We welcome the advent of the new year with praise and thanksgiving. The toils and burdens of 1881 are past. The husbandman has garnered his sheaves. The sower has cast in his seed, and awaits the spring time. We greet our friends with hope and gladness. The prosperity of the past is significant. We have a fuller experience, enlarged facilities for work, and a place in the confidence and esteem of the church and the nation that brings with it not only cheer and courage but an added weight of responsibility. We are, doubtless, on the eve of great events in the world of missions. He who has taught all Christendom of every sect and every age to pray, “Thy kingdom come,” has never decreed such immense strides in the material world as our eyes have seen, without a purpose to overmatch them all by spiritual achievements. The current of events does not tarry; it rushes on more mightily than ever. We may pray expectantly. We may accustom ourselves to meditate upon vast plans for enlarged work in fields already occupied, and for new and fruitful enterprises in regions beyond. Such gifts from the living as have been bestowed by Mrs. Stone and Mr. Seney, such legacies for missions as were left by Mr. Otis, reveal to us what floods may come when all things are ready, while such revival waves as have swept over Madagascar and the Telagoo people in India are earnests of the power of the Holy Spirit to subdue speedily islands and continents to Himself. Girt with the promises, and armed with all prayer and faith, we shall go forth to conquer. The day is dawning, the morning star is piercing the twilight, and dark night will shortly be rolled away. Over the continents, over the islands, over the seas, victory is watching and waiting to come; but tarry it will, tarry it must, till we, or such as we ought to be, win the battle in God’s appointed way. Heaven grant that the day of its coming be hastened gloriously, as never before, by the efforts and events of 1882. OUR Annual Report for 1881 will soon be off the press and ready for distribution. We shall be happy to forward it to any of our friends who will send us their name and address, signifying their wish to have it. * * * * * WE are happy to give our readers in this number of the MISSIONARY copious extracts from the Journal of Superintendent Ladd, who, at last reports, was at Cairo, Egypt, in company with Dr. Snow, awaiting passage to Souakim, on the Red Sea. The reception they received in Egypt was very encouraging. * * * * * THE _Gospel in All Lands_ is to be published as a weekly, commencing with January, 1882. It will contain one-third of its present number of pages, but will undergo no other change. The appearance of an illustrated missionary weekly, relying upon its subscription list for support, will mark a new and cheering departure in the missionary literature of the times. We bid the enterprise Godspeed.