The Bible Society held its annual meeting at Exeter Hall
on Wednesday, under the presidency of Lord Shaftesbury, who was elate at having succeeded in gaining permission to exhibit Bibles in a hundred different languages to the eyes of the Parisians. He told a story of Mr. Kinnaird's having given a Bible in the name of the President to a French non-commissioned officer, who was so grateful that he waylaid Lord Shaftesbury to thank him in his own name and that of his comrades, to whom he expressed his intention to read it. We doubt whether that anecdote shows the French non-commissioned officer's curiosity about the Bible so much as his curiosity about the pions English lord. The Ref. Dr. Miller made a savage attack on our contemporary the Pall Mall Gazette for agreeing with Mr. Tayler about the unauthentic char- acter of St. John's Gospel. " He would not for worlds bear upon his conscience the responsibility of being the author of such an article." We conclude from this that Dr. Miller agreeswith us in con- sidering Mr. Tayler's conclusion and that of the Pall Mall Gazette concerning the Fourth Gospel, erroneous, in which case the respon- sibility of writing falsely would, no doubt, be very great. But Dr. Miller was evidently not thinking of the responsibility of writing falsely, but of writing truly what we think false. He wants to protect God against the result of His own improvidence in not providing better evidence for the Bible, by attaching an artificial blame and responsibility to all honest avowals on one side of the question. We confess the only effect this sort of language has, is to make us feel that men like Dr. Miller are not very confi- dent at heart themselves. For our own part, we believe that the more the historic truth and divine revelation in St John's Gospel is discussed, the more profoundly it will be believed.
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