THE CHRISTIAN OBSERVER. CONDUCTED BY Members of the Church of England. FOR THE YEAR 1868. LONDON: HATCHARD AND CO., 187, PICCADILLY. M.DCCC.LXVIII. PREFACE. ANOTHER year closes in upon us amid storm and tempest; the horizon is dark and lowering, and the whole political atmosphere is surcharged with electric fluid. The foundations of Liberty, both temporal and spiritual, tremble beneath our feet as they have seldom done since the Reformation, and never since 1832. Then, the first time for generations, the effects of a subterranean current were felt in our land; since that time, the surface has experienced slight undulations, and venerable edifices have been shaken; but now the ground quakes beneath us, threatening destruction to our National Church; but, thank God! not to our holy faith, for her foundations are on the everlasting hills. Like the Jews of old, we see at once our citadel and our temple compassed about with Romish legions on every side; some of whom have already treacherously crept into the stronghold itself; while others, not less unscrupulous, have appropriated to themselves the offices of ministers of our religion, —at what a sacrifice of conscience, who can say? But, be the issue what it may,-for that must rest in the hands of the Great Ruler of all the earth,—we know our duty as Christians: it is, first, to call upon the name of the Most High God, confessing our many shortcomings, and at the same time rendering praise to Him for the untold blessings which we have so long experienced |