THE

United Methodist Free Churches'

Magazine.

EDITED BY

JOHN SWANN WITHINGTON.

"Read, not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and
discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and
some few to be chewed and digested."-BACON.

The

"It has been remarked by the celebrated Huller that we are deaf while we are yawning.
same act of drowsiness that stretches open our months, closes our ears. It is much the same in
acts of the understanding. A lazy half-attention amounts to a mental yawn. When, then, a
subject that demands thought has been thoughtfully treated, and with an exact and patient deriva-
tion from its principles, we must be willing to exert a portion of the same effort, and think with
the author, or the author will have thought in vain for us."-S. T. COLERIDGE.

UNITED METHODIST FREE CHURCHES' BOOK ROOM,
119, SALISBURY SQUARE, FLEET STREET.

PREFACE.

THE year is an ebbing tide. We see it receding. It is going into misty remoteness. Soon it will be as silent as the distant hills. Some work has been done; has it been done faithfully and efficiently? As to our special work, we may have erred in judgment, a common fallibility; certain we are that we have been right in aim. Possibly the wrong tools have, it may be thought, been sometimes used, and the work clumsily done; but we have the satisfaction of knowing that we have used the best materials that were at our disposal. Nobly and with great ability have our contributors sustained us in our arduous task. We have a good literary staff; and it affords us pleasure to be able to state that they, with additions, will aid us the coming year. Few editors, if any, have kinder friends, more courteous, more obliging, more willing to serve. We hesitate not to say that their productions have been seasonable and eminently useful. Let those speak who really read the Magazine, and we doubt not they will support our averment.

No one need take the trouble of informing us that we have not reached perfection. We know it. We should be singular if we had; and we should only disquiet the minds of halting ones in the rear. We share with others some of the infirmities of human nature. And it is well and consolatory to feel that we are not alone; but we shall continue to do our utmost to provide wholesome and strengthening food for our readers, with their diversified tastes and habits.

In this day of rapid transitions, and dangerous changes of thought; in the midst of lawlessness, insubordination, pride of intellect, and commercial consequence, there is increasing need of plainly asserting and attractively exhibiting the saving truths of our holy religion. And this can be done without the spirit of a party, but with the eagerness and love of the ransomed, seeking to remove the fetters from the limbs of their brethren. The Gospel is the only restingplace for the weary and the sad, the seekers after truth and repose. It is the "palm-shadowed well in the desert." Our faith in the truth of the Divine story, our enjoyment of its love, our wonder at the grandeur of its Heaven and the stoop of its Saviour, grow as our years thicken and our life hastens to its close.

Rochdale, December, 1881.

J. SWANN WITHINGTON.