97 355 ..... 98 J. McDermott........... 69 T. McFeeters..... 355 8. McElhenny, Resolutions on Death of. 356 67 67 100 130 H. McKee.............. Miss M. Patterson.... ....... 68 1t0 31 131 A. W. Reid J. Rea 164 R. Rodgers ............. D. Sarver.... .................................... 416 77 238 238 Report of Committee on Missions...... 214 164 196 416 388 131 131 131 387 355 355 195 C. Forsythe............... 68 J. S. Smith............... 68 M. Smith.... S. Gilmore .............. L. Graham.............. 416 W. Sproull E. Greer 130 W. Steele... 196 H. B. Gailey.......... 323 WB. Haslett. 195 F. L. Walker..... R. L Langdell. E. Maben...... .... 99 M. A. Wallace........... 416 164 J. Wilkin... 355 31 68 355 Sabbath or Sunday.... 67 Sermon, A...... 163 J Leeper..................................... 68 E. J. Wright.. ......... Persecution in Syria......... 238 240 365 333 101 5 46 Sermon on the Panic.......... Slavery of Sin, The......... 277 132 Sumner, Charles........ 43 Synod, Next Meeting of............ 41 Synods of Scotland and Ireland...... 161, 385 Presbytery, Lakes.........65, 190, 353, 414 336 382 37 282 155 200 256 120 255 320 33 152 242 .26, 384 Taylor, J. C., Ordination and Install'n. 64 414 64 415 246 H. George and others................... 201 156 354 392 Theological Seminary, The........... Tobacco Question, The............. Trumbull, C. D., Installation of......... 162 Tyndall's, Prof., Address of, on Materialism...... 345 335 186 ...........80, 142 Standards, Pro UNION Prayer Meetings.............. 382 51 305 BEFORE this number of the magazine is in the hands of our readers, the clock of time will have announced the advent of the New Year. 1873 will be gone; 1874 will be here. The record of the past year is made up, closed and sealed. Many a dark chapter is written in its pages. We weep in sympathy with those whose hearts are bleeding from the wounds opened by its bereavements and sorrows. May the One who comforts all that mourn, comfort them and assuage their griefs by the balm of his grace. The book in which the record of the current year is to be kept, is open, and its pages still fresh and unsoiled. We offer our sincerest congratulations to all who read these lines, with the earnest wish that the entries which they make in it may be bright with the prosperity which comes from the love and the favor of God. To all our readers, we say: The blessing of the Lord be upon you; we bless you in the name of the Lord. It is no mere affected interest that we feel in those to whom we speak. It is thoroughly sincere and cordial. We feel that we have intimate relations to them, and that we are bound by close and tender ties to the hundreds of families whose dwellings we enter every successive month with the desire and aim to inform, encourage and comfort. Strangers in one view, we are friends in another, and we testify our friendship by seeking their good. We hope, as in the past, so even more in the future, to be a monthly messenger of good tidings. The Reformed Presbyterianhas lived through thirty-seven years, and The Covenanter through twenty-eight-many of them eventful years to the church and to the world. In itself a brief period, either is yet a long life for a magazine. Few see as many years-most productions of the kind are ephemeral. The establishment of a monthly organ in 1837 was felt to be a venture, as our people at that time were few in number and limited in resources. The patronage was generous, and the venture proved a success. The people realizing the need of such a serial, as a vehicle for church news, have looked leniently upon its imperfections, and have stood by it at all times, with manly purpose;, to keep it alive. We say it, not boastingly, but confidently, that the value of the Reformed Presbyterian and Covenanter, before and since the union, as an entrepot of truth and current facts, and as a record of ecclesiastical annals, can hardly be overstated. The long array of volumes supplies a fuller and better library than is found in a large proportion of Christian families, and contains the materials for the future historian of our church, during the period over which it extends. With the commencement of a new volume, it is an opportune time, especially as a partial change has been made in the management, to say something in regard to the future conduct of the magazine. We do not mean that it shall be an aimless thing, and without an object. Its aim, as heretofore, both in the original and combined series, will be, to vindicate and enforce Reformed Presbyterian and Covenanting principles and practice. A life without an aim is useless; a magazine without a positive object, might just as well not exist. Projected, as it was, at the first and maintained all the way through as the advocate of Reformation Principles, we shall strive to make its future harmonize with the past. Its objects will be identical with those of the church whose name it bears, whose doctrines it proclaims, and whose facts and proceedings it chronicles. We know of no higher aim, after the glory of the Invisible, towards which the literature of the church can be directed. The object is peerless, and satisfies our ambition. We are not of those who think that the Covenanting Church has served its day, and ought to be withdrawn from the lists of separate workers in the Christian kingdom, or if you please, from the lists of combatants in the great moral struggle which is going on in the world. We have been long advised of the expediency of this course. We fail to see wherein the wisdom of it lies. What! shall we furl our sails and desert our ship, or fall quietly astern in the wake of some vessel of higher pressure and more showy appearance? The time for this is not yet, and far less to scuttle and sink the ship with all her precious freight, that we may tread upon another deck covered by another flag. No, the mission of the Reformed Presbyterian Church is not yet accomplished, and will not be, until the Redeemer receives, by their own choice and act, the dominion of the nations. The conservation of this supreme principle is her special work, and better that all church organizations should be riven into a thousand fragments, or even perish from the earth, than that Messiah's right of civil dominion should cease to have an advocate and witness among them. We are not blind to the excellencies of other Christian bodies-we willingly acknowledge and rejoice in them-but we challenge contradiction when we say that all the churches, with the single exception of our own, keep in abeyance the vital truth of Christ's supreme headship, in civil as well as in ecclesiastical affairs, or nullify it by a recognition of systems which defiantly contravene the law of Christ in its relation to political duties. What church is saying in the high sense and meaning of the words-what church, but our own, is saying to the kings and judges of the earth, with a voice of testimony at all equal to the importance of the precept KISS THE SON? This is justification enough of separate existence, and it is the noblest and most sacred object for which man or church can live. We are simply amazed at the short-sightedness and folly, to use |