THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN EVANGELICAL REVIEW, AND QUARTERLY RECORD OF CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. BIBL VOL. I. EDINBURGH: JOHNSTONE AND HUNTER, PRINCES STREET. LONDON: ROBERT THEOBALD. M.DCCC.LII. PREFATORY NOTE PROJECTED CHANGE IN THE BASIS OF THE PERIODICAL. OUR objects in starting the FOREIGN EVANGELICAL REVIEW were chiefly these:-(1.) To furnish British readers with a selection from the many valuable papers that from time to time appear in the Denominational Quarterlies of the United States, and which, without some such medium of publication, would be seldom or never heard of among us; thereby (2.) To add another to the agencies already in existence (but all too few) for the cultivation of the higher departments of Theological Literature, and the counteraction of that spirit of Scepticism so prevalent in the various fields of religious and scientific inquiry; and further, (3.) By an exhibition of the sustained and powerful part borne by our Transatlantic brethren in the very struggles against Romanism on the one hand, and Rationalism on the other, which are raging at our own doors, to draw more closely the bonds by which a common origin, a common faith, and a common liberty conspire to unite us, especially when mutually exposed to the assaults of a sleepless enemy, who, seeing that Britain and America form the key to the supremacy of the world, is straining every nerve to reduce both under his dark and deadly domination. The cordial manner in which the successive Numbers of the Review have been greeted by the newspaper and periodical press, and the large circulation-unprecedented for a work of the kind-which it has already attained, convince us that in endeavouring to accomplish these objects we have not been unsuccessful, and afford us ample encouragement to proceed with our undertaking, introducing such modifications and improvements as experience and the kindly interest of friends may suggest. And we have to request the special attention of our Subscribers to one important modification which has |