on the usual grounds the authenticity of the disputed verse, I willingly own that he has displayed much ability. But, with regard to his mode of accounting for the suspicion of forgery under which it has fallen, &c., as that rests entirely on the assumption, that the verse teaches the simple humanity of Christ, I trust it is now unnecessary to say any thing. It has been proved to be only a gratuitous assumption, and therefore must go for nothing.

In conclusion, I would observe, that the plan which I prescribed to myself at the commencement of these Remarks, has necessarily confined them within a narrow range. My purpose was to try the foundation

of the Author's argument, rather than to examine, and analyze, the superstructure. This method of attack, though not the least effectual, is certainly the least ostentatious, inasmuch as it has excluded the display of much argument and evidence, which, without difficulty, might have been brought to bear on very many points of the letter-writer's performance. The discussion largely involves the consideration of the ancient philosophy; and sure I am, the letter-writer's views, on that subject, are neither so extensive, nor so correct, as not to afford an adversary many opportunities of exposing his insufficiency. He has quoted Philo, indeed, but he evidently knows little of Philo's workslittle of the school to which Philo belonged-and still less of the early Christian Fathers, whose minds were tinctured with the same philosophy.

His interpretations of passages of Scripture would have yielded various and easy triumphs to the most ordinarily qualified critic; nor are his general theological acquirements such, as to prevent a very moderately appointed divine from hoping for some credit from the display of a more exact science. What his pretensions are to soundness of reasoning, may, I hope, be pretty plainly gathered from my labours. More than this I have not aspired to perform; but even this is, perhaps, quite sufficient to shew that-the consummation he so fervently desires, viz. "the levelling the doctrine of the Trinity in the dust"—his willing, though happily ineffectual arm, has not yet accomplished. H. H.

EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER FROM BISHOP HEBER.

(Continued from p. 349.)

IN Ceylon, I found the Archidiaconal Committee of Colombo with an income which just enabled them to answer the demands made on their exertions, but altogether unequal to print new tracts or to maintain a circle of schools. The latter measure, indeed, which the liberality of the Parent Society, as expressed in Mr. Parker's letter, encouraged them to undertake, I did not think, 'at the present time, expedient, both because something of the sort will, I trust, be done there also by the new Committee of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, which I succeeded in establishing,—and because I had just laid before his Excellency the Governor a plan for restoring and connecting more closely with the Church of England the system of parochial schools, and parochial religious instruction, which the Dutch government had established, and which, at a very moderate annual

expense, may be expected to diffuse, not merely a nominal, but a genuine Christianity through the greater part of that beautiful and extensive island. To my propositions I have as yet received no official answer, but have some reason to hope that they have been not unfavourably received. Should they be adopted, however, in their full extent, there will still be abundant and increasing scope for any increased exertions to which the liberality of the Parent Society may enable the Archidiaconal Committee in an increased distribution of tracts and school-books, both in English, Tamul, and Cingalese,—in the distribution of prizes to the best boys,-(a measure, the advantages of which will be perceptible to every one who has seen the nature of a Cingalese school, and the deep poverty and apathetic indifference of the humbler ranks of Cingalese population) and, above all, in that which is of all other measures the best calculated to give efficiency to the government schools, and secure their attachment to and connexion with the Church of England, the establishment of one or more Central Schools, for the board and education of a certain number of native Christian youths, in order to qualify them to act as schoolmasters, and with a farther view, in case of promising talents, of sending recruits to Bishop's College.

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Besides these, there is another object of very great and immediate importance to the cause of Christianity in Ceylon, which properly falls within the province of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. The native proponents, or catechists, (whom I am most anxious to raise in character and acquirements, and by degrees to admit them into holy orders, and make them the ground-work of a regular parochial clergy,) though good men, and willing to do their best for the instruction and improvement of their flocks, are themselves, very many of them, extremely ill-informed, and destitute of the means of acquiring information. Above all, they greatly need some plain sermons to read to their people, and I have already, in consequence, encouraged some of the colonial clergy to undertake translations into the Tamul and Cingalese languages, of the Book of Homilies, which I purpose to follow up with similar translations of Berens' Village Sermons, Bishop Wilson's Sermons, and some other of the more popular works in the Society's supplementary catalogue. In printing these volumes, any assistance which the Society may find itself justified in affording, will be most usefully employed; while the Tamul versions (more especially) will be not confined to Ceylon alone, but extend themselves and their utility through the vast and populous regions of the neighbouring continent in which Tamul is the prevailing language. Accordingly, though no immediate assistance seemed necessary to the Archidiaconal Committee of Colombo, beyond what trifling aid might flow from private donations, yet, with a view to these ulterior and by no means distant objects, I would beg leave most earnestly to recommend it to the Society's munificence, as perhaps affording a more promising field than any other in India for the dissemination and growth of Christianity.

