Pedobaptists who will maintain that their observance of the leading Christian rite is in the strict sense scriptural, as respects either its mode or its subjects; there are many of them who think it sufficient to trace an observance or principle of organization to the second or third century. The plea, in fact, that this or that in Christian organization or Christian rite is "non-essential" is a direct and palpable violation of that principle in Protestantism which declares that all things, in Christian faith and practice, shall be tried and proved by the Scriptures. The Baptists, at the outset of their present denominational organization, brought nothing papistical with them, because, as a people, they had never been in any papistical connection. They belong to the general body of Protestants, only in the sense of standing opposed to "Catholicity" in all its forms. They were not represented at the Diet of Spire because not of those who had ever acknowledged in any way the Pope or his laws. The first principles of Protestantism had been their principles from time immemorial, and it is no assumption in their descendants now to say that if Protestantism had been as true to its own first principles as they and their fathers, through the long line of their "succession," have been, "Catholics" like Dr. Ewer would not have found such a superabundance of "sects" to sneer at as is now the case.

II. The second special fault in the practical development of Protestantism of which we propose to speak, is inharmonious working of instrumentalities. "Catholicity" has a certain apparent advantage in the perfection of its machinery. Simply as machinery it is beyond comparison superior to anything Protestantism has yet produced, or, we trust, will ever produce. Ages have been industriously devoted to its construction, and to the perfection of its parts. There is a certain advantage, no doubt, so far as mere uniformity of faith and practice is concerned, in having at Rome, at St. Petersburg, or at Lambeth, in the Catholic climacteric, a theological and ecclesiastic fugleman, whose every utterance and motion shall be copied and repeated all over the world. There is an advantage, to the same end, in being able with efficient pains and penalties to control every Catholic who becomes recalcitrant, to regulate the smallest detail of a priest's dress, and to make sure that in the prayer-book there shall not even be a comma out of place. How much is gained to the cause of religion in the operation of such machinery, is quite another question. Protestantism, at all events, has none such, and the disadvantages it labors under in consequence it must bear as it may. "Catholicity," it is certain, never has the pain of seeing its parishes "burnt over with revivals." It has the most ample success in keeping the

spiritual atmosphere "neither cold nor hot," and may justly claim that rarely if ever does an earnest zeal disturb the boundaries of a decorous formality. Its lay-element it holds in with bit and bridle; an accomplishment in which it has the satisfaction to see its skill emulated by some Protestant denominations. The trailing robes of its priesthood are seldom or never trodden upon by the foot of the laity, and it runs no risk of being travestied or misrepresented by the blunders of some unclerical tongues. Protestantism must confess itself at a disadvantage, in all these particulars.

In seriousness, it is undeniably the fact that Protestantism has suffered a degree of temporary damage through its deficiency of machinery, although this is almost infinitely compensated in other ways. Upon the Protestant system it is competent for any man or any association of either men or women, to originate measures in the general work, and to work quite after their own fashion. They are restrained only by those inevitable conditions which affect all human undertakings, and in accordance with which what is feeble must die, what is foolish will be smothered in the ridicule it causes, what is outlandish will excite only contempt. Subject to those conditions Protestant men and women are workers in a common field with equal privileges allowed to all. The consequence is that many things arise in the nature of projects, schemes of reform, methods of evangelism, associations and combinations of various sorts, some of which provoke public laughter, some come into collision with more settled and orderly methods, some are found to have in them germs of the largest good, and capabilities of adjustment with the general system which render them ultimately, if not at first, of the greatest benefit. There has been a great deal outre, and in some respects damaging, in the current revivalism. Yet he is a most superficial observer or a most unfair reasoner who does not admit that all the same this method of Christian work has been, and is, of vast service to the cause of piety, and of mighty power in the conversion and salvation of man. The lay-element in Protestant churches is not always judicious in its zeal, and pretentions are sometimes put forward by the advocates of some of the associations in which this element is chiefly represented, which can by no means be admitted. These are but the early, crude manifestations of a power in the churches which has been latent quite too long. They have in themselves the principle of their own cure. For the time, these things seem to mar the beautiful order of Christ's earthly kingdom, and to deface, almost to dishonor, the fair structures of religion. They are, in fact, that process of self-education through which Protestantism, like every other active force, must pass, and how

ever some present damage may appear, they are no more signs of "failure" than is the misshapen limb of a tree a reason why it should be condemned to the axe and the flame.

