adopt severe measures; and in 1400, a law was passed, sentencing Lollards to be burned to death. In Norfolk they abounded, and there they suffered severely. Bonner asked where the church was before Luther? Fox says, the answer might have been, "Among the Lollards in the diocese of Norwich." The first martyr under this law was Sir William Sawtre, who was of Baptist sentiments. Still the Bible-men increased, and became dangerous to the church. It is said they amounted to one hundred thousand. The printing of the Scriptures called forth Colet, Latimer, and others, to preach publicly, which aided the Bible-men, and led the way to the changes made by Henry VIII. Tyndale's New Testament threw a flood of light upon the English nation. The king's misunderstanding with the pope led him to relieve and encourage the Lollards everywhere; and their brethren, with foreigners of every sentiment, flocked into England to enjoy liberty, and strengthen true religion. A book of the Lollards, entitled "The Sum of the Scriptures," was examined by the archbishop; he condemned the party who circulated it, for denying the baptism of the church. Fourteen Mennonite brethren suffered death cheerfully; and the reproach of anabaptism now supplanted that of the word Lollardism. These martyrdoms did not check their sentiments, but rather led men to investigate them; and such was the alarm of the clergy, that a convocation was called, seventy-six of their alleged errors condemned, and measures devised for their suppression. Under Edward, the penal laws were repealed; the prisons were thrown open; and many who had expatriated themselves returned. The island was now divided into three religious sections, the Baptists, the Episcopalians of Rome, and the rigid Reformers from Geneva; these all had liberty to speak and print. The Baptists were soon charged with proselyting; and they became, Bishop Burnet says, very numerous in England. The clergy, not having the control of the sword, published their views on baptism; but the Baptists replied, "Children are of Christ's kingdom without water," Luke xviii. 16. So numerous were the Baptists, that in one town five hundred were said to live; and, as books did not answer the intended purpose, a commission was intrusted to Cranmer for their suppression, which entailed sufferings on many. The general pardon of 1550 again excepted the Baptists; the churches in Kent were disturbed, and some eminent men suffered. On Queen Mary's accession to the throne, all statutes in favor of the Protestant religion were repealed. Many nonconformists left the kingdom, but some exposed, to use Calvin's language, the fopperies of the hierarchy of England, which awakened the revenge of Mary's council. Measures were devised to stay Anabaptism; these brethren, notwithstanding, boldly declared, 1st,-That infant baptism was antiscriptural. 2d,That it originated with popery; and, 3d, That Christ commanded teaching to go before baptism. Mary's anger spent itself more particularly on the reformers. Elizabeth's reign promised liberty, but the conflicting opinions of the nation on the subject of religion reflected, she thought, on her prerogative. Not having succeeded in silencing the Baptists by proclamation, she commanded all Anabaptists to depart out of the kingdom within twenty-one days. On Queen Elizabeth's demise, James, king of Scotland, was welcomed to the throne. In Scotland he had experienced interruptions in his councils from the national clergy; and in his new situation many of these refused subscription to his articles of religion. To these indomitable spirits, James observed, "Your scruples have a strong tincture of Anabaptism." The king subsequently refused all concessions to nonconformists. The misrepresentations by which the pædobaptists assailed the sentiments of the Baptists at this period in reference to infant salvation were well calculated to prejudice their cause. The Mennonite brethren, or family of love, who had for half a century maintained their position in the kingdom, memorialized the king on these misrepresentations, hoping, from his inaugural declaration, to obtain protection; but their prayer was disregarded, and their situation became increasingly critical. Mr. Wightman, a Baptist was convicted | rouses the might which so often and so of divers heresies, Dec. 14, 1611, and was burnt soon after. Thus the first and the last martyrs in England were Baptists. Mr. Smyth, a leading minister among the Baptists, and his brethren, were the first to publish a work against persecution. It was entitled, "Persecution Judged and Condemned." This book was dedicated "to all that truly wish Jerusalem's prosperity and Babylon's destruction." It is. well written it mentions the long and harassing sufferings which the Baptists had been exposed to, and the patience with which they had endured them. In further vindication of their views, a Dutch work was translated, entitled, "A plain and well-grounded Treatise concerning Baptism." The contents of this little book occasioned considerable alarm, and the council was prevailed on to issue a proclamation against the Baptists and their books. They once more appealed to the king; avowed nobly their peculiarities, represented the hardships and grievances they had endured under