They have in the course of the year distributed ninety-nine Bibles and twenty Testaments.

The permanent fund of the Society is One Thousand Dollars.

The balance now in the hands of the Treasurer, due to the Society is $281 21 cts.

By the foregoing statement it appears, that there has been an increased activity in the distribution of Bibles; and from this eircumstance conclusive evidence may be derived in favor of the growing usefulness and importance of the institution. The poor are gratuitously supplied with the bread of life; others, who are able to furnish themselves are reminded by the zeal of Bible Societies of the duty of possessing the sacred volume, and a general disposition to read and examine the Scriptures, which are able to make us wise unto salvation, may be reasonably presumed to be the happy consequence. Bible Socie

ties have already been the happy instruments of diffusing incalculable benefits to a large portion of the human race; and the undeniable evidence of their utility has encouraged the formation of a large num ber in various parts of the world. But it is found by experience, that however numerous the institutions and liberal the means furnished by them, they are far from being competent to the objects, yet to be accomplished. The boundaries of this new field of benevolence expand as the laborers advance. The unity of design exhibited by the various Bible Societies in the United States not only promises a rich harvest of the Christian graces, love and charity, but their mutual correspondence gives rise to many useful projects; and a union of their counsels and efforts must give greater vigor and effect to their designs. In this view, a recent communication from the Bible Society at New York has been received with pleasure by the Managers of this Society, announcing their determination to print and disseminate the Bible in French among the inhabitants of Louisania; where they have discovered a deplorable scarcity of Bibles and a disposition to receive them with gratitude. The work is in considerable forwardness; and the undertaking being expensive, the aid of similar institutions in this country has been solicited. The Managers of this Society have therefore voted to remit One Hundred Dollars to the New York Bible Society to aid in this laudable object. The Managers report with satisfaction the generous donations of individuals to this institution. One Hundred Bibles have been presented by Mr. PEARLY TENNEY, and the sum of One Hundred Dollars has been received from

a person whose name is not known to this board; These pious donations will command the gratitude and respect of each member of the institution.

The Managers voted also to furnish One Hundred Bibles towards replacing certain others which had been captured by an American privateer from a British vessel and had been destined for distribution among the destitute; but they were happy to learn that a sum of money, more than sufficient, had already been raised in Boston for the same purpose.

The statement exhibited this day by the Managers of their doings must establish the importance of the Merrimack Bible Society and excite in the members a new and lively interest in its welfare. A call for the Bible is one which a believer in its truth must find it difficult to resist; and even amid our present distress, an appropriation of a small portion of that substance which will soon perish, in favor of so laudable an object, must appear reasonabe, especially in view of the hope, that it may be regarded, as a "treasure in heav en. But an immediate excitement must be derived to all from the reflection, that when circulating the Bible, they are diffusing the best antidote to those crimes, which bring down the judgments of an angry God; that they are taking the readiest means of removing present calamities; that they are promoting the cause of civ ilization, literature and humanity, and subserving the temporal and eternal interests of man. The Managers cannot conclude therefore without earnestly recommending to the members renewed exertions in the great cause, in which they have so laudably, and hitherto so successfully embarked.

(Signed)

SAMUEL SPRING, President. Newburyport, January 5, 1814.

CHARITABLE ASSOCIATION.

THE citizens of the town of Newburyport will recollect the call which was made on their charitable feelings the early part of last winter, by an association, formed for the purpose of affording temporary assistance to poor and distressed families in this town and vicinity. The following extract from the report of the Trustees of that association, and the subjoined communication from the Female Benevolent Society, now published by request of the Trustees, will give the benevolent donors a correct view of the mauuer in which their bounty has been disposed of.

Extract from a Report of the Trustees of the Charitable Society, March 11, 1813:

The board of Trustees began their supplies on the 1st of January, (1818) and have continued them weekly to the present time; during which period applications have been received from two hundred and fifty-nine families. Of that number fifty have been referred to other sources for supplies, or have been found on inquiry not to be so necessitous as to require the attention of the 3oard. Two hundred and nine families have received partial or constant supplies from the Board. The average number supplied weekly by the Board, has been about one hundred and fifty families containing from 4 to 500 persons.

The sums appropriated for ten weeks amount to Five hundred and fifty-eight dollars and seventy-seven cents, exclusive of wood; of which about fifteen cords have been distributed.

