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CONTROVERSIALIST,

AND

SELF-EDUCATOR:

ESTABLISHED FOR THE IMPARTIAL AND DELIBERATE DISCUSSION OF IMPORTANT QUESTIONS IN

RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY, POLITICS, SOCIAL ECONOMY, ETC.,

AND AS A MAGAZINE OF SELF-CULTURE.

"MAGNA EST VERITAS, ET PREVALEBIT."

"Here is a thing wherein I would willingly have you agree, that is, to dispute and not to quarrel; for friends dispute between themselves for their better instruction, and enemies quarrel to destroy one another."-Plato.

"Truth can never be confirmed too much,
Though doubts did ever sleep."-Shakespeare.

VOLUME II.-NEW SERIES.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY HOULSTON AND STONEMAN,

65, PATERNOSTER ROW.

LONDON:

J. AND W. RIDER, PRINTERS,

14, Bartholomew Close.

PREFACE.

IT has been the yearly habit of the Editors of The British Controversialist to address the glad gathering of bright spirits, which crowds around the "chairs of state" in which they sit, in words of retrospect and hope. It is the one proud moment of our lives to be so encircled, and we may surely be pardoned the emotion. Our readers and ourselves are friends unknown in body, but with the soul's eye seen. How often in the night-silences have we heard your kindly words, your loving salutations, and almost felt the pressure of your hands! How much comfort and help do we owe you! comfort and help frankly given and joyfully received. Take our thanks: we cannot give away the pleasure of the gratitude we feel, or adequately express the mountain mass of obligation under which we lie to you. Believe us, it is in these moments that we become most sensible of the demerits-ah! how many!-of even our best services. Yet we have labours manifold, which, did you know, would move you to cast a glance of charity upon our shortcomings, and prove to you that in no little measure are our days made anxious and our sleep hours brief, that we may furnish forth the supplies of thought which this serial contains.

Were the work now in the reader's hand in any large measure the product of the Editors' pens, it would ill become them so to speak its praise; but it is the conjoint labour of a numerous body of contributors who have supplied the flowers and fruit, of which we, as the Editors, have had the selection, the arrangement, and the exhibition; and hence it is not self-flattery when we call attention to the merits of the contents of the present volume. To these contributors our warmest, heartiest thanks are justly due, not only for their able papers, but for the promptitude, laborious zeal, and friendly assiduity with which they work as yoke-fellows with us. To one, in chief, whose pen for seven years has never been idle in the service of our magazine, what words can be used that will express that combination of esteem, love, and admiration which we feel! Our heart knows not the words in which to write it. He will comprehend and feel our meaning.

Of the year's success, we have pleasing proof: our publisher warrants us to say that the sales are on the increase. This is well. It is evidence of the healthy heart-core worth which the public give the magazine credit for

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