PETERSBURG, _18th Oct.

1833._ REVEREND SIR,--Supposing that you will not be displeased to hear how I am proceeding, I have taken the liberty to send a few lines by a friend[106] who is leaving Russia for England.
Since my arrival in Petersburg I have been occupied eight hours every day in transcribing a Manchu manuscript of the Old Testament belonging to Baron Schilling, and I am happy to be able to say that I have just completed the last of it, the Rev.
Mr.Swan, the Scottish missionary, having before my arrival copied the previous part.

Mr.Swan departs to his mission in Siberia in about two months, during most part of which time I shall be engaged in collating our transcripts with the original.

It is a great blessing that the Bible Society has now prepared the whole of the Sacred Scriptures in Manchu, which will doubtless, when printed, prove of incalculable benefit to tens of millions who have hitherto been ignorant of the will of God, putting their trust in idols of wood and stone instead of in a crucified Saviour.

I am sorry to say that this country in respect to religion is in a state almost as lamentable as the darkest regions of the East, and the blame of this rests entirely upon the Greek hierarchy, who discountenance all attempts to the spiritual improvement of the people, who, poor things, are exceedingly willing to receive instruction, and, notwithstanding the scantiness of their means in general for the most part, eagerly buy the tracts which a few pious English Christians cause to be printed and hawked in the neighbourhood.
But no one is better aware, Sir, than yourself that without the Scriptures men can never be brought to a true sense of their fallen and miserable state, and of the proper means to be employed to free themselves from the thraldom of Satan.