none the less effectively because they did it obscurely, with Keach, doomed to the pillory, or, like Delaune, perishing in the dungeon. The opinions, as to religious freedom, then professed by our churches, were not only denounced by statesmen as rebellion, but by grave divines as the most fearful heresy. Through evil and through good report they persevered, until what had clothed them with obloquy became, in the hands of later scholars and more practised writers, as Locke, a badge of honor and a diadem of glory. Nor should it be forgotten, that these views were not with them, as with some others, professed in the time of persecution, and virtually retracted when power had been won. Such was, alas, the course of names no less illustrious than Stillingfleet and Taylor. But the day of prosperity and political influence was, with our churches, the day for their most earnest dissemination. Their share, in shoring up the falling liberties of England, and in infusing new vigor and liberality into the constitution of that country, is not yet generally acknowledged. It is scarce even known. The dominant party in the church and the state, at the Restoration, became the historians; and "when the man, and not the lion, was thus the painter," it was easy to foretell with what party all the virtues, all the talents, and all the triumphs, would be found. When our principles shall have won their way to more general acceptance, the share of Baptists in the achievements of that day will be disinterred, like many other forgotten truths, from the ruins of history. Then it will, we believe, be found, that while dross, such as has alloyed the purest churches in the best ages, may have been found in some of our denomination, yet the body was composed of pure and scriptural Christians, who contended manfully, some with bitter sufferings, for the rights of conscience, and the truth as it is in Jesus: that to them English liberty owes a debt it has never acknowledged; and that amongst them Christian freedom found its earliest and some of its stanchest, its most consistent, and its most disinterested champions. Had they continued ascending the heights of political influence, it had been perhaps disastrous to their spiritual interests; for when did the disciples of Christ long enjoy power or prosperity, without some deterioration of their graces? He who, as we may be allowed to hope, loved them with an everlasting love, and watched over their welfare with a sleepless care, threw them back, in the subsequent

convulsions of the age, into the obscure and lowly stations of life, because in such scenes he had himself delighted to walk, and in these retired paths it has ever been his wont to lead his flock.

We may have seemed to wander far from our topic; but the digression may be forgiven, as illustrating the circumstances of Baxter's time, and the influences to which he with others was subjected; the conflicting tides along which he floated, or which he strenuously buffeted; while showing also why to the Baptist his age must be ever full of interest. Let us pass to consider the man himself.

Born in the year 1615, of a father, who was a respectable freeholder, Baxter found in the piety of home some counterpoise to the profanity of the neighborhood, and the negligence and dissoluteness that infested even the pulpits of the surrounding district. Although he showed much of seriousness in early life, reproving the sins of other children, he did not believe himself converted until attaining the age of fifteen; when books, to which he elsewhere declares he owes the chief advantages of his life, fixed his impressions. The work of a Jesuit, revised by a Puritan, was the first of these treatises; and the writings also of Sibbes greatly benefited him. His early education was irregular; and, though afterwards prepared for the university, he never entered it, owing his chief attainments to the resolute application of later years. Like his contemporary, Bunyan, he met, in his opening course as a Christian, one of the severest of trials, in the apostasy of an intimate friend, who sank back into irreligion, and became an-open mocker of that piety he had once seemed to exemplify. Just at the date of his conversion, he was offered an introduction at court; but soon forsook an atmosphere little congenial to his feelings. Failing health and the expectation of early death gave to all the studies in which he now plunged, a practical tendency. It is the snare, even of the best conducted and best guarded forms of theological education, that the scholar may insensibly learn to fix his mind but on the theory of religion, and, losing its spirit, forfeit its blessings. The man who sees the grave at his feet is less likely thus to err. Death in near view gave to Baxter a conscientiousness in the selection of his themes of study, and a devout earnestness in their meditation. Redemption and judgment were not mere theories to a man who looked

