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HEROES AND HIERARCHS

Biblical Principles as Held by Baptists in the
Contention for Religious Liberty

BY
SAMUEL HASKELL, D. D.
Professor in the Department of Biblical Study in Kalamazoo College

With an Introduction dv
JUSTIN A. SMITH, D.D.
Editor of The Standard

Published for the Educational Board of the Michigan
Baptist Convention

Copyrighted i89S, by S. Haskell.

WZ7

M^

This book is a gift in perpetuity to the Baptist
Convention of the State of Michigan, for the
benefit of the Fund for Aiding Christian Stu
dents. Each copy sold therefore adds its full
price to that fund. It is designed for general
circulation, but is also specially commended for
use in Young People's Societies, by Dr. Price, of
the Baptist Young People's Union.

WIW

PREFACE.

IN the Centennial review of the forces which have
been engaged in modern foreign missions, the po
sition of honor was, by common consent, assigned to
the Baptists. This is because they were first called
into service by the Commander in Zion ; and also
because he has so placed and so inspired them as to
make their achievements conspicuous. Their heroic
leaders, who have served and fallen on many fields,
gained renown throughout the Christian world. And
of the great array afield to-day, advancing to the
conquests of the future, the hosts of this denomina
tion, increased in numbey and perfected in equip
ments, are a leading division.
This high distinction must give added interest,
with religious people, to the important features of
the history of this body of Christians, and to the
study of the principles which distinguish them.
Especially will such interest and study attend the
work of the Young People's Union, one of whose
constitutional objects is "Instruction- in Baptist
Doctrine and History ; " and helps in such instruc
tion, produced by extended research, will be appreci
ated. To supply such helps to the generations as
[3]

4 PKEFACa
they come upon the field of service is a responsible
duty resting upon individuals and societies.
The celebration also of the four hundred years of
American history, with the United States in the
front, showing the wondrous results of civil and re
ligious freedom here wrought out, commends fresh
research into the history of this great principle. The
struggles and sacrifices through which it has won its
way into fellowship and honor among the nations,
claim studious recognition and grateful remembrance.
And thankfulness for the overruling providences of
God, which have so nearly freed mankind from the
necessity of suffering as in the long and terrible past,
should be piously stimulated, while the "eternal
vigilance which is the price of liberty" should be
made more intent in keeping its watch and ward.
While the author believes that the foundation and
frame of his work are all his own, much of the ma
terial with which it is covered and finished had, of
course, to be taken from the stores which the labor
of others has provided. When the same matter is
found in various works, quotation marks alone dis
tinguish what is copied. Indebtedness to a single
author is usually credited.
The biography of Isaac Backus being out of print,
and his history little accessible, it seemed important
to copy considerably from them the documents bear
ing on the subject of the present volume.
This work, it will be seen, is not a history of the
Baptists, but rather of those Bible principles, and

PEEFACg. 5
their representatives of whatever name, which have
been met by persecution. While this subject has had
frequent treatment in occasional discourses, and in
treatises on limited fields of history, or incidentally
in general Christian history, it is believed that a
comprehensive presentation of it is yet a desideratum,
and that its vital bearing on all that is best in hu
man progress and greatest in Christian beneficence,
awaits a just revelation.
The history of the Christian religion exhibits
throughout, as among its worst foes, those of its own
nominal household, and of these foes the leaders
have been and are hierarchs. Priestly usurpers and
ecclesiastical orders, constructing and operating
church .establishments, have inflicted a tyrannical
lordship over God's heritage.
Under the Old Testament dispensation, priests,
high and lower, were leigitimate, for the Lord's
will was but in process of revelation, and his teaching
and guidance were directly through his appointed hu
man ministers ; bat whenever ungodly men usurped
the office for selfish ends, it became mercilessly per
secuting to God's faithful servants. Thus the high
priestly commander of the temple scourged and im
prisoned the faithful Jeremiah for speaking what
God sent him to the temple to speak. And, as a
class, those "pastors of the people," " shepherds
that feed themselves and feed not thefiock," had de
nounced upon them the heaviest woes.
In Christ's time the blameless and dutiful priests,

6 PEEFACE.
like Zacharias, had become almost extinct, and a
race of oppressors had succeeded in the office. Their
plots against the life of the Lord were early formed
and persistently worked until, from the weak hands
of the cowardly Roman governor, he was delivered
up to them to be crucified. Beneath the whited
surface Christ had seen the deadly wickedness all
the while, and against it his most scathing woes
had been hurled. There is nothing that merits
denunciation so much as when " Satan fashioneth
himself into an angel of light."
When Christ, by his teaching and his offering
himself a sacrifice " once for all," had opened to all
comers the new and living way of access to God, and
had given to each soul to read for himself "all things
that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowl
edge of him," priests and potentates in religion were
forever retired. Their office expired by limitation,
never to be revived. Christ is sole and sufficient as
"High Priest over the house of God," and his
blood-purchased ones "of every tribe and tongue
and people and nation" are made a kingdom and
priests, not over other men, but unto our God.
Hence, after Christ's ascension, there should never
have been on earth a sacerdotal office or order, and
claimants of these have all been, blindly or impiously,
arrogant pretenders. Yet the burners of New Testa
ment inspiration were scarcely all lighted. up before
the class of Diotrephes, loving to have the pre-emi
nence, and prating with- evil words, intruded among

PEEFACE. 7
the disciples, prohibiting in the churches and cast
ing out of them whom they would ; and this intru
sion and assumption, claiming hierarchical power and
exercising it tyrannically, have never ceased to infest
the Lord's heritage.
It is the design of this volume to show how the
principles of the word of Christ, embodied in heroic
defenders of them, have contested the domination of
these usurpers, and that these principleg are the
ones which have ever been held and contested for
by such Christians as in the recent centuries have
come to be called Baptists.
It will be necessary, therefore, first to distinguish
and place in clear view the Bible principles specially
involved in this contest. We shall then be prepared
to trace their warfare, and identify their assailants
g,nd defenders.
Attention is invited to the specific source whence
those principles are deduced which enter into the
constitution and govern the work of the Christian
church, as an organized, aggressive body. The same
deduction might have been made from other sources
in the Scriptures, but it seemed most fit to take the
teaching at its fountain head, if that has been rightly
identified. The author ventures also to ask particular attention
to Part II of the book, in its illustrative bearing
upon the great work of missions. If the showing is
just, it deserves a prominence which it has not had
in missionary literature ; and the stories of heroic

PREFACE.

suffering and sublime achievement, no longer in the
current reading of the people as they were scores of
years ago, should not be allowed to become forgot
ten and unknown. To an "Old Mortality," the
work of chiseling the moss off from the memorials
of these endurances and victories, has been pecul
iarly a fond one.
The closing chapter is thought to be germane to
the subject, and of timely appropriateness.

CONTENTS

Page.
Introduction . . . . .17
PAET I.
Kegeneeate Piety and Keligious Liberty.
CHAPTEE I.
The Story of the Church . . . .31
Plan of the church foreshown — Three mistakes —
What Christ taught in the case — The first prepared
and selected stone — Gathered to it others like — Im
pregnable — Endowed with self-government — The
honey-bee — Religious liberty involved — Other prin
ciples—The same plan foreshown in the prophets —
Ezekiel — Habitation of the Spirit — Word of Christ
the only authority — The "entering in," regenerate,
baptized ^ " The goings forth," perpetual saving in
fluences — Who have assailed — Who have maintained.
CHAPTEK II.
Heroes op the Apostolic Period . . .44
Peter the first to receive the assault of the hierarchy
— The banner principle of the centuries displayed —
Stephen — The converted Saul set upon — Followed to
his death — James slain to please the titled Jews —
Heresies which had to be met brought in by Judaiz-
ing leaders and priestly pagans — Love, the principle
in Christian leadership — Antichrist — Apostle John
— "Born of God," the burden of his ministry — Ebio-
nites — Gnostics — Nicolaitans — Docetoe — Resistance
of these errors a Baptist characteristic.
[9]

10 contents.
CHAPTER TIL
From the Apostolic Period to the Imperial . 58
Regenerate piety the safeguard — Graceless hierarch
ies responsible for what is unloving and malevolent —
Roman paganism joins in the p^secutions — " Three
million" martyrs — Pliny's account — Polycarp —
Tertullian — Faithful women — Infant baptism op
posed — Its origin — Novatian — Church purity — First
substitute for immersion — Donatus — The double per
secutions — Constantine the heartless politician —
State church and dissent.
CHAPTER IV.
Voices op the Night . . . . .74
The world usurps the place ot the church — The fight
for liberty maintained — Execration by the Council of
Carthage — Death for baptism — Jovinian — Theodoric
the Goth — Peter Waldo — Bible suppressed — Terrible
persecutions — Protests and reliefs by Milton and
Cromwell — Branches from the Waldenses — Testi
mony of Holland's historians.
CHAPTER V.
Heralds op the Morning . . . . .89
Story of Wycllflfe — High position in university,
church, and government — Scriptures above the pope
— Personal freedom — Ordinances for believers only —
Deadly opposition — First translation of the Bible
into English — The Lollards — Great diffusion of the
word of God — John Huss a disciple of Wyolifle —
Gospel teaching — Immersion — Shining martyrdoms
— Jerome of Prague — Learning and piety — Papal
eulogy of him, and admiring description of his mar
tyrdom.

contents. Il
CHAPTER VI.
The Story op the Anabaptists ... 99
Misrepresentations — Miinzer — Anabaptists defined
and identified — Their stand for "the Bible alone"
— Inconsistency of Luther and Zwingle — Extent and
horrors of suffering — League of the Spanish and
French kings — A colony massacred — Slaughterers
"discouraged" — Eminent victims — Hubmeier —
Mantz — Hetzer — The Mennonites — Menno — Their
patriotic service — William of Orange.
CHAPTER VII.
Baptists and Religious Liberty in England 108
Wyclifle's followers — The Lollards — Burning at the
stake — The special doom of those who "held that
infants ought not to be baptized " — Tyndale — Henry
Vlll^ Church of England — Its persecutions — Noble
women, "dispensers of Tyndale's New Testament,"
and of "the wicked opinions of the Baptists," burned
at Smithfield — "Bloody Mary" — Elizabeth's cruel
ties — First appearance of modern organized Baptists
in England — English Baptists in Holland — Printed
confession — Edward Wightman burned — Baptists
stood alone for religious freedom — Charles I — A
grave in the highway — Life-imprisonment — West
ward ho ! CHAPTER VIII.
The Story op Roger Williams . . . 117
His early life in England — What distinguishes his
subsequent work — The three settlements and poli
ties in New England — Williams's dissent on Baptist
grounds — His spirit — Accusations and decree of ban
ishment — His escape through the wilderness — Pur
chase and settlement and compact at Providence —
John Clarke, the first Baptist minister in America —

