of Germany, it is impossible to speak but in terms of the highest admiration.

4

"More than 60,000 copies of the New Testament have been printed by his exertions, and fresh editions are in the press. His work is carried on under the sanction of Episcopal Authority; and, though the demands on his labours are increasing, they are very generously met by new subscriptions and donations. This distinguished philanthropist has had the happiness to witness the most pleasing fruits of his benevolent exertions, in the improved habits of those among whom the Scriptures have been distributed. Not only individuals, but whole families, have been reformed by the perusal of them. These and other good effects are so visible, that they have produced conviction in some Catholic Clergymen who were formerly hostile to the circulation of the Scriptures, or, who entertained doubts at least, as to its practical utility.

"Professor Van Ess has exhibited, in his own example, a striking proof of a candid and unprejudiced mind, by devoting part of the fund, furnished by this Society, to the supplying of poor Protestants in Hesse Cassel and Hesse Darmstadt with Luther's Version of the Scriptures.

"The estimation in which he is held by many, both Catholic and Protestants in Germany, with whom he carries on a very ex-` tensive correspondence, is deservedly high.

"A similar tribute of commendation is due to the Catholic Pastor, and President of the Catholic Bible Society at Ratisbon, Regens Witmann, whom Dr. Steinkopff justly designates as the Father of the Fatherless, and a Friend to the Destitute.

"The edition of the New Testament printed by Regens Wittmann, has proved very acceptable in some parts of Catholic Germany, where that of Professor Van Ess has not been received. More than 10,000 copies of a former edition have been circulated; and the present demands are so great, that an impression of 20,000 copies will scarcely be sufficient to supply them.

"To these names your Committee will add that of the Rev. John Gossner, of Munich, who has printed and circulated 10,000 copies of the New Testament among the German Catholics, 5,000 of which were disposed of in less than six weeks.

"Your Committee, anxious to encourage the labours of these respectable men, of whose integrity, zeal, and activity, they have received the most satisfactory proofs, have granted to the Rev. Leander Van Ess the sum of 500l. in addition to their former grants; to Regens Wittmann, 2007., to promote the circulation of his New Testament; and to the Rev. John Gossner, to whom Dr. Steinkopff had presented 1007., an additional 2001. for the purpose of enabling him to print a second edition of the New Testament.

Of the Bremen, Hamburg-Altona, and Lubeck Bible Societies, it is sufficient to say, that they are in full activity, and have prov~ ed highly beneficial within their respective departments.

(To be continued.)

RICHARD REYNOLDS, the Christian Philanthropist.

We feel it our duty to leave out a quantity of interesting intelligence lately received, in order to gratify and edify our readers by the following account of a most remarkable Philanthropist of Bristol, England, whose character and alms-deeds shed a distinguished lustre, not only on the country which had the honour to give him birth, but also on the whole human family, every part of which he cordially embraced in the expansive affections of his benevolent soul,-and especially on the Christian religion, of which he was an exemplary disciple and a shining ornament. He departed this life the 10th of September last. We extract the following from the Bristol Gazette of 10th October, giving an account of a Public Meeting held at Guildhall, for the purpose of paying a tribute of respect to his memory, and establishing a Society which should perpetuate his name, relieve the wants of the numerous pensioners upon his bounty, whom his death hath left destitute, and afford assistance to the several charitable institutions of that city.

The Rev. W. THORP addressed the Chair in nearly the following words:

Mr. CHAIRMAN,-Sir,-Never surely were the Inhabitants of Bristol convened upon a more solemn or a more affecting occasion than the present -to render a grateful tribute of respect to one of the best of men, and to perpetuate the memory of a Philanthropist, of singular and transcendant excellence. Thousands can testify that he was an ornament of our nature, ➡an honour to our City,―the glory of the Society to which he belonged,and a blessing to the Empire and the World. When the eye saw him, it blessed him, when the ear heard him, it bare him witness;-he was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame; the cause which he knew not he searched out; be made the Widow's heart to sing for joy; and the blessing of the outcast Orphan, ready to perish, came upon him. He is now gone to that country from whose bourne no traveller returns: and while Bristol, with her Widows and her Orphans, are weeping over his ashes, the whole nation has reason to lament his departure. That departure however was attended with many alleviating circumstances; which, although they may deepen our sensibility, are calculated to assuage the violence of our grief. We sorrow not for this righteous man, as those that have no hope. We entertain the faith of Christians, and cannot give place to the despair of Heathens. He hath rested from his labours, and his works shall follow him,-not to procure his title, but to prove his RIGHT to the Tree of Life, and to enter within the Gates of the heavenly Jerusalem. We adore that kind and indulgent Providence, which spared his valuable life for so many years, and thus permitted him to mature those plans which he had projected for the relief of misery, ages after his decease. We congratulate our fellow-citizens on the honour they have done to themselves, by assembling on this day, to embalm his memory with their tears,-to catch with his falling mantle the sacred flame that glowed with such fervour in his bosom,-and to do what within them lies to give immortality to a name, so dear and so venerable. That we may be enabled with more facility to transcribe his virtues and copy his example, let us review the character of that benevolence by which he was so eminently distinguished.

