SCOTTISH MISSIONARY SO.

CIETY.

THE Committee, in commencing their last Report, state, that though in their Mission in the wilds of Russian Tartary, they cannot exhibit any very decisive and splendid successes, they yet have it in their power to communicate many facts which seem to intimate that the way is gradually preparing for the entrance of Christian truth into those long desolated regions.

The Emperor of Russia continues to befriend the Mission at Karass; and the Missionaries are enabled to carry on their labours both in the colony and in the surrounding districts, without being exposed to any of the personal dangers, either from the plague or from the turbulence of the natives, with which in former years they have often been more than threatened. They had been diligently employed in embracing such opportunities as were presented to them, of conversing on the subject of Christianity with the natives; in making occasional excursions into the villages and steppes in the neighbourhood; in distributing copies of the Tartar New Testament, Psalms, and Tracts, to all by whom it was hoped they would be valued and perused; in attending to the education and religious instruction of the ransomed; and in superintending the secular affairs of the settlement. They write that, "there is a sensible diminution of the bitterness discovered by the natives, on having their attention directed to the truths of the Gospel. In former times, their eyes, the tone of their voice, and their every gesture, bespoke the existence of a bitter deep-rooted rancour, which, the moment it was touched, burst forth in angry words, and sometimes in rude be. haviour. Now, however, the outward expressions of this spirit may be considered as a kind of exception to their general conduct towards us.-There is also a considerable partial abatement of the horror which the common people once felt at the idea of being counted giaours, or infidels, should they listen to us, and relinquish the religion of their countrymen."

At Astrachan the Missionaries, Messrs. Glen, Dickson, Mitchell, and M'Pherson, have continued the prosecution of the particular studies and duties connected

with their respective departments of la bour. In the printing department, the following works have been executed: 5000 copies of the Orenburg Tartar Testament, from the first sheet as far as the sixth chapter of the Epistle, to the Hebrews: 2000 of the Book of Genesis in the Jagatai Tartar, being a revised edition of the MS. purchased by Dr. Pinkerton from the Karaite Jews at Bachcheserai; 1000 of a small schoolbook for the Orenburg Mission; and 500 of a Tartar catechism. The issues from the depository for gratuitous distribution, besides 1477 copies of St. Matthew's Gospel, in the Orenburg dialect, sent to that station, have been 207 Tartar Testaments, 160 copies of the Psalms, 21 of St. Luke's Gospel, and 2020 Tracts, (including 950 of the Orenburg School-book,) all in Tartar; 80 of the Book of Genesis, in the Jagatai Tartar; 25 of the Gospels in Calmuck; and 105 Persic Testaments. Mr. Dickson is going on with his version of the Pentateuch in the Jagatai Tartar. He bas likewise been engaged in collecting and arranging materials for a Vocabulary in the Tartar; and in turning the Karass Turkish Catechism into Tartar, and in translating the Assembly's Shorter Ca techism, and Brown's small Catechism for Children, into the same language. The Pentateuch of the Turkish translation of the Old Testament discovered by Dr. Pinkerton, the printing of which was commenced at Berlin, and was afterwards continued and completed at Paris, having reached Astrachan, and being carefully examined by Mr. Dickson, is considered by him and his brother missionaries, as promising, on being "revised with judgment and care," to furnish a version of the Old Testament corresponding with the Karass version of the New.

Information had been received from Astrachan, respecting a very considerable number of Jews resident on the western shores of the Caspian, and to whom the Missionaries are extremely anxious that the Gospel should be sent. Some years ago, it was understood that several villages of these descendants of Abraham were to be found in the neighbourhood of Endery, in the country of the Kumak Tartars: but it was not till lately that the Missionaries learned, that, in the vicinity of Derbent and Shomaka

