We, the committee of the Ladies’ Bible Association for Cromer and its neighbourhood, consider it our duty to lay before our subscribers, the prefixed statement of the condition of our charge; and in doing so, we think it may be expedient to accompany the same with some extracts from the slight records which we have kept of our proceedings, since Nov. 1827, when our friend, Mr. J. J. Gurney, now on a christian mission in America, first called us together.

We may premise that in our note of the first year, (1828,) we find the need of the society indicated by the fact, that in one outlying district, a poor woman had lately given three shillings for the tattered remains of a bible. The announcement of the formation of our association, and of the facility which it afforded for obtaining bibles, was received with pleasure throughout the neighbourhood. Many parents were desirous to avail themselves of the opportunity of providing bibles for their children, and even some solitary old couples who could not read themselves subscribed, that they might have a bible in the house for their neighbours to read to them.

The young people were generally found eager to subscribe. All the girls (but one) of one school gave their names as soon as the plan was proposed to them, and several having supplied themselves with bibles, continue as free subscribers, and take much interest in reading the monthly extracts. It was pleasant too, to see the desire of children in various places, to devise a way to earn their own subscriptions. One little girl, who had a hen, set aside the first chickens for the payment of hers, and an errand boy volunteered to run some additional miles, to obtain a few pence for his.

Some interesting particulars of the effect of passages of the word of God upon individuals, have occasionally been related in conversation with the collectors. On one of these applying to a young man, the latter said, that though he had a bible, he would willingly subscribe five shillings for another, (as a gift we suppose, to some friend,) and he proceeded to say, that when very young he was very thoughtless, and, for a length of time, had feared neither God nor man. Being alone one day in his father’s house, he saw a bible lying on a window seat; he opened it in a careless manner, and his eye was caught by a verse of awful denunciation against sinners. He could not bear it, and flung the bible into a corner of the room, and went out. The words still haunted him, and, on his return after some time, seeing the bible still on the floor, he picked it up, and opening it again, observed a passage containing, as he said, “a promise, a blessed invitation.” His attention was happily attracted, he read on, and from that time, formed a habit of reading the scriptures, which has proved, as he thankfully acknowledged, a blessing to his soul.

We may now mention an instance of the utility of reading the bible freely and undauntedly to others. A gentleman, who had been in the practice of reading in the cottages, went into one for this purpose on the evening of a fair held in the neighbourhood. He found the old woman on whom he had called gone to bed, but five or six rough-looking men were sitting round the fire, and hesitatingly he asked, if they would let him read a chapter to them. They, with at least equal hesitation, assented, and our friend asked for a bible. They brought him first a Latin testament, but at last a large bible was brought from another cottage, and he read to them the 26th chapter of St. Matthew’s gospel, and spoke to them on the injunctions there given. They all became attentive. One of the men who had been a smuggler, and much addicted to drinking, and who would probably have finished his evening by intoxication at the fair, appeared particularly struck by what he then heard. On his going home, his wife was astonished at his altered demeanor, but dared not speak to him; his daughter, however, asked him, “what he had been doing?” On which, he answered her in his uncouth way, that he had “been praying and would pray again, for so the gentleman had told him from the book.” The man entirely changed his habits from this time. The following harvest he was seen by the same gentleman, coming out of a farm house with a party of fellow-labourers, and his kind friend spoke to him, fearing he had as formerly indulged himself. The poor man replied, “I have been doing, sir, what I never in my life did before, I have refused a pint of beer, for I did not want it;” and his companions confirmed his words. His resolution was put to a severer test the next summer, for being lame he was set to keep the birds from a field directly opposite one of the new public-houses. “Was it not a temptation to you?” said the same gentleman. “A sad temptation, sir, and very hard it is; but I have resisted and kept out.” The poor man’s conduct to his family was equally improved; and we have perhaps the more pleasure in giving this little history, as it happened that the bible, which was rendered the instrument of convincing this poor man of the error of his ways, was furnished by our association.We must here acknowledge that it in the spirit with which subscriptions are offered, and the prayers with which they are accompanied, which give value to the little collections, and we trust that the prevailing motive in most of the givers, is the honest desire to spread the knowledge of that gospel which they have themselves learnt to prize. It is however pleasant, when such a desire is expressed. Thus on one of our districts being lately revisited with a view more especially to the promotion of free subscriptions, a fisherman came forward with his twopence a month, saying. “May a blessing go with it; and perhaps even that, may be the means of saving one soul.” A poor woman too, on giving her offering, said to the collectors, “If I have to work ever so hard, I will have the penny ready when you come again; for I will pay it for the sake of the cause.”

