QUEENSLAND-NEW ZEALAND-TASMANIA. 939 QUEENSLAND. There were no Baptists in this colony in the old convict days, when the incorrigible from Port Jackson, New South Wales, were sent to Moreton Bay. But immediately upon the settlement of free persons a Church was established. Mr. Stewart preached for some time in the Court-house, he being followed by Rev. B. G. Wilson, in 1856, when a substantial chapel was built in Wharf Street, but a much larger and more beautiful building is now in course of erection. The Churches number 13, and have all sprung from this one Church, the Baptist Church membership of the colony being 1,355, with Sunday-school scholars under their care to the number of about 2,000. NEW ZEALAND. The principal Churches of this colony are at Dunedin, the capital in the South Island, and Auckland, the principal city of the North Island. The present pastor of the Church at Auckland is Rev. Thomas Spurgeon, son of the London divine. A Tabernacle, seating 1,500 people, has been opened, which is too small for the multitude who throng to hear him. This Church was organized by Rev. J. Thornton, and a few miles south-east of Auckland, Rev. Josiah Hinton, a son of the late John Howard Hinton, of London, is laboring earnestly. Flourishing young Churches are found, also, at Wellington, the capital, at Christ Church, Nelson and other places. About 50,000 only of the Maoris, the aborigines, are left, and the Baptists are doing something to bring them to Christ. Froude says that gunpowder, rum and tobacco have ruined this once noble race, which is so fast melting away before civilization. In the two Islands we have 23 Churches, and 2,398 members. TASMANIA. Rev. H. Dowling left Colchester, England, for this field in 1834; it was then known as Van Diemen's Land. He commenced at once to proclaim the Gospel, and for thirty-five years continued to preach in this beautiful Island. But the struggle was hard as well as long, for at present there are but 8 Churches with 404 communicants in the colony, and 625 scholars in the Sunday-schools. William Gibson, Esq., and his son, have recently built and presented to the denomination four beautiful church edifices, one at Launceston, with a seating capacity of 1,500, the others are at Perth, Coleraine and Longford. Although there are no Baptists in Western Australia, the progress made in the other colonies within the last ten years presents an encouraging feature in the ecclesiastical life of Australasia. Everywhere, heroic effort is made and new plans are projected for more thorough work. Men of large ability and experience are prosecuting these plans. James Martin, who was pastor of the Collins Street Church, Melbourne, for seven years, did much for our Churches, both as a preacher and writer; his name, with those of William Poole, David Rees, George Slade, Henry Langdon and Alexander Shain, has done much to stimulate the consecration of Baptists there, and others of equally heroic devotion are ready to enter into their labors full of work and full of hope. The denominational papers in Australasia, are The Banner of Truth,' in New South Wales; The Freeman,' in Queensland; and in South Australia, Truth and Progress.' 940 PERILS OF FALSE INTERPRETATION. And now, having traced the stream of truth in its flow from Bethlehem to this newest discovered end of the earth, which, though the largest Island in the world, may not improperly be called a continent, and has, because of its vast extent, been called the fifth quarter of the world,' we see how nearly primitive Christianity belts the globe in its new embrace of Southern Asia.' This history shows the extreme jealousy of the Baptists for the honor of Scripture as the revelation of Christ's will. For this they have endured all their sufferings, each pain evincing their love to him and their zeal to maintain his will according to the Scriptures. It appears to be as true of error as it is of the truth itself, that a little leaven 'leavens the whole lump,' when once it comes into juxtaposition with the genuine meal and the fermenting process takes up one single particle. Every individual error which has crept into the Churches since the times of the Apostles is directly traceable to a perversion of Scripture, and generally corruption of doctrine has come by the misinterpretation of Scripture. In most cases the rise of divergence from the Bible sense can be traced not only to a change of manner, however slight, but also to that change at a given point of time, and from these they have run to the very opposite of Christ's teaching and example. A marked illustration of this is found in both the Christian ordinances. Take, for example, the Supper. Our Lord instituted it in the evening and after he and his disciples had eaten the roasted paschal lamb with bread and herbs. But as if for sheer contradiction of Christ, in the days of Cyprian and Augustine, the Churches came to the notion that the Supper should be forbidden in the evening and taken in the morning while fasting. The pretense was, that reverence for Christ would not allow its elements to mingle with common food. So perfectly fanatical did men become in this perversion, that Walafrid Strabo said: "The Church has enjoined on us to act in the teeth of Christ's example and we must obey the Church.' He was the Abbot of Reichenau, A. D. 842, no mean authority; and a prolific writer, whose works, says Reuss, for several centuries formed the principal source and the highest authority of biblical science in the Latin Church, and were used down to the seventeenth century.' Dr. Hebbert says of him: 'He turns the argument round, aud puts it that those who think our Lord's example ought to be followed are calumniating the Church. in assuming that the Church would or could give a wrong order in such a thing!' So, the bulwark of infant baptism has been found in the words of Jesus: 'Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven,' despite the fact that one Apostle says, that he blessed them' and prayed for them,' but so far from saying that he baptized them, another is careful to say, that 'Jesus