Our Design.

ur Magazine addresses itself in the first place to a small constituency. It makes its appearance to meet a want, or what at least is believed to be a want, in a single congregation. Other serials, calculated to do service in a larger sphere, cannot pay full regard to local needs. This is to be, as it were, domestic in its character, supplying some record of the proceedings of one Church, and affording to the members of that Church a new mode of communication with one another.

It is not intended to supersede in any way those publications of wider scope, by which our sympathies are excited in favour of work done in other Churches of the Congregational order, and in Churches of every name. The members of a family may take great delight in private letters relating to their own affairs, and yet be as much interested in the newspapers as their neighbours are. Our neighbours, then, must not think us exclusive in spirit because we have our family Magazine. Perhaps, indeed, as no letters are more interesting than private letters, even to those whom they do not immediately concern, our neighbours may find something in our pages that they will not be disinclined to read. We are so little disposed to secrecy that we shall be happy to print a large number of extra copies, if a demand should thus arise on the part of our friends beyond our own Church. Our articles cannot be really useful to our own people if they contain nothing worth reading by others.

As to neighbouring Churches of our own order, at Dunedin and Wellington for example, we hope to make this a means of circulating in our congregation some account of their doings; and we invite them, until they have some similar organ of their own, to assist us in our circulation, and to use us as far as they are able.

It is believed that the large number of members of our Church who are scattered through the Province, and in other parts of the Colony, where they have not the opportunity of uniting themselves with other Churches, will receive with warm welcome a monthly messenger reminding them of their fellowship with us, and assisting them to realise it. They will receive the first number, and it is hoped they will become subscribers, and perhaps induce others to do so.

So much for our design in general: now to be more particular. It has been suggested that we might find room for some of the July, 1872.

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^* Pastor's sermons. But sermons must be very good to find many readers, and one sermon would fill perhaps half of one of our numbers. Yet the Pastor has often wished that he could put before the Church in a more permanent shape such expository part of his teaching as had cost him most research and had the most careful attention paid to its arrangement; and here is the opportunity he has desired. We propose, therefore, for the present to give month by month some expository notes on the Epistle to the Ephesians, the result of study in the preparation of the Sunday morning lectures now in course of delivery. We deem it important that our people should have some knowledge of the history of Congregational Churches, of their polity, of their attitude towards the State, of their relations to the general life of the nation—knowledge which cannot be obtruded on the attention of an assembly met for worship, unless at the expense of matters more immediately spiritual and therefore of higher concern. We propose to give such brief sketches of these subjects as our scanty space will allow, and as busy men and women can read; such, moreover, as may induce some to turn their attention to fuller records.

The reports of Synods, Presbyteries, and Conferences, set before the public the views of the Churches which these assemblies represent, on topics similar to those just referred to. However we may often dissent from the opinions to which publicity is thus given, it would usually be an impertinence and an ungracious display of hostility to express our objections, by newspaper correspondence or other means, on neutral ground. An organ of our own will enable us with more propriety to set forth our own convictions, or to criticise the conclusions of others. The action of the State with regard to education, cemeteries, grants in aid of religious bodies, and some other matters, comes into occasional contact with religion, and so commends itself to the consideration of the Churches, and when this is the case we shall pass it under review. Our financial arrangements, and certain organisations for religious work, as the Sunday School, and the Mission at the Ferry-road, may with advantage be set before our congregation with more definite and detailed statement than is possible in a notice given from the pulpit. New books, and older ones of unusual interest, will be occasionally introduced to our readers by short reviews or abstracts. With so many purposes to serve, and with occasional records of Missionary operations, and of exemplary incidents occuring in other Churches, we expect to be rather cramped for space than at a loss for matter. We shall endeavour to find room for correspondence on Church affairs.

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A large circulation will be necessary considering the price at which we publish. Those of our friends who think that it would have been wiser if we had fixed the price at sixpence can make their liberal disposition serviceable to us by taking twice as many copies at the lower price as they would have done at the higher. We are compelled to regard the present issue as an experiment, by the result of which we must judge of the practicability of our scheme.

With regard to the tone of the Magazine, we must leave the articles which it contains to speak for themselves, only expressing our earnest desire that it may be used to promote the glory of the Redeemer and the welfare of His Church.