DEDICATION. TO THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES OF ENGLAND AND WALES, WITH THEIR PASTORS AND DEACONS. BELOVED AND HONOURED FATHERS, Brethren, and FRIENDS,-Our experimental year is at length completed, and it is now our privilege to present our readers with the result of our labours. The problem is solved; the peril is past; the CHRISTIAN WITNESS is established. While we now tender cordial thanks to our friends for having placed our work in a respectable position, we would specially offer our devout acknowledgments to the Head of the church for every circumstance, and every instrument which has, in any way, contributed to further its progress, and for the favour it has obtained in the sight of his people. In presenting to you our First Volume, it becomes our duty to record the circumstances in which it originated, together with some of the events which have marked its appearance. Thus much, at least, is due to the generations which are to come, by whom the statement may, perhaps, be read with interest at the distance of centuries. The CHRISTIAN WITNESS, having taken its stand upon great and immutable principles, owes none of its success to adventitious circumstances. There was nothing in our condition as a community, in the spirit of the times, or in the state of the nation, from which it derived the slightest advantage. Those principles, which constituted its distinguishing character, and its main glory, formed, at the same time, the most serious obstacle to its general popularity. Instead of the catholicity of our excellent contemporary, the Evangelical Magazine, which, merging all sectional distinctions, launched out on the boundless Pacific of Evangelical Protestantism, the motto of the CHRISTIAN WITNESS, as if written in letters of fire, was, "DISSENT FROM ALL ECCLESIASTICAL ESTABLISHMENTS. Instead of the mitigated, but still large catholicity of the Eclectic Review, of happy memory and distinguished merit, which, merging all peculiarities of ritual, polity, and doctrine among Evangelical Dissenters, stood forth on the broad Atlantic of Nonconformity, the CHRISTIAN WITNESS unfurled its sail on the bounding billows of the stormy Baltic of Pædobaptist Independency,— the system of a people whose indifference to their denominational interests, and whose neglect of their own peculiar literature, have hitherto been their real reproach, their imaginary glory,-the system of a people who had, for a quarter of a century, left their own, their only Magazine-in some respects the best of its age, to languish, and, at times, almost to die! There was little in the remembrance of such facts to fire the minds of the Committee of the Congregational Union with hope, or to inspire an Editor to embark, with confidence, in so arduous, laborious, and doubtful an enterprise. But it was not necessary to go back for discouragements; the passing hour abundantly supplied them. The Committee issued to some fifteen hundred of the churches a circular, accompanied by the Prospectus of the projected Magazine, requesting the favour of an answer, stating the number of copies that might probably be taken by them respectively. The time specified expired, and the total of the returns was very little above two hundred! But who were the men that made them? With only two or three exceptions, not one was made by the pastors of the larger congregations! Few were received from the churches, whether great or small, of the principal towns and cities; and only three or four from the churches in and around the Metropolis! Such was the zeal of our people for their new Magazine! A zeal which has been so admired, so applauded, and pointed to as a pattern to the people of other communities. This mistake must not be suffered to go uncorrected. That must not be ascribed to the whole, which is the property of only a part of our pastors, deacons, and people, and these belonging chiefly to churches of second, third, and fourth rate magnitude, together with our excellent Home Missionaries, who rank among our most zealous and efficient friends; and, though last, not least, our Sunday-school Teachers, who from the first were largely our hope. These are the men who have established the CHRISTIAN WITNESS! Theirs was the labour; theirs is the honour; and of that honour let them not be deprived! These are chiefly the persons whom posterity will have to thank and bless for this great benefaction. They have been through this first and most anxious year our main comfort and our principal support. Had the pastors and deacons of the greater churches performed their part with equal zeal, energy, and perseverance, our minimum of 50,000 had long since been realized, and the year might have closed with a circulation of 100,000! Still we would measure our reprehension of our much beloved, though neglectful brethren, most of whom, we have reason to believe, have now paid at least an instalment of the debt which they owed to those who were embarking labours and character, and making no