12 COlfTENTS.
Imprisonment in Massachusetts — Mission to England
— Authorship — Closin'g; labors and character — Will
iams's leadership in civil affairs — Justice and friend
liness toward the Indians — Dr. Guild's vindication.
CHAPTER IX.
Constitutional Religious Freedom Throughout
America : Early Colonial . . .130
Citizenship restricted to church members — Meetings
of dissenters prohibited — Threats of hanging for " in
fectious error " — Banishment for opposing infant bap
tism — The "Bloody Tenet" discussion — Whipping
of Rev. Obadiah Holmes — Challenge accepted — First
church in Boston nailed up — Other colonies — Sir
Henry Vane — No compromise.
CHAPTER X.
Constitutional Religious Freedom Throughout
America : Later Colonial. Story op Isaac
Backus  149
His period and general work — Monument at Middle-
borough — The new lights — The Backus family under
church discipline — Isaac emigrates — His mother in
jail — A Separatist Congregational pastor — Becomes
a Baptist — Warren Association puts him on service
for religious liberty — Petition to Massachusetts — Of
ficial circular to the Baptists — Letter to Dr. Stennett
— Plan of action by Baptist churches — Letter to
Samuel Adams.
CHAPTER XI.
Constitutional Religious Freedom Throughout
America : the Continental and Colonial
Congresses . . . . . .170
Generail adoption of the Rhode Island principle agi
tated—Congress of 1774- Baptist deputation — Me-

contents. 13
morial by President Manning — Special grievances
in Massachusetts — Violations of Charter — Defective
legal reliefs — Ashfield sufferers — Liberty the demand
— Demur by John and Samuel Adams, and R. T.
Paine — Backus's reply — Adams's prejudiced report
and insinuation — Backus presents a vindication and
memorial to the Massachusetts Congress — Pennsyl
vania Baptists persist tn effort — Massachusetts prom
ises, but long defers — Virginia more prompt — Posi
tion of her leading statesmen — Massachusetts finally
grants equal liberty.
CHAPTER XII.
Constitutional Religious Freedom Throughout
America : National Achievement . . 186
In forming the national organic laws, religious liberty
demanded — Declaration of Independence — Jeffer
son's antecedents — Ordinance of 1787 — Convention
which formed the national Constitution — "To secure
the blessing of liberty" — Baptists demanded more
specific provisions — Virginia Baptists — Madison aids
them — Washington pledges — Backus's efforts — First
Amendment — German historians' testimony.
CHAPTER XIII.
Religious Liberty in Higher Education . .195
Church-and-State schools — Harvard — Large gifts by
Baptists to open its privileges equally to all — Persecu
tion of its president, as a Baptist — Sketch of Dunster
— Tributes to his character and work — Yale perse
cutes — Founding of Rhode Island College — Its char
ter — Its influence for freedom, and spiritual Chris
tianity — Its policy becomes prevailing.

14 contents.
PAET II.
Baptist Missions and Religious Liberty.
CHAPTER XIV.
The Forerunner in the Modern Missionary Era. 209
The missionary spirit demands liberty — Roger Will
iams the first modern missionary among pagans —
Eliot later — Williams's earliest, constant, and latest
work — His Baptist profession^ Providence Park and
monument secured by his Indian friends — His work
inaugurates civil and religious freedom.
CHAPTER XV.
The Story op William Carey . . . .216
Hoary despotisms of Asia — East India Company in
complicity with pagan atrocities — Sketch of Carey —
Burdened for the salvation of the heathen — Baptist
Missionary Society — Wonderful acquisitions in lan
guage — Compelling government patronage — Increased
favor and fruits in the mission — Andrew Fuller —
Suttee prohibited — Wonderful Bible translation and
literary work — Eulogies — Marshman, father and son.
CHAPTER XVI.
The Story op Judson  225
Burmah as he found it — Driven to and fro by the in
tolerant East India Company — Imperiled, fined, im
prisoned by the Burman despotism — The terrible
twenty-one months — "The ministering angel" —
Judson instrumental in securing liberty in the treaty
of peace — Its boundaries extended — Present state 
Church at Ong-pen-la.

contents. 15
CHAPTER XVII.
The Story op the Haldanes .... 232
Baptist evangelism and religious freedom in Great
Britain — The Haldane brothers — Foreign mission
scheme ot Robert — Defeated by the company —
Home evangelizing by the brothers — Ministry of
James — Mission of Robert to the Continent — France
— Switzerland — Opposition of state church and uni
versity — Conversion of ministers and students — D' Au-
bigne — Malan's sensation — Southern Prance — A
pure Bible — Controversy on the Apocrypha — Schools
for the ministry. CHAPTER XVIII.
The Story op Oncken ..... 250
Fruit of the Haldane Mission in Europe — Evangelical
societies — Oncken sent — His baptism, and planting
the Hamburg church — The great conflict opened —
Oncken's sufferings throughout Northern Europe —
Preaching in prison — Koebner and the Munsters in
Denmark — Norway — Sweden — " Fifteen times in
prison" — Mecklenburg fugitives — Deputation from
England — United States government — Conant and
Hackett — Present state and summary of results.
CHAPTER XIX.
Remainders op Persecution .... 269
Baptists still at the front — Seventh-day Baptists suf
fer — Tennessee courts do not protect — Other States
— Government support of denominational schools —
Who lead in rejecting and protesting — Hierarchical
attempts in persecution In Canada — In Cuba — Rus
sian persecutions — Boasts of bishops in the Parlia
ment of Religions — Buddhists — Greek Church —
Other state churches — Africa -^r "Days of grief num
bered."

16 contents.
CHAPTER XX.
Unity in Fellowship, Diversity in Vision . . 285
The persecutors' plea — The opposite truth — Union
not oneness — Unity conditioned on what — Its prin
ciple compels differences until knowledge is per
fect — Paul's rule — All true Christians in fellowship
— Union may destroy this — Illustration — Symbol of
the hierarchical spirit — Baptist principles expel the
persecuting spirit — Respect for their consistency —
John Hall — Howard Crosby — Denominational jour
nals — Complaint of too many churches in a commu
nity — "The Christian League of Connecticut" —
Baptists excusable — Noble avowal of Lincoln.

INTRODUCTION.

the hieeaechioal element in histoey.
THE priest in history is a figure which must be
studied if much of history itself is to be well
understood. Priesthood and kingship have filled
great parts in the drama of humanity, and to the
sinister confederacy between these two, it is in
large measure due that the drama of humanity has
in some ages of the world become so tragic.
The priest, also, in much that we find recorded of
him, is an example of that perversion of the good
which changes it to evil. It is because there is,
among men, religion, and in religion the mediato
rial idea, that such a thing as priesthood was ever
possible. The function of the priest, whether real
or assumed, is necessarily religious ; and it is the
mediatorial idea in religion which makes his function
so much a distinctive one. That question which a
prophet of old puts in the mouth of a seeker after
truth, — " Wherewith shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before the high God ? " — has been
heard among men from the days of Abel until now ;
among men of all conditions, all degrees of intelli
gence, and religious insight. It is as common to
2 117]

18 introduction.
men as is the sense of ill-desert, and that sense of
ill-desert must be present wherever there is a con
science in any degree enlightened and faithful to its
trust. Because of this urgent sense of need for some me
dium of approach to Deity, some propitiatory media
tion, the priest exists. Whether as officiating amid
the pomp of cathedral splendor, or as the half-crazed
medicine man of the American Indian, he has the
same attribute and the same pretension, while save
in one exceptional sphere he is always a pretender
and a deceiver. Priesthood, apart from that divine
appointment for which the types of the ancient dis
pensation prepared the way, and which, fulfilling
those types in the person and office of the great
High Priest of our Christian profession, concentrates
in one divine Person all the dignity and all the func
tions of that gracious intervention, — save as type in
the one case and fulfillment in the other, — priest
hood, in whatever form of religion and by whatever
name called, is a perversion and a misnomer.
At the same time priesthood, in a true sense of
the word, is a necessary part of religion. Whether
in antediluvian times such an office existed, there is
nothing to show with certainty ; there is reason to
believe that so far as aught resembling it did exist,
it was an office discharged by the patriarch, — a Seth,
an Enoch, a Noah, — the last of whom we find thus
officiating, as if the priest of his household, as they
came forth from the ark. Abraham may have dis-

introduction. 19
charged a like .office, since we find the young Isaac
inquiring, as he and his father draw near the spot
where the father's faith is to be so sorely tried, ' ' My
father, behold the fire and the wood, but where is
the lamb for a burnt-offering ? " showing famili
arity with the rite in all its essentials. In Abra
ham's time, too, comes forth upon the historic scene
that marvelous figure, Melchizedek, ' ' King of Salem
and priest of God Most High," in the Epistle to the
Hebrews shown to have been the type of a greater
King, and one who is " a Priest forever."
Not to dwell upon this, the existence of sacrifice
and of priesthood in some meaning of the word from
a very early time, , is made clearly certain by allu
sions in ancient narrative such as these to which we
refer. Among idolatrous peoples, as among that
true succession of holy men in whom a true faith and
a true worship were preserved, it existed, showing
how common to humanity is that sense of need to
which we have referred, and hence how susceptible
of use for purposes of priestly usurpation and spirit
ual despotism is that in man which so prompts the
anxious query, ' ' Wherewith shall I come ? "
It is only as what we here mention is held clearly in
view that the hierarchical element in human history
can. be adequately studied or understood. There is
much to narrate, in the pages that follow the brief
review which we here attempt, of wickedness wrought
in this world by usurping priesthood. It will become
evident that no form of usurpation has been so out-

20 inteoduction.-
rageous, or has been the direct or indirect instrument
of so much evil and such immeasurable suffering, as
that of the priest. Why has he been endured? —
Simply because of his success in compelling belief
that to him as a priest had been assigned a mediato
rial office and efficiency indispensable to acceptable
worship ; indispensable, even, to salvation for the
soul i-tself.
It is important to the end we have here in view to
make the point clear in what the function of the
priest actually consists. The priest of the ancient
dispensation was not a public teacher. That was
the office of the prophet." He was not, save as some
such office was occasionally assumed, a political
leader or adviser. That, also, in so far as conveying
to rulers counsel or warning as to the divine will
in the ordering of public affairs, fell to the prophet-
The office of the priest was simply that of offering
sacrifice, and in general, performing the ritual of the
sanctuary. With a view to magnifying that idea of
atonement and mediation which was to culminate in
the person of him who was at one and the same time
Priest and Victim, the sacrificialfunction in the priest
of Israel was itself magnified until it served to impress
the people with the indispensableness of such media
tion in their approaches to God. It was a lesson, in
deed, for all time, and should make the more evident
and the more impressive to every Christian believer
and to all inquirers after God, how impossible it is to

introduction. 21
come acceptably on any errand of prayer save in that
one true and living way, — the atonement and medi
ation of the self-offered Son of God.
What we thus set forth affords a clue to hierarch
ical assumption in one aspect of it. The several
offices of the Roman priesthood have been assigned
and adjusted with the most clear-sighted recognition
of what is essential in the exercise of priestly power.
The ceremonial of the mass, sacrificial in form, in
vests the person of the priest with a glamour of sa-
credness, which compels homage and prepares the
way for whatever of personal control he may wish to
exercise. At the confessional he claims and exer
cises the right to explore all the secrets of the life,
to know of every sin committed, in thought, word,
or act, and then assumes to hold in his hand the
power either to dispense or refuse the absolution
which shall send the penitent away rejoicing or de
spairing. As death draws near, his presence at the
bedside is for deliverance or for doom, according as
his right in either case shall be devoutly acknowl
edged. His administration of "extreme unction," —
the final anointing, — if he shall consent to give it,
seals salvation to the dying, or if refused leaves him
to a death without hope. In every way the priestly
idea is made available so as to insure to the priest in
his priestly capacity, a power exercised by no other
human being, and belonging to him, though he were
the most dissolute and repulsive mendicant friar,

