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usefulness will undoubtedly open from time to time , with the power of entering which the central Society should be entrusted by the liberality of distant friends . The District Societies which have hitherto been formed are at Cork , at Moneyrea , at Carrickfergus , and at Bandon . The Committee have great satisfaction iti stating that an Association , embracing the whole province of Ulster , and denominated the Ulster Unitarian Christian
Tract Society , is about to be connected with this Society . The troubles which have so long broken the religious peace of the North of Ireland having in a great measure subsided , it may be hoped that Christian truth may have found a fitting herald in Christian liberty . May heaven shed the blessing of visible success on those noble pioneers of its march , by whom the valleys have been exalted and the mountains been brought low !
As this Society originated mainly in the want felt of religious publications in harmony with the great principles of Unitarian Christianity , your Committee have deemed it requisite to confine themselves to the supply of this want , so long as the pecuniary resources at their disposal were not more than adequate to this purpose . Except in one instauce , in which they voted a donation of books to the amount of 30 * . to Mr . Alexander
Bradley , of Saintfield , they have not even felt themselves authorized to circulate books gratuitously . The value of the books and tracts distributed during the year is about ^ 30 ; subscriptions having been repaid in books to the amount of j £ l 4 , and £ 16 having been received from the sale of stock . Desirable as it is that
these amounts should annually increase , it is impossible to question the good effected by even this circulation of rational and elevated views of Christianity ; impossible indeed to calculate it , unless we had access to the minds to which these
views have been presented , and could see what stimulus had been given to intelligent research , what perplexities had been relieved , what light infused , what moral courage awakened , what exalted thoughts imparted of revelation , and duty , and God .
It has been urged on your Committee , by an enlightened member of your Society , that the theological information which they seek to diffuse must meet with serious obstructions so long as the Authorized Version of the Scriptures , notwithstanding all its merits of general accuracy , and its greater merits of taste , continues to be the final appeal of the English reader in matters of controversy ; that it should be a primary object with
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every society professing a jealousy for Christian truth to present to the world as nearly as possible what the sacred authors themselves wrote ; and that the mere circulation of another translation of the Scriptures would tend to shake the undiscriminatiug veneration for the Common Version ( as if the translators were infallible or inspired ) which prevails among those to whom the works of
learned commentators are inaccessible . On these suggestions a Sub-Committee was appointed to consider whether the proposed object were practicable , and to report on the best method of accomplishing it . Three plans presented themselves ; either to attempt a new translation ; or to adopt and circulate some existing version of the New Testament ; or to reprint , in the cheapest possible form , the most approved translations of the several books of the Old and New
Testaments . The last of these plans appeared to the Sub-Committee the most eligible , but , in the present state of your funds , to be impracticable . Your Committee fully accord with their learned and respected friend by whom this subject has been introduced as to the intrinsic
importance of the object , and leave their own proceedings on record for the assistance of their successors : and , in the mean time , it is satisfactory to believe that the publications of the Society are scattering a mass of theological knowledge , and exciting a desire for religious truth , which may prepare the way for a jusfcer appreciation of an improved version of the Scriptures than would at present reward the labours of the translator or the editor .
Though your Committee should be liable to the accusation of laying before you rather suggestions for the future than a report of the past , they cannot refrain from recording their conviction that a wide field of usefulness is open to the labours of the first well-qualified missionary that you may be able to employ . Some opportunities of a peculiar kind have presented themselves of sending Unitarian publications among the
humbler classes \ u parts of the South of Ireland ; and the eagerness with which they have been received manifests a desire of religious light which it is gratifying to observe . And your Committee have been assured by members of the Cork District Society , whom they believe to be competent judges , that an intelligent , earnest , and affectionate missionary of Unitarian Christianity would find in many districts ready and grateful audiences . Persuaded of the truth of this statement , your Committee have onlv to
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Intelligence . —Irish Unitarian Christian Society Anniversary . 359
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1831, page 359, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2597/page/71/
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