A STRONG desire exists in various quarters, for some periodical, other than a newspaper, which speaking considerately, yet freely and boldly on the topics of the day, may give utterance to the New England way of thinking, and may thus help to concentrate and direct the public sentiment of New England. The earnestness with which this desire has been frequently expressed, has led to some consultations respecting the practicability of commencing and sustaining such a periodical. Under the advice of judicious friends, and in the confidence that the religious and thinking public, whether east or west of the Hudson, who love that evangelical truth and that simple primitive order which give beauty and glory to this heritage of our fathers, will favor the enterprise, the subscriber has resolved on making the attempt. The pledg. es which he has received from gentlemen variously distinguished in the churches, in the republic of letters, and in the walks of civil life, who are expected to aid him with their experienced judgments, and with their practiced pens, are such as authorize him to entertain the strongest hopes that the intellectual and literary character of the work will be not unworthy of its name or of its aim. Vol. I.

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The periodical now proposed, will not be theological in the technical sense: we have our scientific journals, in theology as in other departments, learned and ponderous. Nor will it be exclusively religious: we have already religious magazines, devotional and practical, of various kinds and names-for the family, for the mother, for the child, for the Sabbath School. Nor again, will it be occupied with any one class of subjects: there are already periodicals enough, and good enough, of that description-some for temperance, and some against slaverysome for foreign missions, and some for home missions-some for the improvement of seamen, and some for the great cause of an educated Christian ministry. The periodical now proposed will enter into no competition with any of these works. It will be simply a magazine expressing the views of free Christian men, on whatever happens to come up for discussion. Nothing that concerns our interests and affections as citizens, our duties as men, or our faith and hope as Christians, will be without the range of topics contemplated by the conductors of the New Englander. Not every thing, but any thing-and especially any thing in ethics, politics, literature or religion,