pose and plan. He dwells first on the vast spiritual utility of the Methodist and Arminian Magazine: It is not presumptuous to say that few books of human composition have been more honoured of God.' He expatiates upon its value as a Religious Intelligencer, (a service now to a great extent claimed and accomplished by the Missionary Notices and the newspapers,) and as a treasury of modern Christian biography. The design of the New Series is to 'afford a convenient opportunity' for new subscribers, and to give the official organ' of the Methodist Body a due adjustment to the times, whilst it is still to be the authentic recorder of its proceedings and the champion of its principles and institutions.

Mr. Bunting did not materially alter the structure, any more than the spirit, of the Magazine. He began, however, an alternative series of Papers headed respectively The Wesleyan Methodist, and The Christian Retrospect, Watson writing the first; and he introduced the Notices of new books, in addition to the larger reviews. A much ampler space is assigned to Poetry-Agnes Bulmer contributing a long poem. The Christian Retrospect is from the These, with the Varieties' and' Gleanings,' form the only

Editor's own pen.

new elements.

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The Conference of 1822 called especial attention in its Minutes to the Magazine, as highly deserving of attention from the religious world at large, and especially from our own people :' dwelling on the accounts of Christian experiences and their sound Divinity.' They well observe,

'If the minds of our members, and especially of those who are just rising into life, be well stored with sound and Scriptural knowledge, their principles will become firm, and through Divine grace they will be prepared to meet the attacks of infidelity and error, without falling in the time of trial. In this day of blasphemy and rebuke, it becomes highly necessary thus to fortify them against temptation.' (P. 346.)

As the Magazine reached, under Jabez Bunting's Editorship, its culminating point of popularity and circulation, it may be interesting to analyze its constituent elements. They were, on the average, as under:

Thus to biography was assigned one fourth of the entire Magazine, and to

the Religious Intelligence, Reports of Meetings, or Circuit intelligence, and the Missionary Notices, a third; to Divinity, Reviews, and Miscellaneous articles, each about one ninth; Poetry and Papers on the most important questions of the day, each about one twenty-third part; Varieties and Gleanags filling up spare space. The Theology, with the exception of one Sermon by Henry Moore, and one by Richard Watson, consisted wholly of reprints. The Preface to the Magazine for 1823 justly represents it as mainly a depository of Christian Biography and Theological Instruction;' excepting that Religious Intelligence' occupied a much larger space than either. In 1824 began Thomas Jackson's long and serviceable Editorship; Bunting and Watson being engaged to help him. As there was no perceptible immediate change, beyond a lessening by about one half of the space allowed to Poetry, we need not pursue this examination through the four years which remained to complete the half-century.

What then, as the result of our review, do we find to have been the original and essential characteristics of the Methodist Magazine; what its historical raison d'être; what the place in English periodical literature it was designed to fill; what the requirements it had to meet; what the qualities the attainment of which would be the realisation of its ideal; what the spirit and what the services which would justify its claim to be the representative of the venerable organ which the Wesleys originated, shaped and worked, and on which such men as Benson, Bunting and Jackson have left their mark? And how may it continue to be in such sort its representative as to conserve its vital continuity and its substantial identity; and, amongst the most important features of that identity, adaptation to the times?

The first point that strikes one is the controversial-one might rather say— the chivalrous aspect, accoutrement and bearing of the Magazine of Methodism. Never did Knight of the ages of romance, after holy vigils and solemn rites, ride forth more gallantly to redress wrong and champion civilization and religion, than did the Arminian Magazine come pricking o'er the plain' to confront and confound error, evil, and the powers of night. It did not merely stand in the lists challenging all comers, with lance in rest; but its bugle-blast smote with defiant resonance against the strongholds of godlessness and misbelief, and it drove full tilt against the giant heresies, the monster mischiefs, and the stalking spectres of the age. Is there less need now than then of valour for the truth upon the earth; of earnest contention 'for the faith once delivered unto the saints'? Is our latter day unbelief, is our current error, less insolent, less confident, less seductive, less determined, less subtle, less equipped? Assuredly these are no times for a faithful witnessing Church to suppress or soften its trenchant testimony for the truth as it is in Jesus.' The present humour of unbelief is to compliment Christ out of His Divine authority; to rob Him, on the one hand, of His redeeming mediatorship, and, on the other, of His rights as a Revealer and a Ruler; to reject His sacrifice on Calvary in favour of His Sermon on the Mount; or to hail Him as

