The history of this little volume is easily told. It contains the answers to correspondents, as given on the cover of Things New and Old, from 1858, the year of its commencement, to December 1863—six years. Very many friends have, from time to time, expressed a desire to possess these answers. We have been requested to insert them in the body of the Magazine, instead of on the cover; but this was not found practicable. Editor’s volumes have been prepared, for the last two or three years, in which the answers were bound up; but this involved the disagreeable necessity of having a number of notices of new publications appearing throughout the volume, which, of course, tended greatly to spoil its appearance.
It only remained, therefore, to bring all out in one volume, and the conductors, having been applied to by the publisher, have given him permission to undertake the work, which is now presented to the reader, with earnest prayer that he may find in its unpretending pages, something applicable to his spiritual condition.
The whole has been revised and corrected by the Editor, who has also added a few notes in places where fuller exposition seemed called for.
We would avail ourselves of the present occasion, to express our hearty thanks to God for the measure of blessing vouchsafed to our little serial, during the six years of its existence. We undertook the solemn responsibility of issuing it with fear and trembling, knowing the difficulty and danger attending upon such a publication—the difficulty of maintaining its freshness and integrity, and the danger of allowing it to outlive its real usefulness. But the Lord has helped us, and to Him we render all praise, as we lay this little volume at His feet, and ask Him to send it forth with the stamp of His approval. C. H. M.