1829.] Missionary Societies.-Bible Society. there present, on the authority of information derived from the most authentic source, that the conduct of the Missionaries was highly praiseworthy. Mr. Wynn spoke with much feeling of the part taken in this work by the lamented Bishop Heber, whom he designated as one of his own personal friends, whom he had loved through life, and whose memory he should cherish to the latest hour of his earthly existence. 66 When," said Mr. Wynn, "that distinguished prelate was proceeding to India, he declared that it should be his glory, so far as he could allow himself to glory in any thing, that he was the Chief Missionary from England." Mr. Wynn admitted that delicacy was requisite in the execution of such a work; he deprecated the idea of putting a force on the religious opinions of any man; and urged the necessity of a most exemplary demeanour on the part of those who undertook the conversion of the heathen. With reference to the objection, too frequently made against such undertakings, that it is impossible they should succeed without the aid of miracles, he emphatically demanded, "Where is it that we are now considering this objection? In Britain, where the Gospel has been already successfully planted without miraculous aid; and where a people sunk in barbarism, and under the influence of bigoted and interested priests and druids, were persuaded to relinquish their superstitious rites, and their horrid custom of sacrificing human victims, and submit to the mild influence of Christianity, by Missionaries." He remarked, that we ought to be governed in this work rather by a regard to our duty than by any other consideration. Yet it was not to be disputed that success had attended missionary exertions, and if the question were asked, why do you not show some conquests over the prejudices of the people in other places where the difficulties are less than in India? the answer was at hand: By a steady perseverance in this course, whole islands in the South Sea have already been induced to abandon their superstitions, and receive Christianity. Similar success may be expected in India. "The lamented prelate," Mr. Wynn remarked, "to whom I have already alluded, in the last letter which I received from him, informed me that he 295 was then writing in the midst of a population of 40,000 native Christians, the spiritual children of Schwartz, who laboured at first under great discouragements." 3. The Bible Society; which your Correspondent observes would spread spurious versions of the Scriptures over the whole world, &c. But, Mr. Urban, in Great Britain this Society circulates the authorized version, and no other in the English language. It does, indeed, also encourage the labouring classes to purchase Bibles, by the institution of local associations, who receive weekly the contributions of the poor, and deliver the books when the price is half paid. In this way has a small association in my immediate neighbourhood brought into use 1,200 copies of the Scriptures, to the great improvement of the morals of very many poor families. On the subject of the foreign transactions of the Society, I will only observe, that, assailed as it has been, with no little violence, on this part of its work of benevolence, I conceive it might be clearly shown, in its defence, had I not already trespassed too much on your indulgence, that scarcely any intelligible version of the Scriptures could be put into circulation, in heathen lands, which would not do some service to those by whom it might be read, and attentively considered; and that this objection of your Correspondent is precisely the same as was urged by sticklers for the claims of the See of Rome against the earliest efforts of the Fathers of our Protestant Church. It was on this very principle that the Church of Rome refused to let the laity have any version at all, because, forsooth, she would be thought to be dreadfully afraid of corrupting the Scriptures, by presenting a spurious Revelation instead of the true one; and, when the propriety of presenting his Majesty's liege subjects with a translation into English was debated in the Council of Henry the Eighth, and the Protestants had carried that point with the King, Gardiner, then Bishop of Winchester, as a last resource, presented a list of one hundred words which he desig nated untranslateable. The perusal of this list, which may be found in Fuller's Church History, will satisfy any one that, whatever difficulties they might present to a mind constructed as Gardiner's was, the rendering of them in the authorized version, has, 296 New Bath Guide.-Epitaph on Dr. Young. during three hundred years, answered every valuable purpose of religious instruction. On the subjects of Evangelical Preaching and Religious enthusiasm, it is scarcely necessary to remark, that the former phrase but ill defines something, the approval or disapproval of which is often a matter of taste. When a Clergyman, by a clear and energetic style of composition, and popular address, attracts large congregations, he is called an evangelical preacher. In this class was the present Lord Bishop of London enrolled, while he held the Rectory of St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, and it still includes some clergymen in the metropolis: but that they should not be approved by all their brethren does not appear to me to be a just cause of surprise, or to warrant the passing an indiscriminate censure on them, or on their labours. Religious enthusiasm I take to be by no means the character. istic of our age. The extension of civil liberty and diffusion of science, and especially the free circulation of religious truth, have done much to extinguish it. Under the Church of Rome, it was, in ages past, widely extended, and often severely felt. The anchoret, "Who wore out life in his religious whim, Till his religious whimsie wore out him;" and whole armies of crusaders, "Who left their bones beneath unfriendly skies, Rome's worthless absolution all their prize;' these were unquestionably religious