22 inteoduction.
begging his bread from door to door. Such as this
the priest has been in times of less enlightenment
than our own, and such he still is in essentials.
So far we view the priest more as he is in his in
dividual capacity. Hierarchy is priestly rule. It is
power grounded in that function which we have thus
far described, and exercised with a view to ends of
its own. Its existing representative is the Roman
priesthood, viewed as a whole, in its several orders,
from lowest to highest, with the pope as supreme
over all. Changed conditions of modern life, es
pecially growth of intelligence and the spirit of per
sonal freedom, with nationality and social order
resting on truer foundations and ruled in accordance
with larger ideas, have made hierarchy much less a
name of dread than it was in darker ages.' In form,
however, it is still what it remained during so many
centuries of mbdern history, with its principle un
changed, although application of that principle after
the older ideal may never again be possible.
It is a striking example of the working together of
occult and subtle causes, as we see the simple apos-
tleship and ministry of the New Testament growing,
from age to age, into that formidable enginery of
spiritual despotism, — the hierarchy of the middle
ages. No contrast in history is more striking, no
example more impressive of that possible perversion
to evil from which the good in this world seems
never to be free.
There is not space here for any detailed study of

inteoduction. 23
that process of sinister change to which we refer.
In the primitive times of our religion, ' ' each little
brotherhood," says Harnack, was to be, "through
the strength of its faith, the certainty of its hope,
and the holy ordering of its life, as well as through
love and peace, an image of the holy church of God
which is in heaven, and whose members are scattered
over the earth." Nothing could- be more simple
than its organization, nothing less like domination or
lordship in the pastorate provided for it. History
has not preserved for us in any minuteness of de
tail, the steps by which all this was changed : The
simple eldership growing into a lordship ; the over
sight of the flock, implied in the word episcopos,
"overseer," bishop, becoming domination over the
flock ; successive orders, from priest to metropolitan
and pope, or patriarch, growing out of the original
single office of pastor ; the idea of a community and
fellowship of all the churches, each the equal of the
other, changed to that of the one church, fashioned
in its official structure, its laws and its rule, after the
imperialism of pagan Rome ; — all this by about the
middle of the third century becoming more or less a
complete development, though reaching its consum
mate form much later. The process of it even his
tory attempts to follow only in main outline, while
back of all which history can trace is the working of
those silent and subtle forces in which love of power,
ambition for pre-eminence, and in fine, the intrusion
of a spirit utterly worldly, turns to personal or party

24 inteoduction.
ends, the faith of the common Christianity and the
hope of the soul.
Thus originating and thus framed after the ideals
of a pagan imperialism, hierarchy appears in history
with scarcely a check upon its pretensions to uni
versal dominion during the long, dark period from
the fourth to the sixteenth century. Its extravagances
wrought its own ruin at last. Even the most subserv
ient of those rulers over whom it exercised domina
tion tired of it in the end ; and when the Reformation
came with its primitive gospel, its assertion of the
rights of humanity, its freedom of faith and of wor
ship, its ideas of nationality and citizenship, par
tial though its realizations were, the reign of hier
archy, as a spiritual absolutism, in the measure of its
former supremacy, was over.
The leading thought in what Dr. Haskell has with
such graphic force presented in the chapters which
follow this introduction is, clearly, the conflict in
successive ages between the usurpations of hierarchy
as here described, and that inborn sense of a right to
free opinion and an unbridled conscience which be
longs to the very nature of man, and becomes su
preme allegiance to God in the regenerate soul. We
see, here, two forces in collision, between which, so
long as both survive and both are active, there must
of necessity be eternal war. Each derives strength
and persistence from the very intensity of the mutual
struggle. Hierarchy early became aware that the
pative moral and spiritual freedom of the human

inteoduction. 25
«
soul was not to be either crushed or intimidated eas
ily. It accordingly armed itself at an early day with
all the terrors which persecution in its most savage
form could invent. The pagan persecutor taught
his papal imitator a lesson in this regard which was
by no means lost. When the rack and the fire suc
ceeded to the dungeon and the wild beast of the am
phitheater, the scholar in cruelty was found to have
even surpassed his master in the art of torturing
murder. Against all this, during ages of awful suf
fering, the hero of faith has stood simply in the at
titude of endurance, and by simple endurance has
conquered at last.
Hierarchy, in this bad work of persecution, has
been made more formidable by its alliance with
kingship. In common phrase we term this the alli
ance of Church and State. Whatever softened forms
this alliance may have assumed in later ages, the
fact remains that its essential nature is a confederacy
between secular and so-called spiritual despotism to
subdue and bind that freedom for the soul of man
which is its birthright. The bad distinction of origi
nator for this worst of all crimes, belongs rather, it
must be said, to the priest than to the king. Indeed,
the king has often, one might almost say, commonly,
become the confederate by first being made the vic
tim. More slavish submission to priestly art, com
pelled through methods already described, has rarely
been seen, than in the case of men and woriien who
sat on thrones. Conscious of their badness, and

26 inteoduction.
duped by the subtle strategy of priestly art, they
have yielded to priestly hands as instruments of per
secution, the powers confided to them as supposed
ministers of justice, for the protection of each indi
vidual subject and the promotion of the common
weal. If it were possible to believe that cruelties thus
instigated had any such motive as sincere conviction
supplies, the indignation which one feels in contem
plation of hierarchical wrongs and outrages might
be in some degree softened. Where, under the
infiuence of such conviction men who were not
priests, nor acting under priestly instigation, have
become persecutors, — as it is sad to say otherwise
good men in past time have done, — however we
condemn the act, we can at least accept the motive.
Calvin and the New England theocrats were at least
honest in the persuasion that what they held for
true could not be trusted to maintain its own cause
by virtue of its truth alone, but must have the sup
port of secular authority, or rather that secular and
spiritual authority must be lodged in the same hands,
and this as much for the .benefit of the state as for
that of the church. They were good men, deeply
and sadly mistaken. It is impossible to urge the
same plea in behalf of men who, so far from being
good men, shared in the worst vices of their time ;
with whom intrigue and shameful subserviency al
ternated with impudent assumption in their dealing
with those in power, through whom they wrought

inteoduction. 2Y
the vast evil which history charges upon them ; who
were as completely without pity as without shame ;
and on whose skirts, at the last day of awful assize,
will surely be found the blood of thousands and
thousands who perished in crusades and dragon-
nades, sought out even in "the Alpine mountains,"
and with pitiless indiscrimination hurled to destruc
tion — even —
" Mother with infant down the rocks."
Honest conviction and genuine loyalty to truth as
little instigate such deeds as these as they do the vile
arts in which by jslaying upon the passions of kings and
their satellites the priesthood made themselves, dur
ing centuries of misrule and suffering, the power for
evil behind every oppressive despotism in Europe.
To make "the church," concentrated in the hier
archy, supreme, is the motive which candid history
everywhere fixes upon them, and under the stigma of
this motive, with the hypocrisy and iron-heartedness
inseparable from it, they stand forever condemned.
We are glad that Dr. Haskell has written this
book. Its happily chosen title sets over against each
other the two forces which we mention above, and
whose contrast and conflict give to the history so re
viewed its characteristic features. There is no truer
heroism than is found in patient suffering for con
science' sake. The men and women w:hose names
appear in the deeply interesting chapters which fol
low, are the true heroes and heroines of history. As

28 INTRODUCTION.
will be observed, they appear on the scene at almost
the very first moment of Christian history itself.
They are still in the world, wherever, as in Russia,
hierarchical supremacy has not wholly become an
evil of the past. Their suffering is their testimony.
Wherever there is, among tliose by whom persecu
tion is no longer to be feared, feebleness of convic
tion, looseness of principle as to obligations of
Christian fidelity, time-serving worldliness, or half
hearted service, these are all rebuked by what is re
corded in these pages, as in others besides, of what the
heroes of faith have endured in testimony to that
truth which the world never needed more than it
needs it to-day.

PART I.
REGENERATIVE PIETY AND RELIGIOUS
LIBERTY.

CHAPTER I.
THE STOEY OF THE GHUECH.
" The gates of hades shall not prevail against it."
IN the much controverted teaching of Christ (Matt.
16 : 13-20) we claim that he has shown us the plan
on which he promised visibly to build his church.
And in this plan we see the impregnable church, —
its building material, its government, and the history
assured to it. Here, therefore, we shall find the
principles which should have secured the peace and
prosperity of the Christian Zion, but which, opposed,
have evolved her conflicts, fulfilling Christ's strange
forewarning : "I came not to send peace, but a
sword." In the interpreting and applying of this teaching,
three mistakes have been made, which have become
historic, and have wrought in persistent hostility to
the truth, and to the true people of God.
The first is the papal mistake, making the ' ' rock "
to be Peter officially, constituting him the foundation
and head of the church, with absolute and infallible
authority, and by an absurd fiction, perpetuating him
through an endless succession of popes, regardless of
the personal character which any in the succession
should bear. The mistake is exposed by the facts
that Christ's teaching constituted no individual office
[31]

32 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
or officer ; that what he addressed to Peter was to
him as a representative of all like him, as shown in
its repetition in Matt. 18 : 17-20 and John 20 : 22-23;
and that Peter immediately after this teaching was
reproved by Christ as blindly fallible, that he repeat
edly showed himself in error, and never claimed or
had acceded to him any official superiority.
The second is the creedal mistake, that the "rock "
is Peter's confession, as a doctrinal statement, and
that this is the creed on which whatever is built is
Christ's church. This mistake is exposed by the
facts that it would justify building a church with
demons as its members, for they all made in words
the same confession ; and that so-called churches
thus built have been spiritually lifeless, and often
malignantly persecuting. A creed that rightly ex
presses Bible truths is good furniture in a church,
but it is not material of which a church can be
built. The third mistake is the mystic one, that " this
rock " is Christ, and that by inflection in his utter
ance, or gesture, or some other means, Christ ^o in
dicated. To discredit this it is sufficient to say that
no reader of the English or the Greek would have
conceived or admitted it but for a supposed doctrinal
necessity, and to antagonize the papal error. Christ
is the chief corner-stone, and the pervasive life in
the spiritual body of all his redeemed ; but he is not
the visible foundation of the church which in this
conversation he promised that he would thereafter

THE STOEY OF THE CHURCH. 33
build. In the church as organized he does not ap
pear at all. It is " built upon the foundation of the
apostles and prophets" — a habitation of God in the
Spirit. Eph. 2 : 20-22. Of the cup given for church
use, Christ said : ' ' Drink of it, all of ye ; but I say
unto you that I shall not drink henceforth of this
fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new-
with you in my Father's kingdom." Matt. 26 : 29.
For the true understanding of our Lord's teaching,
let us take him at his word : "Thou art Peter [rock],
and upon this rock" — the pronoun referring to
Peter, and fastening our thought to him as the rock.
But what Peter is our thought bound to by the
"this"? — It is the Peter of whom, as he had just
disclosed what grace had wrought in him, Christ
exclaimed : "Blessed art thou, Simon, son of Jonah,
for flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but
my Father who is in heaven," — Peter, born "not of
blood, nor, of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of
man, but of God" — a child of God, thus having
revealed in him the life-giving Christ, just as his
brother apostle, by the same grace, was brought
where he could say : " When it pleased God to re
veal his Son in me, that I might preach him among
the Gentiles, immediately I conferred not with flesh
and blood" (Gal. 1:16), — Peter, the regenerate,
lighted up in his inner life by the Holy Spirit's tak
ing of Christ, and showing it in the sin-darkened^
sin-condemned soul. Flesh and blood never did,
and never will, reveal Christ as the Saviour that he

34 HEEOES AND HIEKAECHS.
is to the condemned, and as the justified by faith
behold him. As diverse, and all of it as false, as
was the reasoning of men reported by the disciples
in this conversation, is the reasoning of unregener-
ate men to-day, as to the being and offices of Christ.
But the old Peter is gone, and Christ by his ques
tioning has unveiled the new Peter. And now what
does he propose to do with him ? We have been
guided by the small pronoun, let us now be guided
by the smaller preposition : —
.£^i (Robinson's Greek Lexicon), "with the da
tive" (as here): "Accession, or addition to some
thing which has been previously mentioned." ' Then
we say, Added to, or gathered to, this rock, Peter,
as here disclosed. Thus in Matt. 25 : 20 the servant
with the talents, using the same preposition, said :
"Thou gavest me five talents ; I have added to
them, of the same, five more." Thus also Paul said:
"Lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow " (Phil. 2 :
2T), picturing the sorrow as accumulated by the add
ing of like sorrows.
And now what do we see as Christ's plan of build
ing?" — Adding, or gathering to this rock, — the re
generate, God-illumed Peter, — other regenerate, God-
illumed believers, I will build my church. This is
my specimen of the building material, — the specimen
to be first placed, as at Pentecost among the Jews,
and at Csesarea among the Gentiles, and to have
like material added to it as the buildings rise. Thus
all who are properly brought into Christ's church are
^ Buttman's Greek Grammar, § 147, Note 4.