III. What we notice, last of all, is deficiency of spiritual power. The simplicity of form given to the kingdom of God on earth by the hands that first wrought upon its structure, must impress every thoughtful reader of the New Testament. Of the cumbrous and complicated system with which ecclesiastical history subsequently makes us acquainted, there is then not a trace. The local church, its pastor, its preached word, its ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper, these are the whole of it. Of any intention that by a combination of churches, by grades of ministerial office, by right of legislation and right of rule assumed and exercised by popes, by councils, by consistories, by synods, of an intention that by such means consummated in alliances between the church and the State, there should grow up any vast ecclesiastical system, there is no sign whatever. Every proper aim which may have been contemplated in any of these additions to the originally simple order was to be reached in quite another way. The church unity was to be "unity of the spirit in the bond of peace." The law that should rule was to be always "the law of Christ," according to which Christians are not to impose burdens, but "bear one another's burdens." Discipline and government were to have always one intention, to "gain" the "brother," and their exercise was lodged, simply, solely, and finally, in the church. "Tell it unto the church," is always the first thing and the last thing to be done, when proper personal endeavor to "gain" the offender shall have failed. There is not, in all history, a more amazing example of what human ingenuity can do in perverting original simplicity into ultimate complication, an order of things beautiful for fitness to a single design into cumbersome and bungling ill-adaptedness, than what one sees in "Catholicity" as compared with the church of the New Testament. Protestantism has not thoroughly done its work, we are sorry to say, in restoring that simple order, but it is to its praise that it has at least made the attempt.

Now, it is manifest that the efficiency of the New Testament church was conditioned upon its spirituality. Such a simple order could be made equal to a contest with organized error throughout the world, only as it should be filled, pervaded, and made mighty "through God." Catholicity sought the same, and by a different method, and upon a different condition, and failed. Protestantism, if it recovers the method, takes with it the condition. The power of Protestantism, if it has any, is spiritual power. Its other deficiencies and faults will

find a remedy when this deficiency is met. Nor can one set a limit in his thoughts, to the power a body of Christians would have, who should loyally adopt, and faithfully carry out to their last result the principles so nobly avowed now almost three centuries and a half ago, and in doing this seek and have a measure of spiritual power like that which dwelt in the churches of the earliest age. Sectarian divisions and rivalries could not live under such conditions; infidelity would be abashed, and its irreverant clamor die into murmurs, if not into silence, in presence of God's church thus made "fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners;" collisions of methods and instrumentalities would rarely then be seen, and personal and other emulations be sanctified by a nobler zeal; while "Catholicity" would begin to see, at last, the futility of these mummeries over each childish toy of which it now watches with such grave concern. If God will give his churches, in answer to their more earnest prayer, a larger measure of spiritual power, then will be found in this the remedy for the faults of Protestantism, and the best refutation of the charge that Protestantism is a failure.

CHICAGO, ILL.

J. A. SMITH.

Baptist History: from the foundation of the Christian Church to the close of the Eighteenth Century. By J. M. CRAMP, D. D., author of "A Text-Book of Popery," "The Reformation in Europe," etc., etc. Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 530 Arch St.

THIS work supplies a lack which has long been felt. Dr. Cramp

deserves the gratitude of every Baptist. He has wrought a good work and wrought it well. He makes no pretence of encyclopædic learning. He does not ballast his pages with multitudinous references, for a vain show. But no one can read this work without recognizing the genuine piety, the sincere desire for truth, the diligence, sound judgment, and caution of the author. He does not protess to know the secret of God,-where the church was after God drove her into the wilderness. He marks the fading of her light as she is withdrawn, and hails with joy her reappearance. When the record stops he is not ashamed to confess that he knows no more, and does not hazard mere conjectures. Where the record is clear, he does not fail to give us, with hearty sympathy, in good terse English, the simple story of the people, to whom, under God, we owe the transmission, through blood and tears, of the precious principles we hold.

At the present day it is thought by some eminent Christians, Principal Cunningham among the number, to be of small account how we define a church, except that it consists of believers. But the reformers, and the giant theologians of the seventeenth century, thought it of vast importance to set forth very carefully-worded defi