offended pride, and an anxiety to give a practical contradiction to those who, for more than ten years, have looked on their labours with distaste, and their intentions with distrust; and who hazarded the prediction, (a prediction which like others of the same nature and spirit might be supposed to work at its own accomplishment,) that the object of their jealousies would soon cease from troubling, and die down under their process of exhaustion. Perhaps, also, they clung to the hope of better days for their Church, their country, and themselves; and, in the true spirit of dogged adventure, resolved to steer onwards, amidst the murmurs of some, and the despair of many. In this determination they now feel rejoiced that they have persevered, whatever be the final result of their determination. They have tried and proved their friends; they have rejoiced to find the sympathy their exertions have created, and to have been hailed and helped by new and valuable auxiliaries. The names of some of the first men in Ireland are now amongst their literary contributors, and they would feel grateful if permitted to continue their miscellany for another year, if for no other reason but to hold occupation of ground, which, with all the faults of the conductors of THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER, others might not so usefully fill up; for, though there might be more talent, as much devotedness, and honesty of purpose enlisted in a NEW speculation, it is much to be feared that the moderation that THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER has ever aimed at, and in most instances observed, would be lamentably deficient; and proving, as a new Periodical surely would, but the organ of a section, it must serve as its slave, and finally expire as its victim. For, after all, Ireland is not so strong in Protestant subdivisions as to support a periodical addicted to but one party. With such convictions, the conductors of the EXAMINER Would gladly proceed.

They are, they can be actuated by no principle but that of

seeking to do good to their Church, and to circulate useful information, under her venerated sanction, through the country. They think they can honestly say, that they have done such service: and whether they look to their Church, burning, yet unconsumed, whose cause they have always advocated; or to the progress of literature, which has grown with the years they have been in circulation, they may take an honest pride to them. selves in saying, that they have not been indifferent, inactive, or altogether useless labourers in the field selected for their exertions. Whether their Miscellany continues for another year, must depend upon the public.

All the conductors would ask of their literary contributors is perseverance; all they ask of their subscribers are patience and charitable consideration.

Were funds provided for the payment of a Sub-Editor, who would be responsible for his duties, no doubt many errors and inadvertencies might and would be avoided; were our country friends active in supplying religious intelligence, no doubt a great, an acknowledged deficiency in our periodical might be adequately supplied.

As it now stands, the public are requested to bear in mind, that the conductors of THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER are all professional men, of much and varied occupations, on the due performance of which their livelihood and characters depend; and, perhaps in no instance, more than in the management of THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER, has the common remark been justified, that it is not from those who have most leisure, but from those who appear to have the least, that you will find volunteers to work largely and willingly in time of need.

The conductors would fain hope, that the love of moderation is not altogether extinct, and that the voice of sobriety, pleading for religion and morals, may still be heard. If to be temperate in a period of excitement, and to belong to no party when fana

ticism and violence prevailed; if to advocate old-fashioned doctrines amidst the glare of novelty, and to prize opinions, not because they were new, but because they were true; if to have upheld our Church on scriptural grounds, equally remote from modern laxity, puritanical precision, and chilling formality,-if these things be deserving of support, then the conductors of the CHRISTIAN EXAMINER may claim some share of Protestant and Christian support. We do hope they will receive it-that the piety of Protestant Ireland is not altogether political; that a love for the Church, as the Ark of Salvation, is to be found, as well as an adherence to her as a badge of party distinction.

DANGERS TO BE GUARDED AGAINST, AND HOPES TO BE CHERISHED.-1835.

WE enter upon another year of our office as CHRISTIAN EXAMINERS, at a period fraught with interest the most intense and exciting to every Christian, and especially to every member and minister of the Established Church. It was the censure of our Lord, against the so-called wise men of his day, "YE CANNOT DISCERN THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES;" and there is great reason to fear that not a few in this age are liable to the same imputation. Connected with this, was another peculiarity of that period, and one which but too accurately has found its counterpart in this; we mean the THIRST FOR NOVELTY, or, what comes to the same thing, the rage for what is fancied to be new,-because, by its advocates, it has not been met with before. The traditions of the Elders, in the days of our Lord were, notwithstanding the imposing epithet, comparatively novel; the fertile imagination of man had been continually accumulating their amount,-either by what were really fresh accessions, the offspring of a vivid and heated imagination, or by the resuscitation of what had in a former day, like the meteor of a moment, gleamed and then expired. If the theories that may fairly be ranked under the one or other of these classes, and which, notwithstanding, fascinate so many, were swept away;-if those which are really new, the offspring of a fancy so heated as to outstrip, in its creations, all the vagaries of former times;—and those which are merely thought to be so, because (however frequently exhibited, and then buried, to undergo, at some future period, the same reviving process) they were

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new to the newly risen partizan, were annihilated, how little at once new and valuable would remain among the discoveries of this age of boasted intellect and improvement! But this is as it ought to be truth is immutable and eternal; error, assuming her garb, though with dazzling colours, is evanescent and mutable.

We cannot, we think, do better than begin the year by warning our readers against NOVELTIES, or pretensions to novelties, in matters of religion. On this sacred subject there are no new discoveries to be made. Within the boards of the Bible the whole revelation of the mind of God is contained. Given at sundry times, and in divers manners-each successive addition to the previously ascertained amount of inspired Scripture forming at once an accumulation and a commentary-it has now been for nineteen centuries complete. The Divine anathema has been uttered against all attempts to augment its amount or detract from its integrity and entireness. He, then, that comes with some new discovery, hidden, in past ages, from the minds, not only of the world, but of the church, has an a priori proof against him to contend with, and should be prepared with credentials as valid, in token of his commission, as were given by Peter, or John, or Paul.

We are far, very far, from "crying HALT to the march of intellect," when directed to the investigation of the contents of the word of God, any more than when directed to the examination of the volume of creation. Taking the word of God, contained in the Sacred Oracles, as complete and perfect, let mind be applied to its elucidation with all its force, and acuteness, and power; let the records of cotemporary history be ransacked; let personal investigations into the regions that were the scenes of the inspiredly recorded facts be pursued; let all the stores of ever-increasing centuries be poured forth to elucidate and sift the Oracles of God. We fear not the result. The more that manuscripts and versions are examined-the more profound and extensive that are the researches which are made--the more that true philosophy is employed in the development of the meaning of the letter of Scripture (for it is only the Holy Spirit that can savingly illuminate either the learned or the unlearned in THE SPIRITUAL TRUTH of the word of God, as it centers in Jesus)-the more triumphant will be the results as to the authenticity, integrity, and uncorruptedness of the Oracles of God. We do not, then, deprecate-on the contrary, we welcome, we urge, we encourage, inquiry, investigation, and scrutiny into the contents of the Scriptures of truth; and our pages are open, as they heretofore have been, for such investigations. But we caution our readers, and the religious public in general, against all pretensions to new discoveries. True it is, the names such discoveries will assume will be different from the epithets we apply to them, and all pretension to inspiration will be disclaimed; but the effect, after all, will be the same. They are such views as differ from those generally entertained. Commen