The Diocesan Committee in Calcutta has not fallen short of any other in India or Europe in its zealous and judicious services to the church, and the liberality of its supporters. Yet here also, in part from the causes to which I have already referred, and in part from some

unusual, though very necessary expenses which devolved on it, a failure of funds was more than apprehended, and a debt contracted,-to discharge a part of which I had recourse, at the Committee's desire, to the fund which the liberality of the Parent Society had entrusted to me, to the amount of 1000 sicca rupees, and, afterwards, of 2000

more.

Of these burthens, the greater part had arisen from the expenses incident to extending and maintaining in an efficient state, and under the superintendance of the missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the circles of schools at Hourah Cassipore and Russepingle, in the neighbourhood of Calcutta. These schools, the latter more particularly, which had been originally brought together by the zealous exertions of the late secretary, Mr. Hawtayne, afford one of the most pleasing spectacles of the kind which India offers, and have always done, and still do, ample justice to the patience, activity, and sound discretion of the missionaries who have been employed in them. They are now about to be transferred to the newly established Committee of the Society for Propagating the Gospel, who have undertaken the charge in connexion with and in aid of Bishop's College. The Committee of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge will thus be relieved from the most troublesome and expensive of their duties; but it is necessary to observe, that a debt of 5000 sicca rupees still remains, incurred by the purchase and repair of the premises at Russepingle, which cannot be imposed on the new Committee without sinking it, and which the old Committee (to say nothing of the injustice of such a proceeding) is equally unable to support any longer. Under such circumstances, I trust that I am not presuming too far on the encouragement and hope of future support afforded by Mr. Parker's letter, just received, when I earnestly recommend the wants of both institutions to the munificent patronage of the Parent Society, and solicit them to help them with the means of getting rid of a load which so greatly impedes our usefulness.

Of the scholarships which the Society has founded at Bishop's College, I have filled up the first with W. Addison Godfrey, son of a respectable person in Madras; the second with C. Garstin, son of the Rev. Mr. Garstin, Colonial Chaplain in Ceylon; and the third with Charles Driberg, son of Captain Driberg, of H. M. Cingalese regiment. All these youths were recommended by the archdeacon or acting archdeacon of their respective governments, and all seem at present to afford a favourable promise of becoming valuable missionaries hereafter. The Tamul teacher, whom I have already mentioned as expected, was recommended to me by Mr. Mooyant, a gentleman of much respectability in Colombo; and the favourable opinion which he expressed was confirmed by the testimony of other persons, and by several of the young man's own letters, which were shewn me, and which evince much good sense, modesty, and Christian feeling, and a very remarkable familiarity with the English language. He had been employed, for some short time, in an office, under H. M. government, at Batticaloa, of which Canton, his father, is Modeliar, or Native Magistrate. Another youth of much promise, and of the Cingalese race,as the one whom I have named is of Tamul,-is coming out, I trust, at

the same time, as exhibitioner, supported by the contributions of the principal Europeans in the island: and these are only two out of many of the best families and most promising talents which that island can shew, who, if our means or the accommodations of the College had been competent to receive them, would have gladly come (some of them at their parents' own expense) to pursue their studies at Bishop's College.

I have subjoined an account of the sums which I have drawn for and expended as almoner of the Society, and from the fund entrusted to me by its bounty. On some of the items I must beg leave to offer a few observations.

