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EDINBURGH: WILLIAM OLIPHANT AND SONS.

LONDON: HOULSTON AND STONEMAN.

GLASGOW: DAVID ROBERTSON.

MDCCCLI.

MURRAY AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

PREFACE.

ON completing another Volume, we have to renew the expression of warmest thanks to our Contributors and Readers for their continued and sustained interest in behalf of the UNITED PRESBYTERIAN MAGAZINE. Amongst the increasing multitude of periodical publications claiming, on different grounds, the support of the Christian public in this country, we are glad to say that the Magazine has held on its course during another year, with an undiminished list of subscribers, and with other tokens of unabated good-will on the part of the churches whom it is our ambition to serve. We are conscious of the kind partiality to which, in a considerable measure, we owe the position which this publication has occupied, and still maintains, as, in point of circulation, first among the denominational Magazines in Scotland; and as the best proof how much we value the confidence reposed in us, we resolve to give ourselves more assiduously than ever to discover and seize upon whatever may render our pages acceptable and useful to the churches.

In regard to the plan of the Magazine, we are always happy to receive suggestions offered in a friendly spirit; and if these are not, in every case, acted on so fully or so promptly as may be desired, it is because they come into conflict with other suggestions, offered in the same spirit, by friends equally zealous for the cause we have all at heart. Some correspondents are solicitous for more matter in the form of extracts from books,—a department of the Magazine which, though never lost sight of in our monthly arrangements, is seldom allowed to occupy a large share of the limited space at our command. To make extracts from the published writings of others is by no means difficult; but this has never been a leading or prominent feature of our plan; nor, while other publications, which have this as their main characteristic, and are conducted with unexceptionable taste and remarkable tact, are so cheap and so extensively distributed, would we think it wise to obtrude largely on their peculiar province. We wish to make ours a mis

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