The Board have also entrusted to the Female Benevolent Society for distribution, in cash and goods, $153 31 cts, and have also placed under their direction an additional sum of $100 for the purchase of materials for spinning, &c. which last sum is to be acounted for hereafter to this Board. So far as the Board have been under advantages to judge, the amount entrusted to that Society has been very judiciously appropriated.

There remains now in the Treasury one hundred and sixty-three dollars and forty-seven cents; and there also remains uncollected $17, which sum it is expected will enable the Board to continue their supplies until the first week in April; at. which time, unless further subscriptions are received, the supplies must cease."

After the date of the above report the balance then on hand was distributed in the same manner as therein stated. And within a few days past the Society have received the following communication from the Female Benevolent Society, giving an account of the monies entrusted to their care:

"To the Secretary of the Charitable Association, formed in Newburyport for the relief of the poor

SIR,

WHEN the liberal donations from your Society were put into the hands of the

Ladies of the Benevolent Society, it was requested that at the end of the year some account of the manner in which it was distributed might be given you. We therefore take the liberty to present to you the following statement.

The first hundred dollars which was given us in clothing, was distributed according to the best judgment of our committee in those families which appeared to them the most destitute. The fifty dollars, given in money, "to be disposed of at the discretion of the Society,' appropriated in the following manner, viz. Ten dollars to each of our committee, (four in number;) with which they clothed poor children to go to school and to meeting. The remaining ten dollars was retained for the use of the sick.

was

The hundred dollars given for stock, has also been improved in the following manner: One hundred and sixty-one spinners have been employed, and four thousand four hundred and eighteen skeins of yarn have been spun. Twentyeight weavers have woven one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven yards, of cloth. Sixteen pair of hose have been knit. One hundred and fifty garments and five pair of cotton cards have been distributed in pay for spinning and weav ing. The stock now on hand is valued at one hundred dollars.

As it may not be unpleasant to you to know what the Society have done otherwise, we take the liberty of adding the following schedule.

(To be continued.)

Douxos is requested to forward the constitution and laws of the charity libraries, to which he refers, that they may be published either in whole, or in an abridged

state.

He is informed that ten sets of the three first volumes of the Minor Panoplist, in boards, will be delivered to his order, for the use of these libraries, on application to the Publisher of the Panoplist.

Several communications are on hand, which will be mentioned more particularly hereafter.

After consulting with several friends of the Panoplist, as to the utility and propriety of the measure, we have concluded to offer the following premiums for original communications to be inserted in the current volume of our work: viz.

One of Twenty Five Dollars to the writer of the best composition in prose; the rule of judging to be the tendency of the piece to do good:

One of Fifteen Dollars to the writer of the best piece of poetry: and

One of Ten Dollars to the writer of the second best composition in prose.

The persons, according to whose decision the premiums shall be distributed, will be entitled to respect and deference.

All original communications contained in the current volume, with the exception of those written by the editor and the judges, will be taken into consideration,

without any request or intimation on the part of the writers. There is no necessity, that the writers should be known to the editor. It is always convenient, however, that original communications should have signatures.

It is to be remembered, that the preceding offer is not to be construed as limiting, or in any way affecting, the power of the editor over communications.

Our corresponde ts, who may be influenced by the preceding offer, will bear in mind, that the sooner communications are made, the greater will be the probability that they will be inserted in the current volume, as there may be a press of matter toward the close of the year.

Whether a similar offer will be made another year must depend upon the result of the present offer.

Though the value of the premiums may appear small, yet it is as great as that of some of the premiums offered for original compositions, in the English Universities.

TO SUBSCRIBERS.

OUR distant subscribers ought to be informed, that the irregularity and delay, experienced in the receipt of our numbers by mail, are not chargeable to us; but must be laid to the crowded state of the mails. In several instances, the Panoplist has remained for weeks in the Boston postoffice, Hence it has happened, that later numbers are sometimes received by our subscribers before earlier ones. The postmaster at Boston has declared his disposi tion to forward our work, with as little delay as possible, not only for the sake of obliging us and our subscribers, but for his own convenience. He conceives himself obliged by law, however, to send all the newspapers, though pamphlets should be delayed. Very probably delays, similar to the one described at Boston, have occurred in other offices on the road. As we have fully stated the complaints of our subscribers to the postmaster, and as we have now returned to our former practice of printing but one number in a month, we hope that there will be less occasion for complaint hereafter.

