only escape the danger by retiring behind the shield of our contemporary, but enjoy the comfort of believing, that in this, as in everything, the Evangelical Magazine will be considered as an index to the average opinion of the enlightened, liberal, and moderate portion of British Christians. The article runs as follows: of hope for the British Banner. It will be edited by a bold and honest manby a writer of unflinching integrity of character, who will not scruple to call things by their proper names, and who will be able to dispose of all the petty skirmishing of unworthy or mistaken adversaries. We hail this great undertaking (for such it assuredly is) with unfeigned satisfaction, because it will be a clear gain to the cause of virtue and religion. Dr. Campbell's plan is large and comprehensive-a sort of encyclopædia of science, politics, religion, and general knowledge;- but we have full confidence that he will be able practically to realize it. His energy and resources, if God should spare him, are fully equal to the task which he has imposed upon himself. Should his demand for a hundred thousand of a circulation of the British Banner be somewhat extravagant, (though we admit that his calculations would fully justify it,) we are confident that the project is now happily more than safe,—that it will far outstrip the circulation of every other religious newspaper in the empire. Dr. Campbell is assuredly one of the boldest men of his age. But for his unexampled success, in reference to the CHRISTIAN WITNESS and CHRISTIAN'S PENNY MAGAZINE, we should tremble for his present position. His prospectus of the British Banner is now before us, and who would dare it but Dr. Campbell? With his other literary labours, how strong must be his confidence in his own powers, and in the favour of that public which has so nobly responded to his past efforts! He has a right to be meekly confident; for God has made him the instrument of a great achievement for the Religious Periodical Press of our country. We cheerfully acknowledge our debt of obliga tion; and we are confident that posterity will gratefully own the claim. Nor are we less sensible of the immense value of Dr. Campbell's labours because we have not always been able to sympathize with his modes of dealing with particular questions. Such a man must have large scope, generous freedom of When we reflect on the appalling action, kindly interpretations of his success of newspapers devoted to the motives, and, withal, candid allowance interests of practical infidelity, which for the difficulties which beset his path. sneer at religion through the infirmities He has a more benevolent heart than and crimes of its hypocritical adherents, many who write blandly and simper- and which minister, in so fearful a deingly, while bitter malice lurks within, gree, to the baser passions of our fallen and their lives are spent in "scattering nature, we cannot but "thank God, firebrands, arrows, and death." If we and take courage," at the prospect of a are to have an antagonist, let him be newspaper organ of sufficient power, honest, straightforward, and undis- and sufficient circulation, to counteract, guised; and, with truth on our side, in some measure, this "abomination we have nothing to fear. We dread that maketh desolate." Of all the denothing in controversy but cant, hypo- partments in the British Banner we crisy, secret conspiracy, and mischievous shall regard that which relates to the one sidedness. Of these Dr. Campbell exposure of the infidel and licentious will never be guilty; he has too much press as the most important. It has manliness of character ever to resort to been too much allowed to have its own them; and he will never tolerate them way;-the foes of God and man have in the contemporary press. had the field too much to themselves; In all this we discover the materials the lions and the tigers have never been thoroughly bearded in their own dens. It will be otherwise in future; and many, we trust, of their deluded victims, by God's blessing, will be rescued from their cruel grasp. Dr. Campbell can scarcely devote too much attention to this department of his labours. The movements, too, of Popery, semiPopery, and High-Church bigotry, he will watch with eagle-eye; and, by force of reason and scriptural authority, dislodge them from every position of national confidence, and pour the full tide of Protestant light and liberty upon the darkness in which they love to dwell. But we turn with sanguine hope to the British Banner as the strenuous and powerful advocate of all our evangelical schemes for the spread of vital Christianity, both at home and abroad. To Dr. Campbell our Home and Foreign Missions may confidently look for a continuous and efficient support. We know his deep-seated convictions on this subject, and we are sure that, with the publication of the British Banner, will commence a new era in the history of our missionary institutions. They require, with the mighty fields now opening before them, in all quarters of the globe, a species of advocacy which can never be realised but in the pages of a newspaper, stamped with ability, and having firm hold of vast masses of the people. But we dare not enlarge: less, however, we could not say, on an occasion of such immense importance to the interests of truth, holiness, and benevolence. We welcome the British Banner to our firesides, and to those of our friends. We say to all whom we can influence by our favourable opinion, let the publication-day of this desideratum in our newspaper literature be one of such decisive omen as to convince the Editor, the Committee, and the community at large, that it is placed beyond the reach of harm. Let orders be forwarded immediately to the proper quarters, and let there be not fewer than 25,000 of a sale to commence with, to proclaim the triumph of the undertaking. THE BRITISH BANNER. To the Readers of the Christian's Penny Magazine. FELLOW-CHRISTIANS! FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN!-In our last number we laid before you the elements of the new Journal, and trust that the plan has met your approbation. The project is now, therefore, fully before you, and, in a sense, its fate is in your hands. It is, at least in outline, the completion of our plan of Popular Instruction:-the PENNY pioneering the way of the WITNESS, and the WITNESS that of the BANNER. Properly speaking, therefore, they are to be viewed as one concern-parts of one system-all founded on the same principles, and straining to reach the same end. You will at once perceive that such a Journal must necessarily involve a heavy outlay of capital, the interest and replacement of which can only be effected by sale and advertisements. The price, the quantity of letter-press, and the general expenditure, are all based on an assumed circulation of a given amount. With that amount the Journal will, at once, be clothed with power, and proceed with daily augmenting vigour. But although the assumed circulation would sustain the work in a state of the utmost efficiency, it would by no means be all that is desirable, and even indispensable, if an antidote is to be furnished to the dread pestilence now periodically diffused over the earth by the London Sunday Press. It would, however, be an instalment of what is due from the Church of God to meet the fearful emergency. Recent events, in France, have shown that French Novels have all but dissolved the bonds of French society; and Professor Potter, of the United States, has shown that there, too, the French Novels, with which that "country is deluged, are the seeds of robbery, incendiarism, piracy, and midnight assassination." Now these selfsame Novels are filling England, and menacing it with the ruin of all that was once its glory, and is still its hope! The limits of sobriety are by no means exceeded when we deliberately affirm that the weekly circulation of THE BRITISH BANNER ought, at the very lowest computation, to be 100,000. The statistics of the London Press show one Sunday Paper, which, although its letter-press is only about three-fourths of that of THE BRITISH BANNER, and its price one-half more, has a weekly circulation of more than 60,000! And there are two others to which the same remarks, as to price and size, apply, with, each, a circulation of more than 20,000! But this, as has been shown, is only a fragment of the London Sunday Press. Is it so, then, that the whole world of Protestant Dissenters filling Great Britain, Ireland, and the Colonies, will suffer themselves to be surpassed by such a fragment? Will they rest satisfied without at least one Journal far outstripping the foremost of them by a circulation of not less than 100,000? The hour for a great experiment on the Christian spirit and patriotism of our country has arrived, and we do hope the issue will be to its honour and glory. The establishment of a Journal, of such a character, with such a circulation, would be an era in the history of our world. Such a Journal, with such an issue, would, for the interests of literature, liberty, humanity, and religion, in its own line, be the greatest event of the present century, -an event equivalent to trebling the moral power of the entire Religious and Nonconformist Press of these realms! It would be tantamount to augmenting, some twelve or thirteen times over, the present circulation of the whole religious weekly Press of Britain! If this can be done, ought it not? Is it not imperatively demanded by the interests of our country, essential to the progress of intelligence, the salvation of men, and the advancement of Messiah's Kingdom? Our hope is in God, and in those who love his truth, and live for the glory of his Son, while, on general grounds, our estimate rests on the most rational foundations, as may be seen from the following considerations: 1st. THE BRITISH BANNER will be pre-eminently a Family Journal, and are there not to be found in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and the Colonies, 100,000 Families who will devote the trifle of 4d. a week for such a luxury? 2nd. THE BRITISH BANNER specially contemplates the advancement of the interests, the efficiency, and the honour of the mighty fellowship of British Electors, and is it too much to expect the support of only one in eight, 100,000 in 800,000? 3rd. THE BRITISH BANNER is very mainly instituted to exalt and bless the Working Classes of this great Empire, who will ever find in it a teacher and a friend, an upright expositor of their duties, and a fearless advocate of their rights; and is it too much to hope that 400,000 of them will form themselves into 100,000 groups of four individuals, each contributing a weekly penny, to have such a stream of the most important information made to run perennially past his own door? 4th. THE BRITISH BANNER has very particularly in view the highest good of the Sunday Schools of Great Britain, primarily of the mighty host of 200,000 Sunday School Teachers, who, to an extraordinary degree, will find their account in cleaving to this Journal, since the fifty-two issues of a year will supply, at the cost of only 178. 