THE STOEY OF THE CHUECH. 35
seen here in the plan, as ever after in the erections,
to be experimental believers, in whom, as in Peter
and Paul and all the first Christians, Christ is di
vinely revealed.
Many years after being thus instructed by the
Master, Peter wrote the same instruction to the be
lievers whom he was teaching. Of Christ, who has
life in himself, and quickeneth whom he will, he
says : "To whom coming, a living stone, ye also as
living stones are built up, a spiritual house."
Such being his church, Christ declares it impreg
nable. It is a living, spiritual organism. Instinct
with the vital force infused and sustained by Christ,
it has the power to throw off disorders, repel assaults,
and grow and reproduce itself, as in nature the good
tree does. Thus the history of the church is assured
as persistent and triumphant.
It is of the church, in which practically there are
not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of
wood and of earth, and some unto honor and some
unto dishonor, — it is respecting this imperfectly
realized church that we are assured : ' ' The firm
foundation of God standeth, having this seal," with
the double inscription, "The Lord knoweth them
that are his," and, "Let every one that nameth the
name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness."
Such an organization its Head can wisely intrust
with self-government. Its members are partakers
of the divine nature, inhabited by the divine Spirit,
and will be led by the Word and Spirit in their

36 HEEOES AND HIEEAECHS.
action ; and hence our Lord closes his teaching here
with the promise that when his building should have
been erected as the visible seat of his reign, called
the kingdom of heaven, he would give its keys to
its own Petrine members — keys by which we admit
and exclude, being, in the figurative style of the
great Teacher, the symbol of government.
That this independency of outside human rule is
what Christ conferred upon the church, is proved by his
express words already referred to, and by the action
of the churches under apostolic direction, as seen in
the Acts aud the epistles. Acts 9 : 26-29, and sev
eral allusions in Acts 15, also in the directions given
in 1 Cor. 6:4, 5, and 2 Cor. 2 : 7-9, etc.
While self-government in churches is to be dis
trusted in the hands of those " darkened in their
understanding and alienated from- the life of God,"
it is productive of only good as exercised by those
who have so learned Christ as to put on the new man
created in the righteousness and holiness of truth.
Eph. 4 : 22-25.
The whole teaching of our passage might have a
pleasing illustration if one having found a honey
bee should thus apostrophize : Blessed art thou, lit
tle insect ! Flesh and blood have not endowed thee
with the instincts wJiich I know thee to possess, but
my Father who is in heaven. And I say unto thee,
that thou art a honey-bee, and gathering unto thee
others like thyself, I will build my swarm of bees ;
and irrepressibly they shall preserve their home, and

THE STORY OF THE CHUECH. 37
work together and make honey, and reproduce them
selves perpetually, ordering their life in peaceful
self-govern ment.
This self-government in churches involves, of
course, the personal religious liberty of all men.
Not only Christ's direct teaching, but the Bible as
a whole. Old Testament as well as New, accords this
liberty to every person. The seeming instances of
divinely authorized civil punishment on irreligionists,
or no-religionists, or false prophets, can perhaps be
reduced to criminal "doing presumptuously, with a
high hand," acts which under the theocracy were
defiant treason, as in case of the Sabbath desecrator,
who on trial was convicted, apparently under that
law, and executed, and similarly when false prophets
were judicially slain. For the personal choice for
one's self of idol-worship, or no worship, or the
withholding of religious tithes and offerings, or vio
lating the law of the Sabbath, no man was arraigned
otherwise than by the reproofs of God's ministers.
Clearly in the New Testament the principle of soul-
freedom is always asserted. When James and John
asked if they should call down fire to consume a
supposed opposing sect, Christ rebuked them, say
ing, according to our version, "Ye know not what
manner of spirit ye are of. " By the sermon on the
mount, how free is every one left to stand or fall
before his own master ! And with what love is
every man commanded to bear himself toward his
fellow-man ! Such is the church of Christ.

38 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
"Bulwarks of mighty grace defend
The city where we dwell ;
The walls, of strong salvation made,
Defy the assaults of hell.
" Lift up the everlasting gates.
The doors wide open fling;
Enter, ye nations that obey
The statutes of our King.
"Here shall you taste unmingled joys.
And live in perfect peace,
You who have known Jehovah's name,
And ventured on his grace.'
As here seen, and as exhibited in subsequent New
Testament history, the Bible principles whose con
flicts we have proposed to trace, are : A regenerate
church membership ; baptism consistently limited to
those regenerated through personal faith, and to the
act prescribed by the inspired word ; the freedom of
churches from outside domination by man ; and the
religious liberty of every accountable human being.
The same principles are discernible in the plan of
the gospel church, as foreshown by Old Testament
prophets; as in the temple delineations of Ezekiel.
We are constrained to regard these as figurative
descriptions of the foreseen church, because of the
absurd contradictions of New Testament teaching
which they would present if they predicted a lit
eral temple with its priests and ritualistic observ
ances. In his vision of the house of the Lord, in
the forty-fourth chapter, the prophet is bidden to
mark its noteworthy distinctions : —

THE STOEY OF THE CHUECH. 39
" And I looked, and behold the glory of the Lord
filled the house of the Lord. And I fell upon my
face." The Holy Spirit dwells in the church of
Christ. His person, and not that of the Son, is the
Immanuel of this dispensation. As the shekinah in
the temple and tabernacle told that God was there,
so the prophet saw in the church what to us is in
visible, but which is ' ' the promise of the Father, "
fulfilled in the true church from the day of Pente
cost. It is this, and this alone, before which men
of spiritual discernment fall down. "Each several
building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy
temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are builded
together for a habitation of God in the Spirit."
This secures a spiritual brotherhood and an inde
structible life. Without this, so-called churches are
but the world under false names. When Moses was
ordered to lead Israel through wanderings infested
with powerful enemies, he pleaded his utter depend
ence on the presence of God, pledged by the pillar
of cloud and fire : " Wherein shall it be known that
we have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that
thou goest with us ? So shall we be separate, I. and
thy people, from all the people that are upon the
face of the earth." And to-day God's people have
no other distinction that infallibly proves them his,
and gives them achieving power.
"And the Lord said unto me, Son of man, mark
well, and behold with thine eyes, and hear with
thine ears, all that I say unto thee concerning all the
ordinances of the house of the Lord, and all the laws

40 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
thereof." The word of God alone determines all
the ordinances and laws of the church of Christ, just
as would be supposed in case of one dwelling in his
own house as its head. On no subject more than
on this have other voices ever been clamorous for a
hearing to be given them ; and it is because the
faithful sons and daughters of him who is Head of
the body, the church, have insisted that he alone
shall speak as to ordinances and laws, that they have
been put to tortures and death as his martyrs.
Judaism still persists in standing on the fioor of
the church, striking down with the staff of a worn-out
and excused old age, and demanding that its decayed
covenant of circumcision shall yet be law. Tradi
tion wanders in from the early centuries, command
ing a hearing of the confused voices of the Fathers.
Councils and churches adduce their decrees, and
claim that they must silence the debate. Hierarchies
seat "the church " in the place of Christ. Accom
modating religion urges that ordinances and laws
are unessential, and asks the members in the church
and the candidates at its door, what they prefer.
Liberalism applies the sword to every Gordiah knot,
and leaves Zion without cords or stakes.
But to none of this clamor does Christ yield the
floor. Steadily his word is, ' ' Son of man, mark well,
and behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine
ears, all that I say unto thee concerning all the or
dinances of the house of the Lord, and all the laws
thereof." In my personal teachings I stand and

THE STORY OF THE CHUECH. 41
speak. Hear with thine own ears. By my inspira
tion I guide my apostles in executing my laws, and
in writing them for the government of my erected
house, through all time. Behold with thine eyes.
And it is for the church of Christ to sit, with eyes
fixed and ears attent, marking well, and marking
only, the words of her Lord.
But here is a memorable portion of the battle
ground where the faithful have been set upon by
persecutors, and every device has been brought into
play to drive them from hearing and obeying Jesus
only. Here, therefore, we shall find what religious
liberty has cost, and who have paid the cost.
"And mark well the entering in of the house."
It is especially a noteworthy feature. Who goes in ?
and how does he go in? — Just as would be again
supposed, they whom the Holy Spirit, resident in
the house, has brought to be of his household and
to apply at its door. This was shown to Ezekiel,
and the house of the Lord in question was certified
to be the gospel church, when he was charged to
proclaim : "Thus saith the Lord God, No stranger
uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh,
shall enter into my sanctuary." Over the portals of
no Jewish institution was there ever placed such an
absolute prohibition of the uncircumcised in heart.
And as to the visible entrance of those thus spirit
ually qualified, the Lord's instructions to the apos
tolic builders of his church are clear: "Baptizing
them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and

42 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
of the Holy Spirit." Widening this entrance so as to
admit all as they are born into the world, is to abol
ish the church. No longer is there an "ecclesia," a
body called out by the Holy Spirit from the unre-
generate mass, "a peculiar people." Changing
baptism from a burial to the drops upon the forehead,
and the Supper from a proclaiming of the Lord's
death to a showing of social fellowship, or a priestly
ministering of his pretended flesh to absolve from
sin, are the sacrifice of divine authority and most
helpful significance in ordinances. For refusing to
submit to these changes, Cliristians have been de
spoiled of their liberties and their lives in untold
numbers. "Mark well the entering in of the
house." " With every going forth of the sanctuary;" the
issues from the church of Christ are another note
worthy feature of it. These are saving influences,
not as immediately from the Fountain, as the hie
rarchical and sacramentarian heresies arrogate, but
as from the spring through which the Fountain dis
charges. Ps. 87 : 7. This again is as would be ex-
expected from the Holy Spii-it's residence in the
church. These influences flow out in many forms : in the
unrestricted diffusion of the word of God ; in the
perfect freedom of witnesses, that they "daily in
the temple, and in every house, cease not to teach
and to preach Jesus Christ ; " in missionary evangel
izing to which all lands are to lie open ; in Christian

THE STORY OF THE CHURCH. 43
education, that opens to all alike its privileges of in
struction and training ; in the free religious press,.
that sends truth as a pulse through the whole body
of humanity. In these, and in every form of saving
influence, civil and religious liberty are involved, as
the right of every responsible being. As in prop
erty rights no person may put obstructions in a navi
gable stream, so in religious rights no power may
intercept the flow of the waters which the prophet
saw as they "issued out from under the threshold
of the house."
But what contests have had to be fought and suf
fered out along the whole course of every stream that
has thus issued from the church of Christ ! Her
principles are therefore militant, and arrned with
them, as an organized host of God's elect, she was
bidden advance into the revolted world. Let us see
what combatants she met, and who proved loyal to
the divine teaching.

