PREFACE. THE present issue of the HARBINGER ends the labours of the year-an eventful year. Eighteen Hundred and Sixty One will be a memorable period in the annals of the Church and the world. Its months have been marked by unusual calamities and crimes. Shipwrecks on our coast, accidents on our railways, and disastrous fires and explosions in our cities and towns have plunged thousands in distress. The periodicals of the day have been loaded with enormities, and the Gazette has groaned beneath crowds of bankrupts and defaulters, while our courts of justice have stood aghast at the multiplied murders and species of crime hitherto unknown. In some respects the year draws auspiciously to a close. The despotisms of the world seem in the throes of dissolution. Resolved on Though America still bleeds, happily we are at peace. non-interference in the struggle between the Northern and Southern States, we only wish we may become independent of slave-grown produce; that the war may end; end soon; and end in the freedom of the slave. The year that begun with prayer, has witnessed the slow, but steady progress of the Gospel. The "Essays and Reviews," which at one time. awakened our fears, has become a tale that is told. Negative theology on the continent is receding in the wake of vulgar speculations and critical rationalism, and everywhere giving place to evangelical truth. The Papacy trembles to its fall. Austria, the mainstay of Popery, is humbled. In Italy, absolutism and intolerance lie prostrate before liberty and truth. The Pope's temporalities are swept away; and, notwithstanding the efforts of the priesthood, his spiritual tyranny is doomed to a similar fate. Under the blissful effusion of the Holy Spirit, missionaries of the Cross are marching forward to conquer that priest-ridden land for Christ, Turkey is forced to fulfil her compact of civil and religious liberty to her subjects. Throughout the empire the Bible is free. The Queen of Madagascar and the Emperor of China are no more. China and Japan are alike open to the Gospel, and the power of Divine truth is brought into contact with the delusions of Buddhism, and the falschoods of Confucius. The servants of Christ are at work on the now peaceful fields of Hindoostan, and have gathered already the first fruits of harvest. While expeditions from all quarters are exploring the regions of Africa for purposes of commerce, science, and secular knowledge, the coloured Christians on her coast, under the direction of Christians in England, are opening the way, by the culture of the cotton trec, for native agents, who have been rescued from slave ships, and become converted to Christ, and trained for the work, to carry the Gospel to her inmost tribes. Even that which to the eye of sense looks threatening and dark, to the eye of faith is prophetic of coming good. Convulsions that shake and alarm the wicked, invigorate and establish the just. Let us have faith in God, "all things are possible to him that believeth;" even mountains of iniquity, that throw their shadows wide and far, shall be cast into the sea. Whatever the year may have been to others, it has to the HARBINGER been a year of progress and peace. Never before was it so firmly established in position and power; at no previous period of its history had it so large a circle of readers, and received so many marks of public favour. It speaks to thousands, who welcome it as a friend. It usually contains information respecting the sons of Africa to be found nowhere else, such as cannot but be interesting to every enemy of slavery and sin, and calculated to call forth the best efforts of every friend of humanity and Christ. Testimonies of its usefulness reach us, not only from our long-tried friends, but from pastors and churches till now only known by name. The young have found it a counsellor and guide; and the experienced Christian has made it his companion on his Sunday at home. It has thrown a ray of sunlight into the widow's dwelling, and lighted up the chamber of sickness and death, if not with the most brilliant, yet a heaven-borrowed brightness; enough to be the harbinger of the approaching day. Such assurances of its influence for good are an ample reward for all the toil and anxiety it has cost. Thus prospered of God, and finding |