One more instance of the same kind, we cannot refrain from giving as related by a beloved and lamented young member of our committee, who laboured diligently during her brief career, to lead others to the knowledge of those promises of the Redeemer, of which we may thankfully believe she has experienced the blessed fulfilment.

“December 13th, 1833. We called on a poor woman to-day, who wished to subscribe for a bible for her son. After she had told us the size, she said, ‘I am afraid of being troublesome, but might I give a trifle to the Bible Society?’ God, she said, had done so much for her, and she felt such a great desire to do something for his glory; then she thought what a poor, miserable, sinful creature she was, could she be permitted to do anything in his service? What to do she could not guess! Then she thought she would set to work, and what she could spare of her earnings, she would give with all her heart to the Bible Society, if I would be so kind as to receive it. She made many more acknowledgments of God’s mercy, particularly that of opening her mind, to understand the word of God, which though she had read, it was without profit to herself, till lately, and when people used to speak to her of the benefit of reading it, she hardly believed them, but now she found it was her greatest comfort; when she opened her bible, she seemed directed to the particular passage that suited her case; and when she went to a place of worship, whatever the minister said, seemed meant for her. She could not express all she felt for these mercies, but still to be silent, she knew would be wrong. It was settled that she should pay one penny a week, and when she gave me her first penny, she said, ‘May God’s blessing go with my mite, that it may be useful.’”—A. U.

One of our committee gives the following account of a poor old deaf widow, well known for twenty years past, as a consistent earnest christian:—

“She is thankful to have been enabled to read and understand her bible.—It was for some time a sealed book to her; she read it as a duty, but did not feel its power; she was convinced something was wrong in herself, and one evening, after having suffered much unhappiness at not being able to enjoy her bible as some did, she locked her cottage door, closed her shutter, spread her bible on her little table, and with tears, in earnest prayer, begged that God would show her her error, and the way of true happiness. She chanced to have opened her bible at the 16th of St. John, and her eye caught the verse, ‘Hitherto hast thou asked nothing in my name, ask and thou shalt receive, that thy joy may be full.’ This verse powerfully impressed her mind with the mistake she had been guilty of. She pleaded ever after the intercession of her Mediator, and has constantly enjoyed that peace and comfort his blessed word so fully promises.”

The same lady writes:—

“The simplicity of a little child may not be uninteresting to those who wish to trace the use of the bible, in its effects upon the poor.—A boy of eight years old, seeing his old grand-mother overwhelmed with grief at a severe loss of property, which she was quite unequal to retrieve, went up and kissing her, said, ‘Pray don’t grieve, God will be sure to take care of you.—The bible tells us, he is a friend to the widow, and that must be true.’ The poor woman was so struck by the earnestness of the child, that she made up her mind not to grieve, but to trust in God, and she is now happy and cheerful again.”

She adds of another person who had lingered many years in acute suffering, and whose departure was at length drawing near:—

“Poor Mrs. W. continues to evince most strikingly the power of the bible to give comfort and support in the greatest need. She said to me,—‘What would have become of me, had I been born in a heathen land, without a bible to rest upon?’”

A gentleman, who was looking after some crews that had been wrecked in the storm of Sept. 1st, 1833, went into a room at the public house where they were staying, and found one young man alone, with a book before him. He observed it was a bible, issued by our British and Foreign Society, and asked him if he was reading it. The young man said, “Yes, he did not know that he could read a better book, for it was worth the saving.” He then said, he had bought it “because it was so cheap, only three shillings, and a very fine book!” Our friend remarked to him, that he “must know such bibles could not be built for that price, but that it was afforded by means of a subscription.” This he said he knew, and then observed, that sailors were now reading their bibles at his port, Shields, more than they used to do. The gentleman said, he hoped that they were not hypocrites. “No,” the sailor said, “he thought not; he believed the prayer meetings and bible readings at the time of the cholera, had had a real effect upon numbers of them.”

We would earnestly recommend our associates not to lose the opportunities, which their proximity to a dangerous coast too frequently affords, of applying the word of God to the comfort of the ship-wrecked mariner, and of fixing religious impressions which may have arisen in hours of peril. We possess a small depÔt of Dutch and French testaments, for the use of foreigners under such circumstances, and have occasionally found them acceptable. Our local position also calls for our unremitting efforts to enlighten our fishermen, whose lives are so often in jeopardy. The precariousness of their situation is an argument to which persons of this class will be found peculiarly accessible, when pressed to acquaint themselves betimes with the way of salvation. Fishermen, too, have many spare hours, while waiting for the tide, or detained by bad weather, on shore or in harbour: we remember the pleasure with which a fisherman, who had lately learnt to read, spoke to us of the delight he enjoyed in spelling out a chapter of the testament, in the cuddy of his herring boat, during many dreary winter evenings that he was moored in Boston Bay.

