With this number, then, the MISSIONARY returns wholly to this office and its vicinity for preparation. As our readers have already noticed, the advice of the Annual Meeting has been followed in restoring it to its old form, which many of its familiar friends think more becoming than the perhaps sprightlier, but less dignified manner of the last year. We trust they will not like it less because it has a little more of body than formerly, and is attired in a new, and, we trust, not inappropriate dress. A few of its additional pages are given to advertisements by the same advice. We shall be glad to serve and be served by our friends, who know our circulation and constituency, in opening to them this channel of communication with one another. It is our hope to make the MISSIONARY of certainly as much, and, if possible, of more value than in former years. We should be glad to do what we can to dissipate the impression that an exposition of Christian opportunity and a record of Christian work is of necessity dry reading—of use mainly by way of fitting preparation for a Sunday afternoon nap. We know that the opportunities, if realized, are full of encouragement and stimulus, and that the work itself is intense in its earnestness and interest. We know that the considerations which enforce its claims are among those which appeal most irresistibly to thoughtful men, and stir their deepest feelings. If the presentation, then, be dry, it must be the dulness of those who write, or the indifference of those who read. We will try to prevent this at one end if our friends will at the other. We shall try to procure the freshest and most recent news from the field, in regard to the general progress and the particular incidents of the work, by diligent application to our missionaries and teachers—remembering ourselves, and reminding others, that they are busy men and women, far more intent on doing the work than in telling about it. We shall endeavor to give, in condensed form, a record of the current events, religious, social and sometimes political, which affect the various departments of our work. We hope to arrange for special presentation of the nature and needs of our larger institutions in successive numbers. So we shall try to bring within the range of our readers’ vision the stars of larger and of lesser magnitude which gem our Southern and Western sky, only regretting that our, like other telescopes, can only bring far-off things a little nearer—can by no means reveal them as they are. With the old form we return, of necessity, to the old subscription price—50 cents a year. Will our good friends remember that if each of our 25,000 magazines should bring us in a half a dollar, they would be a source of income to the Association, beside the valuable service which it does us indirectly? If this suggestion impresses any one favorably, please let the money be inclosed, and the letter sealed and directed at once before it can be forgotten.