By J. Roswell Flower

We greet you, this glorious New Year's day in the precious name of Jesus. This is the day of new things, the ushering in of a new year, which reminds us that we are just one year nearer to the coming of our blessed Lord than we were a year ago today. May it be true that this year shall not close without our great desire being gratified by seeing Him whom we love face to face. Oh glorious thought. With what rapture we look forward in anticipation to His glorious appearing.

And now, in keeping with the time, and in answer to the promise made to the Evangel family some months ago, we greet you in our new form, and we hope that you like our appearance. But appearance is not all that we are concerned about, our earnest desire is that we may … with all lowliness and meekness, be able, in this greatly enlarged paper, to give to the Evangel family the spiritual food that will enable it to grow in a way we could not do in the limited space of the old newspaper style weekly. We have started out with this purpose, and we throw ourselves into the bands of the Lord by an act of faith that He will meet us and make our great desire possible.

The Weekly Evangel is not the offspring of a weak desire to get a name in the earth, nor is it published just because the editors wanted to be publishing a paper. If those conditions were true, the paper would be wholly unworthy of a place in your affections and would be beneath your notice. The truth is that The Weekly Evangel represents a principle, a principle that is as true as God is Himself, a principle that shall never die. The Evangel may fail and go down into oblivion, but the principle for which it stands shall never die, and, by His grace, it is the purpose of the Evangel office force to continue representing that principle until others relieve them by taking up and carrying on the work, or until Jesus comes.

The principles for which we stand have been itemized over and over again in these columns. Over eight hundred (8oo) preachers and workers have subscribed to those principles by applying for credentials or certificates of unity with the General Council. They may not all have understood fully those principles, but a place of response was found in their hearts to them, and it is our desire and hope that as we continue in the publication of this paper, they may all become fully alive to the truth and become strong men and women, standing for the unity of God's children, cooperating together for the greatest possible work for God before Jesus Comes.

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J. Roswell Flower founded the Pentecostal Evangel in 1913.