For the sake of suggesting profitable topics of discourse, and of obtaining from time to time correct information respecting the progress of our work, and the moral condition of our districts, a set of queries for our collectors was drawn up soon after the beginning of our association, and it is from the answers to these, that most of our facts are gathered. Some advantage is gained by keeping notes of our visits, the state of a family is the better remembered, and appropriate remarks may be made. Thus in one house, which was without a bible, the woman on being asked if she would subscribe, answered, she would consider about it. The visitor turned to her book and said, “Mrs. L. you gave me that very answer when I called before, and that is four years ago to-morrow; time flies.” She was so struck that she immediately paid a penny towards a half-crown testament, evidently frightened at her own procrastination.

Many of our stories bear on the desirableness of a diligent and frequent revision of our work. We give an extract from the notes of one of our committee, in 1833:—

“Having been somewhat struck with the example of the ladies of Wisbeach, recorded in the extracts for last October, of recanvassing their districts once in three years, I thought it might be well to visit a neighbouring village for this purpose. I did this, with the cordial concurrence of the collector, who though diligent and persevering is incapacitated by circumstances and health from extra exertions. We visited every house in the place, with scarcely an exception, and found 23 persons willing to pay for bibles and testaments. The place has had a constant, though small supply, but there would be a much larger demand, were it not for the lamentable want of education. Perhaps the discovery of such a state of things may prove in some instances one of the indirect benefits of bible visiting. The effects of the bibles and testaments already distributed, were in some instances happily observable. Many were shown me which had been purchased from the society, and some appeared to have been used and valued as we should wish. One elderly and very poor woman showed me her bible, and said, ‘eighteen years ago I learnt to read in it.’ I asked how she had learnt at so advanced an age, being now nearly sixty: she replied, ‘I went down on my knees and asked God Almighty to teach me, and he did.’ I said I did not doubt that this was the best way, but I asked her what means had been used? She told me that she had heard a sermon preached on a text in St. John, which so strongly impressed her mind, that she felt an earnest desire to read it again. Having found the place, she spent nearly the whole night trying to spell the words, and returned to the employment the next day, till her son came in, and on his expressing surprise at her attempting to read, she said, ‘Then why should not you teach me? so he taught me whenever he came in from work, and now I can read a chapter any where in the bible.’ In this case, if the Bible Society did not excite the desire, it was ready to furnish the means of gratifying it, to the great and lasting blessing apparently of the individual in question.

“Another very old woman spoke in such terms of her testament, as to make me feel most thankful she had ever had it. She reads it constantly, to her old infirm husband, and says, ‘I know it is all I have to attend to, for I am getting very forward in age.’ I expressed a hope that she knew to whom to look for safety in the hour of death; she burst into tears at the name of the Saviour, and earnestly expressed her sole dependence upon him, saying, she found herself full of sins and infirmities, but that his redemption was sufficient. She showed me a friend’s tract sent her several years ago by a lady, and said it had done her as much good as any thing (saving her bible) that she had in the house; also a little hand-bill, dropped in the road by some ladies, it was entitled, ‘Do you ever pray?’ and she said she had read it over and over, and it always reminded her of her duty. I cannot precisely repeat her conversation, but it made me strongly feel the truth of that text: ‘Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days.’ In the road I met a very infirm and afflicted old woman, the survivor of a husband and, I think, of six children, living on two shillings per week. I asked her whether she had a bible. ‘Ah, I paid in for one several years ago, and it is the greatest comfort I have had.’ I afterwards saw her in her own abode, a wretched hovel, with a chimney in the middle, where she lives with her old and most wretched mother-in-law. She showed me, with pride, her precious bible, for which she had paid 7s. 10d., and said, ‘I spared the money when I wanted it for bread many a time, but I have never grudged it, it is all the comfort I have, and much more comfort than victuals to me.’ I believe, also, the effects of it may be seen in her forbearance and attention to her afflicted companion. Having completed my round, I took my list to the collector, who gladly received it, and will enter with fresh spirit on her increased task.”

