WE place before you, dear reader, another Volume of our FAITHFUL WORDS, and with it offer our best wishes for your prosperity for time and eternity. We have sought, through the year that is past, to speak the truth of the Gospel to the best of our power, and to present it in the light of the peculiar difficulties of the day in which we live, and, we trust, we have your sympathy and confidence.
It would seem that the words of the Lord Christ, “Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it” (Rev. 3:88I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. (Revelation 3:8)), are now being fulfilled, for in all parts of the world His faithful servants have an access to their fellow men, such as we fail to find mentioned previously in the history of the Church. Now, with the open door, opened by His Almighty hand, and kept open at His pleasure—as at His pleasure it will be shut—His words are heard, “Behold, I come quickly” (ver. 11). It is but for a short season longer that the marvelous favors of this day of liberty will be extended, for days darker than the Dark Ages are yet to come, indeed, are rapidly approaching. Christian reader, in the presence of the open door, set before you by the Lord Himself, and in the sound of His solemn words, “I come quickly,” oh, be in earnest, for the Lord. Extend the sphere of your labors, for probably you can be somewhat more zealous than you are for Christ, and for souls; more solicitous for the good of those who know not the gospel, and for those who know it but imperfectly. Never forget that the printed message is a mighty weapon for your use. In the presence of the foes of Christ and the Bible it is no time for sleep! Moreover the night comes, when all work will be at an end.
We very gratefully acknowledge the help of friends, whose papers appear in this Volume, yet, in so doing, would remind them that a new year calls for fresh efforts. Time presents us with its twelve months each year in such rapid succession, that we are constrained/to ask our helpers and correspondents to remember the need of our Magazine.
It has to be added that the various articles in our Volume are both original and true. We never wittingly insert any incident that is not capable of absolute verification, for we hold that to conjure up gospel stories, and to let the imagination run wild in inventing accounts of the dealings of GOD with the children of men, is a grievous dishonor to His truth.