I soon discovered, however, that he spoke without knowledge,-that he had scarcely seen the Christian Advocate, and of what is called "Sandemanianism," he knew still less, except through the misrepresentations and caricatures of its adversaries, of which the Review in the Eclectic is a most delectable specimen.

As numbers are determined to identify you and your publication with "Sandemanianism," it is my opinion that you might with great propriety devote a few pages of your valuable periodical to the elucidation of the subject, so far as the cause of truth requires. I could very easily extend my remarks to

a greater length, but I am quite satisfied to leave the matter in your hands, being fully assured that you are quite competent to manage it, and to present the subject in its proper light.

There is one remark, however, I must make before I close, viz., that as you have already acknowledged the "Sandemanian descent" of the Scotch Baptist churches, (see vol 1, p. 3,) it will be incumbent upon you to shew what "Sandemanianism" really is, and wherein it differs from the ludicrous caricatures given of it by its opponents.I am, Yours, &e. GAIUS.

THE BIBLE ABROAD.

Ir cannot fail to cheer the mind of the Christian when he considers the extent to which the Scriptures are circulated in the present day. There may be many things connected with the manner of their circulation which he cannot approve of, but the simple fact itself, that the word of God is scattered freely through the nations, must necessarily yield him delight. Not only are men willing to receive the Bible, but they are also willing to buy it, which, to say the least, is a very hopeful sign. Mr. Gutzlaff says that he has issued twenty editions of the Scriptures in the Chinese language-the last extending to 20,000 copies--all of which were bought up within three weeks of their being printed; and not only were they purchased by the people belonging to the seaports, but by those who came to trade there from various parts of the interior; and he has every reason to believe that the copies of the Scripture which be and his agents have sold, are being distributed throughout the whole of China. The revised edition is now nearly ready, and it is proposed to bring out the New Testament for three pence or three pence halfpenny.

The Bible Translation Society has issued 190,000 Bibles and Testaments in 1847, 48, 49, in five different languages of India, Bengali, Hindostani, Hindi, Persic, and Sanscrit. In Hungary, since the conclusion of the war, a great eagerness had been shewn for the Scriptures, and 5000 had already been issued. The issues from the depot of Paris for the past year has been 108,338 copies. To Italy there had been sent out during the year, 14,243. At Turin the demand had been so great, that a colporteur employed in the neighbourhood sold in about five months, 500 copies. Subsequently he was arrested at the instance of the bishop of the diocese,

and the government of Turin had since taken measures to stop the public sale of the Scriptures throughout the kingdom. The archbishop, has since got imprisoned for his ultra catholicism, which has caused him to disobey the authorities.

In Dec. last, the Pope condemned the distribution of the Sacred Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, which he said had been denounced again and again by the Holy See, "and was contrary to the rules of the Church." This fulmination has retarded the circulation of the Scriptures in Italy.

At the annual meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society, in Exeter Hall, on the 1st of May, Capt. Pakenham was introduced to the Meeting, as the "Expelled of Tuscany." He related the circumstances connected with his expulsion in an interesting speech, of which the following is an abridgement.

"It was in the early part of last year, that the liberality, or rather the munificence, of your Society intrusted to me a considerable sum, for printing the New Testament at Florence and at Rome-for we have at least established this little fact before we go further, that when the Pope leaves Rome we can print the Scriptures there, and when the Pope comes back again, we must lock the Scriptures up. We began with the edition of Martini. Martini was an archbishop of Florence, and although his translation comes not exactly up to all the points of our Protestant translation, it is, nevertheless, such as the British and Foreign Bible Society have consented to distribute. And more than that, it is such as a previous Pope has put his approbation upon. It will seem strange to a set of English people, who consent to be guided only by common sense, how one infallible Pope can give his approval to a translation which another infallible Pope

sends and seizes. But if I am to stand here, and attempt to give an explanation of the infallibility of the Popes, I have more than I can get through. We had better, therefore, perhaps, pass that over, and merely say that this infallible Pope did send and did seize this edition of Martini, which was approved of by another infallible Pope, and that it is now in the top story of a very high palace in Florence, the bottom story of which is the common prison.

