become Christians? And do not Baptists dedicate their children just as truly to God as Paedobaptists, do they not train them just as carefully "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," and are not as large a proportion of them truly converted to Christ, and at as early an age? The answer to the first question must be, No; to the second, Yes. The doctrine of the evangelical Paedobaptist, as well as of the Baptist, is, that his child must be converted before he can be admitted to church privileges. Yet, like the Baptist, he believes that if his child had died unbaptized it would have been saved. What was the utility of the child's baptism? What did it contribute toward his. salvation, had he died in infancy? What did it contribute toward his regeneration and consequent participation in spiritual privileges when he grew up? If it does not insure salvation in case children die in infancy, and if it does not render their regeneration more probable if they live and reach the years of understanding, what conceivable benefits does it impart? Into what relation to" the general assembly and church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven," does it introduce the child? or how does it determine his status in relation to the visible church on earth? We do not know. The advocates of infant baptism do not tell us. They do not agree, as we have seen in the course of this essay; and, if for no other reason, then, for the very fact of this conceded perplexity of Paedobaptists in determining the status of baptized children -whether they are in the church, or out of it,- Baptists are justified in their opposition to it; for, as Edwards has said of it, "it is a matter liable to great disputes and many controversies." We wait, therefore, until they reach some conclusion satisfactory to themselves, and, in the meantime, shall continue to believe, with Edwards, that "the revelation of God's word is much plainer and more express concerning adults that act for themselves in religious matters, than concerning infants. The scriptures were written for the sake of adult persons, or those that are capable of knowing

1 Works, Vol. i. p. 90.

what is written. It is to such the apostles speak in their epistles, and to such only does God speak throughout his word. And the scriptures especially speak for the sake of those and about those to whom they speak."1

Here, then, we have the "conclusion of the whole matter" at issue between Baptists and evangelical Paedobaptists. It is not the mode of baptism. That is a point of difference; but it is subsidiary and secondary. The difference lies in the practical realization of the New Testament idea of a visible church composed of regenerate persons. This couception evangelical Paedobaptists have, and to a very great extent, they act practically upon it; but infant baptism is perpetually coming in conflict with it. The irrepressible child, who has been baptized in infancy, is demanding his place, and the great difficulty is to define the place he is to occupy. He is entitled to certain privileges because baptized; but he knows not what they are. Loyalty to the doctrine of regeneration denies him all privileges in the visible church, and granting him any endangers that doctrine. Paedobaptists are confessedly embarrassed, and must "go forward or backward." They must find "solid ground" for it, or abandon it altogether. So says Mr. Grout; so say many others substantially. Baptists have no such difficulty, and the reason is because their conception of the visible. church is essentially different. It is not composed of believers and their children, but of believers only. In the view of Baptists, the dispensation of the grace of God, inaugurated by the coming of Christ himself, and to continue in force until the last elect soul shall be regenerated and saved, is a "new thing in the earth." They see in it no perpetuation of the Jewish theocracy, or of the Judaic ritualistic. principles, or of the Abrahamic covenant. To them the present is an elective dispensation, not of parents and their children, or of entire communities, or of nations, but of individuals, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." Dr. Pressense, though not a Baptist, has so accurately de1 Works, Vol. i. 90.

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fined the Baptist conception of the church, that we here quote from him: "Placed beyond the external conditions. of Judaism, the church is primarily a moral and a spiritual fact. Born of a miracle, by a miracle it lives. Founded upon the great miracle of redemption, it grows and is perpetuated by the ever-repeated miracle of conversion. It is entered not by the natural way of birth, but by the supernatural way of the new birth. The church, resting on no national or theocratic basis, must gather its adherents simply by individual conviction." This is precisely where Baptists stand, and have ever stood. This is the New Testament ideal, and they have struggled to realize it. It is the practical realization of a regenerated church-membership, and infant baptism can never be made to harmonize with it.

ARTICLE VI.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE PULPIT.

BY REV. JOHN BASCOM, D.D., PROFESSOR IN WILLIAMS COLLEGE.