The benevolence of RICHARD REYNOLDS, Sir, was of the highest order. It was liberal, diffusive, universal.-Not narrowed by party prejudice, nor bounded by the limits of party connexions, it embraced the Family of Man, -yea the whole circle of living beings, endowed with a capacity of pleasure or of pain. In its contemplation of the vast, however, it did not overlook the minute; in its comprehension of the whole, it did not, like the modern philosophy, neglect the parts of which that whole is composed. Its operations were regulated by the respective claims of nature, of gratitude, of friendship, of consanguinity, of religious connexions, of moral worth, and of the various degrees of wretchedness amongst the unhappy objects upon whom his bounty was bestowed.

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Proceeding, in the first instance, from compassion, it was afterwards purified by religious principle,and strengthened by a sense of his awful responsibility, to the great Lord of All for the talent with which he was intrusted. Compassion, improperly cultivated, degenerates into an useless sensibility. The pleasure that attends it, soothes and deceives the heart. An interesting account of human wretchedness excites its pleasurable sympathetic emotions; the tongue utters the law of kindness; the man exuits in his own virtuous sensibility, and thus becomes the dupe of self-deception. But to enter the abodes of the wretched,-to examine into debts, and wants, and diseases,-to encounter loathsome sights, and endure offensive smells within the very sphere of infection; to give time, and thought, and talent, and labour, and property,-this is the substance and not the shadow of virtue; the pleasure of sensibility may be greater; but greater also is the danger of self-deceit. Death bed scenes, eloquently described, delight the imagination; but they who are most delighted, are not always the first to visit a dying neighbour, and sit up all night, and wipe away the cold sweat, and moisten the parched lip, and remove the phlegm, and contrive easy postures, and bear with fretfulness, and drop the pious thought, and console the departing spirit! Ah no! These boasted children of sentimental benevolence, may often repair to the temple of virtue, but not to sacrifice. Extreme sensibility is a mental disease; it unfits us for relieving the miserable, and tempts us to turn away, like the cold-hearted Priest and Levite. It avoids the sight, and suppresses the thought of pain, stops the ears to the cry of indigence, passes by the house of mourning, and abandons the nearest friends, when sick, to the care of the nurse and the physician; and when dead, to those who mourn for hire. And all this under the pretence of delicacy of feeling, and a tender heart! Such was not the benevolence of the Bristol Philanthropist. Those acts of bounty which flow from the influence of sensibility, soon fail: like the good seed fallen on stony ground, they soon spring up, and as soon wither. But the benevolence of RICHARD REYNOLDS, purified, strengthened, and animated by Christian principle, was steady, uniform, and persevering. Neither ingratitude, nor imposture, nor opposition, nor even the frost of age, could chill its ardours nor relax its exertions.

It was active and industrious. His eloquence was not that of words, but of deeds. He said little, but he did much. He left others to define benevolence; HE studied the practice of it. While the sickly child of sensibility was weeping, HE was extending relief. While philosophers were disputing whether philanthropy arise from selfishness, or instinctive tenderness. or modes of education, or the force of early and local associations, or from the combined influence of all those causes,-heedless of their contentions, HE was exemplified in real life, privately, and before the world, the character of the true philanthropist. Their speculations he reduced to action-their

abstract notions he embodied; and to their airy nothings, he gave not only a local habitation, but a reality, a substance, and a form. Like his beloved Master, whose spirit he had imbibed, and whose example he closely copied, he went about continually doing good.

His beneficence was guided by wisdom and discretion, it was not scattered promiscuously and at random, but bestowed upon such objects, and in such a way, as he deemed, (and he was a most excellent judge,) the most effective in promoting the individual and the general good. To furnish employment for the healthy and the strong; to supply the wants of the really indigent and necessitous; to ease the aching heart of the father, who after toiling the live long day, finds, instead of rest at home, that he is called to bear, what he is least able to bear, the cries of a numerous family demanding bread, when he has none to give; to assuage the sorrows of poverty, overtaken by sickness or overwhelmed with misfortune; to smooth the furrowed cheek, and make the winter of age wear the aspect of spring; to act the part of a father to helpless orphans, on whom no parent of their own ever smiled; to supply the want of sight to the blind, feet to the lame, and speech to the dumb; to rescue vice from guilt, and infamy, and ruin; and during the season of reformation, afford a shelter from the fury of the storm; to relieve the distress, and yet spare the blushes of those who have known better days, by administering that bounty, which they in the time of their prosperity were ready to administer to others-these were the employments of Richard Reynolds-these the objects of his beneficence-these were the offices of mercy in which he delighted! His heart told him what to do: his conscience, as the Vicegerent of Heaven, reminded him of the claims of moral obligation, and insisted that it must be done. His head devised the means, and arranged the plan of action; and his hands, obedient to the dictates of his heart, and the mandates of conscience, were ever ready to execute the plans which his head had formed. Thus his WHOLE EXISTENCE was consecrated to the cause of benevolence! If we love the modesty which concealed the hand that bestowed the princely donation, we revere the courage which occasionally stepped forward to avow himself the donor, when his design was to stimulate others to follow his example. His whole conduct was marked by the most consummate wisdom; and left us at a loss whether to admire most the benevolence of his heart or the powers of his understanding the deeds of mercy which he performed, or the manner in which he performed them.