CHAPTER II.
HEROES OF THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD.
" If I have not love, I am nothing."
IT is noteworthy that Peter, whom Christ made the
representative of the principles on which his king
dom was to wage its warfare, became the flrst and
representative sufferer in maintaining those princi
ples ; and that the persecutions which he encountered
were all instigated by the Jewish hierarchy.
It is natural that unregenerate men should contend
violently against being displaced from those positions
which inure to their selfish advantage. If Christ
and his organized kingdom came to possess the field
as the system of. religion, Judaism, with its num
berless offices of leadership, honor, and emolument,
would have to disappear. The social dignitaries must
come down to the grade where the law is : "One is
your Master, the Christ, and all ye are brethren."
Against this the whole hierarchical system put itself
in determined defense. The conspiracy against
Christ himself, in all its conduct, was thus inspired
and led by the priestly class ; and in the persecutions
of the apostolic period the same was true, the civic
powers being but the tools of the religious hierarchs.
Accordingly, while the apostles were yet prosecut-
[44]

HEROES OF THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD. 46
ing the great achievements of the pentecostal week,
in which Christ built his church as he had planned,
Peter and John found themselves arrested and put
on trial in the Sanhedrim, before "the high priest
and as many as were of his kindred." And though
the court was compelled by the popular feeling in
favor of the prisoners to release them with nothing
worse than the severest threats, soon afterward came
a renewed arrest of the same apostles, with the man
ifest purpose of killing them. Intimidated in this
purpose by the wise cautions of Gamaliel, a cruel
beating and sterner threats accompanied the dis
charge, after God had by his angel miraculously
opened the prison doors, and led out his prisoners,
bidding them " go and stand and speak in the temple
to the people all the words of this life."
To these violent dealings and threats Peter and
John make and reiterate this memorable response —
the first displaying in Christ's church of the banner
which was to be borne at such cost through all the
centuries, in faithful and martyr hands: "Whether
it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you
rather than unto God, judge ye, for we cannot but
speak the things which we saw and heard." "We
must obey God rather than men." And they followed
their heroic answer by still preaching Jesus and the
resurrection, in the face of their persecutors.
It was more than human wisdom and valor that
dictated this sublime avowal, and dedicated it to its
mission down the ages. Christ-had promised these

46 HEEOES AND HIERARCHS.
men that when they should be thus arraigned, as he
assured them they would be, they need not be anx
ious what they should speak, "For it shall be given
you in that hour what ye shall speak ; for it is not
you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that
speaketh in you."
This avowal involves the complete idea of relig
ious freedom as divinely bestowed and universally
applicable. It involves the fact that God has given
ability to judge what his will is to each accountable
person, and the more perfectly to those who have
his revealed word. It denies that man may interdict
what God enjoins; it claims that where man re
quires or forbids differently from God, God's will
is to be obeyed ; and it declares the imperative duty
of doing, by speech or whatever other act, that
which God gives us to do for others' good.
This principle gives no license, and leaves un
guarded no liability, to do wrong ; for God has him
self defined and prohibited all criminal or hurtful
actions, and what is criminal he has empowered civil
government to restrain or punish. The Mormon can
not shelter his polygamy under religious freedom, for
God has expressly forbidden it, and requires civil
government to repress it. The deluded parent can
not plead a just conviction for killing his child, for
God has said : "Thou shalt not kill," and has hung
to the belt of the magistrate not in vain the sword
that takes blood for blood. The public blasphemer
and debaucher of thought and habit in other people.

HEROES OF THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD. 47
or the violator of other men's Sabbath rights, cannot
commit these offences against society with impunity,
under the pretense of personal liberty, for God
has guarded public morals against this, and observ
ances that do not entrench upon the same liberty
in others are a right which man never gave or can
take away, but all must respect.
The next heroic leader in maintaining these prin
ciples was Stephen, who stood forth, and spoke
calmly on what God had given h^m to say, in the
face of his priestly murderers ; and who, with John
the Baptist, headed the long procession of Christian
martyrs. Could he have consented to be silent, he
would have been unmolested, but he was another of
the mailed knights whose armorial ensign blazoned
the allegiance : ' ' We cannot but speak the things
which we saw and heard." And so he "fell a
blessed martyr, with tears wept on him," as devout
men bore the body to burial.
The young man Saul, who shared in the stoning of
Stephen, when apprehended on the Damascus road
had upon his person letters from the high priest unto
the synagogues, that if he found any that were of the
way, whether man or woman, he might bring them
bound unto Jerusalem. It was the hierarchy against
the church. And when he who then was the furious
agent of the priestly party became himself a Chris
tian, and persecution turned upon him as its hunted
victim, it was the same hierarchy that followed on
his track through the long course that he kept in

48 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
sufferings so manifold, and finished in martyrdom.
Their emissaries followed him in his missionary
tours from city to city and from nation to nation.
By them he was stoned, and by their instigation
Roman lictors beat him with rods. When he stood
arraigned and asserting his conscientiousness before
the Jewish council, it was the high priest who com
manded : " Smite him on the mouth," and to whom
he boldly returned the righteous retort : "God shall
smite thee, thou- whited wall : sittest thou to judge
me according to the law, and commandest me to be
smitten contrary to the law?" It was the hero and
the hierarch in single encounter, with all the priestly
confederacy backing their chief, but the majority
of "one with God" defying them.
Because it pleased these titled Jews, Herod killed
the apostle James, with the sword, and attempted
the same with Peter. It was likewise the priestly
class in the pagan religions of this period that joined
with the Jewish persecutors in putting to trial the
faith and the steadfastness of the early Christians.
The heresies which invaded the churches before
the exiled apostle John closed the inspired record,
were those which undermine the Bible principles on
which Christ built and commissioned his churches,
and declared them invincible, and on which Baptists
have ever maintained their stand.
In the epistle of Jude heresies are described as
t!ie creeping assaults of ungodly men who assumed
the office of teachers. Of coui-se they were gross

HEEOES OF THE APOSTOLIC PEEIOD. 49
violators of the primary law of Christ's kingdom ;
for in nothing is that law more imperative than that
the teacher and leader must be an example to the
flock of the regenerate character which every mem
ber must possess. Christ put this in the foreground
when he said: "He that entereth in by the door
into the sheepfold, is the shepherd of the sheep."
"I am the door. By me if any man enter in he
shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and shall
fliid pasture." "And he goeth before his sheep,
and they follow him, for they know his voice."
And in giving Peter his flnal charge, with thrice-
pressed heart-searching he reiterated that not merely
friendly, but gracious, love is the indispensable
qualification for feeding the lambs, and tending and
feeding the sheep for whom he gave his life. Un
converted teachers would directly substitute uncon
verted members in the churches, confounding them
with the world, and bringing the true membership
under worldly domination. Then State and Church
and civil oppression readily succeed.
Thus the Apocalypse discloses how the churches
which had left their first love, had a name to live
and were dead, and must repent and do their first
works, or the candlestick, having no longer a light
to hold, would be removed.
The further destructive heresies, privily brought
in by false teachers, as Peter describes it, were a
denial of our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ, —
"even the Master that bought them," — under the
4

50 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
covert of unsuspected language, "with feigned
words ; " as when in our day the terms of a true
theology are made the covert under which delusive
errors are insinuated. Another heresy was the
turning of the grace of God into lasciviousness, as
in the antinomianism o'f the Gnostics, who made the
gospel a release from the moral requirements of the
law, and a license for dissoluteness. "The teaching
of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate," said Christ.
And again : there was the heresy, under similar
coverts, of denying the retributions of the future
state, saying that the judgment was passed already,
and that there is no final decision of doom upon the
wicked ; or saying, as this specious assault has ever
said, and says to-day, God is too good to punish his
creatures as Christians have believed that he. fore
warns he will do, — imputing to him an unprincipled
goodness, which Jude and Peter repel by calling to
remembrance what God has done in history. In
this heresy it was, as Jude declares, false teachers
like Balaam who assailed the faith intrusted to the
saints for safe guarding.
The apostles and faithful Christians resisted unto
blood these heresies, and the oppressing powers
which the heretics suborned. The message to the
church in Pergamos was: "I know where thou
dwellest, even where Satan's throne is, and that
thou boldest fast my name, and didst not deny my
faith, even in the days of Antipas, my witness, my

HEROES OF THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD. 61
faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan
dwelleth." Let it then stand clearly and constantly before us
that Christianity had to start upon its conquests with
this array of false priests aud false teachers already
upon the field, and to be maintained and increased as
the conflict went on. And it fs the injustice of
church history that much which should be charged
only to its enemies, is entered in the account against
Christianity itself.
Through the apostle John the Holy Spirit has
given us this light with which to explore religious
history: "Every one that lovetli is born of God,
and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not
God; for God is love." And beside it the apostle
Paul places this : ' ' Love worketh no ill to his neigh
bor." Hold this combined light to the faces that we
pass in church history, and many a leader and
many a so-called church is revealed as not of God,
though such alone are recognized by the historian
as Christ's representatives. The real Christians, if
seen at all, are shown in the background as under
the shadow of heresy, and to be coerced into fellow-
shipping the nominal religion.
True Christians have never been perfect in knowl
edge, belief, or conduct, but they have always had
a Christ-like love for the good and true, and a
Christ-like compassion for those whom they believed
to be in the wrong and in evil doing. As compared

52 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
with the unregenerate, this has been the character
istic of the children of God at all times ; and could
history show just how they have felt and acted in
every age and situation, the fair-minded observer
would never charge them with being the bigoted
and oppressive people of their time. Hierarchs
called Christians, allying with themselves tyrannical
civil rulers, have inflicted cruel persecutions ; but
Christ forbids such hierarchies to exist, or such alli
ances to be formed, or such oppression in any way
to be practiced. And against it Christ's witnesses
have always come forward, and borne costly testi
mony. The apostle John appears to be the specially se
lected representative of this regenerate character in
Christians. He has been called the apostle of love
— not from his natural amiability alone; for in
temperament he was a " son of thunder," and had a
strong spirit of self-seeking ambition to combat, but
because the new birth and the new life so trans
formed him into the likeness of the Master on whose
bosom he leaned. In forming the flrst church he
had, with Peter, a leading part in keeping out and
in casting out those who betrayed the unregenerate
spirit ; and through all the century with the duration
of which his life was parallel, he stood thus guard
at the door of "God's building." So solemnly did
they reject the flrst false professors, that it is said,
"Of the rest, durst no man join himself unto them,"
although the true converts continued to press in.