his government, and entreated some mitigation of his measures. Their appeal, however, proved of no avail. long slumbers in a peasant's arm. He A perpetual feast of nectared sweets, "At the fount of holiest instruction he cleared his vision; and, from the mount of contemplation, breathed in worlds to which the heaven of heavens is but a veil. "But his soul was too free for the peace of his sycophantic associates; his principles were too philanthropic for the selfishness of that age; the doctrines which he scorned to disavow, were too noble for Old England,-and he sought an asylum among the icy rocks of this wilderness world. He came, and was driven from the society of white men, through wintry storms and savages more lenient than interested factions, to plant the first free colony in America. That boy was the founder of Rhode Island; that man was the patriot who stooped his anointed head as low as death for uni We have now arrived at a period of in-versal rights, and ever tense interests to the Baptists of the United States. Charles the first, in 1625, suc-Fought to protect, and conquered but to bless ;' ceeded to the throne of his father. Many Baptists, among others, who are usually denominated The Puritan fathers, had already left England, and laid the foundation of our country's freedom and happiness. "Early in the sixteenth century," writes Mr. Magoon, one of our own au thors, "in England, Sir Edward Coke, being in church, where lawyers went in those early times, he one day discovered a lad taking notes during service. Being pleased with the modest worth of the lad, he asked his parents to permit him to educate their emulative son. Coke sent him to Oxford University. He drank from the fountains of knowledge, and in those draughts he found The sober certainty of waking bliss.' "As the hart panteth for the water brooks,' he longed for the wisdom that that Christian was ROGER WILLIAMS, the first who pleaded for liberty of conscience in this country, and who became the pioneer of religious liberty for the world.” Governor Hopkins, every way qualified to speak on this subject, says: "Roger Williams justly claims the honor of having been the first legislator in the world, in its latter ages, that fully and effectually provided for and established a full, free, and and absolute liberty of conscience." As there are to be found in our country, even now, some who would depreciate this eminent man, we may be pardoned if we extract from the late Dr. W. E. Channing the following eulogium upon him: "Other communities have taken pride in tracing their origin to heroes and conquerors. I boast more of Roger Williams, the founder of my native state. The triumph which he gained over the preju dices of his age was, in the view of reason, more glorious than the bloody victories which stain almost every page of his tory; and his more generous exposition of the rights of conscience, of the independence of religion on the magistrate, than had been adopted before his time, gives him a rank among the lights and benefactors of the world. When I think of him as penetrating the wilderness, not only that he might worship God according to his own convictions of truth and duty, but that he might prepare an asylum where the persecuted of all sects might enjoy the same religious freedom, I see in him as perfect an example of the spirit of liberty as any age has furnished. "Venerable confessor in the cause of freedom and truth! May his name be precious and immortal! May his spirit never die in the community which he founded! May the obscurest individual, and the most unpopular sect or party, never be denied those rights of free investigation, of free utterance of their convictions, on which this state is established!" The reader, even if he should possibly have been ignorant till the present moment of Roger Williams, will soon see ground for these encomiums, and take a lively interest in the details we have to give. We shall be forgiven, if we now leave the English Baptists, and turn to our own fathers in the wilderness. Sympathizing, as we must do, in the trials of the Christians in England, we must be interested still more in the struggles of America; believing as we do, that the testimony of Hume as to the English puritans, is at least equally applicable to the first Baptists of this country; nor can we hesitate to say, "that by these alone the precious spark of liberty was kindled; and to these America owes the whole freedom of her constitution." Roger Williams was born in Wales, about the year 1599, of humble parentage. His education, under the patronage of Sir Edward Coke, has been already referred to; he received ordination in the Church of England, but having embraced Puritan principles, and therefore become opposed to all ecclesiastical tyranny, he sailed with his wife to this country, Dec. 1, 1630, and arrived at Nantasket, Feb. 5th fol lowing. He was soon after invited to become an assistant minister at Salem, and commenced his ministry in that town. It is not possible for us here to detail the conduct of Mr. Williams and the persecutions to which he was exposed, when it became known that he had embraced the views of the Baptists. Suffice it to say, that he was banished; and sought from the Indians the rights denied to him by