The benefit of carefully revisiting our districts, has been lately again exemplified; when on our collectors going to nearly all the families of a small circuit, about one hundred, most of which had already provided themselves with bibles from our institution, they obtained sixty-four new free subscribers, (many indeed of but one half-penny per month,) and twenty-three for bibles and testaments. This was after the interest of the people had been excited by an address from the zealous agent of the Norwich Auxiliary Society, delivered at Overstrand, in the church of the long tried friend and unwavering advocate of our cause, the Rev. John Cubitt. One poor woman said, that after hearing the gentleman, she went home, and poured out her soul to God for the heathen, and on offering her half-penny, she said, “she gave it to the Lord, and wished she could make it more.” Her husband, and a daughter, have also subscribed a penny per month, free.

When a district becomes fairly stocked with bibles, we cannot expect to find so many anecdotes, furnished by the contrast between the condition of destitute villages, and that of those supplied with the holy scriptures, but we think we may say that within the last ten years, owing, as we believe, to this society, combined with the extension of education, and other causes, there is, amongst the people of this neighbourhood, a perceptible advance in their acquaintance with the word of God. This is, we think, apparent, if only in the increased readiness with which the people turn to the chapters and verses referred to by ministers in their sermons, or on other occasions, when the scriptures are read and explained to them. We hope, and we cannot but believe, that acquaintance with the letter of scripture must produce its corresponding fruits. Of these, however, it is not our province to speak rashly, but we may observe that the contrast is very striking between the moral state, and intellectual powers of the labouring classes of those countries where the scriptures are in general use, and those where they have no access to the written rule of life. The operations of the Bible Society, and the need that exists for its redoubled exertions are fully set forth in the annual reports, and in the monthly extracts. You may not, however, be displeased to have a few facts bearing on these points, which came under the notice of two of your own associates, during excursions on the continent, in the summers of 1836 and 1838. In the little intercourse that they managed to get with the people, they had reason to feel the contrast above alluded to; they felt the want of an acknowledged rule of common reference in conversing with individuals of those countries from which the bible is very much excluded. If, for instance, they gave a tract on the keeping of the sabbath, they found the people had no sense of the sabbath, as a day of religious observance, because they had no understanding of its being enforced as such in the scriptures. There was no bringing them “to the law and to the testimony,” which they possessed not. Very different is the effect of conversing with the well-taught peasantry of Scotland. You are aware that the scriptures are circulated with difficulty in the Austrian dominions. In Prague, once the seat of biblical study, and whence issued one of the very earliest printed translations of the bible, a bookseller told your associates that the Bohemian bible was a prohibited book; he might obtain a copy for a known customer, but it would be a smuggling transaction. Your associates were much struck by the wretched appearance of the Jews in that city. They have a separate quarter there, as well as at Frankfort, and in both it was melancholy to drive through the narrow, crowded streets, and to observe the squalid degraded countenances, and the repugnance with which they seemed to regard the christian strangers. It made them long to extend to them the boon which they could receive with equal pleasure and profit—their own scriptures, in their own revered language. Your associates did not scruple to offer a few tracts in their passage through Austria and Bohemia, and they noticed that those which consisted solely of scriptural extracts were received with the most pleasure: they often left groups reading them aloud, around the post houses. The same may be said of the French text books, selected by Mrs. Fry, which were always received as a most acceptable present, and so were the few copies of the New Testament, which they were able to carry.

A friend of theirs, Mrs. R. Fox, of Falmouth, had been in the South of France, last Spring, and had mentioned to your associates, that she had been much pleased with a young pair, Roman Catholics, who kept the small hotel attached to the post-house at Orange. She found they were just married, and she left them a bible as a wedding present. Your associates asked the pleasing young landlady, if she had made any use of the bible. “Yes,” she said, “her husband and herself read a chapter of it every evening;” and the warmth with which they received the friends of the donor, proved their true value for the gift.

In France, though there may be some opposition to the dispersion of the scriptures, especially in the south, no danger can be incurred by the attempt. In the Sardinian dominions, the case is far different, and it ought to teach us to value our own privileges, when we reflect on the sufferings still endured by others, in their adherence to the testimony of Jesus. When your associates were at Nice last July, they heard of a very respectable man, a small farmer, who had just been released from the dungeons of the neighbouring Villa Franca, where he had been spending six months in a vault sunk in the rocky cliff below the level of the sea, for the crime of reading the bible to his wife, under his own tree on a Sunday. The gentleman who told them this fact, assured them also, that though P–’s affairs had suffered from his imprisonment, he was not a man to be daunted, nor was he likely to waver in his faith, or in his practice of studying the scriptures. Two other householders had also been imprisoned that spring for the same cause.