a Redeemer and repudiate Him as the sternest of all Denouncers of impenitent unbelief. Now-a-days disbelief makes pretence of discipleship; approaches Christ with its 'Hail, Master!' and its kiss; then takes its seat on lofty mountain plateau or in temple-porch, and bids Him stand in silent deference, whilst it opens its uncircumcised mouth and lectures Him in Ethics and Divinity; affects to revise His revelations, and be the instructor of the Eternal Word. The tables are turned since Paul rented the reading-room of a philosophizing rhetorician, the school of one Tyrannus,' to preach His Gospel in the rhetorical philosopher has crossed over to the Christian Church, and draws his stipend from a Christian congregation, or his living from a Christian State. And then his specious speculations, or his selfevolved dogmas, are issued from the press with the imprimatur of the Christian faith. The faithful admonition of the Conference in 1822 (quoted above) is not out of date in 1877. A believing Journalist had better be raimentless than swordless in such a time as this; better eliminate vital heat with the force and frequency of his two-handed strokes, than with both hands wrap his literary drapery more gracefully about him, while the bulwarks of Zion are assaulted or undermined.

Whilst these facts are kept in view, we trust that the courtesies of Christian controversy will never be lost sight of, but that our critical spear will drip honey from its point, and that the knightly fairness and urbanity which distinguished Wesley as a disputant will be the inalienable heirloom of the legatees of his literary plans. We hope, also, that, in the New Series of the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine, not only will the Truth of God' be 'defended' as in the olden times, but 'the Grace of God' still be ‘Manifested,' and 'the Word of God Illustrated.' After all, Methodism, whether in its Magazine or any other of its multiplied agencies, has no further concern with human theories on Divine verities, than as those theories impede its one great mission of spreading Scriptural holiness throughout the land. To the accomplishment of this, the presentation of personal proofs of the unabated power of the Gospel to transform the nature, transfigure the character and ennoble and beautify the life, is far more availing than the most powerful polemics. Fresh, choice, Christian biography must still, as almost from the beginning, form a marked feature in the Methodist Magazine. The Memoirs, which for close upon a century have lent it the quickening odour of Scriptural sanctity, are not mortuary tablets on the walls of dimly-lighted catacombs, but speaking family portraits, adorning the long corridors of the palace-home of faith. And so long as Methodism is worthy of the name, its leading periodical will not lack supplies for a continuous stream of well-recorded worth.'

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Our facilities, again, for the exposition of 'the lively oracles' are much greater than those of our predecessors: for while the authority of Scripture has been set at naught, its hidden wealth has been, and will still be, explored with loving labour, and exultingly brought to light.

As to the item of Religious Intelligence, the weekly newspapers, to a great extent, forestall the Home-Methodist news, whilst the first-fruits of our

Foreign news are claimed by the Missionary Notices. But this will leave all the more leisure to take a wide, catholic view of the kingdom of God. Touching the religious aspects of Science, The Works of God Displayed, we are in an equally advantageous position: the Head of the Church having graciously so dispensed His gifts as to afford us men of signal competence, amongst the very peerage of Science, whose hearts are too true, and their heads too strong, to be affected with the grotesque vertigo to which unbelieving Science is so warningly liable. Of the remaining department, The Providence of God Asserted, we shall be ready most reverentially and gratefully to record well-authenticated and well-related instances of marked answers to prayer, and marked Providential interposition, in no wise disconcerted by the silly and grossly unscientific cynicism of certain of the sect of the Sadducees.' In any case, all human affairs and all mundane events will be viewed in their relation to the Providential rule and the redeeming purposes of God.