"In relating the carrying away of the Testaments from the printing-house and my own abode, to the prison, 1 will mention a little anecdote of what then took place. I was visited by a common police officer, who considered himself a mighty great character, and was sufficiently inflated whilst he was engaged in the work. After making the poor men toil most of the night-and it was a fitting operation for the night-he, in the end, called to one of them, who was much cowed by his demonstration of authority, and said, 'I challenge you in face of the law to tell me whether there are any more of these books in your master's house.' 'You had better ask my master,' said the man. 'Oh,' replied the officer, 'You are not to set my authority at defiance in that way. I desire you to do this, and that, and the other.' 'Oh,' said the poor man, if you must know, I will give you my opinion frankly and fairly. But mind, you asked for it. You say that it is a bad book, and that it must be seized and imprisoned, and you asked me if there are any more. Why, if it is a bad book, the author of it must be bad, and you had better seize him and imprison him.' The officer was silent, as well he might be.

"After the books were seized, 'that captain,' that fellow,' who had done all the mischief, he must be subject to an interrogatory. Now, an interrogatory in those countries is one of those nice processes by which a man is invited to inculpate himself. Well, I was subjected to this interrogatory, and knowing what they wanted, I made very short work of it; for I said to them at once, 'Yes, I am the culprit, I accept all the responsibility of it, and I am ready to meet you before any Tuscan tribunal, and we will have the thing out fairly.' This decision of mine was sent to the government, and they came, strangely enough, to this decision,There is no fault whatever to find with the captain. Oh no, on the contrary, we will have him as a witness on our side.' Thank you. So indeed, after a while, the trial came on, and the 'captain' was examined as evidence on their side. The fact was, they thought they could put down the poor unfortunate printer, more easily than they could do the 'captain.' But I determined the printer shall not be crushed; he shall be defended, and we will go to the very utmost of the Tuscan law in

doing so.' It pleased Providence to direct us to a very good Tuscan iawyer, a very superior man, who told them some home truths.

"Turning to the judges, he said, 'It is very unusual to institute trials of this kind. This is a cause which is closely linked with civil liberty; I am going to give you who are lawyers, a piece of sound law, as it respects Tuscany; and that piece of law is this,very few of you have ever heard it before,the decrees of the Council of Trent have not the force of law in this country.' That was well received by the audience, who did not know it before. 'And more than that, the Prohibitory Index issued by the Supreme Pontiff of Rome may have effect in the territories of Rome, but must not come across the Tuscan frontier, for here it has no force.' That was a piece of good news for the judges, it was equally good for the audience, still more so to the poor printer, and not unacceptable to me.

"After disposing of these two things, he said, 'In the name of common sense I appeal to your worships on the bench. Here we are in a country where our churches are very much admired, and the decoration of them, it would not be too much to say, adored. These decorations are taken-from what? All the subjects which are represented by your highest art, are subjects taken from the Scriptures, or avowedly and professedly so. You call upon our people to fall down before these subjects in admiration, if not in adoration; but the printed words which were given by inspiration of the Spirit of God, you will not let them be distributed. You will not let them come before the public eye. You will not let them be read at the domestic altar. You will not let the children of Tuscany be taught in this Blessed Book. No, they must go and look at your pictures and statues. That is the way they are to learn religion. But the Blessed Word of God's revelation, which can make us "wise unto salvation," that must not be read, that must be confiscated, burnt, and torn. I appeal in the name of common sense, can you stand by that ?' He then went on to say, 'There is an awkward article in the Constitution, which has lately been granted by the Grand Duke, and which, as far as it relates to the present case, says this, "all works ex professo religious, must be submitted to the ecclesiastical censor." Well, is there any man in this court who will stand up and call the Bible a work ex professo religious? Is there any lawyer who will stand up and call the Pandects of Justinian ex professo illegal? No, they are the text-books by which all works written on religion_must be tried and tested; and so is the Bible. What, submit the Word of God to the censure of man! Absurdity! Contradiction! Impiety!'

