PREFACE. IN completing the volume of this Magazine for 1868, we have to express our gratitude first to our able contributors, and then to our subscribers, for the assistance they have respectively afforded us. Our humble labours have, we trust, been of some service to the denomination, and to the interests of religion in the country. We have given a considerable space to the very deeply interesting public ecclesiastical questions of the day. Our advocacy has been constantly on the side of self-support, freedom, and spiritual independence in the Church, and of equality among all denominations in their relations to the civil power. We have also, to the utmost of our ability, pleaded for union with other Presbyterian Churches, without dereliction of principle, or restriction of individual liberty as hitherto enjoyed in our own Body. The cause of Missions we regard as not within our province, but belonging to two other monthly periodicals (the Missionary Record and Juvenile Missionary Magazine), which are more directly connected with the Church than we claim to be. But we have done what we could by the discussion of other schemes of our Body (such as the Stipend Augmentation Scheme), for extending its influence, strengthening its organization, and developing its resources. At the same time we have not neglected the grand object of promoting the revival and increase of vital religion in our families and congregations; in proof, of which, we point to the edifying biographical notices, as well as to other pieces of a practical and doctrinal kind that have appeared from time to time in our pages. On these accounts, and as the only journal bearing the name, and expressly devoted to the interests of our denomination, we think we have a strong claim on the support of our ministers, elders, and people,—a claim which is scarcely recognised to the extent to which it deserves to be. A |