t expedient for some time to come to offer it
principally to the peasantry, by the greater part of whom there is so
much ground for believing that it will be received with gratitude and
joy. True it is that the Spanish peasantry are in general not so well
educated as their brethren of the cities, their opportunities of
acquiring a knowledge of letters having always been inferior;
nevertheless it would be difficult to enter a cottage of which at least
one of the inmates could not read, more or less. They are moreover a
serious people, and any book upon religious subjects is far more certain
of captivating their attention than one of a lighter character, and,
above all, their minds have hitherto never been tainted by those unhappy
notions of infidelity too prevalent amongst the other class. There is
one feature which I wish to mention here, which is indeed common to the
Spanish people in general but more particularly to the peasantry, namely,
that whenever a book is purchased, whether good or bad, the purchaser
entertains a firm intention of reading it, which he almost invariably
puts into execution. I do not make this observation merely upon
hearsay--though I have frequently heard it from quarters which I am bound
to respect--many examples tending to substantiate the fact having come
under my own knowledge. It is at least a great consolation to the
distributor of the Word of God in Spain, that the seed which he casts
around him is in general received by the earth beneath the surface, from
which he is induced to trust that it will some day spring up and produce
good fruit.

I now beg leave to repeat from a previous communication the manner in
which I made my first attempt to distribute the Scriptures amongst the
peasantry. I must here remind the Committee that until [I] myself solved
the problem of the possibility, no idea had been entertained of
introducing the Bible in the rural districts of countries exclusively
Papist. This remark, which I make with the utmost humility, merely
springs from an idea that a similar attempt, if made with boldness and
decision, might prove equally successful in Italy, Mexico, and many other
countries, even pagan, which have not yet been penetrated, particularly
China and Grand Tartary, on the shores of which the Bible labours under
great disadvantage and odium from being put into the hands of the natives
by people seemingly in connection with those for whom it is impossible
they can