alone, there are nearly 1000 familes, who still profess to adhere to the Law of Moses exclusively. With the view of endeavouring to reach this people, as well as of paving the way for subsequent journies among the Tartars in that part of Georgia and the north of Persia, the Missionaries at Astrachan agreed that an exploratory tour into those districts should be as soon as possible under. taken by Messrs. Glen and Dickson. It is proposed that they should meet at Mosdock, a town to the SS. E. of Karass. Thence it is intended that they should penetrate into Daghestan, and the north of Persia, visiting the different towns on the west side of the Caspian Sea, among which are Endery, Terichi or Tarqhu, Derbent, Gilan, Shamacha, and Backu, obtaining as accurate information as possible regarding the state of the country and its inhabitants,-of the possibility and expediency of fixing missionary stations in these regions, of the situation and tenets of the Jews who reside in the different towns, and examining, as minutely as may be, into all the different objects of interest preBented to their view. From Bakhu, or some of the other towns on the Caspian, they can sail for Astrachan, if this voyage were judged preferable to returning by land. Two of the other Missionaries at Astrachan will probably be employed in an expedition nearer home-in the steppe between Astrachan and Kitzfiar, including the Kumak Tartars. In the kingdom of Bokhara also, there are many Jews constantly resident, amounting, as is reported, to above a thousand families; who, though they generally speak the language of that kingdom, or of the countries from which they have einigrated, yet make use of no written character but the Hebrew, even when they write the language of the people among whom they live. This informa. tion tlie Missionaries received from one Baba, himself a Bucharian Jew, who first visited them about eighteen months ago, and last year, again, had several interviews with them, while passing through Astrachan, on his way homewards, after having spent the winter among his countrymen in Daghestan. He is extremely anxious to have copies of the Hebrew Bible sent to Bokhara. The London Society for the Conversion of the Jews have placed at the disposal of the Committee, 200 copies of the New Testament; 230 of the Prophets; with a quantity of Hebrew tracts, to be

sent without delay from their depositary at Odessa, directly to Astrachan. The reports from the station at Orenburg contain no decisive results: but are in general of a hopeful kind. The convert Mollanazar continues to give satisfactory evidence of his conversion being genuine. No communications of great importance had been received from the New Mission to the Crimea.

The Committee state, with deep regret, that the funds continue quite iuadequate to their opening prospects of usefulness, and that the utmost efforts of the friends of the Society will be requisite to keep up their missionary establishments. For the year ending March 31, 1820, the receipts were 3314 l. 7s. 5d., and the payments 4599 l. 11s. 11d.; leav ing an excess of expenditure, amounting to 1285 l. 4s. 6d.—which has not only exhausted the balance of 847 I. 1s. 2d, with which the year began, but has rendered it necessary to have recourse to a loan.

MARYLAND PRAYER-BOOK AND HOMILY SOCIETY.

Since the organization of this Society in May, 1818, one thousand and fifty Prayer-books have been purchased at thirty-two cents each; of which number seven hundred and seventy-two have been gratuitously distributed.— There have been sold 359 copies at cost prices; and to an individual four at sixty-two and an half cents each.

Two thousand copies each, of the First, Second, and Fourth Homilies of the Church, have been printed as tracts by the Society; of which number seventy-five have been gratuitously distributed, and fourteen hundred sold.

The Managers remark: “Such is the short and simple record of our proceed. ings, during the first year of our jastitution; and although it will be perceived that we have done little in comparison with older associations of a similar nature, yet the hope is entertained, that considering our infant state, and the smallness of our funds, we have done as much as could have been reasonably expected, towards advancing the prosperity of the Episcopal Church, and extending the holy influence of the religion of Jesus Christ."

The operations of the Managers have been greatly restricted by the limited state of the funds, which are altogether inadequate to the immense field of nsefulness which invites the benevolent exertions of this Society.

The Managers report, that some good has already been effected by its labours. They remark: "Many of the poor, who had before been prevented from joining in the public service, by the want of books, are now heard in our different churches, lifting up their voices in the assemblies of God's people, and audibly

joining in acts of confession, supplication, and praise. In some instances the Prayer books distributed by this Society have been employed in leading family devotions in the habitations of the indigent, who, either from want of inclination or want of ability, had heretofore neglected the duty.”

FRANCE.

THE minister of finance, in present ing the estimates for the year 1821, stated that the expected receipts would considerably exceed the current expenses, and this without resorting to any parsimonious retrenchment in the different branches of the public service. The calculated produce of the taxes is eight hundred and eighty-eight millions of francs, and the expenditure eight hundred and eighty-two millions; leaving a surplus, which, added to the excess of receipt for 1819 and 1820, makes 29,000,000 of francs.

