For the convenience and edification of many inquiring minds, we were impressed with the need of a paper in the Southern States Mission, that we might communicate to Saints, Elders and friends alike, the Gospel message.

With the help of the Lord we have been enabled to publish this, the first volume, of THE SOUTHERN STAR to the world, with the hope that it will assist in penetrating the thick darkness and mists of error that now overwhelm the nations, and show the world how the servants of Jesus Christ work enthusiastically to preach and publish the Gospel, which He generously restored while they were living in the Nineteenth Century.

When thrones begin to totter and fall, and the tyrannical rulers of the world quake with fear, and their abandonment is consummated; when the grim face of Time shall be distorted; when the throes and lamentations of his voice are stilled by the trembling earth's rumblings, and death fondly takes him in its embrace; when the trump of God shall sound, and the sacred euphony of angels songs shall announce that Jesus is coming to reign-then if one soul can say that it learned from THE SOUTHERN STAR a truth that helped it to be present at the roll call of the Master, we will feel that our efforts have not been in vain.

Chattanooga, Tenn., Nov. 24, 1899.

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BEN. E. RICH.