enthusiasts; and it is some compliment to the sobermindedness of the present age, that the instance of the maniac who fired the choir of York Cathedral is without parallel or precedent, except in the man who fired the Temple of Ephesus to immortalize his name. Yours, &c. THOMAS FISHER. [April, larity it rapidly acquired and still continues to possess. Several editions of it have gone through the press, (from sixteen to twenty,) and I am now engaged in editing and printing a new one, which is intended to surpass all the former, not merely in its typogra phical execution, but in embellishment and the elucidatory notes which I propose to affix to various passages. It is also my intention to precede the volume with a biographical and topographical essay. As very great alterations have been made in Bath since Mr. Anstey's time; as its amusements, and the pursuits and customs of its natives and visitors are very dissimilar to what they were in the middle of the last century, I shall be obliged for any hints or information on these subjects; or for any anecdotes of the author, or of the times when he wrote. Yours, &c. Mr. URBAN, THE JOHN BRITTON. April 4. HE view of Dr. Young's birthplace at Upham in Hampshire, engraved in your last, has reminded me, that in the pleasure grounds of the Rev. Samuel Johnes Knight, Rector of Welwyn, Herts, at the entrance of a fine avenue of lime-trees, an altar surmounted by an urn, of chaste and elegant design, arrests the attention of the visiter, and is thus inscribed: Ut umbra æstiva, qua ipse delectabatur, has arbores sic in ordine consevit, amæni et perelegantis ingenii Poeta, ac sententiarum gravitate Qui, cum vitæ esset sanctitas summa, Vitia insectabatur, non homines, T 1829.] Trinity Church, Marylebone. NEW CHURCHES.-No. XXI. TRINITY CHURCH, MARYLEBOne. Architect, Soane. THE Church which forms the first subject in the accompanying engraving, is situated on the North side of the New-road, near the eastern entrance to the Regent's Park; it is the last of the five new Churches built in the populous parish of St. Marylebone, four of which have already been described in our pages*. In common with the parish or rectory Church, on the opposite side of the road, the usual Church arrange ment has been departed from; in this instance, the principal front faces the south instead of the west, and the altar is at the north end of the building. In our Magazine for 1826 (vol. xcvi. pt. ii. p. 201), we gave a view and description of St. Peter's Church, Walworth, also built from Mr.Soane's designs; it will be seen by a comparison of the present, with the engraving then given, that the two buildings closely resemble each other. Though not absolute copies, there is that sameness of design which we have already censured as a fault in the works of inferior architects, and which we should not have expected in any building proceeding from the pencil of Mr. Soane. Walworth Church is a brick building, with the ornamental portions executed in stone; the present is apparently at least a stone building, with certain patches of brick, a novel, it is true, but at the same time a tasteless style of decoration. The principal front of this Church is made into a centre, with side divisions; the first portion consists of a portico of four Ionic columns, imitated from the Temple on the Ilyssus at Athens; they are raised on a flight of steps of equal height with the plinth on which the entire building is elevated, and are surmounted by their entablature. The frieze displays the Grecian fret, an ornament once very fashionable with the designers of fenders and tea-boards, and with which Mr. Soane has chosen to mark, with a *Christ Church, vol. xcv. pt. ii. p. 577. All Souls, vol. xcvi. pt. ii. p. 9. The Parish Church, and St. Mary's, vol. xcvII. pt. ii. p. 9. GENT. MAG. April, 1829. 297 solitary exception, every building he has erected; behind the portico are entrances to the Church, and collateral to it are two plain divisions, containing lofty arched windows, divided in height by a transverse stone; the central portion is built or faced with stone, these smaller divisions, with their returns at the flanks of the building, are built with brick, and form a disagreeable contrast with the stone work of the front and flanks. Such small portions of brick-work rather show a peculiar taste, than indicate an atconceive that in an edifice, where the tention to economy, for no one can funds allowed of a number of expensive columns, any necessity could exist for leaving a small portion only of the corners of the building destitute of a stone covering. In the side divisions, the cornice only of the entablature is applied, and the entire elevation is surmounted by a blocking course and ballustrade, rather an odd finish to a professedly Grecian building.. Above the portico rises a tower in two stories, the first or belfry is square, in plan in each face is an arched window, with a circular perforation above for the dial, over which the Grecian fret is again introduced. At the sides of the windows, and near the angles of the tower, are insulated columns of the "Tivoli Corinthian order, standing on pedestals; the story is crowned with an entablature, which breaks over the columns, and above each column is one of those strange ornaments peculiar to the works of Mr. Soane, which, from the description of this Church by Mr. Elmes, in "Metropolitan Improvements" (p.83), we learn are intended for cinerary urns. These hitherto nondescript ornaments Mr. Elmes, in general an acute and excellent architectural critic, styles "pleasing finials;" they appear to us little niore than clumsy attempts at imitating hacles at the angles of the Church those far more pleasing finials, the pintowers of our national architecture. The second story is circular, a peristyle of six columus, of the same order as the tower of the Winds at Athens; the columns are raised on a stylobate, and crowned with an entablature, over which is a blocking course, broken by Grecian tiles at intervals, corresponding with the columns. A cupola, sus |