ITS STATE AND PROSPECTS. A MONTHLY JOURNAL ESTABLISHED AND CONDUCTED BY MEMBERS IN CONNEXION WITH THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. WHERETO WE HAVE ALREADY ATTAINED LET US WALK BY THE SAME RULE, LET US MIND THE SAME THING."-ST. PAUL. VOL. III. LONDON: PARTRIDGE AND OAKEY, PATERNOSTER ROW; AND No. 70, EDGEWARE ROAD, (HANBURY AND Co., AGENTS;) (Publishers to the British Organisation of the Erangelical Alliance.) AND ALL BOOKSELLERS. MDCCCXLIX. PREFACE. Ir is a pleasant thing, at the end of a year, to look back upon hopes realised, difficulties surmounted, fears dispelled, and plans accomplished; and to be able in all, with a grateful heart, to trace the hand and acknowledge the blessing of God. Such a retrospect, moreover, is then worthily improved, not when it ministers to complacency, and so produces an indolent satisfaction with present attainments, but when it is employed as a provocative to new efforts, and excites a generous ambition to reach after higher excellence. The readers of Evangelical Christendom will acknowledge that it has done something towards supplying a desideratum, which previously existed in the periodical literature of the Christian Church. It entered upon a comparatively unoccupied department,―a department, nevertheless, of great interest, and which promised to reward the attention and labour that should be bestowed upon it. Expense has not been spared, nor time, nor correspondence, to make the journal what it is. The reader who, by means of its pages, traverses every month the kingdoms, principalities, and republics of the European Continent, and learns the state and vicissitudes of religion in them all, little imagines at what a cost, in these respects, the information has been procured for him. But the labour is willingly undertaken, and the expense cheerfully borne, in the conviction that, while he is gratified, a service is also rendered to a cause dear to the hearts of all good men,-the cause of Christian truth and love. Nor is the doubt entertained that such service will receive a recompence in the just appreciation of those by whom to be commended is at once a recompence and an honour. But while they can reflect with thankfulness upon what has been accomplished, the Editors are very willing to acknowledge that their periodical is far from having realised their own. views of what such a journal ought to be. They hope, if permitted still to conduct it, that they shall be able to render it increasingly valuable as a depository of European Ecclesiastical and Religious Intelligence; and as a medium through which the British Christian public may be kept in lively sympathy with the efforts and the sufferings, the misfortunes and the successes, of evangelical Christians in all parts of the Continent. They regard this, in connexion with the constant inculcation and advocacy of our Saviour's new commandment to his disciples, to love one another as he hath loved them, as their special business; and they desire to give themselves to it with renewed diligence. It will not be their fault if, in relation to these subjects, their journal does not augment in value every year. The year that is just closing upon us has been less prolific in startling events than that which preceded it. But, if we judge aright, the lull which has come over the nations is rather the precursor of a still fiercer storm, than the incipient quietness of a permanent peace. It is impossible that the elements which are fermenting in the bosom of European society should not work disturbance. Nothing will neutralise them but that antagonistic and Divine element which is the salt of the earth. Civilisation and the arts of social life, commerce and the intercourse of nations, science with her almost iniraculous control of the elements, and the |