THE FOLLOWING ARE THE NAMES OF CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS VOLUME OF THE BAPTIST MAGAZINE: Anderson, Rev. H. Köbner, Rev. J. Angus, Rev. Dr. Armstrong, Rev. W. K. Bixby, Rev. M. H. Brown, J. H. Esq. Brown, Rev. H. S. Bugby, Rev. F. Elliston, Rev. W. D. Landels, Rev. W: Leonard, Rev. H. C. Steane, Rev. Dr. Stevenson, Rev. T. R. Storey, J., Esq. Gough, Rev. T. Gould, Rev. G. Trestrail, Rev. F. Haycroft, Rev. N. Hibberd, Rev. F. The Reviews have been supplied by Ten different Writers. BAPTIST THE MAGAZINE. JANUARY, 1863. THE NEW YEAR-A PRINCIPLE TO START WITH. BY EDWARD STEANE, D.D. It is of great moment in all affairs of importance to start with a right principle. At the beginning of a journey, which is likely to be long and toilsome, how much depends upon your taking the right road at the outset. In rearing an edifice what consummate folly to forget that its stability will be the consequence of a solid foundation. Let the young man who is just going out into the world see to it that he begins right. If he sets out with wrong principles and false views he is certain in the end to be a disappointed, and it is next to a miracle if he is not also a dishonoured man. Far less infatuated, as it has often been said, would be the conduct of the mariner who should take his ship out of port, and trust her to the treacherous ocean, if she have neither rudder nor compass, than that of the young man who launches out into the world with no fixed principles to guide him, and no unvarying pole to point to. There are two things that every man, and not the young alone, should look to let him see that he keeps a right end in view, and that he takes the right way to attain it. Such observations are never out of place. There are, however, times and circumstances which give them a special propriety. And is not the present such a time? We are standing on the threshold of a new year. The past is gone! gone for ever! gone, never to be reclaimed, never to be improved! On what a crowd of follies, failures, disappointments, weaknesses, sins-and to some of the readers of this paper, perhaps, as well as to its writer, on what deep and unexpected sorrows-has the curtain dropped! May God in his infinite mercy forgive all the sins of the past, and cleanse us from the guilt of them all in the blood of his dear Son! But now we start afresh. If we cannot recall the past, God's forbearance is giving us a future. Before we enter upon it let us pause a moment for forethought, for prayer, and to gather up our strength; to look to the end we are aiming at, and the path by which we propose to reach it. Especially let us see if we may not find in the VOL. VII.-NEW SERIES. 2 great storehouse of truth and wisdom just such a principle as we want, at once to guide us in the right way and to uphold us in pursuing it. Such a principle I think I have found in the words of the Son of God, where he says, with a majesty and a consciousness of almighty strength and infinite resources, appropriate only to himself,-WITHOUT ME YE CAN DO NOTHING. They were addressed, as we know, to the twelve, and were, no doubt, intended to have a special force as applied to them and their circumstances. But words like these are of no private interpretation; they are meant for us all. Let us see how they apply to us, and what we may learn from them. Our utter helplessness apart from Christ is a lesson very hard to be learnt; a lesson which it takes some all their life-time to learn; a lesson which some never learn at all. And yet it is what in mathematics would be called an axiom, and in moral science a first principle; and in all the important affairs of human life it is a principle of infinitemoment, and never to be lost sight of. It is, therefore, a principle tostart with. Let us ponder it. "I can do nothing without Christ. In myself I am impotent to all that is good, and noble, and wise; unable to live in such a manner as to make sure of the great end of life, to benefit my fellow-creatures, or to glorify my Creator; helpless to secure my own salvation, or to promote the salvation of others. Is that true?" I am not careful here to notice the distinction which metaphysical theology has drawn between natural inability and moral; or, as it is otherwise phrased, between the want of ability and the want of disposition. Let that go; the distinction may serve a valuable purpose on other occasions. It makes for little to mine. Christ does not qualify his words. Why should I stop to qualify them? He says, no doubt with as much truth as simplicity, "Without me ye can do nothing." Then, if this is true, do you not see that in the economy of life it is a fundamental truth, and that you will make a fatal mistake if you do not at the outset, and always, recognise and act upon it. And by how many is this mistake made; and, who find it to be a fatal mistake only when the discovery is too late? How prone, for example, is the sinner, under a sense of his deficiencies, sins, and guilt, to try by himself to obliterate his guilt, to hide his sins, to make up for his deficiencies. He will do anything and everything that he can do; he will reform, he will become religious, he will go to the house of God, he will take the sacrament, anything, in short, but go to Christ. Now this all arises from his ignorance of his lost and helpless condition. He is unwilling to be stripped of all his pleas, and all his performances, and all his virtues. But, sinner, you must; your self-righteousness must go. It is all rags, "filthy rags." It must all go, and in the day when it does go, you will let it go with loathing, and you will bow down your proud head in the dust, and the Holy Spirit will whisper in your heart, "Christ alone, Christ alone." "The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day" (Isa. ii. 11). Be assured, sinner, that |