Subscribers are informed, tha a few deficient numbers can be supplied at present, for twenty cents each; and, whenever deficiences shall probably have arisen from mistake or negligence on our part, they shall be supplied without expense. The fact is, however, that we incur a disadvantage by supplying deficient numbers at the price above stated, as broken volumes may be left on hand in consequenceof it.

For the Panoplist.

SINNERS, IN A SPIRITUAL SENSE,

BLIND AND DEAF.

Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see....I8. xlii, 18.

Ir we consider these words as prophetic, they have reference to the period of our Savior's ad vent, when the Gentiles should be brought into the holy family of God; and, thus received, they are an earnest expostulation with the Gentiles to forsake their idolatry, and receive the illumination of the Gospel. The prophet, however, addressed himself immediately to the Jews, and designed to reprove them for their unbelief and rejection of the truth. His language is strong and impressive; and, as the persons addressed were favored with the natural organs of sight and hearing, no candid mind will be liable to mistake his meaning. He here exhibits, with affecting emphasis, the moral state of all men, while unrenewed by the Holy Ghost; and, by his example, he furnishes us with divine authority, as to the manner in which the impenitent should be addressed. At this ame I would direct the reader's VOL. X.

attention to the solemn truth, that

Impenitent sinners are, in a spiritual sense, deaf and blind. A person, who has always been destitute of the bodily or gan of sight, is unable to form just conceptions of external objects. The sun may shine in the glory of a cloudless sky, while to him all is total darkness. Describe to him, in the most lively colors, the beauties of creation, and you fail to give him any suitable ideas of these objects, because he never saw them.

Moral and religious truths are as distinct objects of vision to the mind, as the earth, the sun, or any material substance, is to the eye. The holy character of God, for instance, may be discerned with perfect clearness; and it abideth forever, an object of delightful contemplation. The same holds true of the character of Christ as Mediator. The loveliness of truth is, likewise, an object of distinct vision; and may be seen and contemplated with as much fixedness and certainty, as any material object.

Holiness and sin, in their true character, are other objects of distinct vision. So also is the divine law. Its beauty and

7

excellence are viewed with unutterable delight, by all who love its precepts, and are properly awed by its sanctions. But the holy character of God, the complete, perfect character of Christ, the loveliness of truth, holiness and sin,-with the glories of the divine law, are objects, which the natural eye seeth not. These are spiritual objects, and can be discerned only by a spiritual vision. This spiritual vision, exists in those only, who have a temper and disposition harmonizing with the divine law, and pleased with the perfect character of Jehovah. When this temper and disposition are possessed, the things of the Spirit of God are received; the person enjoys spiritual light; and the secret of the Lord is with him.

I make these observations, for the purpose of leading you, my readers, to just views, on this important and essential point in theology, and of making a proper distinction between that discernment, which arises from a well-informed understanding, and the discernment, which accompanies a temper and disposition harmonizing with the divine law. The latter is a spiritual discernment, and comprises all that is intended by spiritual knowledge.

Unless, my readers, your views are correct on this point, you are novices in religion, and are not prepared to reap the best advantage from attention to the subject now under consideration. The persons addressed by the prophet are blind, but their blindness is of a peculiar charac ter the destitution of spiritual discernment. They know not

They discern not the loveliness of truth. And, in addition to this dreadful and universal malady, they are deaf:-deaf to the calls of hope;-deaf to the invitations of mercy;-deaf to the threatenings of the divine law;→→→ deaf to the intreaties of compassion.

Can it be necessary to go into an elaborate proof, that this is the deplorable and affecting condition of all the impenitent? One might well suppose that the evidence, which is constantly exhibited, of this fact, would banish every doubt from the mind, and fasten an unshaken conviction upon it.

Had the sinner just views of the divine law, could he feel indifferent towards it, and knowingly transgress it? Did he dis

cern

the glory of the divine character; could he be silent, ungrateful, and rebellious? But in his present state he finds fault with the divine dispensations; contends with God as partial and unjust; gives the reins to his selfish appetites, and habitually disobeys. Nor does he perceive the beauty of holiness, or the nature of sin. The former neyer excites his desires; the latter never excites his disgust, in itself considered. Its delusive objects he pursues, with all the intenseness of an eager, insatiate appetite: and this too, when assured by God himself, that the end of these things is death. Nor does he perceive the loveliness of truth, and therefore rejects it. His dislike will be great, in proportion to the clearness and force with which the truths of the Gospel are exhibited. Hence sinners often denounce, as false