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The New Zealand Evangelist

[introduction to new series]

Every Scribe which is instructed into the Kingdom of Heaven, is like unto a man that is an Householder, which bringeth out of his treasury, things new and old.—Matt. xiii. 52.

It has been well observed,—by one of the most page 376 heavenly minded women that Britain has produced,—"that the world does not require so much to be informed, as reminded. A remembrancer may be almost as useful as an instructor; if his office be more humble, it is scarcely less necessary.”* It is one of the innumerable beauties of the Scriptures, and an indirect proof of their authenticity, that nothing new, essential to our salvation, was intended to be elicited from them, by their Divine Author, from the moment they were given to the world, much less after the lapse of eighteen hundred years. Yet the infirmity of human nature is such, that if these truths are placed in a new light, or expressed in phraseology different from that under which we have habitually contemplated them, the attention receives a fresh stimulus; or may perhaps be beneficially awakened, to matters which our mental indolence simply acquiesce in, but have suffered to lay dormant.

Impressed with this sad conviction, we intend, occasionlly, to transfer to these monthly pages, a selection of extracts, bearing upon the “One thing needful“—our own immortal happiness—made from various authors, either in the original words of their writers or adapted to modern phraseology; among these, also, will be intersperced many that are original. Our resources are not scanty, and by thus humbly imitating the householder who “brought forth out of his treasury, things new and old,” we may at least remind, where we fail to instruct.