and towns, less aggressive, efficient and useful relatively than in former years ?" The article is headed, "The Great Question."

Church.

PRESBYTERIAN.-Re-union movement in the Presbyterian Three clergymen of Cincinnati, one new and two old school, are about publishing a monthly magazine, to be devoted to the advocacy of reunion of the two Presbyterian General Assemblies.

CONGREGATIONALIST.-A general convention of the Congregational Church is about to be held, having in view Missionary labor in the Southern States as well as other matters of interest to the body.

ENGLISH EPISCOPAL.-Messrs. Kent & Co., of London, England, are publishing a monthly magazine, entitled The Church of the People, and Open Church Circular. It declares: "All parties in the Churchcan and ought to support the Open Church movement; it pledges its adherents to no party views, it violates no cherished principles of any party, but only asserts one grand principle which all may conscientiously adopt, namely, the right of every man to worship God in his parish church without being charged so much per square foot for the space he occupies and recommends the Weekly Offertory as most agreeable to Holy Scripture and the uniform practice of the Church in all ages."

WE REJOICE to see that a meeting was recently held of ministers of the different evangelical denominations in the cities of Pittsburg and Allegheny, and arrangements were made for a series of sermons with a view of promoting a revival of true religion. Appropriate topics were selected and assigned to different preachers, and the evenings of Monday, Tuesday, . Thursday and Friday of each week were appointed for their delivery until the course is completed. Each sermon is to be followed with a meeting for prayer and conference. Ministers of the classes which formerly discountenanced special efforts to produce revival have cordially united in this movement. It is an omen for good, and a ground of thanksgiving to God.-Independent.

PHILADELPHIA with a population of 900,000, has 1,222 churches, with accommodation for 592,000 persons.

Personal Notices.

BEECHER.-The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher is to write a monthly letter to the Watchman and Reflector, a Baptist publication, of Boston.

CALHOUN,-Rev. Simeon Howard Calhoun declines the Williams College degree of D. D., and says, "the holding of such marks of distinction is not in accordance with the spirit of the Lord's teachings, nor with the sound principles of purity in the Christian ministry."

COLENSO. The case of the Lord Bishop of Natal was appointed to be heard before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England on Monday, the 12th of December.

CLARK.-Rev. Alexander Clark has accepted the pastorate of the Union Chapel of Cincinnati. Mr. Clark edits "The School Visitor," published at Philadelphia.

DUFFIELD.-The Rev. Dr. Duffield, of Detroit, who has been prevented by illness from attending his usual pulpit ministrations is recovering. The many friends of this venerable servant of God will rejoice to hear of his convalescence.

ERRETT. --The Rev. Isaac Errett, who has ministered to the Jefferson Avenue Christian Church, Detroit, for the past two years, returns to his former field of labor at Muir, in Ionia county. While here, he was quite successful as a preacher and much loved by his people.

GULICK.-Mr. John T. Gulick, son of the venerable Sandwich Island Missionary, was ordained as an Evangelist at the Wesleyan Chapel at Canton, Ohio, on the 22d August, 1864.

MOORE.-The Rev. W. T. Moore, recently of Frankfort, Ky., succeeds Rev. Isaac Errett, as pastor of the Jefferson Avenue Christian Church of Detroit.

PHILLIPS. Deacon John Phillips, 104 years of age, voted at the recent election for President, saying that he had also voted for George Washington. He still retains his mental and physical vigor.

SPURGEON.-This renowned pulpit orator renounces the title "Reverend" and wishes to be addressed simply by his given name. Although the title "Reverend" is in bad taste and has no scriptural warrant, no less objectionable ministerial designation has yet been proposed.

CHRISTIAN UNITY.

BY A. G. SPANGENBERG, 1747.

The Church of Christ that he hath hallow'd here
To be his house, is scattered far and near,

In North aud South and East and West abroad,
And yet in earth and heaven, through Christ her Lord
The Church is one.

One member knoweth not another here,
And yet their fellowship is true and near,
One is their Savior, and their Father one,
One spirit rules them, and among them none

Lives to himself.

They live to Him who bought them with his blood,
Baptized them with his spirit pure and good,
And in true faith and ever - burning love
Their hearts and hope ascend to seek above

The eternal good.

O spirit of the Lord, all life is thine,
Now fill thy Church with life and power divine,
That many children may be born to thee,
And spread thy knowledge like the boundless sea,
To Christ's great praise.

THE

Vol. I.

CHRISTIAN UNIONIST.

"Speaking the Truth in Love,"

"That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me."-John xvii. 21.

There is no such proof of affectionate, enduring, disinterested friendship, as that which is exhibited when death is at the door. Through many long years of patient, unwearying kindness, no opportunities of service may have been overlooked, but the memory doth fondly and gratefully travel back to the moment when the dying benefactor called us to his bedside, and proved to us that we were in his remembrance at the last, and that we had a place in his parting supplications.

Even so it was with the Lord Jesus Christ. He knew the depth of the suffering that awaited him. He knew how he was to tread alone the winepress of the Father's wrath. He knew how the crushing burden of a world's sin was to be all bound upon him. And yet, even when his season of extremest anguish was at hand, he did most tenderly recollect his people, and in his far-sighted love he prayed for them, bearing them on his heart before the throne of grace.

And the prayer that Jesus offered for his people, was the prayer of infinite wisdom and of unbounded affection. He prayed, that, even as the Father and himself were united, that so his people might be united too. He prayed, that they

* Report of an extemporaneous discourse.

might be fashioned and spiritually shaped, after his most glorious model. And, as there is no disunion as there is no disseverment of view, and of interest, and of purpose, in God, so did Jesus pray, that his disciples, in all coming time, might be bound up closely and compactly together. And while he prayed for his people he prayed for the world; for the union of the one is the conversion of the other.

In the ages that succeeded the departure of Jesus from, this earth, there was the proof of the efficacy of his prayer. There were wondrous conversions. Men were gathered in by thousands unto the Lord Jesus; prejudice, bigotry, and super. stition were trampled in the dust; and they were brought, in all humility of heart, and in all earnestness of purpose, to accept the faith that was promulgated among them. And we can trace the cause of it. There was the evident result of the prayer of Jesus. His people, who were the preachers of the word, were one in heart and mind. They had all things in common; their purposes, their counsels, their hopes, their. success, were all in common. And then, and for centuries after, did the church greatly prosper; so that, although the arm of earthly power was continually extended to crush, and to overwhelm, and to annihilate the fair tree, which had been planted by the hand of God himself, sprung up from that small beginning, and cast forth its branches, and overshadowed the known world. And then came the time of external prosperity, and of internal disunion, for they came almost contemporaneously. And for fifteen centuries hath the church been vexed, and troubled, and enfeebled. For fifteen centuries hath the church been in her widowhood, and hath had to sit in the dust of humiliation, and lament that, in spite of all the effort, all the prayer, and all the preaching of the gospel, and all the machinery of means, that she has put into operation, the earth is yet full of darkness and of cruel habitations.

And we believe, that the cause is to be traced, to the converse of that, which caused its early prosperity. We believe that its disunion hath caused its unsuccess. And, beloved, we think that this is a matter exceedingly appropriate to the times in which we live. We believe that that which we are fond to call the Evangelical World, hath gone greatly astray in this matter; that there hath been the oversight of the great principle which the Lord Jesus exhibited to his people, the necessity of union to all spiritual success. There hath been