Your associates could venture to give but few tracts and one or two testaments in their passage through Piedmont and Savoy. These however were received with much interest. The contrast was striking when they reached Geneva, and found a bible in every set of rooms of their well appointed hotel. They believe this is usual in the Protestant cantons, at least they found the same at other hotels, and Mr. Scholl the pasteur of Lausanne told them, they had been placed there by the committee of the Bible Society. A great work of religion is carried on by means of this society, and also of the Protestant Evangelical Societies of France and Swisserland, which combine the objects of bible, missionary, and tract societies. For the former, they chiefly employ the colporteurs or travelling salesmen, described by M. de PressensÉ in his excellent account of the operations of the Bible Society in France, (printed in the appendix to the last report 1838,) and all that is there said of the usefulness of this devoted class of men, was amply confirmed by the information your associates gained respecting their labours. These too they perform for so small a remuneration, that it is clear they are only prompted by conscientious motives. 100,000 copies of the scriptures are now yearly distributed in France, and the directors of the societies find, that it answers much better to sell them at a low price, than to give them away. The people are less willing to surrender their bibles to be burnt by the priests, if they have paid a sum of money, however small, for their purchase. In some few instances, the Roman Catholic priests themselves have been willing to promote the sale of the scriptures. Amongst the countries which your associates most desired to see provided with the scriptures, should any opportunity offer of aiding the supply, were the valleys of the Alps, the people of which are confined by the snows for months together, and express great desire for a store of winter’s reading. They met with a gentleman who had lately visited Felix Neff’s parishes of the Hautes Alpes. They asked if his work stood; he assured them it did, and said that Neff’s people showed the effect of his labours by the morality of their conduct, and especially by their kindness towards each other, and freedom from petty quarrels, and disputes about their strips of fertile land, which, from the general barrenness of the soil, form a frequent source of litigation amongst little proprietors in such situations. They are however, excessively poor; the best Sunday dinner they had to offer our friend was soup made with suet, like tallow, and dried beans, with black bread two years old chopped with a hatchet; the fare which killed poor Neff: he much wished that a supply of bibles could be sent them, for they greatly needed them. They had kept up the schools established by Neff, and in the long winter’s evenings used to meet in the cow-houses (for warmth) to read by lamp light, but they were very destitute of books of all kinds. In no way, perhaps, could a grant of bibles be better bestowed, than amongst these well-disposed mountaineers, who may be in danger of losing the christian standing they have acquired under the influence of a most devoted minister, if they are not assisted to keep up their knowledge of the word of God which he so successfully laboured to infuse.

We cannot omit to notice, that our association had pleasure in taking its little share in the grant issued by the Parent Society, in thankful commemoration of the event of the first of August, 1834, the abolition of slavery throughout the British dominions. Some of our subscribers especially, took this occasion of proving that a liberal spirit is not to be circumscribed by restricted means. The behaviour of the negroes on the day of their first emancipation, and on that of its completion by the termination of the apprenticeship, Aug. 1st, 1838, has been such as to afford an assurance that they could appreciate the gift. A private letter from Trinidad says, that the first of August last, “was spent in praise, reading the scripture and prayer; all was order and peace. Not a drum or dance was heard, and the best of feeling pervaded every heart;” and another from Jamaica, that “the day was there held as a sabbath.”

In retracing our course, many pleasing recollections present themselves; we could name an aged friend of the cause, who had always given us her cordial support, the last act of whose existence as to worldly affairs was to put into her daughter’s hand her subscription for the bible and other societies, in advance for the ensuing year, (1832,) with a warm expression of the love for that gospel which must, she was convinced, finally spread and prevail. We could speak of another, a member of our committee, who has carried the good wishes of us all to a distant island, (Ceylon,) where she is placed, and we doubt not to useful purpose, amongst scenes of heathen darkness, which she could effectively feel for, when she little expected to behold them. Others of our fellow-labourers have been called to other spheres of active duty; but in one sense we may truly say, that our band has never been disunited. It will be seen from the prefixed statement of our secretaries that we have distributed 2450 bibles and testaments, since our commencement, but we fear that the obvious remark (on the inspection of our accounts) will be this, that our efforts have not advanced in the ratio that might have been expected; we are, however, convinced, that there needs but a vigorous push to carry the present year’s gathering ahead of any former sum, and this gratification we would call upon our friends, to secure for themselves and for us. We trust indeed that the work of renovation has been already put in train by the labours of Mr. Wiseman, (the society’s agent, to whom we have already alluded,) in forming new village associations, and in exciting a fresh spirit of zeal amount us. Our hearty desire is, that every family in all our districts may be brought into direct connexion with a society, which has already circulated nearly eleven million copies of the holy scriptures.