All this prudence and benevolence was adorned with modesty and humility. So far was he from being inflated with the pride of wealth, that he spoke the genuine sentiments of his heart, when he said to a friend who applied to him with a case of distress, "My talent is the meanest of all talents, —a little sordid dust; but the man in the parable, who had but one talent, was accountable: and for the talent that I possess, humble as it is, I am also accountable to the great LORD of ALL." His bounty was not the result of fear, like the obedience of a slave who trembles under the scourge of a haughty tyrant. It was not excited by the prospect of remuneration, nor extorted by the dread of punishment, nor performed with a view to merit an inheritance in the kingdom of Heaven. All such sentiments he rejected with abhorrence,-placed his whole dependence for eternal life upon the Sovereign Mercy of God, through the propitiating sacrifice of his Redeemer; he laid claim to no distinctions, assumed no airs of superiority, and never attempted to catch the public eye, by an ostentatious display of extraordinary excellence. His goodness often descended in secret, and like the Providence of Heaven, concealed the hand that sent the relief.-He was a burning and a shining light, and would have no man know it. But, he could not be hid. To hide goodness like his was impossible. How have

I seen the good man shrink within himself, and his venerable countenance crimsoned with the blush of modesty, when the mention of his name has been hailed in this place with a thunder of applause!

He felt a luxury in doing good, and he determined to enjoy that luxury. His own experience taught him, that the God of Mercy who formed the heart of man to be the dispenser of his bounty, has ordained, that like the vital fluid, which goes from the heart, to diffuse life and genial warmth through the whole system, it should return, in the course of circulation, not impoverished, but enriched, to the source whence it flowed. His goodness might sometimes be requited with evil, but this moved him not. He knew that no deed of mercy could be wasted-that some ministering angel is stationed in every department of the moral world, to gather up the fragments that fall from the table of benevolence, that nothing may be lost. Actuated by these noble principles, he held on his glorious career, still scattering blessings around him, until he resigned his meek and gentle spirit into the hands of his Redeemer; to enjoy the fulness of his love, and to behold the brightness of his glory, in the regions of eternal day. By relieving the miserable, he made himself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, many of whom had gone before him, and have now hailed him, as their benefactor, on his arrival into everlasting habitations.

Mr. Counsellor SMITH spoke to this effect:

Our departed friend was a citizen of the world; his benevolence extended far and wide. No doubt many persons in this large assembly could bear ample testimony to this, and relate abundance of interesting proofs of it, if the time would allow. A particular instance having occurred under my own observation, I shall beg leave to state it. When the first subscription was opened to relieve the distress in Germany, I took some part in that Institution. Being in Bristol soon afterwards, I had some conversation with MR. REYNOLDS on the subject. He made many judicious observations and inquiries as to the nature of the distress, and the best mode of distribution, which served as valuable hints to the Committee in London. He then modestly subscribed a moderate sum with his name; but shortly after, the Committee received a blank letter, having the post mark of Bristol, and enclosing a Bank of England bill for Five Hundred Pounds.-At the first report of the death of RICHARD REYNOLDS, an unanimous sentiment was felt in society, that the public loss was irreparable. However, Sir, from the appearance and spirit of this meeting, it should seem that his mantle has fallen, not on any particular person merely, but on the whole city; and we hope, that although a double portion of his spirit may not rest on individuals, yet collectively, it is felt more than an hundred-fold by the inhabitants at large. His example, Sir, will, I trust, excite thousands to tread in his steps, and to imitate his excellencies. I do not say that they will equal his transcendant merits; but as much as the particles of the dew, and the drops of the rain, do more good collectively than any single river, which may adorn and enrich our country-let us hope, that the many drops of benevolence, which shall be collected by this excellent Institution, will descend on the poor, and the distressed, in various streams of mercy, like the dew and the rain from Heaven, and do even more extensive good than that noble river whose source is now dried up.

Dr. POLE spoke as follows:-Being called upon to second the resolution that we have just heard, I avail myself of this opportunity of adding a very few remarks to those that have been already made, relative to the object for which we are this day assembled; to commemorate the name of a man honoured and revered by all who knew him. What I may say on the present occasion, considering my connexion with our departed friend, in religious society, might be deemed the result of partiality, was it not for the many