The first was a donation to the metropolitan and clergy of the SyroMalayalim churches in Southern India, for the general relief of their wants, and particularly to be applied, at the metropolitan's discretion, to the support of poor students in theology in the College of Cotym. It was forwarded to and duly received by it objects, through the Rev. Messrs. Fern and Bailey, Missionaries in the employ of the Church Mission Society, and exercising their functions in Travancore. As I had consulted the Committee of the Society, before my departure from England, on the propriety of extending a part of their bounty to this most interesting and venerable, though poor depressed Church, I need say no more than that I have abundant reason to know that its members, both clergy and laity, look up to the Church of England as their surest patron and friend on earth, and that the manner in which they continue to speak of my excellent predecessor is the most agreeable to those who value his worth, and the most hopeful to all who anticipate their gradual reform from this increased approximation to Christians of a sounder doctrine, and a ritual less alloyed by superstition.

Of the two Bishops, to each of whom I presented a viaticum of 30l., the first is a person of much importance to the cause of Christianity in India, being the metropolitan sent after a lapse of many years, but according to ancient custom, by the Syrian Patriarch of Antioch, to take charge of the Malayalim Church. He arrived in Bombay while I was there, in his way to the coast of Malabar, and fully satisfied me of the character with which he was invested, at the same time that he gave me a favourable impression of his good sense, candour, and modesty, and in his attendance on Divine Service and the Communion according to our forms,-an auspicious presage of his friendly dispositions towards our Church. I left him at Bombay, awaiting the opportunity of a passage to Cochin or Allepie, to facilitate which, the donation which I have mentioned was much needed and very thankfully received. I am now about to send him a letter which my learned friends, Principal Mill and Mr. Robinson, are engaged in translating into Syriac, and I hope, by God's blessing, to see something more both of him and his flock in my proposed visitation of the South of the Peninsula.

Bishop Joseph is an Armenian, and one of the suffragans of the Metropolitan Church of Anapaty. He also fell in my way at Bombay, and, as being himself in distress, and engaged in a long journey to solicit alms from a small and by no means wealthy body of Christians, in behalf of a yet poorer though very numerous Christian community,

I trust that I was not wrong in esteeming him also a proper object of the Society's bounty.

The Reverend Mr. Christian was for considerable time most faithfully and actively occupied in superintending a circle of the Society's Schools, at Cossipoor near Calcutta, and I have since removed him to a still more arduous and important field of duty,-in preaching the Gospel to the mountaineers of Raja-Mahel. The grant of 251. (S. R. 250), was to enable him to perform a Missionary journey among those interesting tribes.

The last item of 1007. is in aid of a Chapel designed to be erected in one of the most populous parts of Calcutta, to be served by the different Missionaries of the Church of England who may be within reach, where service is to be performed in the Bengalee and Hindoostanee languages, but according to the Liturgy of our Church, and with all the usual and decent ornaments and adjuncts which our Church enjoins. From this measure, which is as yet untried in Calcutta, though it has succeeded admirably at Benares, Chuna, Meerut, and Agra, I anticipate a very powerful and advantageous effect on the native mind, extremely alive to what is graceful and decorous in external worship, and easily impressed by such language and sentiments as distinguish our noble Liturgy. Nor are they the Heathen, or the Mussulmans only, who may profit by the institution. Of the nominal Christians among the lower orders in Calcutta, a great proportion know little of any language but Bengalee and Hindoostanee; and many of these, who are avowed followers of the Church of Rome,-though, in fact, they are so grossly ignorant and degenerate that they hardly know the name of Christ, might be drawn, it is hoped, by degrees, to attend a form of prayer which, while its exterior arrayments would not disgust them by a too great departure from those to which they are accustomed, would convey its instructions to them in a tongue which they understand, and unite their hearts as well as their lips and knees in the praise of Him whom they now most ignorantly worship. With the grant which I have ventured to bestow on them, I have good hope a sufficient fund is already raised for the completion of the Chapel.

I have only to add that, should the Society disapprove of any of these applications of their bounty, I shall most cheerfully replace the sum objected to; that I shall again have the honour of addressing a letter to them when I have visited their missions in the presidency of Madras; and that my earnest prayers are offered up for their continued prosperity and usefulness, and that the pleasure of the Most High may long be seen to prosper in their hands.

ON THE AUTHORSHIP OF ICÔN BASILIKE.

MR. EDITOR, THE question « Who wrote Εικων Βασιλικη ?” continues in the present day to excite a great, though, considering the nature of the work itself, and the characters which are concerned in its right adjudication, I can scarcely call it an extraordinary interest.

I must do full credit to the ingenuity of your Review of Dr. Wordsworth's and Mr. Todd's publications; but at the same time your