With the present number, The Continental enters upon a new volume. No efforts will be spared by its editors to increase its value to its many patrons. The high character of its political articles, always emanating from distinguished men and from reliable sources; its loyal tone and catholic spirit; the great ability with which the subjects of the deepest interest to the Government and community are discussed in its pages—entitle it to a high, if not the highest place among the journals of the country.

It is intended to give utterance to the wants, wishes, tastes, views, hopes, culture of every part of our Union. Having no band of sectional collaborators, with local views and prejudices, narrowed horizons and similar cultivation, it is confined to no clique of thinkers however vigorous, no set of men however cultured, but receives thought and light from every part of our vast country, without favor or prejudice. It is the Continental, and thus represents and addresses itself to the mind of the continent.

The contributions flowing in, in a continuous stream from every quarter, are subjected to but one great test—the test of real and substantial merit. Thoroughly Christian in the noblest sense of that noble word, it is never sectarian. Accepting Christianity as a certain fact, it rejects no scientific inquiry into its bases, convinced that all true and thorough investigation will but lead men back to faith in a divine Redeemer. Shallow thought and nascent inquiry may be sceptical, but the deep mind is reverential and faithful. The problems of doubt torture the soul, and call for solution. Infinite and finite stand in strange relations in the mind of man; with his finite powers he would grasp the infinite of God. He fails to find the equation of his terms, and, baffled in his search, in the insanity of intellectual pride, denies his Maker. He puts the infinite mysteries of revelation into the narrow crucible of the finite, the residuum is—nothing; he calls it immutable laws, as if laws could exist without a lawgiver, and bows before a pitiless phantom, where he should love and worship the great I Am!

Examine fearlessly into nature, O earnest thinker, for the created is but the veil of the Creator. Revelation and nature are from the same God, and both demand our serious attention. Revelation is indeed the Word of Nature; the sole key to its many wards of mystery. Truth never contradicts itself. Let the savant, whether in material nature or metaphysical realms, examine, classify, and arrange his facts—they, when fairly computed, thoroughly investigated, can lead but to one conclusion.

Nor will the literary department of this magazine be permitted to languish. Tales, poems, and articles on art and artists, are solicited from all who feel they have something to say, to which the human heart will gladly listen. The talent of the East, West, North, and South shall flow through our pages. Genius shall be welcomed and acknowledged, though it may not as yet have registered its name on the radiant walls of the Temple of Fame. It is the design of The Continental to represent humanity in its different phases; to manifest to its readers the thoughts of their fellow beings; to hold up the mirror of our mental being to the complex human soul. Varied modes of thought and views of life will be represented in our pages, for as men, nothing that concerns humanity can be alien to us. We thus hope to be enabled to offer our readers a wide range of subjects, treated from varied standpoints, handled by writers widely scattered in space and severed in social position. May the divergent rays be blended in a bow of beauty, of peace and promise to the ark of truth! No personal bitterness shall find place among us, no immoral lessons sully our record. There may be often want of pruning, but even the undue luxuriance shall tell of the rich soil of genius, ever germing and budding into prolific growth.

Meantime let our patrons continue to trust us, and have patience with our shortcomings. All that is human is liable to error, and the very width and breadth of our base increases the difficulty of the temple we would rear.

Lend us your sympathies and moral aid, courteous reader, for many and complicated are the difficulties with which an editor has to contend. For example: 'Your review is quite too serious for success,' says the first; 'its subjects are too heavy and grave; our people read for amusement; you should give us more stories and light reading.'

'Your review is too light,' says the second; 'the times are pregnant with great events, humanity is on its onward march, and a magazine such as yours ought to be, should have no space to throw away upon sentimental tales and modern poetry. Your articles should lead our statesmen on to the deeper appreciation of political truths, expose vital fallacies, and not strive to amuse silly women and effeminate men.'

'You do not deal sufficiently with metaphysics,' says a third; 'you should reproduce in popular and intelligible form the vast thoughts of Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, Oken, Ronski, and Trentowski.'

'Why do you give us so much metaphysics?' cries the fourth; 'modern philosophy is essentially infidel; you should not introduce its poisonous elements among our people.'

'Such a review as you conduct,' remarks a fifth, 'should be the vehicle of the thinkers and progressives; they alone are the men to benefit and attract the attention of the community.'

'Take great care to have nothing to do with the men calling themselves progressive thinkers,' remarks a sixth; 'they are full of vital errors, spiritualists, socialists, disorganizers. They have in reality nothing new to offer; they are the old-clothes men of thought, harlequins juggling in old Hindoo raiment, striding along in old German May-fair rags, long since discarded—motley's their only wear—stalking Cagliostros and Kings of Humbug.'

'You are growing old fogy in your views,' says the seventh; 'we can bear sermons enough in church of Sundays; we do not buy magazines to read them there.'

'Your journal is fast becoming an Abolition organ,' says the eighth.

'Do you mean to oppose the Administration and distress the Government?' says the ninth.

'You give us no history,' sighs the tenth.

'What do you mean by your long historical disquisitions?' vociferates the eleventh. 'Nobody cares for the past now. Our hands are full of the present. We are ourselves living the most important history which this globe has yet seen.'

