THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN MAGAZINE. NEW SERIES.-VOL. X. ODL • EDINBURGH: WILLIAM OLIPHANT AND CO. LONDON: HOULSTON AND WRIGHT. GLASGOW: DAVID ROBERTSON. MDCCCLXVI. PREFACE. WE now complete the volume of the Magazine for the year 1866, and we offer our cordial thanks to the friends who have sustained and encouraged us by their approval of our labours, and more especially to those who have effectually aided us by their seasonable and interesting contributions. We have never, indeed, felt at a loss for ample materials. The difficulty has rather and often been how, with our limited space, to gratify all the friends who were ambitious of a place for their lucubrations in our pages. The year, which is now drawing near a close, has been an unusually busy one in our presbyteries, and will, no doubt, be a memorable one in the annals of our denomination. The discussions which have everywhere taken place on union with other unendowed Presbyterian bodies, have been honourably marked by two very distinguishing features: first, a truly catholic spirit of love towards all who are brethren; and, secondly, a very resolute purpose to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. We have, of course, been looking forward, along with others, to the event to which these discussions point as in the probable future, and have been reckoning on the likelihood of this journal being obliged to change its title, and to embrace the advocacy of more comprehensive interests than at present. But our readers, we suppose, will generally agree with us, that the negotiations are by no means, as yet, so far matured as to hold out the hope or the fear that the United Presbyterian Magazine will assume another form, or be known by another name for a good many years to come. In our last prefatory note, we ventured to remark that the year 1866 promised to be one of no ordinary interest to the true friends of Zion. Surely this promise has been fulfilled. Do we need to point to the wonderful changes which have taken place in central Europe and in Italy, all singularly favourable to the progress of liberty and of Protestant truth? At the date at which we now write, a crisis is very near at hand, probably only a few days off, in the long reign of the Man of Sin. Every ear is already straining to hear the first sounds of the coming revolution. Would that the auguries in some other quarters were equally pleasing! But the appearance of a new school of Moderatism in the Church of Scotland, and the fearful spread in the Church of England of Ritualism and Romanism on the one hand, and of Rationalism and Infidelity on the other, together with the low state of commercial morality, as disclosed in many recent instances, the increasing and reckless profligacy of the lower orders, and the persistent hostility to evan |