baptized not.' Exactly in the same way infallible headship is attributed to the Pope, from a false interpretation of the words: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church.' The power of priestly absolution is claimed on a perversion of the words: Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted to them.' By the same forced construction, auricular confession is extorted from SCRIPTURE THE INFALLIBLE TEST. 941 the passage 'Confess your faults one to another;' extreme unction, from a false use of the passage: 'Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil, and the Lord shall raise him up;' but this office is not done till the man is dying. Purgatory is drawn from the abused passage which speaks of Christ preaching to 'the spirits in prison; the right of private judgment is denied because Peter said: 'No prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation;' and the worship of Mary is enforced. because it is written: Blessed art thou among women.' The tortures of the Inquisition are justified because Paul said that he delivered Hymeneus and Alexander over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme,' and the burning of heretics, by the words of the same Apostle when he instructed the Corinthians to deliver the fornicator to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.' The truth can only be conserved by holding it in righteousness, without wresting it from its natural testimony and obliging it to do duty in enforcing the traditions of men. For this reason Baptists must ever keep the doctrines of Jesus and his ordinances, and the order of his Church, as they were delivered unto them, being faithful unto the death. This narrative makes it clear that the principles of New Testament Christianity have never been wholly eradicated from the consciousness of some Christians in history. When perversions and abuses have multiplied, and the most godly men have feared that a pure and spiritual Christianity was about to perish from the earth, God has not left himself without witnesses, who have appealed to the authority of his word against the corruptions of their age. Their testimony has been as enlivening as a gust of fresh air, fanning the latent spark of religious life into a blaze. When the purest organic communities have been interrupted and broken, the truth has never compromised itself any more than its Author has compromised himself. With more or less distinctness, individual believers have ever maintained the teachings of Christ. Their spirits have been emancipated from mere ecclesiastical authority, as they have sought with honest hearts to learn and to do the will of God revealed in the Bible. In doing this they have been the worthy successors of the Bible Baptists. These historical facts should give new hope to the Gospel Churches of our own times. Many who claim to be actuated by the scientific spirit and methods of our day, have proclaimed open hostility to all forms of assumed privilege and prescription. No institution, however venerable, can hold its own against this combination, unless it can show a valid reason for its existence. Many signs show that this attack will not cease until social order and possibly civil government have been fundamentally reconstructed. The Churches of Christ must also meet this assault. More and more their doctrines and observances must be called in question, and in so far as they are justified by an appeal to ancient traditions and usages, to old organizations and their authority, the advance of the modern spirit will prevail against them. Only those Churches which stand firinly upon the New Testament, holding no faith or practice but what it enjoins, will stand in a position that cannot be successfully assailed until their great Divine Charter is demonstrated to be of human origin. When the New Testament, which has survived in immortal youth and strength, despite all destructive forces, has been torn into shreds, then those Churches will wane, but not till then. Baptists have taken this impregnable position, and so long as they hold it, sophistry and contempt, either from Christians or skeptics, can storm their fortress no sooner than a handful of snow-flakes can storm Gibraltar. Such attacks will simply make manifest the strength and simplicity of the faith once delivered to the saints. They must fail when the word of God fails, but not till then; for God will honor them so long as they honor his word. The author's work is now done; and he here expresses devout gratitude to the Father of mercies for the health given him to finish his labor of love for the truth's sake. This work is now laid at his Master's feet as a tribute to the truth, for the edification of all who love the truth as Jesus revealed it in its fullness. It is tendered for the examination of all loving and candid Christians, regardless of name, with the fervent desire that it may be approved by the great Shepherd of the one flock, as an honest and faithful presentation of that truth which he promised should make his people free indeed. The writer's profound respect for other Christian denominations has not allowed him to utter a disrespectful word of them, however widely his views and theirs may differ on subjects which we hold to be very important. They are no more to blame either for the mistakes or faults of their forefathers, than Baptists are for the blunders or defects of their forefathers. When the countless millions of Christ's disciples meet our common Lord above, he will lovingly tell us which of us were right and which were wrong. If he shall say, 'My Baptist followers were mistaken in this or in that,' it will be their privilege to thank him for saving them despite these failures. And if he shall say, ‘My Pedobaptist followers were mistaken in this or in that,' the most ill-natured reply that any true Baptist can make will be: 'Dear brethren, we always told you so.' Then, for our eternal salvation, we shall all heartily sing together, 'Unto him who hath loved us and redeemed us unto God, unto him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.' |