small sacrifice to serve them, their flocks, their denomination, and the church at large. We would not severely censure them; we but gently complain; and our reference has respect rather to the future than to the past. In all circulars, which refer to important denominational movements, returns, whatever be their character, should be promptly made. Neglect is not merely painful and disheartening to official men; it is also attended with practical mischief to the working of our institutions. It is very much to be wished that all our readers, when great projects are in view, would occasionally re-peruse Johnson's Letter to Chesterfield; and in particular that they would ponder the following question of the great Lexicographer: "Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it." We do not mean to apply to our brethren, in its full extent, the reproach of the Sage to the Courtier, especially the last part of it: for we still do "want" their help, their utmost help, in all possible ways, and stand ready to overlook the past, on the condition of such help being afforded, promptly and in proper measure. This was not, however, the whole of the difficulty and discouragement with which the undertaking had to contend. It involved the Committee in no small pecuniary responsibility with the Printer and Stationer, while they were not only altogether without funds, but depressed by a considerable debt, which it had been imprudent to increase, and thus were consequently not in circumstances to enter the mart of Literature, and offer terms to men whose talents are their only capital, and the sole means of subsistence to them and their dependents. Having nothing wherewith to offer, or guarantee any recompense to an Editor, they, of course, could place at his disposal nothing with which to procure literary assistance. Had the Committee, therefore, been shut up to these conditions, or either of them, it is probable that the CHRISTIAN WITNESS had still remained among the things to be created. Had the Editor looked only at the facts now recorded, he would never have committed himself to a hope so forlorn. But encouraged by the handsome tribute implied in the application of the Committee of the Union for his services, and by the confidence of the Assembly itself, as expressed by their Resolution at Leeds; strongly animated also by the general tone and spirit of all, and the personal bearing of a portion, of the Two Hundred letters of the pastors who made returns to the Circular; and having the utmost faith in the bulk of our people, whatever might be the apathy of their leaders, and especially in the Teachers of our Sabbath-schools; on these grounds, and, above all, considering that obedience to the call might, perhaps, be for the glory of God and the good of his church, he resolved, relying on help from above, to accept the Editorship for a "single year." By the time that matters were settled, the year 1843 was drawing to a close. Even the Prospectus was dated so late as the 17th of November. It was every way desirable, however, to begin with the year ensuing, and on this the Editor determined, whatever disadvantages might attend the measure. There was clearly no time for fully maturing his plans, and providing for variety of suitable matter. Only some twenty days remained to get up the first Number, amid the multitude and pressure of pastoral and other labours; and for this he had not a single hand except his own to rely on. With Johnson, in a case somewhat analogous, he might say, "it may repress the triumph of malignant criticism" to know that such were the circumstances under which the CHRISTIAN WITNESS was ushered into the world. The aggregate publication of the CHRISTIAN WITNESS for the entire year, is, 405,400 copies, which, divided by twelve, gives an average of 33,783 for each month. The sale, of course, is within the publication, as a portion of back stock is always required to complete sets; but with respect to most of the Numbers, it is so limited, that there is even ground to fear there will be a necessity, during the ensuing year, for a considerable outlay in reprinting them. The fact of such an aggregate is so far gratifying, but by no means satisfactory. The narrowest limit of a Denominational Magazine ought to be the limit of the families composing its members and adherents. What reason is there for its being in one house that does not equally require it to be in every house? Whether it be viewed as a luxury or as a necessary, since the CHRISTIAN WITNESS is within the easy reach, ought it not to be in the actual possession, of every family? And are there not likewise tens of thousands of young people, and single persons, connected with our churches and congregations, that ought to avail themselves of its cheap and multifarious information and instruction? Is it possible for them to lay out threepence in anything literary to the same advantage? Those who have taken in the CHRISTIAN WITNESS are now possessed of an octavo volume of all but