Courteous reader, so it goes on forever, through all the unceasing changes of thought, heart, mind, soul, taste, which characterize the great, acting, struggling, thinking, conservative, progressive, believing, doubting, Young American people.

Meanwhile we will earnestly strive to hold up the glass of the constantly shifting times before you, that you may be enabled to see the flitting shadows of the hour as they pass across it, grave or gay, portentous or hopeful, draped in solid political vesture, the toga of the statesman, or robed in the blue gossamer of metaphysics, in the drapery of sorrow or light hues of joy, in the tried armor of the Divine, or the dubious motley of the progressive, in the soft, floating, lustrous, aËrial texture of the woman, or the monotonous Shanghai of the man—while we will forever strive to point you to the Cross of Peace, the Heavenly City, and the starry diadem of Eternal Truth. You may read in our pages of 'immutable laws,' for such is the term now in vogue, but you will remember that these words are but a veil used by the scientist to hide the Eternal and Unchangeable Will, the Personal God, the Hearer of Prayer, the Father of Creation. The kaleidoscope of nature, however rudely shaken, through all its multiplicity of fragments, forever falls back into the holy figure of God:

'Mirrors God maketh all atoms in space,
And fronteth each one with His perfect Face.'

How long, lovely, and glowing has our autumn been, with its dreamy days and soft shadowy mists. In its surpassing beauty it is peculiar to our own loved land, and thus doubly dear to the hearts of Americans. Our mountains borrowed the rainbow, dressing themselves in its changing hues, holding up the great forests, like clustered bouquets, in their giant palms, as if offering their dying children to God in the very hour of their mature beauty. Crimsons and purples, oranges, golds, yellows, browns, greens, and scarlet dye the trees; gathered sheaves and golden pumpkins, marguerites, feathery golden rods, and bright blue gorse are on every field. Have we not, in very truth, a country for which a patriot should gladly die, and the devout heart never cease to quiver in prayer that God may vouchsafe to bless?

One of our patriot poets has sent us the stirring hymn of the Cumberland. Let him chant it here, while we grave in our hearts the grateful memory of the brave crew who perished with her, martyrs in a holy cause:

THE CUMBERLAND.

Fast poured the traitors' shot and shell,
Where at their posts our gunners fell:
Our starboard portholes make reply—
Each takes his comrade's place to die;
All time shall yield no battle field
Grand as thy deck, our Cumberland!
Oh, crashing shock! our beams divide,
And death flows inward with the tide.
O'er gory decks,'mid sulphur smoke,
The climbing waters madly broke;
Our banner spread, still waved o'er head,
Above the sinking Cumberland.
The wounded cheer,—the dying wave,
While sinking to their watery grave,
With straining sight and grateful prayer,
Exultant that the Flag is there;—
Nor thought of life to glory's strife,
But of their ship, the Cumberland.
The vessel sinks;—her latest breath
Hurls through the cannons' mouth of death
Defiance at the traitor foes!
O'er guns the throttling waters close—
The hungry wave devours the brave—
The gallant crew of Cumberland!
No sailor yields; they gladly die;
Above them still the colors fly!
High o'er the black and surging flood,
That reels as drunk with patriots' blood,
Those glorious bars and Freedom's stars
Float o'er the sunken Cumberland!
Deeds like these will live forever—
Loyal hearts forget them never!
Hark! echoes from the brave and free,
Greet us from far ThermopylÆ:
All time shall ring while bards shall sing
The Martyrs of the Cumberland!
In Glory's sky, 'mid heroes bright,
Immortal galaxy of light,
Through future ages shall they be,
The Color Bearers of the Free!
The sleeping brave, in ocean's wave,
Who manned the Frigate Cumberland.

Our monthly will enter many a home during the coming holidays—the eight days consecrated to the memory of the most sublime record in the history of mankind, the union of the Divine with the human, the introduction of a human heart into the impenetrable but truly philosophical mystery of the Trinity. Do we ever sufficiently realize the duties which this marvellous union has enjoined upon us, the privileges with which it has endowed us?

We shall enter many a home—some joyous with the mirth of children, the hopefulness of youth, the serene happiness of useful and contented men and women;—some shadowed by recent sorrow, where perhaps patriots, as in the olden time, learn to endure for the sake of a beloved country;—or others, perchance, where worldliness, discord, and egotism have severed hearts that should be united. God grant the number of the latter may be few! Happy should we be, could we know that our arrival would bring one more smile to the lips of the gay, a single ray of support or consolation to the souls of the sorrowing—could we cause the world-worn to dream of better and brighter things than mere matter can ever afford, give the thinker a pregnant thought, soothe earth's weary art-children with the hope of wider comprehension and sympathy, lead the rich to open upward paths to their poorer brethren, or the poor nobly to bear or to better their humble condition—in a word, could we offer but single drops of that wine of immortal life for which every human soul is thirsting.

Frost and cold now are upon us; Christmas passing with its typal evergreens and mystic chants; the old year dying fast with its weird secrets buried until the Day of Doom; the New Year close upon us, with its demands and duties. May the Heavenly Father bless its fleeting hours, and enable us to sow them closely with the precious seeds of good deeds,—germs to blossom on the Eternal Shore!