EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE AND MISSIONARY CHRONICLE. JANUARY, 1861. The Life and Times of the “Evangelical Magazine.” CHAPTER I. THE LAST DECADE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. HISTORY has rendered invaluable service to humanity, by preserving the great facts of that remarkable period, the last ten years of the last century. Never before did Europe, in such a short space of time, go through such a tremendous ordeal, suffer so many calamities, and witness so many violent changes-changes which came not naturally, as the outgrowth of political or diplomatic arrangement, but as a succession of fearful shocks, increasing in intensity and terror in their course. Whilst the heads of the bravest and the best-of all who were known to venerate truth, or to be animated by feelings of common humanity-were rolling from the French guillotine as fast as the executioners could go through their ghastly work, the "philosophers" were finding the application of the decimal principle to the computation of time a great improvement upon the seventh-day rest of the old Hebrew legislator,-and the Directory ruled accordingly. It was also satisfactorily discovered that Christianity was a stupid fable, the Christian ministry an imposture, death an eternal sleep, the existence of God impossible, and Reason the only god whose supremacy philosophy could recognise; and a decree of the philosophical Atheists who held France in terror, and filled the rest of Europe with speechless astonishment, settled these matters at once. The young Corsican, who subsequently confounded the world by his deeds, was at Paris in 1792; took the popular side in the Revolution; became a captain in the regiment of Grenoble artillery; had his soul fired with the ambition which afterwards dethroned and set up kings at pleasure; exacted ruinous VOL. XXXIX. B tribute, even from the sovereign Pontiff; dictated terms of submission to emperors; put an end to the German Empire, and made France the terror of Europe; until, in the merciful providence of God, the eagle was chained to a rock in the sea by the powerful hand of Great Britain. All the governments of Europe took the alarm, lest the revolutionary epidemic of the period should break out everywhere, and plunge society into chaos. Unusual vigilance characterised the legislature and executive of England; a strictness, of which the present generation have no correct idea, was considered expedient; and, as it was well known that French Infidelity was doing its utmost to inoculate those Englishmen who were in favour of a much-needed political reform, with its pernicious dogmas, the Government became doubly watchful; not so much in its character of conservator of order and "Defender of the Faith," as from the fact that the men in power saw no necessity for political reform; while they did see, from the example of France— then before their eyes, that political changes inspired by Infidelity must be destructive to everything that man, as a rational being, should cherish. Altogether, over the whole surface of Europe those were terrible days; and it does not, certainly, require an extraordinary degree of imagination to conclude that genuine Evangelical Christians -lovers at once of peace, liberty, human rights, and a free Gospelmust have experienced much mental anxiety for the prosperity of the cause dear to them, especially as they saw themselves continually misinterpreted by the journalists of the day; part of whose stock-in-trade was to sneer at and ridicule Puritanism, in humble imitation of the Hercules of Bolt Court, who died only five years before the beginning of the French Revolution. For five-and-twenty or thirty years, Johnsonwhom George Garrick, brother to the actor, called, the first time he heard him converse," A TREMENDOUS COMPANION"-had been the Sir Oracle of literature, the dictator, the infallible, and, we say advisedly-notwithstanding his rigid orthodoxy, and all the other good things which his admirers know how to mingle in the censer,-that man did more to repress Evangelical piety, and to keep up groundless suspicion against Nonconformists, than if he had been an infidel of the school of Volney. He speaks of "the sour solemnity, the sullen superstition, the gloomy moroseness, and the stubborn scruples of the antient Puritans ;" and in doing so, he only gave expression to his personal conviction, however modified in the context, that this repulsive and libellous picture fairly represented the Puritans of any time. The danger of French Infidelity, and the systematic injustice done to religious authors by the insolence of Johnson's copyists, who had all his dogmatism without his intellect, called for a serial on the side of the Gospel, and the call was happily met by "THE EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE." "Lives of the English Poets."--BUTLER. CHAPTER II. ITS ORIGIN. The first Number appeared in the month of July, 1793; and in the Preface-a modest and unpretending production-we read: "The work will uniformly be conducted upon the principles of the late Gospel Magazine,' devoid of personality and acrimonious reflections on any sect of professing Christians; as errors of the mind, like diseases of the body, are rather the subjects of pity than of scorn. Though twenty-four ministers have engaged to supply the work with materials, it is not designed to preclude others from contributing, through this medium, to the general stock of Christian knowledge; on the contrary, all judicious pieces will be thankfully received, especially well-authenticated accounts of triumphant deaths, and remarkable providences." On the general subject of magazine literature, the Preface says:"Thousands read a magazine who have neither money to purchase, nor leisure to peruse, large volumes. It is therefore a powerful engine in the moral world; and may, by skilful management, be directed to the accomplishment of the most salutary or destructive purposes. And its influence must increase in proportion to the increase of schools for instructing the poor,-which are becoming so numerous that probably a few years hence it will be a rare thing to find a beggar in the land who has not been taught to read. This consideration alone, it is hoped, will be thought a sufficient apology for undertaking the present work, and secure it a candid reception among all the friends of the Gospel. For, should the servants of Christ neglect the use of those means which circumstances have rendered favourable for the propagation of Evangelical sentiments, it would argue criminal supineness, or total indifference to the best interests of society." The catholicity of the new magazine, and the consecration of its profits to charitable purposes, were resolved on from the very first. Happily the names of the twenty-four ministers mentioned as its staff of writers have been preserved. At that time some of them were eminent men in different sections of the Church of God, and others subsequently became so.* * The following is the list; and it will show our readers at a glance that, even in the troubled epoch of the last decade of the eighteenth century, the germ of the Evangelical Alliance took root in England: Under this list the following words are printed :-" Ourselves your servants, for Jesus' sake."-2 Cor. iv. 5. This little circumstance pleasingly exhibits the spirit in which the journal was undertaken. The welfare of men, the diffusion of pure Christian truth, and the honour of the Lord Jesus, animated them. But this is still more fully apparent in the "Dedication,"* which, while it shows their entire "Thou triune GOD! from whose rich stores of grace "FATHER OMNIPOTENT! thy love shall sound Tow'rds guilty man. JESUS! thy charming name, |