But it must never be forgotten that, in the judgment of the Wesleys and of the Conference since their time, a certain amount of entertainingness is indispensable to the very idea of a Magazine. A Magazine is, in fact, a kind of literary table-d'hôte; and its provision must be not only wholesome and substantial, but tasty, appetising, well 'sent up,' and well served. There must come entrées, relishes and condiments. An Editor, like the Shakespearian country squire, must set before his guests something besides 'a joint of mutton;' there must also be some pretty little kickshaws,' (made dishes,) and "a dish of carraways. Or, at least, like King David, on his dedication-festival, he must deal to every one of Israel, both man and woman, to every one,' not only 'a loaf of bread and a good piece of flesh,' but also ‘a flagon,' (A. V.,) or, as ashisha is better rendered, a cake of raisins. On nothing did the venerable ex-Editor Dr. Bunting so much insist, in the Book Committee, as on the necessity of 'piquancy' in the Magazine. Tameness was shocking to him. Whatever other ingredients might enter into the composition of a Magazine, he would finish the recipe with the requisition of Artaxerxes, (Ezra vii. 22,) And salt without prescribing how much!'

That usefulness to posterity' at which the earlier Editors aimed, was principally achieved by the experimental and the entertaining or sensational articles. Whilst adult believers brooded over the autographic experiences,' the children and grandchildren of their first readers were revelling in details of massacre and mutiny and misadventure, in 'moving accidents by flood and field,' or caught 'a fearful joy' from glimpses of the preternatural, weird upliftings of the curtain between this world and the next. It may not be altogether irrelevant to note in this connection the fact that a very notable number of Methodist Ministers' sons, much more to the surprise than the satisfaction of their parents, passionately and resolutely preferred the sea to either school or shop: an instructive indication of the educational influence of the entertaining element in religious periodicals. The present Editor must bespeak the kind consideration of his readers, amongst whom there cannot but be a vast variety of temperament and taste. We hope that they will take in

good part our efforts to make the Magazine entertaining as well as edifying, profitable as well as pleasing; that we may not have to complain, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye

have not lamented.'

But, after all, our periodical literature can never be successful unless it be practically regarded, especially by the Ministers, as it was in the good old times, as an essential department of the Work of God..

FAITH AND THANKS:

A NEW YEAR'S HOMILY:

BY THE REV. GEORGE STRINGER ROWE.

'Where are the nine ?'-LUKE XVII. 17.

THIS history of our Lord's healing the ten leprous men, while it beautifully illustrates that 'praise is comely,' also enables us, as we trace therein the connection between faith and praise, to gain a very important insight into the nature of true faith, and of its motives. Let us take the faith-lesson first, and thus begin at the root, whence grows this excellent fruitage of thanksgiving.

I. A LESSON OF FAITH.

1. Note, to begin with, the light here shed upon the relation of faith to

means.

It often pleases God to deposit His blessing in certain chosen circumstances, and in association with certain prescribed actions of ours. Hereupon the heeding of such choice and prescription becomes the only way of faith. To seek for God's gift elsewhere than where He has put it, and told me to find it, is presumption, and not faith; and though I profess never such fine things about my trust in the mercy of God, so long as I turn my back upon the express arrangement of that mercy, I shall only aggravate the sin of my contempt. It is no argument against appointed means that, in the nature of them, they cannot produce the end sought. All the waters of Jordan, with Abana and Pharpar to boot, cannot heal one sore on Naaman's body; yet must he seek his cure by washing in Jordan. Seventy times seven plunges in the purest stream that ever ran would never cleanse a leper; yet must Naaman dip himself just seven times if he would be clean. Why? There is no answer but one and it is enough;-Because thus hath the Lord commanded him.

These ten men, stricken with the same dread disease, are told to go and show themselves to the priests; not to get a priest to cure them, for that was out of his power. He can give them a certificate of health, if they come to him healed; so that there was only one ground on which they could present themselves for his inspection. They remember too well the last time they went to the priests, each one to hear the ruthless decree which banished him