Another attempt has been made to alarm or injure the royal family by the explosion of a petard, or a small barrel of gunpowder, in the palace of the Tuileries, near the chamber of the king. There seems, however, as his majesty expresses it, in his speech to the peers, to have been "more of insolence than of danger in the project." A person, named Neveu, was arrested on suspicion, and on his way to prison made a virtual avowal of his guilt by committing suicide. Petards have also been exploded in various other places, particularly in the Rue St. Honoré, as the duc d'Angoulême was passing. The nature and object of these proceedings do not seem very clear. The opinion which appears to have obtained most credit in Paris ascribes the whole affair to the trés-ultra as they are called. They had seen the effect which was produced by the assassination of the duc de Berri, on the stability of the ministry. The alarm which it caused led to the removal of the duc de Cazes-a person exceedingly obnoxious to them, on account of the sincerity of his attachment to the Charter and the general liberality of his political views; and they hoped, by creating a fresh alarm for the safety of the royal family, and an impression of the want of due vigilance and zeal in the ministry, to lead CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 230.

to some changes which would favour their return to power. Hence the explosions were evidently intended to frighten, not to injure. No one however, not even the king or the princes, fell into the snare; and when the trés-ultra in the chamber of deputies endeavoured to introduce into the address to the king, on that occasion, an expression reflecting on ministers, it was rejected: and the king, in replying, took care to speak of the fidelity of his ministers, by way of obviating every apprehension of distrust. Contemporaneously with the explosions, a complicated attempt was made, by means of forged orders of sale to a large amount, addressed to stockbrokers, to produce a sudden depression of the funds, which, had it succeeded, would naturally have increased the consternation. But the plot is said to have been discovered before it had led to any results. All this, we know not with what truth, is confidently affirmed to have been traced to the machinations of the trés-ultra. Whether the charge be true or false, they labour at present under the discredit of it; and, in consequence of this, the breach between them and their former allies, the more moderate ultras, has been widened, and the hands of ministers proportionably strengthened. But, after all, the whole affair seems to remain involved in mystery, as respects not only its origin but its objects.

SPAIN.

A considerable degree of ferment seems still to prevail in this country. On the one hand, the royalist party, who are named "Defenders of the Faith," are supposed to be watching for a favourable opportunity to subvert the Constitution. On the other, the democracy have not learned to employ with moderation the power of which they have become suddenly

T

possessed, and they are liable to perpetual agitations. A tumult has taken place at Madrid; and the king's body guard having been called out to suppress it, several persons are said to have been killed and wounded. The exasperation excited by this circumstance was so great, that the king found it politic to yield to the popular clamour, and to disband his body-guard. Wedread the occurrence of farther excesses, unless the Cortes should see the necessity of arming the executive authority wth the means of maintaining effectually the public tranquillity. Great uncertainty still hangs over the state of the Spanish trans-atlantic provinces.

PORTUGAL.

The deputies of the extraordinary or provisional Cortes have met to organize a constitution. Their first proceeding has been to commit the executive power to a regency, elected from the members of their own body. A committee of five deputies has been appointed to draw up the outline of the new constitution.

NAPLES.

The affairs of Naples continue to rivet the attention of Europe; and, we are happy to say, have excited a deep interest in the British Parliament. The extraordinary" declaration" of the allied sovereigns at Troppau had led our government, on its appearance, to issue a circular dispatch to his majesty's missions at foreign courts, dated 19th of January, 1821, for the purpose of preventing an erroneous impression of his majesty's sentiments respecting the great points in discussion. The principles advanced in that declaration, the circular note observes, would he in direct repugnance to the fundamental laws of this country; they are such as cannot safely be admitted as a systen of international law; and, in the, hands of less beneficent monarchs than those who are the parties to it, they might lead to results fatal to the independence of nations. Such powers, it is distinctly stated, cannot be assumed by the allied courts, without either attributing to themselves a supremacy incompatible with the rights of other states; or, even if other states should accede to this assumption, without leading to many very serious inconveniences.-So much for

our clear reprobation of the principle on which the declaration of Troppau is founded. With respect to the particular case of Naples, strong disapprobation is expressed of the mode of the Revolution, which, however, is said not to be such as to justify the interference of this country; and a large admission is made of the right to interfere which other states may possess, with a view to their own security, provided they have no view to their own aggrandisement. The assumption of such right, however, is regarded as only to be justified by the strongest necessity, and not to be applicable indiscriminately to all revolutionary movements; as,in fact,only an exception to general principles, growing out of the special circumstances of the case. As for the expectation expressed in the declaration of the allied sovereigns, that the court of London would assent to the measures proposed to be taken with respect to Naples, since these measures, it is alleged, are founded on existing treaties; that court, lord Castlereagh declares, not only withholds its assent, but protests against any such construction being put upon the treaties in question, having always maintained the negative of that proposition.