Six Hundred pages, containing more matter than four ordinary cctavos, costing half a guinea each; and to the praise of the Committee it ought to be stated that, from the first, they have given sixteen columns of matter every month more than was originally intended. As much letter-press is furnished in the one case for THREE SHILLINGS, as in the other for Two GUINEAS! Who shall estimate the value of such a boon to the millions! When we think of their poverty and affliction, and remember that they compose a very large portion of the people of God, it rejoices our hearts to reflect that the CHRISTIAN WITNESS is available to the poorest family among them, and that it may serve at once to enlarge their minds, to nourish their spirits, to comfort their hearts, and to beguile their sorrows! While deeply solicitous to profit the affluent and middle classes, we shall ever deem it among our highest honours to be the teachers of the apprentice and the plough-boy, of the mountain shepherd and the field labourer. To be the instructors and the benefactors of the millions is the very summit of our ambition. We would burst their chains, raise them from their prostration, and make them men! And with this view, we sigh for the largest possible addition to our circulation! Such are the views, principles, and feelings, with which the Editor entered upon his office, and which hitherto have constantly governed him. Of the difficulties attendant on the outset of such an undertaking he will not speak; for they are well worth encountering, were they a thousand-fold. Concerning the anxiety, vexation, care, and toil, which must ever continue to invest the office, by whomsoever discharged, he will also be silent; for they ought ever to be viewed as a thing of nought, compared with the inexpressible importance of the object. But for the encouragement of those that may succeed him, he would merely allude in passing to the manifold alleviations connected with the function; to the valuable friendships it tends to create and multiply; to the intercourse it opens up with men whom it is a privilege to know, and with whom it is an honour to co-operate; to the enlarged means and opportunities it furnishes of performing important acts of kindness, benevolence, humanity, and justice, to objects of desert-means and opportunities connected with no other vocation; to the manifold and multiform incitements to constant and progressive mental and moral self-improvement; and to all these, last, but not least, must be added, a field of Christian usefulness which throws all other fields into the shade. Of the manner in which the duties of the first year have been discharged it is for the public to judge and pronounce. The imperfections, the Editor is well aware, are many and great; but there needs no apology where there has been no complaint. Since the appearance of the first Number, he is happy to record that not a breath of dissatisfaction from any quarter has reached him; but from all sides he has received from those whom it is an honour to please, both by word and by epistle, the most abundant testimony that his very imperfect but zealous endeavours to aid the brethren, to benefit the churches, and to serve his generation, have been viewed not merely with generous forbearance, but with strong approbation. He believes the plan, how imperfect soever the execution, of the CHRISTIAN WITNESS, to be the most effective that could be devised for general utility. On this point he has read with no small satisfaction the opinion of the late Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, whose life has lately appeared. That remarkable man possessed a more than ordinary insight into the working of the social system, and was eminently skilled in the best and only sure methods of healing the maladies of the body politic. He placed his entire confidence in truth-the truth as it is in Jesus-as the instrument of medicating the diseased spirit, and of lifting up the prostrate mind of nations. As one means of its most effectual diffusion, that most enlightened, philosophic, and truly great patriot entertained an exalted idea of the power and value of cheap periodical literature. Expatiating on this subject some years before his lamented death, he thus expressed himself: "I want to get up a real Poor Man's Magazine,' which should not bolster up abuses and veil iniquities, nor prose to the poor as to children; but should address them in the style of Cobbett-plainly, boldly, and in sincerity-excusing nothing. concealing nothing, and misrepresenting nothing; but speaking the very whole truth in love-Cobbett-like in style, but Christian in spirit." What this eminent scholar desired to establish, it has been attempted to supply in the pages of the CHRISTIAN WITNESS. Cobbett! Had that mighty peasant, that "last of the Saxons," possessed the knowledge of God, and the love of Christ, with an observation so keen, a logic so vigorous, a soul so capacious, a temperament so fervid, or, to use the significant |