of denominational organizations, and are glad to work in them as we may, we yet see clearly, as we think, that the Church of the Future is not to arise through the conquest and enlargement of any single one of them, but through a new descent of the heavens into them all, drawing them nearer together and making them one in Christ alone. Whatever there is, therefore, in High Church or Low, in Old Church or New, in Orthodoxy or Unitarianism, which we think belongs rightfully to the truth of Christ, that we shall claim the privilege of giving to our readers, so far forth as we believe they can be aided by it in the work of regeneration and Christian living.

At the same time we wish to say, that we do not aim at any balancing of opinions, or striking a sort of average among opposing doctrines. We only mean to give ourselves and our contributors a perfectly free utterance, not expecting entire uniformity of theological statement, but claiming to utter ourselves with the sharpest individuality, yet tempered with the feelings of a heartfelt Christian kindness. It is not the design of this Journal to furnish theological articles as such, but, in applying Christianity to life and to the development of the deepest religious experience, a writer's theology must needs appear; and thus appearing, it is not the dogma of the controversialist, but a theology filled with life-blood and warm with the pulses of Christian love. Mere sentiment or mere moralizing is not enough. It ought to have the bone and sinew of Christian doctrine, or it can never bring home to us the provisions of the Gospel with any such directness and pungency as to alarm our fears, excite our most strenuous efforts, engage our deepest affections, and bring the mind and heart into complete consecration to the Lord. The readers of the Magazine, therefore, will not expect of us to tone down or keep out of sight our vital beliefs; but they will not be exhibited in the way of theological speculation or controversy, but in the bearings of Christianity on the regeneration of the soul, its

redemption in Christ Jesus, and its enrobement in the adorning virtues and graces of the new life which he inspires.

It requires but a slight survey of the religious world to observe two very distinctly marked tendencies among the friends of human progress. One pertains to those who expect a normal development of humanity, such as shall leave Christ and his Word away back in the past as having accomplished their work; who think these were the natural products of human nature, and only show its possibilities; and who expect new Messiahs in the man of the future, and new Scriptures as his voice of inspiration. The other tendency is of those who look to Jesus Christ as the Divine Sun and Centre, and his Word as infinite and inexhaustible, and believe that all hope of the progress of humanity is through him as its Redeemer, Regenerator, and Cleanser. These two tendencies, we think, are to become more strong and divergent, and work out each its own separate results. We hardly need say that our position is with the latter. We believe that from the Christ and his all-revealing Word the power is to come, and is coming now, which will be felt in the Christian consciousness as never before,- a power from which the soul will melt down into a more humble receptivity of the Divine Life, and in whose revealings will be the Absolute Theology before which human creeds and philosophies will pale away. And we shall think we have suc ceeded in the object we place before us, so far as we may be the means of bringing others into more near and tender relations with a personal Saviour.

We shall not aim at uniform solemnity, but give ourselves room for any by-play of fancy we may feel impelled to, always keeping our ruling purpose in view. Several writers of known ability have pledged themselves to aid us by their contributions; and, bespeaking the candor and goodwill of the readers of the Magazine, we enter on our work in the full hope of the Divine blessing upon our endeavors.

EDMUND H. SEARS.
RUFUS ELLIS.

[IT has often seemed to us that the children of the congregation hardly receive their due share of the preacher's attention. Under this impression the following discourse, with others, has been prepared. We hope that it may find some readers amongst the young people of the households into which our Journal finds admission.]

THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL.

A NEW-YEAR'S SERMON FOR THE CHILDREN OF THE CONGREGATION.

BY REV. RUFUS ELLIS.

MARK iv. 26, 27:-"So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how."

