CHRISTIAN WITNESS,

AND

Church Members Magazine.

1857.

A good style, with good matter, consecrates a work to memory; and sometimes, while a man seeks
but one of these, he is caught to be a servant to the other. The principal end of reading is to enrich the
mind; the next, to improve the pen and tongue. Doubtless, that is the best work in which the Graces and
the Muses meet.

Certainly the breathing and effusions of a devout soul turn prayer into a chain, which links us fast to
God; but intermission breaks it, and when we are so loose we are easily overthrown; and doubtless it is
far less difficult to preserve a friend, once made, than to recover one that is lost.

PREFACE.

NEARLY half the period allotted to a generation has passed away since the establishment of the CHRISTIAN WITNESS; and, in the meantime, there have been issued 3,534,000 copies! It is very difficult to form a correct idea of the amount of saving truth represented by these figures. The small price is but too apt to mislead the general reader as to the real fact. It may, perhaps, assist in forming a right notion on the subject, to reflect, that each of these Numbers in the type of a fashionable novel, would form a library volume, of the usual size, making, consequently, a total of 3,534,000 volumes! It is cheering to think that, amid the torrent of vapid, irreligious, and polluting trash that floods the nation, a single section of the Church of Christ has been instrumental in sending forth so much matter thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the Gospel. This satisfaction, however, is somewhat abated, from the fact that, in many quarters where it is much required, its importance is greatly under-estimated from its being sold at so trifling a cost. That circumstance, it is to be regretted, is extensively suffered to conceal the true value of such publications. But, whether as to men or books, the essential ought never to be lost in the circumstantial: a man, whether clad in cloth of gold, or in undyed frieze, is alike capable of bearing the image and enjoying the fellowship of the Eternal Father. So truth, whether embodied in pica, bound in purple, and sold for a guinea, or composed in minion, sent forth in a cover, and issued at "Three Pence," is still the Sword of the Spirit. The Gospel, issuing from the lips of a mitred prelate in the Palace Royal, or of a humble peasant in a barn, is alike immutable and glorious, and adapted to become the "power of God unto salvation."

The enormous issue of the CHRISTIAN WITNESS assumes an increased importance as a means of instruction, conversion, and edification, when we think of the extent to which it has been actually read. Libraries, large, and well assorted, may be everywhere found throughout the mansions of the opulent; but examination will show how vast is the proportion of the new and costly works in such libraries, that have never even been cut! Not so the CHRISTIAN WITNESS. Nothing is hazarded in affirming, that the bulk of the Numbers have been both cut, and read, much of them many times over, by those but slenderly blest with the means of grace, or only in a very limited measure able to enjoy them. But the lapse of time, above specified, discloses the mutability of human affairs, and the brevity of human life; about one-half of our first circle of Readers must have exchanged worlds! The eternal state of that vast multitude is now fixed; and we entertain a humble hope that the Gospel, set forth in our pages, has been the instrument of conversion to many, and of edification to more.

The solemn fact of so much mortality is full of practical admonition. The length of time through which the CHRISTIAN WITNESS has now been published,