To our Readers and Friends.

NEXT year we intend to improve the appearance and enlarge the pages of the Christian Pioneer.

We shall venture to do this in confidence that our present readers will not only continue to take the Pioneer themselves, but render us their valuable aid in obtaining more subscribers. We have often asked them to do this, and they have never refused; and this encourages our hope for another year.

Indeed we must trust to you entirely for any enlargement of our sales. We cannot canvass your neighbours, but you can; and you can without any expence, and at little trouble. We never yet heard of any one being offended when asked to spend one halfpenny a month on such a book as this for themselves and their children, but we have heard of many who were glad of the opportunity.

We shall print a large number for January, and if you will, when you get one, just show it to a few of your neighbours, many thousands more might be easily put into circulation.

So far as we are concerned we shall do our best to make this little Magazine as interesting and useful as possible. To accomplish this we shall spare no pains or labour.

We take this opportunity of requesting our friends who have forwarded contributions in prose or poetry to accept our best thanks, and at the same time to express our desire for a continuance of their favours.

We now commend our humble periodical to your continued patronage and support, not without a cheerful hope that next year you will take care that it shall find its way into many a house it has not yet visited, and that 1862 will be the most prosperous year it has yet known.