I WISH, on this first Sunday of the year, to say a few words which all the children of the congregation shall be able to understand. The subject of the sermon is "The Growth of the Soul." Let me see if you know what I mean by the growth of the soul. Sometimes you are told by friends who have been absent from you for years or months, that you have grown a great deal; they mean that your bodies have grown, that you are taller and stouter than you were. Sometimes you are told by your teachers who have charge of your studies, that you have grown a great deal; and they mean that your minds have grown, that you are more knowing than you were. Now, besides a body and a mind, you have a soul, made, as the Bible tells you, in the image of God,- a soul which Christ came into the world to save; and as the body grows and the mind. grows, the soul ought to grow too; it ought to grow every year of your lives, it ought to grow after the body has done. growing, and after the mind has done growing. The Saviour compares the soul to a plant; and if you wish to understand how your souls may grow, you must remember how it is with the seed planted in the ground, and how it is with the stalk of corn and with the tree; you must keep before you the picture of any plant which you have ever seen becoming larger and more beautiful every week.

1. Take notice, first, that only live plants grow. You have seen children "playing garden." Sometimes they cut off a piece of dry, dead wood from a tree, and put it into the ground; but even if they should make the earth very rich, and water it every day, it would never be anything but a piece of dry, dead wood until it should crumble down into dust. Cut off a fresh, green twig, a small slip from a healthy plant, and it will take root and become a plant itself. There is life in it. It is just so with the soul. There must be life in it, or it will not grow. And if you ask me what this life is, I answer, it is Love, love for God, love for the children of God, especially for your parents and brothers and sisters, for you must begin with loving those nearest to you. And if you ask me where you are to get this life, where you are to get this love, I answer, God has given some of it to each one of you, just as he has given life to your bodies, just as he makes your heart beat; and he will give you more of it, just as much as you wish, if you will only ask him for it, and go to receive it from Jesus who came to fill us with love, and use it when he gives it to you.

2. And now let me say to you again, that, if your souls are alive, they ought to grow a little every day, and that, if they only grow a little every day, these littles will have become a great deal by the end of the year; just as the small seed, so small that you can hardly handle it, becomes bigger and bigger, and a trunk and branches spring from it, and at last it is a great tree, all covered with leaves and blossoms, and at length with delicious fruit. And what I wish you to take notice of specially is just this, that you may improve a very little, at least, every day, that if you do not improve, you will become worse, that if you do not grow the right way, you will grow the wrong way, and that you must not be discouraged if you are improving at all, even though your improvement may be very slow. Life is made up of

little things.

This mighty world is

made up of atoms.

This new year will be made up of moments. The drop of water that falls upon the stone takes away a very small part of it, so small a part that, if you were to look at it with a microscope, you could hardly see it; and yet before a great while that little drop will have hollowed for itself a smooth basin. When you put one foot before the other, you do not get forward much, and if you are in any haste, you long for a horse to carry you, or for a rail-car, that you may move on swiftly; and yet if you could only keep on putting one foot before the other, and could have a road to travel over, you might go wholly round the earth in two years and a half. If you should cut down the great elm on our Common, you would find the trunk made up of little rings of wood, each one of which was a year in growing; but large as that tree has now become, and closely as it has been watched every spring and summer, no man or child ever saw it growing. You can all of you talk, and most of you can read, but you learned to talk and read very slowly. You do not remember how you learned to talk, to make all the sounds, to pronounce all the words that you are speaking constantly; you hardly remember how you learned to read, but your parents and teachers know that these things were done a very little at a time. There is a great difference between the babe and the man, but no one ever saw a child grow. Sometimes we say in summer, that we can almost see the plants grow; but it is never more than "almost," we can never quite see them. Have you not sometimes been in the country after a great rain, when the deep hollows were all filled with water, so that it seemed as if they never would be dry again, and yet in the course of a few days they were as free from wet and as good play-ground as ever? Now that water was taken away drop by drop; drop by drop a part of it ran down into the earth, and was made clean as it passed through, and went to form a sweet spring somewhere for the cattle to drink of; and the rest of it was taken up into the air, only the least particles of it each moment, so