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In the third place, it is our duty to announce, that we have received, through the medium of the public papers, and by private letters, several earnest applications to reduce the price of the Work. Some of these remonstrances, coming from the quarters they did, were entitled to the most serious consideration; but we have arrived at the conclusion, that such a reduction could not take place without entirely abandoning our present plan, of paying to our contributors, in almost every instance, a remuneration upon nearly as high a scale as the most distinguished and influential of the Quarterly Reviews. On the whole, we cannot believe that our readers would prefer a bad book at a low price to a good one at that price which it is necessary for the Proprietors to ask if they are to keep the "Christian Observer" up to its present level. Other works have been quoted as cheaper. We beg to know, what has become of them? Some gentlemen, of Utopian descent, we presume, have urged that the labourers in such a Work ought to do their work gratuitously. Our experience is, that gratuitous work is ordinarily like the labours of the unpaid Magistracy-very poor work. But we also desire to know, why, if bankers, physicians, lawyers, and even ministers of religion, are not expected to be gratuitous labourers, humble and laborious crities should be shut out from the common privileges of their species ? Though never seen, they are not mere ghosts and shadows; and want food, clothes, and shelter, like the rest of mankind. Is it exclusively in the case of religious periodical writers that the labourer is not "worthy of his hire ?"

Notwithstanding, however, the "Christian Observer" seems to us to have the best of the argument as to this point, we beg to assure our readers, that the very instant it appears to us possible to lessen the expense without really injuring the work, it will be our delight to do so.

We now turn from this Stock Exchange view of our circumstances, to the far more important question as to the moral and literary fidelity with which the offices of such a Work as this have been discharged during the year. And here we have the strongest disposition to acknowledge how far our doings have fallen short of our desires. It is a solemn act to seat ourselves in the critic's chair, to take the scales of judgment into our hands, and forthwith to issue a verdict which is not unlikely, in some measure, to influence the decision of not a few others as to the value of the Volume before us. No sooner is the task undertaken, than passion, pride, prejudice, ignorance, strive to mount the Bench beside us, or hide themselves among the Counsel, and essay to warp us from the honest pursuit of truth. "It is heaven upon earth,” says Lord Bacon, "to have a man's mind move in Charity, rest on Providence, and turn upon the Poles of Truth." Yes, but this is a prelibation of a future state which we are rarely privileged to enjoy here. But whilst deeply aware and conscious of our own frequent failures, we have the testimony of our conscience" that Truth-unmixed,

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unadulterated, uncorrupted Truth—has been our object; and that we have sought for it amidst reproaches, to the right and the left at times— of excess on the one hand, and of deficiency on the other-of cowardly concessions to the spirit of one sect, or proud contempt of another. Partisans have abused us; but many calm, just, and holy men have given us, we are thankful to say, words of encouragement.

During the progress of the year, we have had several special objects. In the first place, it has been our endeavour to justify those principles of "Evangelical" truth, drawn, as we believe, from the deep fountains of Scripture, and delivered to us in their brightness and purity through the channels of our own Church Articles and Formularies,—of which this Work has always professed itself the earnest and unflinching advocate.

In the next place, it has been our wish to cherish in the Evangelical body high conceptions of the standard of temper and practice which are the essential fruits of their professed principles. It has been our conviction, that the standard of temper and every-day life, in at least a portion of the Evangelical body, had sunk below its true level; and some of the public incidents of the present year have served to shew us that there is still much to be done in raising the superstructure, as well as laying the foundation.

It has been with infinite satisfaction that we have contemplated, during the year, the gradual withering and decay-shall we say, under the frown of the Great Master-of that half-Popish system which had erected itself in direct antagonism to the religion of our Fathers. Some of the high fliers of this Party have taken their flight to their appropriate resting-place, under the wing of the Pope. Some more right-minded men, startled by the obvious results of the system, have come back, with infinite satisfaction, to the pastures they had for a time deserted. Others still linger on, like the last snow under the hedges in spring, soon, we hope, to melt under the summer beams of advancing truth.

But while this body of men has been, to a certain extent at least, dying out, others have arisen to carry on a perhaps more formidable war with orthodox religion, and especially with Evangelical principles. We cannot doubt that what is called the "Broad Church" Party comprehends in it men admirable for their learning, sincerity, and love of truth. But their learning, deeply steeped as it is in German mystification, and their candour, dilated into an undistinguishing Latitudinarianism, are among the deepest sources of their apostacy from established truth. There is such a thing as the "breadth" of the bright, deep, flowing and there is the breadth of the shallow and corrupted marsh. Now we welcome the river; but we are afraid of the marsh. And our persuasion is, that the tendency of many of the "Essays" and "Commentaries" of that school, and especially of that recently given to the world by an Oxford Tutor and Professor, are calculated to swamp many

river;

of the essential truths of the Gospel in the depths of a metaphysical religion. Our attention has been much directed to this new phase of evil, and it is our hope to enter on the year and fill up its months, with careful investigations of the errors of this system, and an honest display of its dangers

Shall we be thought presumptuous if, having thus referred to the general course of the "Christian Observer" during the year, we more particularly direct the attention of our readers to the especial claims of some of the articles in the work, on their regard. Not a few of the "Miscellaneous" articles are of a high order of merit. We desire to thank our Correspondents for them; and earnestly crave at their hands not reiterated discussions upon long-acknowledged truths-not a Monmouth Street exhibition of worn-out garments-but anything that is new, pungent, practical, or experimental, affecting the practice or the heart, which may be the result of their own speculations, or the fruit of large experience.

May we not also confidently call the notice of our Subscribers to the "Reviews" of "More Worlds than One," in January-of "Psychological Inquiries," in February ;-of "Collegiate Establishments," and the "School of Doubt," in March ;—of " Olympia Morata ;" of " Wilberforce's Inquiry;" of " Blackley's Gospel History," and of "Hook's Church Dictionary;" of "Forbes's Symmetrical Structure of Scripture ;" of "Powell's Essays on the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy;" of "Mackay's Progress of the Intellect;" of Trench's Past, Present, and Future;" of "Tulloch's Theism;" of "Wylie's Bengal," and the "Life of Marguerite d'Angoulême;" with several others, as witnesses that we have had heads and hearts at work for us who will lose nothing by a comparison with the best class of our modern Periodical critics.

But it is time to draw this statement to an end. The writer of these lines feels that he can lay claim to a very small part of what has been good in the Work, whilst he desires to take to himself a full share of its deficiencies and faults. There are many causes which compel him to feel that he holds his office by a feeble and most uncertain tenure. It is his earnest aspiration to the Father of our spirits, that, in this and every other enterprize, he may have the glory of the Lord, and the increased holiness of those for whom Jesus died, in his eye and in his heart; and that the "Christian Observer" may long remain as a monument that there was a body of men in the English Church, knit together, we trust, by bonds never to be broken, who for a long succession of years, through good report and evil report, endeavoured to meet the heresies of the day as they arose, and fought the battles of the Reformation with the sword of the Spirit, and those Formularies which the first Fathers of their Church committed to their keeping.

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