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PREFACE.

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THE Editor completes his eight years of service, in connection with the PRESBYTERIAN MAGAZINE, with an increased sense of his responsibility to God and to the readers of the work.

The chief characteristics of the Volume for 1858 have been a long discussion on Slavery, and a complete history of the Proceedings of the American Bible Society in regard to the new Emendations.

The aim of the Editor will continue to be the edification of Presbyterian households by means of a sound Christian literature.

Nov. 27th, 1858.

C. V. R.

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THE

PRESBYTERIAN MAGAZINE.

FEBRUARY, 1858.

Miscellaneous Articles.

VICTORY IN PRESENT DISTRESS, OR THANKSGIVING FOR FAVOURS TO COME.

IF the victory be future, are our thanks prospective only? Paul, yet in the bonds of mortality, gives thanks for immortality; in death, he gives thanks for life; because death is an appointed step in the development of the life immortal. (1 Cor. 15:57, 58.) This mortal is the established antecedent of the heavenly immortality; as the death and dissolution of the seed is the established antecedent of the new harvest. So, now, in the midst of sorrow, we may give thanks with joy. The Lord, in his great mercy, give us grace to rise fully up to the rapture of the holy Apostle, while we contemplate the two forms of great distress, which are now upon us, here and abroad.

I. The present great affliction of our own country. How is it a victory?

We enjoy a present victory over evil, when we place it in the train of events to which we look for our final and highest good. This is the divine solution of the problem of all moral evil in the world; putting evil as the appointed antecedent of good; the unrighteousness of man to commend the righteousness of God; and when the Bible states, that by allowing sin to reign, and then destroying it, the Lord brings a perfect new creation out of the old, it professes to have said enough to account for evil, and to vindicate the ways of God to man.

The present affliction, is one of the changes in the course of the great work of God; a greater work than we are wont to imagine. We are deeply concerned in this work, for we are the very stones in the monument which God is rearing to his name; the course of our temporal vicissitude is part of this divine process; and an

VOL. VIII. No. 2.

event, so complicated, profound, wide-reaching, and thrilling as the one now passing, has an aim of proportionate significance and value.

In the impressive movement of our country we see, indeed, very great defects to be supplied; but we observe a great advance on all that is past. This advance appears, for instance, in the use of individual energy and capacity. Every one seizes his opportunity to improve his condition, by some enterprise, involving great activity, and putting some of the powers of discernment and combination to the highest task; and every one is, for the most part, under the impulse of his own zeal, and the guidance of his own knowledge. How could such results have been attained, but for the feeling of security with which each citizen may hold and enjoy his own, and use it in the free pursuit of happineas; how, but for the ideas of dignity, connected with the accumulation and control of worldly substance, as an exercise of power; the desire to elevate the physical condition, to increase the pleasures and the powers of knowledge; to enlarge the sphere of the natural affections, to cultivate taste, to nourish art, and to promote that social development, which alone gives wealth its true value, in civilized life; how, but for the mental activity, sustained by knowledge, the high sense of freedom, the lively consciousness of power, the love of personal independence, and some enlivening, though, perhaps unconscious, presentiment of the earthly destiny of man! We thus see much to call for thanksgiving, in the condition of our people. A great thing has been achieved for the advancement of the world, so far as this country may contribute to its progress. The activity and energy of our population is, under the circumstances, full of promise.

But there has been a failure. We sowed the wind, for the most part, with a little good seed, and we have reaped the whirlwind in due proportion; and the land is full of lamentation. The affliction is real and oppressive. It is not to be disguised or overlooked. Many a dwelling of plenty and comfort has become dark and desolate. The anguish of disappointment, the suffering of privation, in homes so lately the abode of affluence, the shock of so sudden a fall;-all these combine to fill thousands with sadness; they come like a voice from a dark cloud; they tell us we have sinned; we have offended God, in his providence, and he has retorted, by a blow, which has gone to the heart. Let none affect indifference for such a stroke; that would be most unnatural of all; acknowledge the full severity of the chastisement, and the fault that provoked it. We have broken the laws of the business world, the laws by which God administers that portion of his kingdom; God is the spirit in the wheels. The laws of his administration are the forces of his own nature. He has felt the violence, thrown every wheel out of place, and brought all to a stand, in a crash. Hear him now, as he speaks out from the ruin, to direct in repairing the machine and setting it up again, take care now to give it such

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