soon to swell the harpings of the ransomed, or the howlings of the lost. From the age of twenty-one to twenty-three, he hardly expected to survive a single year. Still, anxious to employ the little fragment of time that might remain, he entered the ministry, receiving Episcopal ordination. It was afterwards his regret, that he had not duly studied the question of Episcopacy. His first labors were at Dudley, where, for a year, he was also the schoolmaster, and where his studies began to incline him to Nonconformity. New oaths imposed on the clergy to repress the spirit of Puritanism, yet more revolted him. At Bridgnorth he labored with applause, but without fruit, among a people already hardened by a faithful ministry, that had not profited them. He soon became, however, lecturer and curate at Kidderminster, with a people rude and ignorant; but whom he preferred, from a resolution he had made never to settle with a people whose conscience had been once hardened under an awakening ministry. In this field he labored at first but two years, when the civil war broke out, and the more disorderly of his hearers, incensed against him for his faithfulness, made his stay at Kidderminster dangerous; for, from the basest slanders, they proceeded actually to attempt his life. Thus driven from a station which was yet to become memorable as the parish of Baxter, he labored for two years in Coventry, receiving but a bare support. Here he disputed strenuously against the Baptists, then making proselytes. Cox, his antagonist, and whom Baxter describes as no contemptible scholar, and as the son of a bishop, was thrown into prison, though not with the will of Baxter. The result of this unhappy appeal to that royal syllogism, the argument from compulsion, was the planting of a Baptist church at Coventry, which has continued to our times. Baxter now consulted with his brethren in the ministry as to his entering the army, there to counteract the sectarian influence that was rapidly triumphing. His zeal, and piety, and popular eloquence, and powers of disputation, seem to have made him already eminent. By the advice of his friends, he became a chaplain in the regiment of Col. Whalley, a kinsman of Cromwell, one of the judges on the trial of the king, and the same whose flight to our country, and concealment here, forms one of the most romantic incidents in the early history of New England. Cromwell, who knew Baxter's dislike to his views

of general toleration, now looked coolly on the man whom he had once admired, and had invited in earlier years to become the chaplain of his own regiment. At the close of the war, Baxter returned again to his beloved Kidderminster, where he remained now about fourteen years; and, by a series of pastoral labors of surpassing faithfulness, made the connection between his own name and the parish an inseparable one in the memory of the church. Such may be the mighty effects of a few years in the career of a zealous pastor; for the whole term spent by Baxter in this, the vineyard of his affections, comprised little more than a fifth of his life-time. His memory is yet most fragrant there, after the lapse of more than a century; and the fruits of his influence are said to be yet traceable. He had found the spot a moral waste. He toiled, prayed, wept, gave and endured, until the wilderness blossomed as the garden of the Lord. Profanity and irreligion possessed it at his first entrance. In the civil wars, however, the same brutish herd that had driven their pastor from his post, nearly all perished; and, on his restoration to his parish, these former obstacles were found to have disappeared. He had at first found scarce a family in an entire street, who were accustomed to the regular worship of God in the home. Ere he left, there were many streets, in which not one family was without its altar; and the passing stranger heard the chorus of prayer and praise swelling on either hand, as he walked past the threshold. In a parish of eight hundred families, numbering four thousand souls, his communicants became in number six hundred; of whom there were, he declared, scarce twelve, of whose conversion he had not good hope. Incessant and systematic visitation, and the catechetical instruction of every family, whatever their ages, were united to much earnest preaching. His labors were amazing. He gave himself to the ministry of the word, to prayer, and to fasting. In addition, Baxter ministered freely to the wants of the poor among his flock from his own substance; while of his small stipend, through his lenity in exacting his legal dues, not one half ever reached his hands. He educated, too, poorer children; and some, having been thus brought by him through the university, entered for themselves upon the ministry. All this was not enough to satisfy this heart of fire, and occupy his iron diligence. For the space of five or six years

he was the physician of his flock, not to eke out by its revenues a scanty stipend, but from mere kindness; for his advice and aid were alike without charge. When he looked round upon his congregation, he saw in the greater part those who had owed health, and many of them life, to his assistance. This could not but endear him to the most insensible. He was, amid all this, a writer; and of each of his smaller works, gave one copy to every family of his charge; while each poor household, unable themselves to obtain it, he supplied with a Bible. Nor did he limit his labors to these bounds. He preached with the neighboring ministers in surrounding districts: and, as an author, he became famous through the land; while his example of pastoral fidelity and success excited many to admire, and some to imitate, his methods. Such was Richard Baxter amid his people; and, had his infirmities been both more, and more aggravated than they were, devotedness so rare must win from every member of the true church, whatever his name among men, an earnest and emphatic blessing. God grant to every evangelical community many in his likeness.

During the Protectorate, Baxter never disguised his adherence to the royal family; preached against Cromwell; and, when once admitted to an interview with the man whose very name made Mazarine to turn pale, and whose power awed all Europe, Baxter told the Protector, with his usual intrepidity, that the people of England believed their ancient monarchy a blessing; nor did they know what they had done to forfeit its advantages. When the Restoration was now concerted, Baxter was selected to preach before the Parliament, when preparing for the act. Upon the return of Charles II, he was appointed a chaplain to the king, and was offered a mitre in the establishment, if he would conform. But the Episcopal crozier and stall had no temptation to such a spirit. He asked but for the privilege of returning to his beloved Kidderminster; and when this was denied, sued for permission to labor there without a stipend. But it was in vain; and this man, whose loyalty had been so eminent, was permitted to preach but twice or thrice to these, his attached and beloved flock. Returning now to London, he continued to preach as he obtained opportunity. On St. Bartholomew's day, the decree of stern exclusion drove from the communion of the Established Church two thousand of her worthiest and ablest ministers.