. 25 CALLE DEL PRINCIPE, MADRID.

I start to-morrow for Toledo with 100 Testaments, for I must spare no
exertion in such a cause. I go as usual on horseback. I am in a great
hurry and can write no more.

Yours most truly,

(Send, with the books, a Modern Greek grammar and dictionary. You must
likewise renew my credit on Messrs. O'Shea & Compy.)

To the Rev. A. Brandram

(_Endorsed_: recd. Jany. 8, 1838)
MADRID, CALLE SANTIAGO No. 16,
_Dec._ 25, 1837.

REVD. AND DEAR SIR,--I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of
the 5th instant, and also my friend Mr. Jackson's of the 8th. I should
have replied ere this, had not my time been entirely occupied since my
return from Toledo. The versions of St. Luke in Gitano and Basque have
been committed to the press; and as the compositors are entirely ignorant
of these languages a most strict surveillance is required, which I hope
will be admitted as an excuse for having so long delayed to answer. I
expect that within a fortnight my task will be completed.

You are aware that I have established in Madrid a shop, or _despacho_, as
it is here called, for the sale of Testaments, and you are doubtless
anxious to receive information as to its success. It succeeds well, nay,
I may say very well, when all circumstances are taken into consideration;
for it ought to be known that I have ventured upon this step in the very
place which of all in Spain, affords the least chance of a successful
issue, yet at the same time in the place where such a step was most
needed, provided it be the imperative duty of Christians to make the Word
of their Master known in the dark portions of the earth. It was a step
fraught with difficulties of every kind. Madrid, it is true, is the
capital of Spain; yet let no one for a moment suppose that being so it is
consequently the largest, richest and most enlightened town in the
Peninsula. In the first place, it is inferior in population to Valencia
and Barcelona; in the second, misery and distress reign here to an extent
unknown elsewhere; and so far from its being peculiarly enlightened, I
believe that of all places in the Peninsula it is the least so. It is
the centre of old, gloomy, bigoted Spain, and if there be one inveterate
disgusting prejudice more prevalent and more cherished in one s