st and Future Operations in Spain
(_Endorsed_: recd. Nov. 28, 1838)

LONDON, _Novr._ 1838.

Having been requested to commit to paper my opinion respecting the mode
most advisable to be adopted for the propagation of the Word of God in
Spain, provided the Committee of the Bible Society should consider it
their duty to resume operations in that country, I shall as briefly as
possible communicate the results of an experience which three years'
residence has enabled me to acquire. The Committee are already aware
that I have traversed the greatest part of Spain in all directions, and
have lived for a considerable time in Madrid and other large towns. I
have therefore had opportunities of forming a tolerably accurate idea as
to the mode of thinking upon religious subjects of the Spaniards, whether
of town or country, and of their character in general. I need not enter
into a repetition of my labours during my last sojourn in Spain. It is
well known that, after printing the New Testament at Madrid, I
endeavoured to distribute it in the principal towns, and also in the
rural districts. Particular circumstances prevented my experiencing in
the former the success which I had hoped for, and with some reason, at
the commencement of my Biblical labours; and indeed I did not find the
minds of the inhabitants of the great cities which I visited so well
disposed as I could have wished, for receiving and relishing the
important but simple truths of the Bible. I cannot say that a spirit of
fanatic bigotry was observable amongst them, except in a very few
instances, but rather of lamentable indifference; their minds being
either too much engrossed by the politics of the period to receive the
doctrine of the Bible, or averse to it owing to the poison of infidelity
imbibed from the deistical writings of the French. My success among the
peasants was however very different, nearly two thousand copies having
been disposed of in an extraordinarily short space of time, and under
much disadvantage owing to the peculiarly unhappy situation of those
parts which it was my fortune to visit. I will now, without further
preamble, state the line of conduct which I should wish to see pursued in
Spain under existing circumstances.

As the minds of the inhabitants of the cities, from the causes above
stated, do not appear to be exactly prepared for the reception of the
Scripture, it seems mos