philosophy, an absolute; we cannot explain him, cannot get behind him, and above him, cannot command him. He is, therefore, the perfection of our ideal, and it is as an ideal that the divine has its best worth and reality. The unerring and consummate felicity of Jesus, his prepossessingness, his grace and truth, are moreover at the same time the law for right performance on all great men's lines of endeavor, although the Bible deals with the line of conduct only.' Goethe speaks of the person of Christ in the same strain: The life of that divine man, whom you allude to, stands in no connection with the general history of the world in his time. It was a private life; his teaching was for individuals. What has publicly befallen vast masses of people, and the minor parts which compose them, belongs to the general history of the world, the religion we have named the first. What inwardly befalls individuals, belongs to the second religion, the philosophical: such a religion was it. that Christ taught and practiced so long as he went about on earth.'

This tribute to Christ from such sources may be applied largely to those who have pre-eminently imbibed his spirit, were made what they were by closely following him, and who lived singly to his glory. The distinctive religious life which they introduced into their times was in advance of their day, as his life was in advance of his day. Their progress was slow, like his, because they set up a high mark and suffered for it; their patience and growth drew men to their side, and when they retired, perhaps as martyrs, their aim was reached by the world, so that that which others first scouted became necessary at last to their bliss. Some few such men drew the historic boundary lines, as a few headlands mark the entire sweep of a dim sea-coast. The truths which they insisted upon were changeless, though they were neglected under the reign of ignorance, or the sway of violence. But the king-men were not to blame for the dwarfishness of others. They gave unity to the centuries by keeping the struggle alive for the purity of eternal principles, the idea for which they suffered has interpreted its priceless value by their sufferings. Because the masses of the people were ignorant they were ferocious, for in the Middle Ages men did not seek high principle in troops; as great souls only can prefer a pure religion to one that is corrupt, one that is simple to one that is complicated, one from heaven and unstamped by earthly and grotesque intermixtures. The natural creed of the masses lodges in ceremony, mummery and external sanctity, and simple purity is too great to enlist admiration, when men prefer sophistication. Of course, where such religion is preferred there can be few men of gigantic stature.

Then, it often happens that men of high excellence rise in character far above their creed, for in historic religion creed and character do not always harmonize. When a few men rise above the character of a whole people they rise above the level of their age, and in that case they must pay a large price in suffering for the purpose of blessing their race, a price that but few are able to pay. A great mind of our day avows, 'That in the whole period from the sixth to the tenth century,

there were not in all Europe more than three or four men who dared to think for themselves; and even they were not classed with the creators of their age. They were neither rulers nor statesmen, but quiet and unobserved suggesters, who discovered abuses and pointed out remedies which future times were proud to apply. Chiefly through this order of mind we are to trace the record of Baptist sentiments, but the name 'Baptist' must not mislead us to enlist into our ranks men who would be unworthy of that name to-day, simply because they held some things in common with ourselves. Rather, we must embrace only those who cherished in full, the conception which both the New Testament Baptists and those of the nineteenth century set forth as underlying the entire kingdom of Christ. It is in the embodiment of these principles, whether in individuals or churches, that we are to look for true Baptist history. Because they are imbedded in the Bible we bow to their holy teachings, the antiquity of principles being quite another thing from the antiquity of organizations. As doctrines and practices originated in after times are late and new, we must reverence that antiquity alone which God uttered in the beginning. A system running through ages is an empty boast unless it reproduces the vital, spiritual copy of the first age.