THE figures that chiefly occupy the historic field, that move across it with pomp and power, drawing after them great masses of their fellow-men, are kings and warriors. There is one character, however, more quiet and stealthy in movement, more sombre in aspect, in the rear of armies and thrones, deriving its force from the constant fears and hopes of men, that has possessed a stronger influence over the character and destiny of society than these the stately, long-robed, solemn priest. He has rarely done the bidding of kings; kings have often done his bidding. He has seldom feared kings; kings have frequently feared him. By rarest accident has the spiritual power slipped from his hand; more than once has he found it easy to grasp a temporal sceptre. Dominion has been divided and subdivided, ad

1 Apostolic Era, p. 24.

justed and readjusted by kings; but great revolutions of races and religions, the epochs of ideas, have been characterized by his presence.

The priest, who has been casting a shadow, always portentous, often dark and distressful, on human affairs, was displaced in the Christian economy by the preacher. His ghostly functions, his solemn ceremonial, his representative capacity gave way to instruction, guidance, stimulus-a simple participation with others in God's truth. This was the dethronement of the priest, and the birth of power for the preacher. A new power, a new eloquence thenceforward found place in society and in the schools; and sacred oratory stood the peer, and more than the peer, of deliberative oratory in theme and influence. Both arose with liberty, and an influential pulpit seals the largest liberty - that of the mind and heart. But kings do not easily forget their crowns, nor the people their servitude. The horn that was broken began to grow again, and the priestly function came forward in Catholicism with more tyrannical claims and outstretched power than ever before. It bent its new, spiritual force to a secular end, and set up a more pronounced and permanent regency of heaven on earth. In Protestantism there came a second establishment of religious liberty, and a planting of the pulpit once more as the point of contact and diffusion in the spiritual world, the seminal centre of religious truth and influence. So stands the question to-day in the free and progressive portions of the earth. Christianity has its advocates, those who imbue themselves with its truths and its spirit, who administer its simple ritual and strengthen its organizations; who stand ready to do, as they are able, the religious work of the world, whether of evangelization or instruction, of rebuke, stimulus, or consolation. Their commission is the simple one of preaching the gospel. The influence of this class of laborers on the world's well-being is our subject.

The pulpit has been disparaged in various quarters; this partly, perhaps, in revenge for the wrongs of the past. Thus

many, slipping the yoke of kings, have not been content even to take that of republics. In each case alike, the past could not part with what it had, nor can the present live otherwise than in and by its own institutions. Every form of control becomes a tyranny when it lingers too long; yet, in most cases, it must abide till the new bud is strong enough to burst its cerements and grow beyond them. When it was proposed, as a clause in the Constitution of New York, that no minister should be allowed to hold office within her borders, proof was given of an irrational fear and dread, such as make one cautious of eating who has been poisoned in his food. Aside from this resentfulness, which belongs to minds but half emancipated from the past, and still unable to see the service rendered by religion along the road actually travelled by the race, there are other grounds on which the influence of the pulpit is depreciated.

All who under-estimate elementary work and elementary ideas, who fail to appreciate the vast expenditures of force in keeping the world where it is, and thus giving it, as the times favor, the opportunity of further progress, are sure to decry the pulpit. They fail to see that ethical ideas are the foundation of the common weal, and, still more, to see that these do not, cannot hold their own without endless reiteration. It is easy to aggregate the labors of the Sabbath-to say: Here are so many thousands of educated workmen, and so many millions of sermons in these United States as their combined annual product. What, we pray, is the result?' No wealth, no new industry or invention being forthcoming in answer, the inquirer holds the field himself, and responds: 'Air; a receiving and giving of common-places, a gathering into words of what their auditors believe, and restoring it to them once more as if it were new truth.' We bid those capable of understanding the answer look at teachers, fourfold more numerous, and able, as the joint fruit of their labors, to show only communities that can read, write, wield in an awkward way the elements of knowledge. So much does it cost to work anew under each generation the merest founda