The opposition party in Parliament, conceiving that the above circular did not reprobate in sufficiently strong terms, the course of interference which has been pursued by the allied sovereigns with respect to Naples, have moved several questions on the subject, in both houses of Parliament, which have given rise to animated debates; and it is with the utmost satisfaction we remark, that no member of either house has undertaken to defend the conduct of Austria and her allies. The utmost that has been said, even by ministers, is, that we ought not to prejudge Austria, as she may have a case to produce sufficient to justify her aggression; and › until we know all the circumstances of danger in which she has been placed by the incendiary measures of the Carbonari, it is premature to pronounce upon her a harsh judgment. The warmest friends of ministers, however, not in office, have not hesitated to stigmatize the conduct of that power as a violent and unjust encroachment on the rights of indepen-: dent states; and as endangering the liberties of every nation of Europe,

and of Great Britain among the rest. It was most gratifying to hear, on the evening of the 20th instant, in the House of Commons, the representatives of all the varying shades of political opinion-such as Mr. Stuart Wortley, the Honourable Mr. Ward, Mr. Wilberforce, &c.-concurring heartily with Mr. Tierney, Mr. Brougham, and Sir James Macintosh, in reprobating the attempt to controul the movements of free and indepen dent states; and even ministers going as far as, perhaps, it was prudent for them to go in the same direction. Very strong remonstrances on their part, or even a very decisive condemnation of the particular measures resorted to (the propriety of which, in any case, must depend on a full knowledge of all circumstances), might not be advisable, unless we were prepared to back our remonstrances by warlike demonstrations. And even those who feel most forcibly the unjust and unjustifiable nature of the present proceedings of the allied sovereigns would admit, that so to interfere, for the protection of Naples, would be to compromise the vital interests of the British empire. The steps which our government have taken, together with the undisguised expression of public feeling which our parliamentary debates have called forth, will not, however, we trust, be without a very considerable effect on the conferences at Laybach. We are even sanguine enough to hope, that they may yet make a sufficiently powerful impression to avert the tide of war which is flowing towards the South of Italy. We have hitherto no certain tidings that the Austrian armies (amounting, it is said, to 100,000 men) have yet crossed the Po. The opponents of ministers in Parliament affirm, indeed, that the professed neutrality of our government, has, in fact, been a manifest partiality towards the projects of Austria; and, that to have fulfilled the high obligations imposed upon them by the commanding position we hold among the powers of Europe, their remonstrances should have been both earlier in point of time, and much more energetic. On this point we have at present no means of judging. We can have no doubt, however, that our government is too strongly impressed with a sense of the evils which may eventually be produced by rekindling the flaines of war in Europe, or even by the blood

less occupation of the Neapolitan territory by Austrian troops, not to desire and to labour most strenuously to avert them. And it is on this conviction that our hope, of still witnessing a beneficial result from the mediatory efforts of this country, is built. May it please Providence to realize that hope, and to avert the impending horrors of a fresh war, the extent and issue of which no human sagacity can foresee!

DOMESTIC.

The affair of the Queen has been brought before Parliament in several different forms, and always with nearly the same issue. We mentioned, in a Postscript to our lastNmuber, the result of a motion for pronouncing that the exclusion of the Queen's name from the liturgy was ill-advised and inexpedient. A more direct motion of censure, for the general conduct of ministers respecting her Majesty, was brought forward by the Marquis of Tavistock, on the 5th of February, and debated during that and the succeeding evening at great length, and with much warmth. In the course of the debate, several of the members, who usually vote with ministers, admitted the inexpediency of some of the steps that had been taken by them, and especially the exclusion of her name from the liturgy in the first instance; but they argued, at the same time, that the errors that had been committed, did not form a sufficient ground on which to vote the dismissal of the present administration, which must be the effect of the proposed vote, if adopted; and that the case itself was so delicate and difficult as to render partial errors excusable. The conduct of the Queen, since her arrival in this country, appeared to be regarded by numbers as furnishing the strongest reason why no step should be taken by Parliament that might give her, and the dangerous party with which she appeared to have too much identified herself, a triumph that would be used for the most factious purposes. On the division, there appeared a majority of 146 against the motion, in a very full house.

Another motion was brought forward on the 13th of February, by Mr. John Smith, to this effect: "That the house having taken into consideration the fact of the Queen's name not being inserted in the liturgy, and also the numerous petitions on that subject,