449 
TO OUR READERS. 
subject and the loftiest in its aims. We have not yet learned 
its rudiments, but already it is reaching back in time to the 
beginnings of human races and stretching its hand in space 
to cover all the nations of the earth, already the an'ipathies 
of race and creed and the barriers of language are melting 
away before it, and all those diversities of human form, habits, 
speech and belief, which once served only to breed mutual 
prejudice, dislike and hatred, are now seen to serve for mutual 
illumination and advancement, and above all to ‘‘assert eternal 
Providence and justify the ways of God to man.’* The God of 
nations is seen working everywhere and in all time, and the 
revelations of his being in the wonderful diversity of human 
races and conditions of mind, are far more clear and complete, 
and therefore more true, than those which nature can make to 
any man who looks abroad from the depths of his own nature 
on his own people only. Materials are fast accumulating, and 
the spirit will soon spread, for really scientific investigations of 
races. When the ethnology of Europe shall present the life 
of every race of man in full and genial description, it is im¬ 
possible to overrate the advance that will have been made for 
education, philosophy and religion ; and, we may add, for 
the material welfare of man also, for all other improvement 
proceeds from that of the mind, its tendencies, methods and ha¬ 
bits. The perfecting of ethnology will be the latest and noblest 
scientific product of Christianity, for it is eminently the science 
of Christianity, on the spirit of which it depends in its very 
origin and at every step of its progress. We shall bear in 
mind, in making our extracts of this class, that the spiritual 
wisdom of a Carlyle is even more essential to a sound and true 
cultivation of ethnology than the comparative physiology of a 
Blumenbach and a Prichard, and the philology of a Humboldt 
and a Bopp. 
In conclusion we have only to guard against our being 
responsible for paragraphs to which no name or initials 
may be annexed, since it is probable that many of our rea¬ 
ders for whose assistance in this department we confidently 
look, will prefer to remain incognito. We shall however 
in our annual index give the names of all contributors who 
do not prohibit our doing so. 
