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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II BUILT IN TROUBLOUS TIMES The vast project suggested in those memorable words was hailed with enthusiasm. Week by week it was discussed and developed. In an essay on The Excellency of the Holy Scriptures: an Argument for their more general Dispersion, Mr Hughes appealed to the public to assist in founding the first institution that ever emanated from one nation for the good of all. A code of regulations was drafted by Mr Samuel Mills, and revised and expanded in debate at Old Swan Stairs, until in all essentials it assumed the shape in which it became the constitution of the British and Foreign Bible Society?the happy title proposed by Mr Hughes in place of the original Society for promoting a more extensive Circulation of the Holy Scriptures at home and abroad. At a general meeting of the R.T.S. in May 1803, the project was advocated with fervid eloquence. Progress, however, was seriously retarded by doubt, indifference, incredulity, and sectarian prejudice. Nothing came of a resolution that application should be made to his Majesty George III. for his patronage; and though by the beginning of1804 the promoters had secured the adhesion of such distinguished men as William Wilberforce, Granville Sharp, Charles Grant, Zachary Macaulay, Lord Teignmouth, and Henry Thornton, at the actual inauguration of the Society no royal prince, no nobleman, no bishop, no member of Parliament was present. In February 1804 invitations to a public meeting at the London Tavern were sent out to those who were thought likely to espouse the cause. They were accompanied by an address (prepared by Mr Hughes), from which a single passage may be taken to indicate the spirit of faith and courage that animated the projectors:? If the present period is not the most auspiciou...