"But after all that was said and done, for

reasons of state, and by superior orders, the case went against us. We were not, however, altogether ruined by it, for the judges had had a sore lesson to learn, and they inflicted upon us the smallest possible fine, and the expences of the court were eighteenpence. The fine itself was fifty dollars-not a very heavy sum either. I could have paid it out of my own pocket at the moment, but I thought I would wait awhile. So, after thinking about it for a day or two, although they had let us off so easily,-I will not say with what motive,-we appealed to another court, and had another discussion. The first had turned out so well that we said we would have another; and so we had. And how has the second discussion ended? Why the superior court has reversed the decree of the inferior court; so that we have not done amiss there. However, they are going to take us to another court: we shall have yet another discussion, and I only wish I were there to hear it."

PERSECUTION IN SWEDEN. EXTRACTS from letters from Mr. Frederick Olaus Nilsson, of Gottenborg, Sweden, to Mr. A. P. Förster, of Copenhagen.

"I

From a letter dated 31st Dec. 1849. accompanied some of the disciples from the county of Mark, in the district of Elfsborg, to the house of our dear brother Anders Anderson, in the parish of Berghim, and on the 1st of January, new-year's day, 1850, we were assembled there with the little church, for the purpose of breaking bread, and of divine worship. In the evening, after the close of divine service, the house was surrounded by a great number of men, who forced their way in among us poor, unoffending sheep, making great noise with oaths and blasphe mies, armed with poles, clubs, pistols, knives, and swords, and with terrible noise, and horrible oaths and blasphemies and threatening, kicking, and striking, carried me off to the magistrate of the district, who, after having used a great deal of abusive language against me, ordered me to be taken to the county gaol. There I was thrown in about nine o'clock in the evening, into a miserable hole, where the cold was so intense that I was obliged to keep running backwards and forwards on the stone floor, the whole long night, to keep myself from freezing, (that is, freezing to death.) But glory be to God, the Lord was with me in this furnace, and my soul was kept in perfect peace. Here I stayed until Sunday evening, the 6th Jan. (that is, five days) when I was transported under guard, being driven on the whole night in very cold weather, to Gottenborg, (about forty English miles) and brought up to the chief police office, and from thence I was ordered to the state prison, where I was very

abusively treated by the prison keeper,—a haughty unfeeling man, who put me into a small room among nine poor miserable sufferers, who were there before me. Here I was, now, without hope of ever getting my liberty until I should have received my sentence of banishment. Consequently I made up my mind, committing myself to the Lord, the keeper of all our ways; and, bless his holy name, I felt a gracious measure of resignation to his holy will. I had stayed here about two hours and a half, when the prison door was opened, and my wife, accompanied by one of the prison servants, called me and told me I had my liberty. I had happily had an opportunity to acquaint my wife with what had happened to me, and she went weeping up to the person who has [charge of] the affairs of the imprisoned [that is, the chief police magistrate] and solicited him to have me put in a room by myself. But instead of this, he wrote an order to have me set at liberty, on January the 7th. Praise the Lord! he is able to open the prison gates now as well as in the days of the apostles. It is worthy of remark, that the first [time] I was able to read in prison, I opened the Testament, and the first words my eyes fell upon were in the Acts, ch. xii. v. 10." [The account of Peter's liberation from prison.]

Mr. Nilsson having before appeared before the consistory, was now summoned by direction of the priests, before the civil court. Writing March 25th, he says, "On the 21st of Feb. I set out from home on my journey to Jönköping, the place where the highest court of justice, next to the king, kept, called Götha Hofräst, at which I was summoned to appear on the 8th of March.”• • • "Our dear brethren in the country have much to suffer from the malignant priesthood, and an infuriated, ignorant, bigoted people about them; but, the Lord be praised, they seemed to be strong in the Lord, and resolved to suffer everything rather than violate their consciences. In two places, namely, in the parishes of Berghim and Odensala, the priests have, by the assistance of the constables or justices of the peace, (länsmannen) forced infants from our people, for the purpose of having them sprinkled."