For seventy years the Jews lost the line of the Passover, when Jerusalem lay in heaps and Israel was enslaved in Babylon, but when Hezekiah brought them back and restored the feast, the seventy missing links of festivity came with them. Two generations of their people had died and certain of their tribes were never heard of again, yet their true history as Jews was not broken nor the significancy of the Passover impaired, although they had not done it of a long time in such sort as it is written.' The moment that the Temple was rebuilt, its doors opened, and its lamps relit, the old authority of the institution revived. No Jewish household now living can trace its descent to any given tribe which existed at the fall of Jerusalem, A. D. 70. All have been so scattered and intermixed amongst themselves and the Gentiles, that tribal lines are entirely obliterated; yet none will deny that they are the direct descendants of Abraham. The principles above set forth are not those which have been generally adopted in Baptist history. But the writer is persuaded that they are the only true channel through which it can be traced, and by which Baptists can be made a unit with Apostolic Churches, while visible descent and the unbroken succession of churches are not and cannot be a proper test in the matter, We enjoy the right of self-government in the United States by a regular descent of democracy from the Roman Republic, but it is impossible to trace its course by a line of democracies to which our own is the successor. But the two, separated so widely in point of time, are essentially the same in their liberties. Individuals have asserted the rights of man in every country, and bands have struggled to embody them in every government, but who will say that these have not been the true patriots of the world, because a perpetual and visible line of organized republics has not come down to us, side by side with a similar line of despotic governments?

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Historical truth applies the same processes to the several streams of natural science. Certain families and tribes are found in vegetable and animal life; that is to say, a given type multiplies itself into groups, sequence being our guide; yet no scientist discards faith in the existence of a type, because he cannot trace its visible sequence, while again and again he finds its outward course strangely resumed. So we speak of a people known as Baptists,' who have been substantially of one order of religious faith and practice, and have been made so by one order of religious principle. If crushed at one time, or entirely driven out of sight, others bearing the same Apostolic stamp and force have come forth to fill their places, under other names. A sunbeam is a sunbeam, no matter upon what putrescence it may fall, or with what pollution it may mingle; and by a ray of this character we thread our way from Christ down in ecclesiastical life. But the pretense that any one communion now on earth can trace its way down from the Apostles, in one line of fidelity and purity to New Testament teachings, is to contradict all reliable history. Dr. Abel Stevens says: Obscure communities, as the Cathari of the Novatians, the Paulicians, the Albigenses, and the Waldenses, maintained the ancient faith in comparative purity from the beginning of the fourth century down to the Reformation.' These and other sects held one or more distinctive Baptist principles, but none of them were thorough Baptists, through and through. A Baptist church is a congregation, and not a denomination of congregations, and find it in what nook we may, if it can trace its doctrines to the Apostles it is an Apostolic Church. A church,' says Dr. Ripley, 'that came into existence yesterday, in strict conformity to the New Testament principles of membership, far away from any long-existing church or company of churches, and therefore unable to trace an outward lineal descent, is a true Church of Christ. . . . While a church so-called, not standing on the Apostolic principles of faith and practice, and yet able to look back through a long line up to time immemorial, may have never belonged to that body of which

Christ is the Head.'

The reader of religious history must be as honest as its writer, for the one is as much exposed to bias as the other. Yet, the exact facts which are found by the truthful historian are often condemned unweighed, because they are unpalatable; and true chronicles are often buried under the abuse which they heap upon their subject. For some reason much of this unfairness crops out, with many, whenever the truths of the New Testament are under consideration. Hence a man only honors himself and the vital teachings of the Holy Spirit when he separates himself from all that is superficial in his own methods of examination. Above all people, Baptists should be content to separate their history from all questionable material, and to write and read it in the form in which facts have cast it, its complete touchstone being conformity to the Gospel. Those only have been Baptists who have conformed to this rule, from age to age, without addition or subtraction. Error must eternally remain error, and no antiquity can sanctify it into truth. For all the

ends of truth merely venerable custom is weak; yet, if a supreme love of truth does not force it back, it will dominate the mind through the senses, which are captivated by the hoary. As the dykes of Holland repel the approaches of the sea, so Baptists can only reserve the fairest provinces of truth by resisting ancient custom, simply because it is ancient. Ecclesiastical custom is as mutable as its maker, and yet, when an old practice conflicts with the New Testament, many make that practice the true interpretation of God's word without questioning its authority. Although not one jot has been added to the truth since the death of the Apostle John, the bare antiquity of a tradition enshrines it in the faith of many, especially if it came down from one of the so-called 'Fathers.' A late able scholar of Dr. Wayland's illustrated the feeling of many on this subject. He asked whether, if the doctor had lived near the time of Paul, his word would not have been weightier than that of other men. The great tutor replied, 'Yes, provided Paul had said in his writings, "I leave Francis Wayland my interpreter." And if not, how could he have interpreted an apostle better than any one else, without special inspiration from God? The noblest minds are often crippled by this straining after uninspired antiquity, under the notion that it must touch the divine, without reaching after Christ's infallible ideal, when it stands openly before their eyes.

