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the mode in which it seeks to attain it,
we need hardly add a word as to very
minor matters. It is admirably executed.
The illustrations are fresh, striking, and
just. The philosophy is deep and gene-
rally true. There is a wide acquaintance
with man's heart. There is very beauti-
ful description. And if the argumenta-permit of its insertion.

tive parts of the volume are not so con-
clusive as we could wish, it is only be-
cause we cannot find everything equally
good. We had marked for quotation
a long and most eloquent extract as to
the necessity of lay-agency in the church
at the present time, but our limits do not

TO MY READERS.

this eight-year-old! It has, for example, been asked, with much sense and no small indignation, what should such a small thing know about home or Indian politics? These should be left, so said the adviser, to men of age, presence and "principle." One old lady even threatened it with a scold from a reverend D.D., if it did not hold its tongue! Well, in spite of all this, or probably because of it, I have resolved to keep it under my eye for another year, and perhaps longer, if my parental heart cannot then stand the shock of parting. And I hope by devoting more time to its education, making it learn its lessons more perfectly, teaching it better manners, to take off its bonnet to old gentlemen, and to courtesy to old ladies, training it to be more useful and obliging in its own house, and more attentive to advices given it by good re

Ir is not easy to part with one's own child; and so I find it difficult to part with the Edinburgh Christian Magazine, now entering upon its ninth year under my roof. They say parents are most attached to the child who has a marked bodily or mental defect;-" a want,” as we say in Scotland, and that in many cases the "ne'er-do-weel" in the family is for some unaccountable reason a peculiar favourite of father and mother. Let unfriendly critics remember these generous instincts, or morbid tendencies of human nature, when disposed to wonder how I could still cling to this Magazine, and that, too, in spite of several threats to dismiss it from my house. The fact is, that I have been so harassed with other things, and so afraid that my child might be neglected and turn out ill, that I resolved last year to hand it over for a time to a friend. A few well-latives and friends, and by all the infludisposed, but rather meddling anonymous correspondents, (alas! I fear, of the fair sex, and whose piety it would be dangerous to question,) advised me to do so, no doubt from the affection which they manifestly bore towards me and my blue coat offspring; and some of these accused my innocent one of being cross and illnatured (!); some of being wanting in respect to constituted ecclesiastical authority, and to its superiors in age and wisdom; while others, again, declared that it was too timid and should speak out, hold up its head, and not be afraid before people, for silence often looked, they remarked, like sulks or stupidity. Sundry have been the advices given to

ences of a wise Home School, to obtain from those interested in my child's welfare the pleasing verdict of "much improved," "really much more interesting," and the like, at the end of its ninth year. This I have resolved to attempt by the advice of a wide circle of well-wishers, who think my child not so bad. Now, good reader, especially if a parent yourself, will you bear with me and encourage me?

I cannot conclude without tendering my most grateful thanks to those who have assisted me during the past year. Had it not been for the supply of wholesome food which they generously sent me from month to month, the child would have been dead and buried.

END OF VOLUME EIGHTH.

PATON AND RITCHIE, PRINTERS, 1D/NBURGH,

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