The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-12 00:00:00

LORD PAN.3IURE AND MR. BRIGHT.

At the annual meeting of the Edinburgh Bible Society,
the chairman, Lord Panmure, adverting to Mr. Bright's
speech at Rochdale, said :
"There was one country which was not to be disco-
vered within the report ; and that country was one
where he feared not only religious but civil liberty was
nipped in the bud, and whence every disposition was
shown to nip, and curtail, and extinguish liberty wher-
ever it was to be found in the world, and that country was
the one with which they were at present unfortunately at
war. It was that country which once cherished and
which once admitted the Scriptures, but which now
sedulously prevented the Bible in the Russian tongue
from being placed within the reach of the Ruseian
people. When Alexander was Emperor of Russia, he
showed a certain countenance to the labours of the Br!.
tish and Foreign Bible Society. lie established a Bible
Society, he even permitted the Bible to be translated
into Russ ; and when he died, a largo edition of that
Bible so translated existed. His successor, the present
Emperor, it was true, allowed that edition to bo ex-
hausted in the country, but since that time he had per-
mitted no further translation to be struck off, and no
further circulation of the Bible in the tongue of his
countrymen, and he had done all lie could to confine
them to that Church which was called the Greek Church,
and which looked up to him as its father and its God.
Now, he (Lord Panmure) would not have touched so
prominently upon that paint, bad he not seen it as-
serted at a Bible Society meeting at Rochdale (by Mr.
Bright) that the present Emperor of Russia was fr' °nay
to the circulation of the Scriptures. He had taken some
little pains, through his esteemed friend Mr. Robert
Haldane, the secretary of the society, to ascertain that
fact; and lie was assured that what he had now stated
was the simple truth. lib knew that a portion of the
Russian subjects—the Fins, or the inhabitants of Fin-
land, and the German Lutherans—had the means of
access to the Scriptures in their own tongue ; but that
was part of the conditions which they made when they
yielded up their country to their conqueror, and there
was no credit, in his opinion, for a man keeping faith
with those whom he had enslaved. (Applause.) But if
he wanted any more or any greater proof of the enmity
of Russia to the truth as it was in the Gospel, he had
nothing more to do than to refer to the treatment by
that country of the Moravian settlement in the land
where the war was now being carried on. They no
doubt all remembered the emigration which took place
from Germany of a large body of Moravians to the Cri-
mea for two purposes—the one to establish a settlement
and to cultivate the ground, and to turn what was then
a desert into the means of supporting creditably
Christian community ; and the other to disseminate
the Word of God amongst the Kalmne Tartars, and to
convert them to Christianity. How long did that
work go on ? For some years prosperously. God
smiled upon and blessed the efforts of the Moravians, said
they made many converts, and saved many souls amongst
the benighted Kalmucs ; but the 'moment the harvest
began to thicken, and the sheaves to stand somewhat
crowded, in stepped the Greek Church with their Empe-
ror, and said, We don't object to your converting these
Balmucs to Christianity, but we must be allowed to
select the Christianity for you, and we hold it as our
sovereign will and pleasure that we permit no conver-
sion to that Christianity and form of religion which you
profess, but to that which is the old one, and which is
to be found in the bosom of the Greek Church.' The
bosom of the Greek Church I Why, the Greek Church
was no better to these Moravian missionaries than the
Church in which these Tartars already were. It was a
false Church ; and they therefore took no further pains
to make converts ; and the consequence bad been that,
through the treatment of that Church and the ukase of
their Emperor, the Moravians go on cultivating the
soil, and enjoying amongst themselves the privileges
which they carried with them, but their work of conver-
sion was at an end, and their labours to civilise and
Christianise these Tartars bad been utterly annihilated.