Baptist historians have always written against great odds. Commonly those who rejected our principles in past ages were filled with bitterness, and destroyed the best sources of exact data in the shape of treatise, narrative and record. The hated party was weak, and the dominant sought its destruction. Often these helpless victims of tyranny were obliged to destroy their own documents, lest discovery should overwhelm them in calamity. We shall see also that while many of the old sects were more or less imbued with Baptist principles, each had its own class of deductions, convictions and practices. In consequence, what was a cherished faith with one was held in contempt by another, and these states of mind became a part of the men themselves. Their different stages of faith were different stages of consciousness; and it came to pass, that to oppose each other fiercely was to attain high fidelity. In the dreary weakness of human nature each man held his own sect virtuous and the other vicious, all the time forgetting that as relative bodies they modified each other, and were largely responsible for each other's conduct. Then, as the Baptists had control of no national government, they could not preserve their records as did others. They managed no legislation or system of civil jurisprudence, and could keep no archives, having no legal officers whose special business it was to store up and keep facts. Necessarily, therefore, what few records they have left are fragmentary, without due continuity of register, and almost barren of vital The hand which carried the sword to smite this people, carried also the torch to burn up their books, and their authors were reduced to ashes by the flames of their own literature. The material for building up their chronicles is both crude and scanty. The governing life of a people, and not circumstances alone, gives

events.

NEW TESTAMENT SUCCESSION.

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value to their claim, and so we are thrown back on principle and hard generalization.

If Baptist history be peculiar, it is only because they have been a peculiar people. Their enemies have always accounted them as 'heretics,' whose prime value was to keep a cold world warm by their use as fuel for the stake. Men have never been willing to understand them, because they never would accept them on their own showing, but have insisted on measuring them by other standards than their own. With a great price they obtained their freedom, and their radical individualism made them appear to other men as disturbing and even violent. In turn, almost every man's hand has been against them, and as a people of but one book, they have taken a fixed and sturdy character, which has made them look as if their hand was against every man. What Burke said of Americans, in another line, is true of them in their devotion to the Bible, namely: 'In no country, perhaps, in the world, is the law so general a study.'

We see, then, that Robinson, Crosby, Irving, Orchard, Jones, Backus, Benedict, Cramp, and other Baptist historians, have written under every possible disadvantage. Still, their work shows an instinctive love of the truth for the truth's sake, worthy of such veterans. Their spirituality is elevated, their piety without guile, their devotion to the Gospel ardent, and their historical acumen quite equal to that of other Church historians. In the main, their leading facts and findings have not been proven untrustworthy, and no one has attempted to show that their general conclusions are untenable. Possibly, their chief mistake has lodged in the attempt to find the stray and casual links of a certain order of churches which may, by accommodation, be called Baptist. The design of this work will be, to follow certain truths through the ages, on that radical Protestant principle which professes to discard the Romish claim of catholicity and succession, and so to follow certain truths down to their chief conservators of this time, the Baptists. By this method we can best understand their battles with error and power, their defeats and victories. In general history no writer will be content to seek a succession of kings and courts, of warriors and bloody fields, but he will find truth in the social and civil life of a people, in the march of constitutional freedom, and the phenomena of human elevation.

The best service that can be rendered to the Baptists is, to trace the noiseless energy and native immortality of the doctrines which they hold, after all their conflicts, to the glory of Christ, for it is exactly here that we see their excellency as a people. If it can be shown that their churches are the most like the Apostolic that now exist, and that the elements which make them so have passed successfully through the long struggle, succession from the times of their blessed Lord gives them the noblest history that any people can crave. To procure a servile imitation of merely primitive things has never been the mission of Baptists. Their work has been to promote the living reproduction of New Testament Christians,