in BIBLICAL MEETINGS. Docilis imitandis Turpibus, ac pravis omnes sumus.-Juv. · "The mind of mortals in perverseness strong, SIR, In my last communication but one, I had the pleasure of introducing the Fathers, with some respectable divines of the Protestant Church, who agree with those Fathers in a common opposition to the vaunted principle -the Scripture, as interpreted by each individual, the only, and unerring rule of faith. I also took occasion to express my own decided abhorrence of the plans of the Bible Societies-plans which I more than suspect "to be cunning in design, and pernicious in effect;"-plans of which "the object is proselytism, the pretence education." I now fondly hoped, after a long and rather painful discursion through the barren waste of fanaticism, to slake at length, my burning thirst, to repose a moment in the cooling shade, and drink from the source of science and virtue. Hope, thus raised is again deferred-the wished for rill has fled my lips; I must even pursue my devious way, and follow the march of Bible distributors. This transition from the Fathers to the. Saints, to me, I own, is peculiarly ungrateful. But the strides they are making to a power which must eventually merge the altar and throne; their pertinacious adherence to a system, which, if it were possible it could succeed, as the Rev. Peter Roe, at a late Bible meeting, hoped it would succeed, in making the Bible “an inmate of every house, and cottage in Ireland," would terminate at once our struggle for order-the accessions of strength which they daily receive from mistaken liberality, leave no alternative. I owe it to God, to religion, to my country, and to myself to denounce their dark and treacherous designs—It is a sacred duty, from the discharge of which I must not shrink; and though my solitary voice may be feeble and unavailing that voice shall still continue to be raised. Understanding that a meeting of the Hibernian Bible Society was to be held at the Rotunda, on Thursday 8th April, I felt an earnest, and indeed, irresistible desire to gain admission to the deliberations of a body whose movements I had long and anxiously watched, aud whose designs I have latterly endeavoured to expose. In this view, after some fruitless efforts to procure a ticket of admission, I proceeded to the office in Sackville-street, stated to the person in attendance my earnest wish to be present at the meeting, and respectfully solicited the favour of a ticket. It was some time before I could make myself intelligible from the noise and pressure of a crowd, almost exclusively female, who seemed to have come on a similar mis-/ sion. When, however, I could be heard, some interrogatories of a nature rather discouraging were put-I was asked my name, and if I was a subscriber or member of the Society. To these latter queries, I replied, of course in the negative; repeating my entreaties to be favoured with a ticket. Why did you not apply sooner? It was not until this morning I heard of the meeting, and would feel greatly obliged by your giving me a ticket, as I have particular reasons for wishing to be present-Oh! no; Procul esto profani-I cannot, Sir, let you have a ticket! Thus ended the dialogue. I was dismissed L . with a polite, but peremptory refusal. Such the boasted publicity of a Biblical meeting!— But, perhaps, it was feared that some lurking traitor's unhallowed pen might publish to the world their fanatical proceedings. The precaution was thoroughly and happily frustrated by the kindness of a friend, who supplied what the liberality of a Bibleman could not possibly concede. I was introduced to the assembly, I did get admission into this new world, and found myself among a set of beings, of whose existence, I had not, until that moment the slightest, the most distant, the most remote conception. I was at once astonished, and terrified, by the voice, the phrase, the gesture-by the new creation which burst on my view! After these first emotions were passed, I quickly perceived that I had got into the company of a chosen generation, a sacred band, a tribe altogether distinct from the impure, the voluptuous, and pseudochristians among whom I had hitherto lived and moved. It was the dear people, the elect, the people of God. Why the children of Israel were never, by the favour of providence, so distinguished or separate from the gross Egyptians, as these Biblicals are, in their own estimation, from carnal people, from people of the world, from the rest of men! On looking around, I perceived that the superb room where the assembly met, was filled to repletion. A galaxy of female luminaries blazed on my sight-the undulating motion of fifteen or sixteen hundred Leghorn bonnets and plumes, gave a sensation somewhat like that which is felt on first losing sight of land. A platform was raised on which a number of persons, whom I afterwards found were the Dramatis Persona of this wonderful scene, were acting their parts in regular succession. It is foreign to my design to go into a description of the strange gesticulation; the vehement and enthusiastic declamation ; the violent contortion of head and arm; the sighing, wailing, and as I thought, weeping of the various actors who figured on this most singularly eccentric of all singular and eccentric theatres. It is the system, not the man, I engage to combat. At the time I entered, a speaker, (Mr. Matthias) was just come to the peroration of what I soon found to be the Apotheosis of some Bible missionaries who, from natural or artificial causes, had taken their everlasting abode on the plains of Hindostan and western Africa. This was done |