I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righte ousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day.-2 Timothy iv. 7, 8. THE CHILDREN'S MONTHLY MISSIONARY NEWSPAPER. DESIGNED TO COMMUNICATE INTERESTING INTELLIGENCE RESPECTING THE MISSIONARY EFFORTS OF ALL EVANGELICAL DENOMINATIONS. IN LANGUAGE ADAPTED TO THE CAPACITIES OF CHILDREN. EDITED BY CHRISTIAN HENRY BATEMAN. VOLUME 8.-1851. EDINBURGH: GALL AND INGLIS. GLASGOW: G. GALLIE. LONDON: HOULSTON AND STONEMAN. DUBLIN: J. ROBERTSON. BELFAST: W. M'COMB. PREFATORY NOTE ΤΟ THE LITTLE PEOPLE WHO MAY READ THIS PAPER. MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS, ANOTHER Volume of your little paper is now in your hands. You have read all its numbers as they have come out, month by month, and here they are bound together, to be read and read again. To me it has been a pleasant task to prepare the pretty stories and interesting accounts they contain, and to you I hope it has been no less so to read them from time to time. And now the year's work is closed, and another is about to be begun. Just one word or two, young readers, with you before we part; and first a word or two about this Old Year of 1851. It is gone-all gone-but the accord and remembrance of it, will long remain. It has been a year of singular mercy and wonderful events, and so will for ever stand out in the history of our land.-The Great Exhibition of art and industry; the gathering of the nations in our midst; the national prosperity we have had; our health as a people; the fine weather God has sent us; the splendid crops we have gathered in; all about it mark it out in our Nation's History as the most glorious of years. For it we owe great gratitude and great love to the Giver of all its mercies. To you, as children, the year has been marked by a great triumph won by little hands and hearts. Most busy have you been in gathering money for Missionary objects; and no less than three thousand, three hundred pounds have been raised by you for the outfit of the Missionary Ship alone. This is good, very good, and in your history marks out in noble characters old 1851. And then for 1852, if we dare look forward to it-why we must begin it. I. With holy gratitude for the past. We are all alive to-day, spared through a thousand dangers, and amidst a thousand deaths. We are still surrounded by kind friends, in a land of gospel privileges, and a place of open Bibles. How fitting to express and feel true gratitude to God! II. With holy resolutions for the future. To live more to Christ and for Heaven. To do more for God, and for His cause. To improve more our blessed privileges for our own and others' good. Dear young friends, it becomes us all to carry out these resolutions. See how our years are flying, our days for work going, and we hastening to the grave. I hear a voice from every death that has occurred in 1851, saying for 1852, "Work, work while it is called to-day, for the night cometh in which no man can work." That you may do so, that we all may do so, and that that work may be greatly blest to the salvation of souls and the glory of Christ, is the sincere wish of your affectionate friend, HOPTON, December, 1851. THE EDITOR. |