HEROES OF THE APOSTOLIC .PERIOD. 53
And again at Samaria they illustrated this faithful
detective spirit in the case of Simon Magus, saying
to him : " Thou hast neither part nor lot in this
matter ; for thy heart is not right in the sight of
God." And when in other churches the right to
receive Gentile converts without circumcision was
contested, John was one whom Paul called a pillar,
supporting the principle that the Holy Spirit, in
" purifying their hearts by faith," had qualifled all
alike for membership in the churches.
Banished by persecution to the island of Patmos,
John had given to him by Christ the book of Reve
lation. In this tragic roll, whose seals were broken
to him, the Commander in Zion counsels and en
courages his true followers for their terrible conflicts
in maintaining their loyalty to his cause. They
were to stand for the living Christ and the living
church while the sealing of the servants of God in
their foreheads should go on. They who should
come out of that great tribulation would be in robes
washed white in the blood of the Lamb, and with
palms of victory.
In his gospel, written later, as many believe, the
aged apostle has, as the burden of his writing, spir
itual life in Christ and gracious love in the brother
hood; and in his epistles, the last short messages
which his withered, trembling hand could write, to
Christians at large, and to two of his personal
friends, the burden is the same: Regenerate life,
regenerate love, regenerate righteousness of stand-

54 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
ing and of character. Life eternal, not as to dura
tion but as to quality like God's — this God hath
given unto us, and this is in his Son. Born of God
and sinning not — not practicing sin — are all Chris
tians. With these principles so enforced throughout his
long Christian life, the faithful John, on whom, as the
last of the inspired corps, it devolved to dismiss the
churches for their onward course with no more of
such personal guidance, did not so dismiss them
without distinct warnings of what they had to resist
— the invasion of the unregenerate world in its
seductions, its heresies, its persecutions. And it
was in meeting and contending against these that
those whom Christ made free, maintained and trans
mitted their freedom.
As the first century neared its end, some of the
Jewish leaders sought to effect a compromise with
the Christians. A class of these were the Ebionites,
or poor people, who had been expelled from Judea
by the Romans. They were willing to accept Christ
as the Messiah, but denied that he was the "Word
made flesh, " and held him to be but as one of the
old prophets endowed with miraculous powers.
Against them John wrote : "Every spirit that con-
fesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of
God, and every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is
not of God." He that believeth that Jesus is the
Son of God overcometh the world. Rejecting also

HEROES OF THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD. 55
the work of the Holy Spirit, these leaders of the old
priestly order ignored regeneration, and made the
church to be a synagogue of Jewish form-doing.
The Gnostics, or "linowing ones" of eastern mysti
cism, also denied the incarnation and the atonement,
and called forth from John the inspired certifica
tion : "That which we have seen with our eyes, and
our hands handled concerning the Word, which was
with the Father and was manifested unto us, that
declare we unto you, that you also may have fellow
ship with us." On the human breast of Jesus, he
would say, this head of mine has rested, and felt the
beat of his human heart ; and he is the propitiation
for our sins, "faithful and righteous to forgive us
our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Then there were the Nicolaitans, whose antino-
mian heresy turned the grace of God into lasciv
iousness, claiming that because Christ died for our
sins, which the law would have punished, we are not
held to account for them, and may sin on in uncon
cern. "He that doeth sin is of the devil," was
John's indignant retort ; and "to this end the Son
of God was manifested, that he might destroy the
works of the devil." "Whosoever is begotten of
God doeth no sin." " He that doeth righteousness
is righteous, "^ "even as he, Christ, is righteous."
Again there were what might be called the Swe-
denborgians of that day, whose hierarch was one
Docetus, and gave his name to the sect. They dis-

56 HEROES AND HIER.\RCHS.
solved the personality of Christ into mist, and made
the Scriptures to be a crust which they could break,
and find beneath it all fanciful meanings.
These false teachers not only sought to displace
the truths of the gospel by their perversions of them,
but to spy out privily the liberty which regenerate
souls had in Christ Jesus, and bring them into bond
age. And as Christianity spread, the Jewish and
the Roman powers came more and more to substitute
persecution for toleration, so that in the true people
of God, the heroic element had no lack of develop
ment. As a denomination. Baptists have ever been faith
ful to the principles and truths which thus early
began to be assailed. In respect to ministerial
qualifications, they have insisted upon godly experi
ence and life in tlhe candidate, and that in doctrine
he show " uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity." It is
questionable whether any great number of Christians
ever was opposed to an educated ministry, solely be
cause of the education ; but this body of Christians
has always made unyielding protest against the
making of ministers by educating unconverted men.
When infant baptism and state establishments in
religion had largely filled the pulpits of Christendom
with ministers thus made, the Baptists of America
instituted Christian educational work on the oppo
site principle, of aiding God-called ministers to add
to their power of service, as Timothy and Apollos
and Titus and their class were aided. We shall see

HEROES OF THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD. 57
in its place how this new movement in the educa
tional world wrought deliverance from the civil dis
abilities which dissenters were suffering in all the
schools of Christendom.
In respect to the spiritual qualification asked for
of all who apply for church membership, and as to
the order and form of church ordinances, the primi
tive law has been sacredly obeyed. The independ
ence of the local church, "under law to Christ,"
has been respected, and personal religious freedom
has been claimed for all, and extended to all.
Thus this denomination can claim brotherhood
with the faithful of the first centuries, who con
tended earnestly for the faith once for all delivered
to the saints, "hazarded their lives for the name of
our Lord Jesus," and in great numbers led forth the
holy army of martyrs.

CHAPTER III.
FROM THE APOSTOI.IC PERIOD TO THE IMPERIAL.
" Love not the world, neither the things that are in the
world." WHEN Christianity reached the position where
her inspired pilots in person were dismissed,
and she stood upon her course without such guid
ance, she had been furnished through the Scriptures
with compass and chart, and had in the Holy Spirit
the heavenly luminary, so that she could prosper
ously pursue her destined way. Her essential mis
sion was not to fail. If at any point a worldly spirit
came into command, and neglecting the requisite
studies and observations, allowed her to fall upon a
wrong course, she carried a better seamanship, ever
ready to protest, and save from wreck. Accordingly
we shall see how the spiritual life in the churches
manifests itself as Christ and the apostles provided
it. should do. Find the true Christians of any
period, and they will be heard proclaiming: "God
is love, and he that abideth in love abideth in
God, and God abideth in him," and "if a man
say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a
liar." [58]

FROM THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD TO THE IMPERIAL. 59
It has been charged that Christianity in its history
represents God as unloving, and even malevolent ;
that he has arbitrarily reprobated his creatures
to a fate outside the pale of his offered mercy ;
that he has consigned sinless infancy to eternal
torment, and felicitated himself in the tortures
of lost souls ; and that he has upheld men in cruel
persecutions of their brethren. But it can be seen
that graceless or deluded hierarchies are responsible
for these blasphemous defamations, and God's real
children have always protested against them.
Really, the persecutions charged upon Christianity
came from outside it, though some dark-minded
Christians may have implicated themselves in these
persecutions. It is not a re-discovery by modern
liberalists that God is what the apostle of love
teaches that he is ; nor has Christly love of brother
men suffered any eclipse that was total in any cent
ury or land of Christianity.
Accordingly we shall find the real Christians in
history saying with the apostles and their Lord :
"Beloved, let us love one another;" "love as I
have loved you." Usurpers of power, in the name
of Christianity, have persecuted ; but the spirit in
true Christians has disowned the persecutions, how
ever dearly they were made to pay for their pro
tests. Of imperfection we shall find enough every
where, but of preeminence in all that is good and
that works good, the palm is easily theirs who are
"God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for

60 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
good works." That we test this trutli from her his
tory, is Christianity's challenge.'
During the first and second centuries, the churches
of Christ had become planted in nearly all the na
tions then known, and early iu the third century
they are found very numerous in parts of Asia,
Europe, and Africa ; and added to the Jewish perse
cutions, there had come upon them those of the
Roman paganism. These, like the Jewish, were
instigated by priestly jealousy and tyranny ; for the
civil power of Rome clothed itself in priestly arro-
gations, the kings and emperors themselves claiming
to be the high priests of their idolatry. Both the
pagan oppression, therefore, and the corrupted lead
ership in the churches, forced the faithful Christians
into protests, and despoiled them of their liberties
and their lives. Statements of the extent of this
^ " The tyrannical oppression through which discoveries of
truth and inventions in the arts have had to make their way,
has been charged upon Christianity ; but a thorough scru
tiny of the lives of true Christians will show how unjust are
such representations as appear in Professor Draper's "His
tory of the Conflict between Religion and Science," or Hon.
A. D. White's "War of Christianity and Science," and simi
lar writings. "These sects, these heresies," says Guizot,
speaking of those who stood out against the persecuting pow
ers in the nominal church, "all these oppositions which
arose, are the most decisive proof of the moral life and
activity which reigned in Christianity." — History of Cimiiza-
tion, p. 119.
Let her be judged by these "sects and heresies," and not
by the titled usurpers of her name.

FROM THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD TO THE IMPERIAL. 6l
suffering for religious freedom have been derived,
which, it would seem, cannot be other than exag
gerations ; yet so cautious and thorough a student
as Dr. J. Newton Browu does not discredit the rec
ord that, down to the time of Constantine, 312 a. d.,
"the number of martyrs has been computed at three
million." And all of these, he claims, were in
principle such Christians as are now called Baptists,
except that Cyprian and his followers in Africa
came, in the last half of the third century, to ad
vocate infant baptism, retaining the form of im
mersion.' Showing for what these martyrs suffered, and the
great numbers of them, the celebrated report of
Pliny to his superior, Trajan, is impressive evi
dence. He was proconsul in Bithynia and Pontus
(a. d. 110) fifty-eight years after Paul "assayed to
go" thither and introduce the gospel, "but the
Spirit of ,Jesus suffered him not." Embarrassed
with the prosecution of Christians in the province,
he made investigation, and reported that "many of
all ages, of every rank, and of both sexes, were
involved in the liability ; for the contagion of this
superstition had seized not only cities, but villages
and the open country. The temples [pagan] were
destroyed, and victims for sacrifice rarely pur
chased." Of their character and practices he said :
" They were in the custom of meeting together on
a certain day, Sunday [not the Jewish seventh] ;
" " Baptist Martyrs," Prelim. (Essay).

62, HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
that they united in a hymn of praise to their God,
Christ, bound one another to refrain from crimes,
to be faithful to all promises and trusts, and ob
served a simple and innocent meal.'" And yet he
held himself bound to execute the ruthless Roman
law, and put to death these harmless and beneficent
people if they would not deny their faith, invoke
the gods, offer incense before the image of the em
peror, and curse Christ.
In like manner, fifty years later, in the neighbor
ing province, under the reluctant hand of another
.proconsul, Polycarp, the aged disciple of the apostle
John, beloved pastor of the church in Smyrna, was
informed against, and when arraigned he said: "I
tell you frankly, I am a Christian, and if you would
know what the doctrine of Christianity is, appoint
me an hour, and hear me." When this confession
had doomed him unheard to the stake, he was re
peatedly urged by the proconsul to ascribe divine
honor to the emperor, saying, " What harm can the
words do? " And finally, to the temptation, " Curse
Christ, and I will release you," he returned the
memorable answer: "Six and eighty years have I
served him, and he has done me nothing but good ;
how could I curse him, my Lord and Saviour ? " and
went and stood unbound at the stake, with prayer
and thanks ascending, like Elijah, to heaven.
While this glorious army of martyrs was paying
its installment of tho purchase-price of religious
'Neander, Vol 1, p. 97.

