tractions and snares presenting themselves, he will often find that his only effectual means of safety are the solitude of his closet, meditation of Holy Scripture, and prayer for the sacred Spirit of God.

I am,

Yours affectionately,

D. W.

POSTSCRIPT.

The delay in the publication of the French Translation of Mr. Scott's Comment on St. Matthew has not only arisen from the causes stated in the note, (p. 299): but from the necessity of each sheet being sent to London, and the impracticability of finding type sufficient to allow of this journey, without intervals in the progress of the work. Four sheets are set up together (the type required for which is immense) and the proofs are worked off on their return to Paris as quickly as possible, and the type released for the subsequent parts of the copy. But still about six weeks elapse between the printing of a first proof and the final working of it off. A portion of this delay arises from the numerous corrections in each sheet, demanding twenty or thirty hours of intense application.

In the meantime, what is done, is, I have every reason to believe, WELL DONE; and in a work of so much importance, I have preferred the inconvenience of delay to the ruin of the whole enterprize by an inaccurate translation. Half the gospel, or nearly so, is now printed off, and the subscribers may rely on no exertion being spared on my part to see this first division of the work-the gospel of St. Matthew, actually published this summer.

I have thought it right, in the meantime, to place this undertaking under the care of a public society with a responsible Committee. The SPANISH AND FRENCH TRANSLATION SOCIETY, (instituted in 1825, and of which the monthly meetings are held for the present at No. 13, Guildford Street), has now the disposal of the funds in hand and conducts the design.

Whether the gospel when published will excite public attention and be attended with any considerable benefit, must depend on the Divine Mercy which alone can produce such an effect.

But I have a confidence that great good may be expected ultimately to follow from it. The inconsiderate objections raised on the ground of the levity of the French character, and the solid, ponderous qualities of Mr. Scott's writings, have little weight. It is not for the nation of France or its general readers that any comment would be designed; but for the ministers and Pastors of churches, for the serious and inquiring scholars and students, for the sedate and pious heads of families. And does any one who is at all acquainted with the writings of Mestrezat, Faucheur, Dubose, Drelincourt and others of the French Protestant school, doubt whether long and grave discourses on religion cau fix the attention of French Protestants and engage their esteem? Or can any one, who looks into the mass of comment in De Sacy or Calmet-the one in 32 thick 8vo. volumes, of 8 or 900 pages each, the other in 9 folios, and both of them unwieldly compilations of mystical and feeble and inapplicable religious glosses, without any approach to an evangelical, manly, sensible, clear exposition of

the mind of the Spirit throughout the Holy Scriptures,-doubt of the success of a work not by any meaus so heavy in its form, and in its matter so incomparably superior? A revival of religion is a revival of seriousness, of solidity of character, of readiness to study, and solemnity of mind to examine, the Holy Word. The frivolity of Voltaire is the frivolity of irreligion. But I need not enlarge—the deliberate opinion of all the leading scholars and ministers whom I have met with in France and Switzerland, and the 500 subscribers already obtained to this first publication, are at the least a sufficient authority for the essay, the trial, the experiment of circulating throughout every part of the world where the French language is spoken, the best practical comment which has appeared in these later ages of the Christian Church.

The proposed Translation of Milner's Church History into French, has, I am sorry to say, been suspended by the continued inroads of illness and pressure of engagements on the friend