THE BRITISH CONTROVERSIALIST, AND LITERARY MAGAZINE. 64 MAGNA EST VERITAS, ET PRÆVALEBIT. LONDON: 65, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCLXVII. PREFACE. THIS is an age of severe competition, a time in which it is extremely difficult to acquire and retain the attention and attachment of the public. In serial literature the energies of inventive thought have been specially occupied some have said overtaxed — in providing agencies for the satisfaction and gratification of every intellectual requirement, emotional craving, and aesthetic longing of the people. The periodical press has become an institution because it is, upon the whole, so effective, so manytoned, and so ably adapted to the wants and wishes of the multitudes of readers to whom it appeals. In fulfilment of its great purposes-the upstirring, the solacing, the delighting, the informing, or the reforming of its patrons-it despatches its ever-active volunteer legions, in detachments, great or small, as the case may be, into every city, town, village, hamlet, hall, and cottage in the country,-an almost resistless array of aggressive missionary agents, holding office during the will and at the discretion of their subscribers. As one of those friendly visitors to many homes, welcomed by many hearts, the British Controversialist and Literary Magazine has held its place in the public favour so long that it has now entered upon the eighteenth year of its career of intellectual effort. This palpable and appreciable fact the conductors hope may be considered as proving that it has not only taken a definite place, but occupies a useful one among its compeers; and that it has been fitted by its aim and object, as well as by the method of its management, to supply a want felt by a large section of the studious, thoughtful, and reflective minds of our times. That want we, in our “Introductory Address" to the readers of this Magazine, May, 1850, ventured to define as an "unsectarian medium for the free interchange of thought-the open discussion of truth." At that time we proposed to dedicate our efforts to the establishment and maintenance of "an arena into which men of all sects and parties may enter to state and support their views, so that the impartial spectator may see the strength or weakness of any proposition, and be led to receive that truth which, amidst the conflict of opinion, it is hoped may be evolved; "promising, on our part, to place the arguments on both sides of a question fairly before our readers, and then leave them to draw their own conclusions." Such was the main aim of our adventure into intellectual life, and that humble though necessary rôle we believe we may honestly assert we have faithfully endeavoured to adhere to and to fulfil. We have not aspired to any "higher office than to hold the scales of justice with a steady hand, than to allow men whose opinions differ to place those opinions, and the reasons in support of them, in either scale, so that they, and others also, may have an opportunity of seeing which side preponderates." The result of this experiment in literature we anticipated would be the gradual awakening in our |