Christians. With the origin of the State of Rhode Island and the city of Providence, our readers are, no doubt, well acquainted. Here he established the first State in the world founded on the broad principles of full religious freedom. He had been previously accused of" embrac ing principles which tended to ana-baptism;" and in March, 1639, he was baptized by one of his brethren, and then he baptized about ten more. Here was formed the first Baptist church in America. In 1663, the Church now worshipping at Swansea was formed by the Rev. John Myles, an ejected clergyman from England; in 1701 was formed the Church of Welshtract, now in the State of Delaware; in 1714, the first church in Virginia, in Prince George county; in 1741, the first church in the State of New York, at Oyster Bay, on Long Island; in 1762, the first in New York city, under the ministry of John Gano. A very large number of other churches have originated by ministers and others emigrating from England, Ireland, Wales and Holland, who had belonged to Baptist communities in their native land. From these humble beginnings "what hath God wrought!" This appears a proper place in which to introduce two or three paragraphs from an able article in the third volume of the Christian Review. The object of the writer is to show the influence exerted by the Baptist denomination on the extension of religious liberty. Having shown the intolerance of very many of the first Puritan fathers, the nature of the charter which Williams obtained for Rhode Island, and the noble course of conduct which the early inhabitants of that state pursued, he goes on to say: "In February, 1785, a law for the establishment and support of religion was passed in Georgia, through the influence of members, the two denominations differ widely: while a large portion of the former come into the church by birth, the latter enter on their own responsibility. They feel that they have rights, and prize them. One feature in the polity of the former renders it a kind of parental government, authorized to mould the opinions of its subjects before they are able to discern them. But from the first, the Baptists seem to have perceived the truth on this subject. Whether they derived it from particular texts, or from the general principles of the Bible, it is not now for us to inquire. Their knowledge on this subject is coeval with their existence as a distinct people. Religious liberty is a Baptist watchword, a kind of talisman, which operates like a charm, and nerves every man for action." of the Episcopalians. It embraced all de- | the Baptists. True; but in the reception nominations, and gave all equal privileges; but in May, the Baptists remonstrated against it, sent two messengers to the Legislature, and the next session it was repealed. In both ministers and members, they were much more numerous than any other denomination. Their preachers might have occupied every neighborhood, and lived upon the public treasury; but no,—they knew that Christ's "kingdom is not of this world," and believed that any dependence on the civil power for its support tends to corrupt the purity and pristine loveliness of religion. They therefore preferred to pine in poverty, as many of them did, and prevent an unholy marriage between the church of Christ and the civil authority. The overthrow of all the above-named odious laws is to be at tributed to their unremitting efforts: they generally struck the first blow, and thus inspired the other sects with their own intrepidity. It is owing to their sentiments, chiefly, as the friends of religious liberty, that no law abridging the freedom of thought or opinion, touching religious worship, is now in force to disgrace our statute books. It is not here asserted, that but for their efforts, a system of persecucution, cruel and relentless as that of Mary of England, or Catherine de Medicis of France, would now have obtained in these United States; but it is asserted, that the Baptists have successfully propagated their sentiments on the subject of religious liberty, at the cost of suffering in property, in person, in limb, and in life. Let the sacrifice be ever so great, they have always freely made it, in testimony of their indignation against laws which would fetter the conscience. Their opposition to tyranny was implacable, and it mattered not whether the intention was to tax the people without representation, or to give to the civil magistrate authority to settle religious questions by the sword. In either case, it met in every Baptist an irreconcilable foe. "The question may be asked, how should this denomination, in its sentiments of religious liberty, be so much in advance of the age! The form of church government established by the Puritans, was a pure democracy, and essentially that of Every thing relating to the History of the Baptists, in every portion of the United States, justified the testimony of Washington, in his reply to a letter from the Virginia Baptists in 1789, that the denomination" have been throughout America uniformly, and almost unanimously, the firm friends of civil liberty, and the persevering promoters of our glorious Revolution." "Involuntary respect goes forth to the man who brings to light some great and useful truth in the sciences or in the arts. Such was the discovery of the art of printing,-the power and uses of steam,— the true theory of the solar system: but what are these in comparison with the great moral truth which the Baptists have held forth before the public eye for centuries?