane tyrant knew that obedience to such a law was, in their circumstances, positively impossible; that he might as reasonably command them to feel cold in fire, or warm in ice. Let us turn, then, to the views of Jehovah's attributes and actions which Calvinism exhibits to the world, and examine whether a belief in such views can coexist with the sentiment of love.

Calvinism maintains that God, "before the foundation of the world was laid," hath fore-ordained to everlasting punishment innumerable millions of the human race; that only for this cause were they created, as vessels of wrath fitted for destruction; and that, throughout eternity, they shall be held in changeless misery and torment. Calvinism maintains that God has a few favourites, "the elect,” and upon these he bestows, exclusively, all spiritual gifts and blessings, and to them only he allots the happiness of hea