THE

REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN MAGAZINE.

JANUARY 1862.

I SPEAK OF THE THINGS... TOUCHING THE KING."- PSA. XLV. 7.

ADDRESS TO OUR READERS ON "THE PAST AND PRESENT." OUR Magazine enters with this month upon another year of its existence. It lies with our readers, rather than with ourselves, to say how far the objects contemplated by such a publication have been realised. Our sincere desire in connection with the periodical of the Church is, that it should, in some measure, meet the wants, spiritual and intellectual, of our members. If in this we have not succeeded up to the extent of our wishes, we can only plead the aim for the deed. We hope, however, that our labours have not been altogether in vain. If, then, any word which we, or our willing fellow-labourers, have written during the past year shall have been blessed to the confirming of the faith of any child of God, to the awakening of any seared conscience, to the production of juster views of divine truth, we shall not consider our work thrown away. If more prayerfulness shall have, through our humble efforts, been excited in our congregations, or more intense desire and effort for the advancement of the kingdom of Messiah the Prince, we have not spent our strength for nought. We are aware that the responsibility of addressing, month by month, several hundreds of readers throughout the Church, is by no means light, whether the responsibility connects itself with the formation or exposition of opinion. Not a few difficulties meet us in either case; but honesty, candour, and charity will, we trust, bear us safely through.

All we have to say at present, in reference to the Magazine as such, may be readily dispatched in a few words. It is gratifying to be able to state that, if the circulation has not made any rapid progress, it has at least suffered no decrease. We do not expect, in a denomination such as ours, a circulation numbered by thousands rather than by hundreds. It is well known that there are sections of the Christian Church which are numerically very much

superior to ours; still, if we do not deceive ourselves, the circulation of the Reformed Presbyterian Magazine bears a very creditable proportion to the number of the Church's members. It would be wrong to say that there are not some districts in which a little effort on the part of our present readers would materially add to the numbers of our monthly issue, and increase, consequently, the prosperity of the Magazine. Our best thanks are due, as in former years, to the many kind friends, both within and without the pale of the Church, who have aided us so largely by their valu. able contributions. This kindness will be seen to assume the form of generosity when we inform our readers that, in no single instance, has the amount of remuneration borne anything like an adequate proportion to the value of the articles so willingly forwarded. Were our circulation advanced but one-third (and we are convinced that this is not asking an impossibility), we should not require so often, when receiving these papers, on which no small amount of labour has been bestowed, to acknowledge them simply by "thanks."

In these few lines we have said all that is necessary upon the affairs of the Magazine. We gladly embrace this opportunity of turning the thoughts of our readers into a wider channel than that affecting ourselves, by glancing briefly at some of the leading features of the months that have passed since we last addressed them in our present capacity. The church first, the world next; such the order we propose to ourselves. The history of our own Church has been, from month to month, recorded, so far as information has reached us, in our pages. In many instances, we have been able to present cheering evidence of congregational prosperity, and of earnest, self-denying effort for the spread of Christ's kingdom, both at home and abroad. That there are questions of grave moment, which at present occupy the mind of our Church, may not be concealed. To the discussion of these, our pages have been thrown open, under an impression in which, we trust, our readers sympathise with us, that truth can never suffer by discussion, conducted in a spirit of Christian candour and courtesy. The fire only makes the precious metal shine the more brilliantly; whatever is lost in the crucible, it is not the gold.

When we addressed our readers last January, we took occasion to say that "our mission in the South Seas had arrived at that stage of progress in which every communication, as it should be presented to the Church in successive numbers of the Magazine, could only tend the more to rivet the attention, and educe the prayers of those among us who were waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus." Since these words were penned, we have been called upon to record, in connection with our mission, a series of trials, which have filled many hearts with sorrow, and many eyes with tears. For several months, it has been with us as with "the man in the land of Uz.” "Disease is raging throughout the New Hebrides; thousands are dying upon the islands." Such the words of one messenger; and while he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, "The fierce hurricane has swept over us; our crops are destroyed, our