-a truth without which life would be a burden, and civil liberty but a mockery. Nor is this all. While the Baptists have always defended the principles of religious liberty, they have never violated them. They have had but one opportunity of forming a system of civil government, and they so formed it as to create an era in the history of civilization. In the little Baptist State of Rhode Island was the experiment first attempted of leav ing religion wholly to herself, unprotected and unsustained by the civil arm. principles which were here first planted, have taken root in other lands, and have borne abundant fruit. The world is The coming nearer to the opinions of Roger Williams and so universally are his sentiments now adopted in this country, that, like other successful philosophers, he is likely himself to be lost in the blaze of his own discovery." It is impossible for us, within the limits to which we are necessarily confined, to detail the labors, the persecutions, or the successes of our venerated fathers and brethren. Suffice it to say, that every successive year has brought with it new blessings, and has shown the labors of our body in extending the pure doctrines of Christianity, securing the freedom of our country on its only firm basis, the doctrines of the New Testament, in preparing a constantly improving ministry, adequate to the progressive character of the times, and in the employment of the press to perfect the labors of the pulpit. It is a matter for devout gratitude that we have never, as a body, been called to deplore a retrograde movement; we have never been rent asunder by internal doctrinal dissensions: but have ever maintained one Lord, one faith, one baptism;" nor has the world ever before witnessed so rapid and so vast an increase to any one section of the Christian church. If we have been called to weep over the graves of many ministers and other Christians of eminence, we have been constrained to thank the Great Head of the Church for their piety and usefulness, and to rejoice that they have passed from their labor to their reward. 66 to this rapid sketch a very brief view of THE PRESENT STATE of the Baptist denomination throughout the world. Mr. Benedict says, "The increase of Baptists in this country, I have found far beyond my most enlarged conceptions. Somewhere between one-fourth and onefifth of the whole population of the United States is unquestionably identified with Baptist principles and institutions, and by far the greater part of them are of the associated connection." It would be altogether unnecessary in this place to assert the cordial attachment of the Baptists to the institutions of our country. They never persecuted any for holding sentiments different from their own. The people who could furnish such men as Roger Williams, a man who could persuade even Charles I. to favor toleration, and to charter entire freedom; who could furnish a General Harrison to Cromwell's army, and induce Baxter to tell us "the anabaptists were Oliver's favorites in conflict, and they are a godly set of men;"-who could provide one of their members to give, in the British House of Commons, the casting vote which sent for William III. of Orange, and thus produced the Revolution of 1688;-and as the Baptist congregation who gave to Jefferson the idea of the mode of governing these United States,-can never be likely to be otherwise than the friends of liberty, civil and religious. Indeed, happily for us, no one of our enemies ever charged us with intolerance; while our principles, our history, and indeed our interest, all bind us to claim freedom for ourselves, and to secure it, in all its fulness, to others. Let the history of Rhode Island, and of Baptists in every part of the world, bear It would indeed be pleasant to describe the times and the actions of Bunyan and Milton; to furnish the biographies of Gill and of Gale, of the Stennetts and the Rylands, of Pearce and many others of the mother country and to represent the lite-witness as to this matter. Those who conrary labors or Bible and missionary enterprise of Fuller and Carey, of Hughes and Hall, of Carson and Gregory, and a multitude of others of modern date; or to speak of the excellences of Baldwin and Stillman, of Staughton and Mercer, of Maxcy and Gano, and a vast cloud of other witnesses I who have borne testimony to the doctrines of the cross in our own favored land. But for all this we are compelled to direct our readers to other sources of information. We can do no more at present than add sider religion as entirely a personal affair, can never wish to bring each other under bondage. Of the Baptists wrote Bailey, a bitter opponent of our fathers, two centuries ago, and the sons differ not from their sires,-"They are a people very fond of religions liberty, and very unwilling to be brought under the bondage of the judgment of any other." It is generally known, that every church among the Baptists is considered in itself a complete ecclesiastical body, over which |