FROM THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD TO THE IMPERIAL. 63
freedom, many nominal Christians yielded to the
temptations to compromise with the world. Thus
parties were formed on the fields where Christianity
had become planted, and defenders of the Christian
faith and church-life stood forth on the stage of
passing events. By giving the story of some of
these, with their following, we shall identify the
heroes and the peoples who led in that primitive
conflict for soul-liberty. THE STORY OF TERTULLIAN.
Tertullian was of the Roman nobility, son of an
officer of government who was stationed at Carthage,
in Africa, born about the year 160 a. d. After the
New Testament, his Apologetious has been called
the first published plea for religious liberty. He
was educated a lawyer, and pursued this profession
up to mature age. At his conversion he became a
devoted exemplar, and earnest advocate of experi
mental Christianity. His voluminous writings, con
tained in our libraries, show in full delineation the
character of a true Christian in that age. No writer
has better set open to view the doors through which
the world found its way into the church. He took
his lessons in religious liberty from Christ and the
apostles. The reign of the Roman emperor, Severus Septi
mus, was one of the periods of greatest persecution,
especially in Africa. Official tortures and murders
the most ruthless and brutal were the fate of the

64 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
noblest characters, regardless of what might move
the pity of savages. When the proconsul of Nu-
midia offered deliverance to a body of his Christian
subjects if they would worship the emperor, Speratus
replied for them : "I have never failed to pay the
custom upon all which I purchased, for I acknowl
edge the emperor as my lord ; but I can loorship
none but my Lord, the King of kings." And then
they all knelt, and their heads fell under the axe.
Of faithful women, accused of nothing but of
being Christians, two in the church of Carthage
were Perpetua and Felicitas, young mothers, one
with her babe at her breast, the other giving birth
to hers as she awaited execution. The pagan father
of Perpetua, who dearly loved her, again and
again pleaded with tears for their sake and the
child's sake that she would yield, as the governor
joined his entreaties and said : "Offer sacrifice for
the welfare of the emperor." Her response was:
"My father's gray hairs pained me;'' and having
pressed the child to her breast, and commended it
to her mother, who was a Christian, she answered
the governor : " Tiiat I cannot do! I am a Chris
tian." To Felicitas the jailer said, in her pangs of
maternity, "If the present sufferings are so great,
what wilt thou do when thou art thrown to the wild
beasts?" She answered: "There will be Another
who will suffer for me, because I also will suffer for
him." When torn to exhaustion by the hungry
beasts, they kissed each other, and went to flim who

FEOM THE APOSTOLIC PEEIOD TO THE IMPERIAL. 65
showed himself to Stephen as rising up to embrace
his coming martyrs.
No wonder that the manly and godly lawyer, Ter
tullian, with such things going on at his door in
Carthage, made the world hear his protests. Ap
pealing to the proconsul, he says : " It is easily seen
to be unjust to compel freemen against their will to
offer sacrifices ; for in acts of religious service a
willing mind is required. It should be counted
quite absurd for one man to compel another to do
honor to the gods." And it provokes, he argues,
defiance of the gods. Again he says : " It is a fun
damental human right, a privilege of nature, that
every man should worship according to his convic
tions." The Roman emperors put themselves in the place
of God. With this blasphemous assumption was
the form of civil oaths made a swearing by the
emperor, and offerings to him were required as to a
god. The protest of Tertullian was : "I will assur
edly call the emperor my lord, but in the common
acceptation, wherein I am not forced to call him
Lord in the place of God." As to such an ascription
he says : "I am free of the emperor ; for I have
only one Lord, the Almighty and eternal God, the
same who is also the emperor's Lord. "
Such, at the cost of martyrdom, was the Christian
position when philosophers, high in the honors of
the world, were saying, as Celsus : " Why should it
be a wrong thing to acquire favor with the rulers ?
5

66 HEEOES AND HIBEARCHS.
When it is required of you to swear by the emperor,
there is nothing so mischievous in this." Because
Christians saw something mischievous in it, the
world to-day has enlightened liberty rather than
pagan despotism.
As to pure and patriotic virtues, Tertullian claims :
"Among us nothing is said or seen or heard which
has anything in common with the madmen of the
circus, the immodesty of the theater, the atrocities
of the arena, or the useless exercises of the wrestling
ground. We pray for the emperors, for their min
isters, and for all in authority, for the welfare of the
world, for the prevalence of peace. On the monthly
collection day each, if he likes, puts in a donation.
These gifts are piety's deposit fund. They are not
taken thence and spent on feasts, drinking-bouts,
and eating houses, but to support and bury poor
people, to supply the wants of boys and girls desti
tute of means or parents, and old persons, such, too,
as have suffered shipwreck, or are shut up in prisons
for fidelity to the cause of God." His Christly
challenge was : ' ' What single case of revenge are
you able to point to, though if we desired to avenge
ourselves, would there be any lack in numbers ? al
most all the inhabitants of your various provinces
being followers of Christ. No ; this alone would be
revenge enough for us, that you were saved. " Says
Neander : " Even their persecutors were never men
tioned, with resentment, but they prayed that God
would forgive them," and when calamities eame

FROM THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD TO THE IMPERIAL. 67
upon the persecuting. Christians were foremost, or
alone, in putting their lives at stake in aiding the
sufferers. When terrific plagues broke out, and the
pagans, philosophers and all, drove from them those
suspected of infection, and fled from the cities.
Christians in organized relief cared for the sick and
buried the deserted dead, at whatever cost to their
own lives.*
That Tertullian and the large body of the churches
of his day represented the principles which distinguish
Baptists, is further shown by his writings on baptism.
His words are : " Concerning baptism, all who be
came believers used to be baptized. Then it was
that Paul was baptized, when he believed. Delay of
baptism in the case of little children is preferable.
The Lord does indeed say. Forbid them not to come
unto me. Let them come, then, while they are be
ing taught whither to come ; let them become Chris
tians when they have become able to know Christ.
Let them know how to ask for salvation." "If bap
tism is not so necessary [to save the child], why
should the sponsors be thrust into danger of the de
velopment of an evil disposition in the child for
whom they stood ? "
The cause of these protests was that in Africa some
of the pastors had come to teach that only the bap
tized are saved, and hence were immersing little
children, — not infants, at first. This first appears a
hundred years, at least, after the death of the apos-
* Neander, Vol. 1, p. 258.

68 HEROES AND HIEEAECHS.
ties, infant baptism coming still later to be practiced-
This, of course, made the little children to become
members of the churches, and consistently the Lord's
supper was administered to them. Children thus
treated would not be likely afterward to experience
conversion, as their position in the church gave them
to understand that they were already Christians.
This innovation in Africa opened the way to laxity
of church discipline, and defections from evangelical
doctrine, as illustrated in the great Arian heresy,
whose source and seat were in Africa aud the East.
Tertullian's position, standing for a regenerate church
membership, was therefore verified anew as vital to
Christianity, and it proved, says Neander, "that the
practice of infant baptism had not as yet come to be
regarded as an apostolic institution."
THE STORY OF THE NOVATIANS AND DONATISTS.
At Rome Novatian took up the contention which
Tertullian had maintained in Africa. Before his
conversion he was a philosopher of eminent culture
and abilities. As an elder in the church, he pro
tested vigorously against receiving as members those
who failed to give, or afterward discredited, evi
dences of regeneration. Overborne by the popular
clergy, he led his followers in withdrawing and form
ing separate churches, called Cathari, or Puritans —
the name and the party being similar to the churches
thus characterized in England fourteen hundred years
later. Mosheim says of them : " They considered

PEOM THE APOSTOLIC PEEIOD TO THE IMPEEIAL. 69
the Christian Church a society of innocent persons,
who, from entering into it, had stained themselves
with no grevious sin, and they regarded as undeserv
ing the name of true churches of Christ those who
opened the door for the return of gross offenders."
They would pray and labor for the salvation of
such, but held that the grounds of fellowship had
been so impaired that the church must not suffer by
their restoration to membership. Their principle as
to church-membership was that of the New Testa
ment, whether or not they erred in acting upon it.
Those who came to them from the popular
churches they could receive only on baptism, and
hence they incurred the odium of rebaptizing, after
ward called anabaptism. These Novatian, or Purist,
churches multiplied very extensively over Europe.
Being excommunicated and execrated by ' ' the lead
ing prelates" whom history treats as " the church,"
they suffered persecution both from the Christian and
pagan hierarchies, in exiles, in prisons, and in every
form and atrocity of martyrdom. ,
An incident in Novatian's life shows what strength
the ruinous heresy of salvation through baptism was
gaining in the popular churches. He was converted
out of a state of great mental excitement which was
followed by a supposed fatal sickness ; and lest he
should be lost for lack of baptism, the church leaders
tried to substitute for immersion the diffusing of water
over his body, while he probably was unconscious —
an instance of what has so often and blindingly hur-

70 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
ried the clergy to death-beds with the so-called sacra-
ments.° This is believed to be the first instance of
an attempt to change the form of the act in baptiz
ing, and it was so discredited as to prevent Nova
tian's election to the office of bishop.
Donatus is the last leader in defense of Bible
principles whom we select from this period. These
men are not presented as the only ones of like spirit
in the churches, but as representing those who stood
forth as leaders and organizers of such as protested
against the defections. They are the heroes who
stepped forth, and led forth, to meet the hierarchs.
Thus Donatus gave form and name to the large
body of Donatists so long seen in the early church
history. ' He was of Carthage, in Africa, a successor
of Tertullian, described by a writer as of great
eloquence, as unbending as Martin Luther, and as
fiery as John Knox. He repeated in Africa the
work of Novatian in Europe. He was elected an
independent bishop by those who seceded from the
ruling church, and the churches of his sect became
very numerous. Mosheim says that they came to
number as many as four hundred pastors. They dis
owned the nominal church of history, as having be
come an organization of the world, through infant
baptism, laxity of discipline, and priestly rule.
^Note the case of a, brutal prize-fighter shot in a saloon
quarrel in Chicago, and the cry : "A priest ! a priest ! " drown
ing even the call for a physician.