[At Jönköping] "I was twice before my judges; first on the 8th, and last on the 11th of March. The judges appeared to be good and peaceable men, who appeared to be rather friendly toward me, and the cause I have the honour of being engaged in, so that if it were not for the priests and the consistory, I really believe these gentlemen would never banish any one for his religion. But you know, brother, that though Pilate would fain have released our Lord, he was, on account of the clamour of the priests, &c. compelled to the contrary.

"At my first appearance I was closely

questioned about what time I had embraced the Baptist sentiments, and by what means, &c., in what way I had proceeded in converting others to those opinions, how many were baptized, and at this time belonged to the Baptist church or society, and if any Baptists were found in Sweden, to my knowledge, before me. To all these queries I answered according to truth and conscience. At this time also the accusation from the consistory of Gottenborg, against me, was read, as also a written defence that I had made and handed to the notary. I was also required to give a short summary of the particulars of my past life, when I had the glorious opportunity of relating my conversion to God, and what the Lord had done for my soul, and the reason why I thought it my duty to call sinners to repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. At last I was asked if I intended to continue [to do] hereafter, as hitherto, notwithstanding the consequences of the law; to which I answered,-Yes, I could but act according to what I was fully convinced was the order and will of Christ, until I could, from Scripture, be convinced that I was in error.

"The second time I appeared, the records from the former time were read. After that I handed over a short confession concerning my views of haptism, the Lord's supper, and the formation, government, and discipline of the church of Christ, altogether composed of passages of Scripture. This also was received and read, and put in among the other documents of the trial. Thus they are obliged to have the testimony, that if they do banish me, it will be for my adherence to the truth -to the unerring Word of God. This time, my accuser, a lawyer who carries on the process against me on the part of the priests, made his demand of the tribunal to have me banished from the country according to law, as one who is circulating erroneous doctrines. The judge, Count Gyllenhaal, then told me to see and get some one to be my commissioner to receive the resolution of the court (which will be a written document, containing the whole procedure of the trial, as well as the sentence) and send it over to me, so that in case the court (Ibofrätten) should sentence me according to the demand of my accuser, I might have time to appeal to the King, which must be done within forty-five days after the sentence is passed in the Ibofrätten. After this I was told to depart, and was at liberty to go home. The Lord graciously assisted me under the whole, and I must also acknowledge that my judges treated me not only friendly, but like gentlemen,-with respect, quite unlike the consistory on the 4th of July last year. I only mention this to shew that among the enlightened part of the Swedes, who are not priests, there are many who feel the need of

religious as well as political liberty; and will, in matters of religion, respect other people's opinions, and who feel indignant at the bigotry of the priests.

"On my way home I visited the brethren in Berghim, although some poor infatuated creatures in that place had sworn together to kill me; for which purpose they watched closely for me, but the Lord, in his infinite mercy, preserved me at this time from their bloody hands. May the Lord have mercy upon, and pity these poor deluded men.

"I have not yet received the sentence. It will not be long before I do so; and I am almost sure that it will be to banishment. The priests are preparing to have the principal of the other brethren brought to the same [sentence] as soon as I am driven away. This will be a very melancholy affair, as they will first rob them of their little property, that is, those that have any, and then drive them from their homes out upon the world. But the Lord knows how to secure and comfort those that suffer. I doubt not but you will mention our case to our English brethren, as you inform me you intend to visit England in the month of April.

...

"I intend, of course, not to leave the country before I have appealed to the King, and had the case tried there, although I have nothing to hope, as the Queen is a Catholic, and a Jesuit is her confessor, and has influence with the King. Still I mean to stay till I am driven away by force."

In a letter of March 30, Mr. Nilsson says, "Glory be to God, the time cannot be at a a great distance when even Sweden will have the boon of religious liberty. I do not expect any other doom than banishment, but the leaven of religious inquiry has been put into the nation, and it is growing every day, and widening from place to place, from the one end of the country to the other, and some newspapers are taking up the subject, and advocating religious liberty with great zeal, boldly attacking the state-church principle, shewing its political as well as moral evil tendency."

Writing April 2nd, Mr. Nilsson says, "Persecution rages against the brethren in the country, for conscience sake, greatly. A dear brother and his wife have been robbed of their cow-their only property of valuefor not consenting to have their infant sprinkled."