"To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I "And ye also shall bear witness" JOHN Xviii. 37. JOHN XV. 27. THE FREE CHURCH OF ENGLAND MAGAZINE. The New Year. WITH right good heart and feeling, we wish our many readers-old and young-A HAPPY NEW YEAR, With long life and an ever brightening future. A year! So many seconds of time! Yet how much of evolution and event-of effort and effect—is crowded into these fleeting moments! The age in which we live is marked by the rapidity of its movements. Men are not satisfied unless they can travel at the rate of forty miles an hour; and they deem the daily journals dull and monotonous unless they record something more startling and unusual. Nor can it be denied that every thing which is taking place around them in the Providential Economy, awakens and strengthens this expectation of what is sudden and surprising-marvellous and mysterious. What this year may disclose no one can divine. The future seems big with promise, yet how far down is the veil which rests upon it! All things seems to be in travail, but who can tell what is coming forth? We see through a glass darkly, we know but in part. Changes are impending-political and ecclesiastical-which will prove nothing short of revolutions. But how they will be brought about, or when they will take place, are questions of which we are left in profound ignorance. Our faith finds its centre of repose in the fact, that the Redeemer of the world is Head over all things, and that there is nothing which He cannot and will not subordinate to His own will and purpose. A New Year! The past is gone for ever; nor could worlds purchase back one of its precious hours. It has taken with it its own record of life and character, of deeds and deserts. We are entering on a new future, every moment of which comes to us fresh from the great eternities. How rich the boon! How inestimable the blessing! Our life here is made up and measured by these moments; yet how much we have to do! We have been sent into the world, not to be the idle spectators of the doings of others, but to fill up life with life's great work. We have each our sphere and our influence, and our appointed work. We have to watch against everything even approaching to sloth and supineness. We must be neither idle nor unfruitful, but press after a higher life, and dash into wider activity-smiling at difficulties, bracing ourselves up for danger, and |