PREFACE. "WE spend our years as a tale that is told." It is impossible to usher in another year-and that the seventh-of an undertaking in its nature ephemeral, without being reminded of this brief but comprehensive word of inspiration. "As a tale that is told" has each succeeding month, each following year passed by; but not as breath dispersed in the invisible atmosphere around, to be no more traced, never to be gathered in, or subjected to the scrutinizing eye. Rather may we regard each fleeting day as a line engraven on a rock, there to abide until the hour when every mountain shall melt before the presence of the Lord. If this be so of our most trivial actions, words, and thoughts, which with us are speedily buried in oblivion, and which are in themselves only capable of influencing a very limited circle immediately surrounding us, the consideration becomes more solemn when, by means of the press, our own feelings and convictions have been stamped down, and circulated far abroad, to exercise, in their measure, an influence for good or for evil, after the hand that penned the pages has long been mouldering in the dust. It never was in the Editor's contemplation to make this little work a controversial one: simply to set forth the truth, in varied and attractive garbs as ability might be given, and the kind help of friends assist her to do, was the whole of her aim. But events of stirring character have come to pass, a crisis of great moment has drawn nearer and nearer; the church has felt many shocks from those winds and waves that are destined to prove its stability on the Rock; and even women that were at ease have been called upon to rise up, and to keep watch and ward with their brethren. It is for this cause that the Christian Lady's Magazine has perhaps appeared to lose somewhat of its feminine character, while in duty constrained to give notice to those within the house, of some mighty wave rolling on, some menacing cloud darkening the horizon, some sapping flood creeping stealthily towards the foundation of the building. From such duty the Editor never did, and with God's help, never will shrink back. The consequence has been an experience new, and certainly painful to her. Attacks, some of them coarse and abusive, in the public prints that avowedly advocate the cause of Popery, Infidelity, and Republi canism: some harsh, bitter, and contemptuous, from a party of another class, who arrogate to themselves an infallibility that will not stand the test of scripture; and along with these, abundance of private anonymous rebukes, breathing the spirit of arrogance and ill-will. Certainly if the Editor felt at liberty to assume the character of a' careless daughter,' to sit down again and be at ease, it would wonderfully smooth her path, and might lead to the attainment of more general approval: but this must not be. The "tale that is told," of the fleeting years of one obscure individual, and that individual a female, shall not, she humbly trusts, be the tale of Meroz. JUNE, 1840. |