WESLEYAN-METHODIST MAGAZINE. JANUARY, 1866. TO THE READER. THE Commencement of a new volume affords the Editor an oppor tunity of touching for a moment on a subject in which the readers of the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine may be presumed to feel an interest. One of the duties most readily recognised by an intelligent Christian, is that of fostering the production and circulation of a pure literature. The social characteristics of our times render this more than ever imperative. The spread in religious circles of practices which betray a spirit of worldliness; the prevalence of an imperious and scornful rationalism ; the insinuation of false notions of religious freedom; the craving for excitement and amusement, which grows out of the general activity of the age, but which tends to break down all practical distinction between the church and the world; the danger to which the Christian household is exposed from the ever-encroaching spirit of the market and the counting-house; that headlong worship of Mammon, on whose altar we daily see the most costly sacrifices placed:-these are but a few of the powerful influences around us against which earnest and spiritual men find themselves constantly put upon their defence; and which they are called upon to oppose, not only by the testimony of a private example, but by a wise use of the power of the press. Of these evils one of the most conspicuous is the eager spirit of scepticism which no reader of current literature has to go far to encounter. This scents and welcomes from afar every theory, no matter how preposterous its claims, or how mean its origin, which has for its object the damage, at least, of Christianity, though its overthrow may not be hoped for. Were this tendency to be found only beyond the precincts of the church itself,-found only among professed Socinians, Unitarians, Deists,-resistance to it would be easy, and its doings might be safely despised. But, alas! they are God-fearing men, they are scholars deeply versed in the letter of the word of God; they are men whose amiable "charity " it were an offence to call in question; nay, they are recognised and influential ministers of religion, who are the foremost to add to or take from the oracles of God: some questioning the very possibility of inspiration; some reducing the miracle to a natural process; some resolving the Atonement into a sentimental expression of the "Fatherhood of God;" some lowering the claims of VOL. XII.-FIFTH SERIES. B the Sabbath under a specious deference to the authority of the Lord of the Sabbath; others denying the eternity of punishment for the finally impenitent; and others, strange to say, reviving-here in subtle argument, yonder in vulgar declamation-the repulsive principles of Calvinism amidst the amplest professions of a growing goodwill towards all men. Whatever the heresies of past ages, there is none, it seems, so hopelessly absurd but that its reproduction may yet be possible; for never was there such a gulf between profession and practice, profession not seldom taken up with ceremonial oaths,-between truth and some of its most boastful champions, as now exists. Some reason, at least, was there for Luther's opinion that the world will become both better and worse-the light be more light, the dark be more dark-till "the end" come. The feebleness of the hold which the Gospel has upon many minds, is due, to two leading causes, out of many others, deeply at work in modern society. First, the religion of Christ is constantly set forth, often, doubtless, with the best intentions, both in the pulpit and out of it, with the scarcely disguised ambition of investing it with every possible attraction which literature and science can furnish. But God's jealousy in this matter, as of ancient Egypt, has been largely forgotten what was an ornament has become an essential; the casket is become more attractive than the jewel. Never, consequently, was the art of preaching carried to such refinement; never was the end of preaching, considering the amount of intellectual agency employed in it, less realized. Never was the notion that the truth saves so prevalent; never did the "Spirit of truth" so signally prove its fallacy by His withdrawal from many an orthodox pulpit, many an "enlightened" congregation. Christianity has her Nemesis-never more threatening than when the functions of the Holy Spirit are tacitly assumed to be consistent, not to say co-ordinate, with an elaborate decoration of the Gospel in the trappings of poetry and the spoils of philosophy. To such things, whether Popish or Protestant, there can be but one issue. Let the Spirit of truth, for this or any other reason, decline to visit our churches and sanctuaries, and what remains but for the "many antichrists" to spread toils into which men walk with their eyes wide open-the truth bewildering their steps all the more for its clearness? But the prevailing religious indifferency of the times is owing, also, and in no small degree, to the wide diffusion of works of fiction amongst all classes of society. The modern passion for the novel is one of the most painful signs of that weakening of character with which history is familiar as having taken place, hitherto, so soon as a certain point in a people's career has been passed. Not even the Christian world has yet furnished the noble exception. And of all things inimical to society, or to the individual reader, the so-called "religious " novel is the most offensive to a correct taste. For how much of religion in |