houses are thrown down." Suffering under this blow, there comes a third, who says, "One of the noble band on Tanna has fallen on sleep;" and yet a fourth, while the third is speaking, cries, "And they have slain thy servants with the edge of the sword." Looking to the career of prosperity, which it had pleased the Lord to give us, as a Church, in our missionary work, and to the sudden reverses which he has thus sent, we trust the analogy will hold good even to the end of that sad record of calamity to which we have referred-"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this, Job sinned not, nor attributed folly to God." We have, indeed, received good, much good, at the hand of the Lord. Now that the evil has come, we can only bow reverently before him, and say, "Even so, Lord, for so it seemeth good unto thee." Perhaps there may have been a feeling of undue elation in connection with the wonderful prosperity which shone out upon us in this field, and a forgetting, in some respects, of Him who had done so great things for us. Be this as it may, we have not now, for the first time, to learn that reverses such as these have been overruled, in the providence of God, for greater good. The afflictive dispensations of the Most High may yet, on these islands that have suffered so severely, lead to the singing of the song of ancient Israel,-"Thou hast brought us through fire and water, into a wealthy place." The very island that has twice already been pol luted by the blood of God's dear servants, may yet shine as a bright jewel in the diadem of Jesus; and the dark stains be blotted out by the blood of him who made his soul an offering for sin. These results may be many years in being accomplished; there may be more disasters; more lives may be lost;-but if the religion of Christ on Tanna and Eromanga go down before the might of heathen superstition, it will be an unparalleled reversal of the history of the cross. It cannot be. "He will be exalted among the heathen; he will be exalted on the earth." While many years may pass away, and the results among them that dwell afar off upon the sea may be long in developing themselves, there are at home certain results which may be expected to spring up with greater speed. There will be the humbling of ourselves under the mighty hand of God; more earnest, fervent prayer in the pulpit, and homes, and closets of the church. There will be generated, if the affliction have its perfect work, a stronger faith in God, and in the progress of Christ's kingdom; and there will rise up among us a band of men, whose hearts the Lord hath touched, who will speak in this wise, "The heathen shall not any more say, 'Where is their God now gone?" and who, when the banner has fallen from the hands of the standard-bearers, will lift it from the blood-stained sand of Eromanga, and advance it against the foe, We cannot refrain from addressing a word to the youth of our Church. The time will soon come when the honoured missionary and his wife, who have been sojourning for some time among us, will return to the scene of their former labours. It must not be that they return as they came. Changes and sadness enough await them when they reach Aneityum, without this being added to all

the rest. Will it be to the credit of the Church (and this is certainly not the highest ground), if, from her school of the prophets, if from her licentiates and ministers, there be, at this time, no response to the cry, "Come over and help us?" Other Churches, it may be said, are experiencing the same difficulty; Churches numerically stronger, more affluent, more influential than ours, are pleading for missionaries. All that may be, but does it exonerate the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland from her own responsibilities?

The twelve months of the past year have placed us in a better position than before, for the formation of correct views as to the remarkable awakening and revival which were experienced in many parts of Scotland, in the end of 1860 and the beginning of 1861. Collating all the accounts which have reached us, and adding to these our own knowledge of the movement in certain districts, we may say that the excitement has now, in great measure, disappeared. Those who sympathised with the movement, and those who looked upon it with some degree of suspicion, are alike anxious to learn the results. We have no hesitation in saying that the good, so far as we have been able to judge, preponderates. In many churches throughout Scotland, attendance upon ordinances is largely increased; a greater measure of seriousness is visible among all classes. Not a few, who were openly profane and careless, have been, in the mercy of God, reclaimed; and, to our own knowledge, the sound of praise is heard in many families, where, previously, the sounds of blasphemy were only too familiar. There are cases, however, in which it must be admitted, that the amount of good left behind bears no adequate proportion to the amount of excitement, the number of meetings, and the floods of speaking. How far human weaknesses and imprudencies are to blame for this, we shall not say. In many instances, there was not, we fear, sufficient judgment manifested in the selection of the persons permitted to address the public meetings. Individuals, whose knowledge of divine truth was very slender, and whose Christian character had been formed neither by long experience, nor by deep study of the word of God, were brought forward too readily and too prominently into public view; thereby affording an opportunity to the adversary to gainsay, and leading to the formation of unsound opinions upon the cardinal doctrines of the gospel, the sovereignty of God, the atonement, justification by faith, and the work of the Holy Spirit. Wherever this mistake has been committed, the consequences are being reaped, in the opening of a great door and effectual for the inroads of error. On the whole, we have reason to believe that the good will be found, at once most extensive and permanent, where the greatest care was taken that the teaching should remain in the hands of those who were duly qualified and appointed by the Church; where the praises of the great numbers assembled flowed forth in those channels, which had been opened up of old by the Spirit of God; and where the thoughts were turned away from mere human instrumentality, to that God who worketh in us, to will and to do of his good pleasure. Notwithstanding these and other drawbacks, to