The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-01-14 00:00:00

LORD PANMURE ON BIBLE REVISION.

A few days ago the annual meeting of the Edinburgh Bible
Society was held. Lord Panmure occupied the char. In his
address he said, after referring to the great number of bibles
circulated by the society, he thought that upon this occasion--
when they were living in times such as these—times when
every attempt was made, both by those who openly opposed
Protestant institutions, and by those who tried in an under-
hand manner to undermine them they ought to encourage the
dissemination of the Word of God, as the best means of coun-
teracting the evils that were attempted to be put upon the
country. There was the Church of Rome attacking Protes-
tantism fiercely and openly in front, and he was sorry to say
that there were in the ranks of Protestantism itself men whose
hearts were Popish, and who covered their Opinions i❑ a guise
of false and spurious Protestantism (near, hear.) In the
midst of these insidious attacks, he knew of nothing likely
to be so successful in resisting them as the dissemination
of the Word of God in our good old Saxon tongue—
as we had had it for 300 years. (Chests ) This brought him
to make sonic observations which be did not think out of
place. They had heard talked of in this country, and seen put
into practice in the United. States, a scheme for getting what
was called a new version of the Bible. Now, feeling very
strongly upon that subject, he took this opportunity of stating
pablicly his own opinion—that such a scheme was fraught with
the utmost danger to the Protestant liberties of this country;
nay, it was fraught, he believed, with danger to the Protestant
religion itself. (Great applause.) When he looked to America
he was happy to find that the scheme was so far, he might
almost say utterly, abortive. It was quite true, and every
man must admit it, that there were perhaps some slight things,
some mistranslaticns in our version of the Scriptures—slight in
themselves, and not affecting any great principles--which
might be corrected ; but these were so slight, in comparison
with the danger of letting in those who would rnako alterations,
part y from the critidems of erudition, and partly for the
purpose of slipping in dolmas of their own, that he thought it
would be a most dangerous thing—the most disastrous that
could occur to this country—if we alloweti those words, which
had been household words in many a pious family for
upwards of 300 years, and which he hoped would be household
wor.lB to all the families in the world before other 300 years
had passed—he believed that if we allowed those words to be
tampered with, there would be the danger of shaking our
Protestant institutions to their foundation. There were
certain landmarks which were necessary to the existence of
the Protestant religion, and the Bible was ono of them ; and
rather than risk the obliteration of that landmark, ho would
submit to the little discrepancies which were to be found in
our present version. Let it be left to the ministers of religio❑
to study the Holy Scriptures in the original tongues, and
explain to those who sit under them wherein those little
differences existed. (Applause.) He was quite certain of
this, that if wo had not bad an authorised and confirmed
version of the Holy Scriptures, we should never have arrived
at so pure and substantial a system of Protestantism as existed
at present in this country. Therefore ho hoped that if any
agitation was made in this country for the purpose of disturbing
our present authorised version of the Bible, the Christian
community would rise as one man in its defence, and would
maintain that intact which he held it to be dangerous to touch.
(Applause) The noble lord concluded by saying that he
trusted for the prosperity of this country, not so much to its
commerce or agriculture as to the spread of a pure religious
feeling amongst the inhabitants.

TORTURE OP MILANO, THE ATTEMPTED
ASSASSIN OF THE KING OP NAPLES,

The details published by the Italian journals relative
to the atrocious tortures inflicted on Agesilas Milano, the
attempted assassin of the King of Naples, make one
shudder with horror. From these accounts it appears
that-1. The unfortunate culprit was stripped of all his
clothing, and when his feet and hands had been tied, he
was suspended to a beam with the head downwards ;
whilst in this position he was tortured for two hours by
passing wisps of flaming and smoking straw under his
head. 2. lie was tied and suspended by the ears, so
that his feet scarcely touched the ground, which,
immediately under him, was covered with burning
cinders, in such a manner that if he touched the ear h
his feet were burned, whilst if ha drew up his feet he
suffered the most horrible pain; in the head and ears.
3. He was submitted to the horrible trial of hot and
cold water. 4. Leashes of rope 4 were applied to
his shoulders, until the joints were dislocated. 5. At
last the executioner, in order to prolong the punishment
of the culprit, with the most savage barbarity flogged
him until the skin was livid and blackened.

BLOWING-UP OF A PILLAR LETTER Box AT WAKEFIELD.
—A young lad, named James Reynolds, whose father
resides at llfanches'er, was charged before the West Riding
m ig'strates, at Wakefield, on Monday, with having on the
29th December, caused the explosion of a pillar letter bix,
placed at the top of Wrengate, Wakefield. The letter box
having become accidently filled with gas, which had escaped.
from an adjoining pip-, the lad ignited a knife: match,
and put it into the letter box. An explosion took place,
blowing the top of the pillar off, and the letter bag ins'de
to a considerable distance. Reynolds, who was raticer
seriously injured, was taken home in a state of insensibility.
The lad having borne an excellent character, hitherto, the
magistrates, upon the recommendation of the chief con-
stable, dealt leniently with him, and fined him 103. The
money was paid. A little boy who gave evidence, and who
was standing near the letter box at the time of the explosion,
was rather seriously injured,