Page:Guatimala or the United Provinces of Central America in 1827-8.pdf/143

Rh Tract Society in London, which he received with the greatest pleasure. I could dispose of any number of these productions, but I am not sanguine as to the good which might be expected to result. It is not for us to decide where God will give or where he will withhold the blessing; but viewed as means, I conceive millions might be circulated without the conversion of a single soul from the legal and idolatrous system of Popery to entire faith in the one only Saviour. From the circulation of the Scriptures, (even as translated by Scio de San Miguel,) good may be anticipated, but it is future rather than present. Popery throws a thousand chains around its votaries, and until these are broken, and the mind emancipated, and the whole system exposed as Antichrist, no great hope can be entertained for their moral regeneration. The desire to possess a Bible, by no means implies a sense of its value, or a disposition to study it. In Spanish America it has been forbidden fruit, and therefore it is longed for. If it be read, it is with a mind wholly subject to the decisions of the Romish Church, but it more frequently happens, that curiosity being satisfied, it is left on the shelf neglected and