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SEVEN HUNDRED and TWELVE, of whom TWENTY-SEVEN THOUSAND and FOURTEEN were ROMANISTS, and THIRTYFIVE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED and NINETY-EIGHT were Protestants. The number of Sunday Schools has been FOUR HUNDRED and NINETY-FOUR, containing TWENTY-NINE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and SIXTEEN Pupils, of whom SEVENTEEN THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED and FIFTY-NINE also attended the Day Schools.

The Adult Schools have amounted to FOUR HUNTM DRED and NINETEEN, and the Scholars to SEVEN THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED and EIGHTY-TWO; there have been SEVEN exclusively Irish Adult Schools, with SEVENTY-EIGHT Scholars; and in the Day Schools are included TWENTY-THREE Irish Classes for Children, and THREE HUNDRED and TWENTY-FIVE Pupils instructed in the Irish language.

PROVINCIAL VIEW.

These Schools, as in the former year, have been distributed over TWENTY-NINE Counties, as arranged in the following Table :

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The countenance and superintendence of Schools, by Christian friends, in their immediate neighbourhood,

has always been esteemed of great importance, both as tending to secure the efficiency of the establishment, and also as a check upon the daily attendance; and it is with pleasure that your Committee are enabled to state, that this patronage, and watchful care, has been extended during the last year; and they would embrace this opportunity of making known to these valuable co operators in this blessed work, how highly they estimate their labour of love; and would impress upon them the propriety, upon every visit to the Schools, of marking the attendance of the Pupils upon the Roll Paper, and affixing their signature thereto, as it very materially assists the Agent of the Society in awarding the remuneration to the respective Teachers.

Of the SEVEN HUNDRED and SEVENTY Day Schools, attached to your Society last year,

402 were under the superintendence of Clergymen of the Established Church of Ireland;

53 under that of Ministers of other denominations; 295 in connexion with Noblemen, Ladics, or Gentlemen; and

20 had no local Patrons or Visitors, arising out of their peculiar situation.

PATRONAGE.

In addition to the valuable patronage with which your Society has been favoured in former years, your Committee have the pleasure to announce, that the Right Honourable Lord Radstock has kindly consented to become one of its Vice-Presidents.

PROFICIENCY AT INSPECTION.

As the object of your Institution is not merely to induce the peasantry of Ireland to read the Holy

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Scriptures, but also to commit them to memory, and to possess a competent understanding of what is thus submitted to their attention, the Quarterly Inspections are of primary importance; and your Committee can assure their friends, that the labours of the Inspectors have been unremitting, and highly beneficial; while testimonials of their faithfulness, and strict regard to the regulations of the Society, are furnished from every district. The average number of Scholars who have attended the inspections during the year, have amounted to FORTY-FIVE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and FORTYSEVEN; and of this number, THIRTY-ONE THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED and FIVE attained to the required proficiency; while several thousands of other Pupils had made good progress in Scriptural and other knowledge, although not to such an extent as to obtain remuneration for the Master.

INSPECTORS AND SCRIPTURE READERS.

The number of General and Cursory Inspectors, and Scripture Readers, employed by the Society, has been FIFTY; and these, under the controul and superintendence of your Agent, and other valued friends in Ireland, have very materially forwarded the views of your Institution, not only in examining the Schools, and reading in the cabins of the poor the revealed will of God, both in the English and Irish languages; but they have created, in many instances, an increased anxiety for the possession of copies of the Holy Scriptures; and your Committee would again refer their friends to the Appendix, which will be published with the Report, for the regulations by which these Officers are guided.

HOLY SCRIPTURES.

The distribution of the Holy Scriptures, through the medium of the Schools, or by the exertion of the Scripture Readers, has this year been-Six THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED and TWELVE Bibles, and NINETEEN THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED and NINETY-SIX Testaments, in English; and TWELVE Bibles, and THIRTYEIGHT Testaments, in the Irish Language; making a total of TWENTY-SIX THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and FIFTY-EIGHT for the year, and since the formation of the Society, Two HUNDRED and NINETY-NINE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED and SEVENTY-SEVEN Bibles and Testaments circulated in Ireland by this Institution alone, beside some hundred thousands of Spelling Books, for the use of the younger Children in the Schools, the lessons of which are taken from the Bible; not intended, in any degree, as a substitute for the Inspired Volume, but with the desire of leading all their Scholars, as quickly as possible, to the fountain head of living waters, full and unadulterated, as they came from the source of all good. And, anxious to give to God all the glory of every measure of success vouchsafed to the operations of the Society, your Committee are constrained, from year to year, most gratefully to acknowledge the kind support, and repeated liberality, of the British and Foreign' Bible Society, from whom they have received nearly the whole of those Scriptures, which it has been their' privilege to circulate for the benefit of the poorest of the poor, and the too generally ignorant and superstitious in the Sister Island. Since the publication of the last Report, your Committee have been entrusted with a further munificent grant from that noble Institution, of Ten Thousand English Bibles, and Ten Thousand

English Testaments; a fresh token of confidence in their measures, afforded by the Committee of the Bible Society, which it shall be their constant endeavour, in no instance, to abuse.

TESTIMONIALS.

Abundant proofs are supplied in the correspondence with the Society, as to the beneficial results of its labours; but your Committee feel that it would be out of place to introduce many of them here; and, referring their friends to the Appendix, when the Report is printed and circulated, for many such testimonials, they will content themselves with some extracts from only two communications, bearing on the gratuitous distribution of the Holy Scriptures, and the great importance of a Bible School, in a dark and long-neglected neighbourhood.

The Rev. M. C. Motherwell, of Kilrea, remarks:

"I would beg leave to state some points of view in " which I think your Society worthy of general support. "Its unobtrusive character appears to me to render it "best suited to the present distracted state of our un

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happy country. It has wisely connected itself with "no political party. The revealed will of God has "always been the basis of its instruction; and erecting "its superstructure on that foundation alone, it has pre"served undeviating consistency amidst surrounding "vacillation. Expediency savours too much of the "spirit of the world, and it may have a temporary triumph; but principle alone will meet with eventual success. Strict economy, in my mind, also entitles it "to general confidence; other Societies may have

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