stian 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 blende