4d., the matter of a library of fifty-two post octavo five-shilling volumes, at the goodly expense of 13l. per annum. Is it, then, too much to look for a circulation of 100,000 readers among a body of 200,000 Teachers, at the head of an army of Scholars amounting to more than 2,000,000? which successively attended the appearance of the CHRISTIAN WITNESS and CHRISTIAN'S PENNY MAGAZINE will be enacted over again on the field of the Stamped Press. Not only will the whole of the existing religious Weekly Journals be enlarged or cheapened, improved and invigorated, but a band of fresh competitors will forthwith enter the field, where some will quickly die, but most will live, thrive, and advance the world's welfare. This is to us by no means the least pleasing feature of the case as it relates to our past labours; and should it occur again, on a scale as ample, it will yield us unfeigned, unutterable joy! There is room enough, and work enough, and bread enough for all who will do that work in a workmanlike manner. We have no wish for the world to ourselves. Solitary glory would be to us, not enjoyment, but suffering. We shall hail companions and competitors in the heavenly enterprise; we exult in gene There If, then, any one of these four classes singly could command for us the amount of circulation here estimated, how passing easy for them to do so combined! Nothing can be conceived more natural, easy, proper, and just. The esti-rous emulation, and in honourable conmate is moderate in the extreme, and flict for the good of mankind. every man of sense will, at a glance, perceive its paramount necessity and its entire practicability. We make our appeal to those to whom, hitherto, we have owed so much, and who have never failed us-to the Ministers of the Gospel, the Sunday-school Teachers, and the Young Men of England. As the present movement is, in the highest sense, and on a very extended scale, one of patriotism, religion, and humanity, there is no degree of zeal it would not warrant, none practicable which it does not demand. It is worth the united efforts of millions! But in accomplishing such an object half the good is not at first apparent. The remarkable and most auspicious events Napoleon never called forth his renowned and favourite Young Guard but to decide the fate of uncertain combats, on which might hang the fate of empire. The principle is sound; the rule is wise: it is our own. is much at stake; we now call-with voice loud and earnest-to the Young Men of England! We ask them, once more, to place us in the same comparative position in the field of the Weekly as they have in that of the Monthly Press. The British Quarterly Review calculates, that, through the CHRISTIAN WITNESS and the PENNY MAGAZINE, we are uniformly acting upon not less than ONE MILLION of Souls. Grant us a like audience for THE BRITISH BANNER, and we shall be encouraged. Grant us this, and with ten years of life, health, and the help of Heaven, we humbly but confidently hope the results, both social and religious, will be such as to bring no regrets to those who have yielded a generous, a zealous, and a stedfast co-operation. trusts, and is regulated by the same laws. To the Proprietary body, therefore, whatever the success, it will bring no pecuniary advantage. THE PROJECT IS, ON THEIR PART, PURELY A WORK OF RELIGION, PHILANTHROPY, AND PATRIOTISM. May we now ask a word for ourYOUNG MEN OF ENGLAND! Very selves? OUR PERSONAL SERVICE IN mainly, through your efforts, THE CONDUCTING THIS GREAT EXPERIMENT CHRISTIAN WITNESS and CHRISTIAN'S IS WHOLLY GRATUITOUS. The ComPENNY MAGAZINE, in point of circula-mittee undertake the expenses of our tion, have left even the worst and, therefore, the most popular parts of the London Monthly Press at an immeasurable distance; and you have only to will it, and THE BRITISH BANNER will, at the very outset, take its place of usefulness and of honour on a similar eminence. It is only needful that no man should trust to his neighbour's zeal, but that each, in his own sphere, shall do what in him lies to rally all around THE BRITISH BANNER! In closing, our friends will allow us to explain one or two points which ought to be known. First, then, a word as to the claims of the Commit. tee and the Proprietors of the Patriot Newspaper on public gratitude and co-operation. Our readers should know that the Patriot Proprietary consists of a large body of Nonconformist gentlemen of the first respectability, who started that Paper some sixteen years ago, on purely public grounds. The property is divided into shares, on which the Proprietors, by a voluntary deed, can receive only five per cent.; after which all surplus profits, whatever their amount, must go to support charitable Institutions, or to promote the diffusion of the Gospel. THE BRITISH BANNER, of course, starts under the same Pulpit Supplies, an arrangement with which our flock has very reluctantly complied; and mainly, we regret to say, on account of much diminished physical strength for some time past, which has gone far to unfit for efficient pulpit labour, in the kind hope that a respite may be the means of its recovery. They have also placed at our disposal the sum required to meet the salaries of those gentlemen who are regularly engaged on the Journal as our Assistants; but to ourselves, for personal service, NO EMOLUMENTS, IN ANY SHAPE WHATEVER, ACCRUE. We could accept the arduous task on no other condition. Of the labours, physical and intellectual, which, especially at the outset, that task imposes, we have nothing to say. Men of sense will estimate them. Be they what they may, in the hope of advancing our country's good, and the glory of that "kingdom which cannot be moved," we cheerfully throw ourselves into the enterprise, in the confidence that our endeavours will be seconded in a spirit, and on a scale, worthy of the object, and honourable to the English Nation. PUSEYITE SUPERSTITION. TO THE EDITOR. SIR,--The following instance of Pusey |