FEOM THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD TO THE IMPEEIAL. 71
Their, contention was for a regenerate church mem
bership and an unworldly life.
And the principles of religious freedom, personal
and ecclesiastical, with which their field had been so
well seeded by Tertullian, were in full growth among
the Donatists. Outside of these protesting bodies,
the bishops and churches were in councils passing
conformity decrees, and trying to coerce submission
to them. They were also in alliance with the civil
rulers of Rome, whose idolatry was forced upon all
subjects of the empire. Hence the dissenting Chris
tians were between the upper and nether millstones of
ecclesiastical tyranny and pagan despotism. Rather,
the time was at hand when these crushing powers
were to be consolidated, and to fall on the adherents
of the purer faith. Constantine the emperor is rep
resented as becoming a Christian ; but his reckless
ambition left him still the murderer of his rivals and
kindred, and the betrayer of his allies ; and, while put
ting the cross upon the shields of his soldiers, he put
the sword to the service of the church, which he
made the national one. The Puritans were con
demned and executed, the emperor proclaiming them
heretics, and his Christian hierarchy leading on the
persecution. Experience, however, tempered some
what this imperial policy.
The Donatists were not perfect in character or
policy. In resisting their cruel oppressors they were
implicated, how far justly we may not judge, in the

72 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
lawless violence of fanatical bandits that took their
side, and courted the honor of martyrdom ; but if
we look for Christian principle and life, we shall
best find it in these sufferers. Hear them on relig
ious liberty : "What has the emperor to do with the
church ? " said Donatus, when governmental money
was offered his followers if they would return to the
state church ; and he charged them against receiv
ing any such governmental aid. "Why," they said,
" do you not permit every man to follow his own
free will, since the Lord himself has bestowed this
free will on man?" "Christ persecutes no one."
" Christ sent fishermen, not soldiers, to preach his
faith. " ' ' Did the apostles ever persecute any one ? "
Mark their pure and beneficent life. It is re
corded that they sought to dissuade the rough ban
dits from taking vengeance on their persecutors,
saying, " Christ teaches us to suffer wrong, not re
quite it," and they even invoked the civil power to
restrain these avengers.
In such teachers and their followers we must see
the truest pastors and churches, rather than in those
to whom history accords its honors — as, later the
courtly Augustine, of marked conversion, generous
Christian spirit, and distinguished labors, but allied
with a state church, and upholding its oppressions.
Of him Neander has well said : "It was by Augus
tine that a theory was proposed and founded, which,
tempered though it was in its practical application
by his own pious, philanthropic spirit, nevertheless

FROM THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD TO THE IMPERIAL. 73
contained the germ of that whole system of spiritual
despotism, of intolerance and persecution, which
ended in the tribunals of the Inquisition."
.Never to this theory have Baptists been found
assenting. They stand clearly allied with its oppos-
ers, whom we have now traced through three hun
dred years from the time of Christ's ministry, — the
churches formed and guarded by the apostles ; the
heroic leadership and following of those who learned
the way of the Lord from the apostles ; and their
faithful successors, represented by the names we
have selected from the history of the period.
The lesson of this history is that regenerate piety
is an unwasting, effectual salt ; that it preserves a
pure church and free soul ; and that it demands con
stitutional liberty in civil government. Honored of
men at last, and blessed of God ever, is a history
that has brought through the centuries these princi
ples and this life.

CHAPTER IV.
VOICES OF THE NIGHT.
"And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a
place prepared of God."
FROM the time when, under the emperor Constan
tine, 312 A. D., Christianity was made the state
religion throughout the Roman empire, the vital re
ligion of Christ. went under eclipse, and a thousand
years were to measure the obscuration. "The light
of the world " was still in the world, but the lumi
nous body, the church of the regenerate, was veiled
to earthly view. Hence this period, more or less
entire, is called, most justly in its religious aspect,
the Dark Ages. In all other respects the darkness
was a felt and deadly one ; but the cause of all was
the shutting off' of heaven's light. ' ' If the light
that is in thee be darkness, how great is that dark
ness." Through even more than this long period, that
which appears and moves across the field of Chris
tian history as the church, is the baptized world
under a worldly management, which on the whole
may justly be characterized as priestcraft and state
craft combined. Occasionally a faithful bishop in
connection with the established system would assert
[74]

VOICES OF THE NIGHT. 75
and try to carry out the spirituality, and separateness
from the world, of Christ's kingdom — as Chrysos-
tom, — but he would be overborne, and have his life
worried out in the condemnations and banishments
with which he was pursued.
Emperors, still pagan in character, helped to con
stitute the hydra-head of the religious establishment.
The will of Christ was no longer the law, the truth
of Christ was no longer the doctrine, the life of
Christ was no longer the soiil, in the gross encroach
ment called his church. Says Doctor John Lord in
his able lectures : " The clergy, no longer supported
by voluntary gifts of the disciples but by the
wealth of the temples, became lazy, arrogant, and
independent. The people were shut out from the
government of the church, and religious dogmas
were enforced by the sword. An imposing hie
rarchy, culminating in a pope, decided doctrines, and
compelled assent as dictated by the emperor." The
infidel Hobbs, of England, says: "Papal Rome is
but the ghost of the olden Roman paganism, sitting
crowned on the sepulcher. "
Yet, as in Elijah's time, there were the hundreds
who bowed not the knee in the state idolatry, and
who carried on through the death-darkness their re
generate life. But little of their outshining is per
mitted to reach the eye of readers of history ; and
what these faithful had to encounter from the faith
less, or from those whose faith was subsidized by
the world, not themselves ar.e allowed to tell us, for

76 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
their writings were destroyed. Grievously enough,
however, is it learned of their enemies. Their
' ' great fight of afflictions " for religious liberty was
incessant through the weary centuries.
In the council of Carthage, 411 A. d., the imperial
legate presiding, two hundred and eighty-six bishops
decreed, against two hundred and seventy-nine Dona
tists who were members : "We will that whosoever
denies that little children by baptism are freed from
perdition and eternally saved, they be accursed."
And two years later the emperor Honorius issued an
edict forbidding, under penalty of death, the rebap-
tism, or, as the dissenters claimed, the baptism, of
converts, thus throughout the empire making fast
with his seal the shut doors into the pure churches."
These bodies of true Christians were therefore scat
tered and slain. "The woman fled into the wilder
ness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that
they should feed Ijier there a thousand two hundred
and threescore days. "
Many of the heroes and their faithful followers in
this church in the wilderness are brought into partial
view by their persecutors, but depicted, of course,
as bitter enemies desired. As the cries of the night-
watch, let us hear their voices.
Jovinian of Rome, about 400 a. d., is called by
Neander " the Protestant of his time." He shows,
however, that the distinction was not Jovinian's
^Dr. J. Newton Brown, in "Baptist Martyrs," p. 15; Nean
der, Vol. 11, p. 201.

VOICES OF THE NIGHT. 77
alone. Unmarried and monkish life had become
the rage with those who would be counted most relig
ious. Out of the form of that life itself came Jovinian
as the reprover of its spirit and assumptions. He
insisted that the church, as the body of the regener
ate children of God, is for all true members the
highest type of life. Single or in family, social or
secluded, every Christian is to have his right of
choice honored, and his equality in rank acknowl
edged. His contention, therefore, was for a pure
church, with soul-freedom the common right of its
members, "They are all taught of God," he
emphasized. "No person can break into their in-
closure by violence, or creep in by fraud." "All
have the same calling, the same dignity, the same
heavenly blessings."
For these peaceable avowals of Bible principle,
the noble reformer was denounced and banished by
the Roman bishop. Fleeing to Milan, he hoped for
better treatment from the distinguished Ambrose,
but this hierarch joined in the chase of the
worried sheep. Jovinian and his followers were
driven into more distant exile, warnings being sent
ahead of them, and thus the field of popular church
history was cleared of their further appearance,
though under other names their principles emerged.
Historians trace the continued maintenance of the
claim for Christian freedom in religion through the
succeeding centuries by persecuted parties of differ
ent names, or to whose names no place was allowed

78 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
in the dominant history. The popes of Rome, with
opposition from different seats of a similar prelatic
usurpation, came to control the current religion, and
to bury in oblivion if they could all who disputed
their authority.
The breaking up of the Roman empire and the
ceaseless contentions of emperors, popes, and war
riors throughout Europe, fill the pages of history
through the middle ages. These contentions among
the rulers at times left unmolested the bodies of true
Christians in their realms, and occasionally a gleam
of justice would shine out from the throne of an
emperor or a bishop, or even a pope ; as when, to the
persecuting church, Theodoric, the Gothic conqueror
of Rome, said — throwing forward the great princi
ple over a thousand years of, its bloody denials —
" You have no right to punish save for the disturb
ances of the public peace ; to pretend to a dominion
over the conscience is to usurp the prerogative of
God." One stream, however, of evangelical Christian life
in this period was so remarkable in its rise and flow
as to make for itself a clearly seen and large place
on the turbulent surface of the times.
THE STORY OF PETER WALDO.
A peculiar people came to bear the name of this
one of their leaders, but they did not originate with
him, and other names distinguished them in diffaf-
ent places and times : as Albigenses, from the name

VOICES OF THE NIGHT. 79
of the town AIM ; Vaudois, people of the valleys ;
or Poor Men of Lyons, from that French city.
Neander says : " It was not without some foundation
of truth that the Waldenses asserted the high an
tiquity of their sect, and maintained that from the
time of the secularization of the church, such an op
position to its worldliness had existed all along " as
was at length arrayed under their name. "They
were a link in the chain of reactions, running
through the whole period of reactions of the Chris
tian consciousness against the churchly theocratic
system. of the middle ages." And he calls them the
purest link in the chain.
Peter Waldo was a wealthy citizen of Lyons, in
the south of France, who came into historic view
about the year 1170. He was in a convivial assem
bly with his fashionable friends, when one of the
company suddenly died. The solemn event found
in Waldo one who was ready to entertain its lessons.
He resolved to turn from his worldly life, and be a
Christian. An experimental faith caused in him old
things to pass away, and all things to become new.
He consecrated his personal life and all his property
to Christian work. He hired scholars to put into
the written language . of the people translations, first
of the gospels, then of other portions of the Bible,
until at length the word of God was in multiplied
manuscript copies circulated for common reading.
He himself became an unofficial reader and preacher
of Bible truth, accompanying his work with large

80 HEROES AND HIEEAECHS.
charities to the poor ; and he organized for such
work throughout the country the Christians under
his infiuence.
The nominal bishops condemned and prohibited
these evangelical labors, but the laborers said :
" We ought to obey God rather than man," and per
sisted in their work. The bishops resorted to vio
lence, and the Christians appealed to the pope at
Rome. Waldo and others sent a delegation to Pope
Alexander III, carrying a copy of the translated
Bible, and asking his approval of its circulation and
of the connected evangelical labors. The pope con
vened a council to meet the delegation, and consider
their request. There is to-day a manuscript in the
library at Oxford, England, over six hundred years
old, containing the report of that consultation. It
was written by one Walter Mapes, a monk from
England, who was present as a representative. He
was on a committee to which the Waldensian dele
gates, with their Bible and evangelism, were re
ferred for examination. He says that they found
them ' ' going about two by two, in plain apparel, and
with a common purse, like the apostles and Jesus ; "
that they had little of the learned fooleries of the
school-men, but much knowledge of the Bible. But
says this papal monk, ' ' Had we suffered them
to gain a firm footing, we should have been driven
out ourselves." The pope condemned them, order
ing them to stop preaching.
Of their character another papal writer says :

VOICES OF THE NIGHT. 81
"Among all the sects which have hitherto existed,
there has been none more pernicious to the church
than the Waldenses, because they are universally
spread ; and, while others repel by the blasphemous
character of their doctrines', the Waldenses are quite
orthodox, lead a pious life before men, are orderly
and modest in their manners, eschew oaths, false
hood, and fraud, live on their own earnings, are
chaste, never found hanging . about wine shops, at
tend no balls or other vanities, govern their passions,
and are always at work." Of the tavern they say :
"It is the fountain of sin, the school of the devil,"
— most pernicious surely they were to such a
"church" as the hypocritical Roman. Neander
remarks: "As the origin of the Waldenses is to
be traced to the reading of the Bible, they always
remained true to this distinction. " Mesi and women
were noted for scriptural knowledge, in contrast
with the ignorance of even the clergy in the nominal
churches. It is recorded of them : "All could read
and write ; " " civil obedience was with them a point
of conscience."
In purity of doctrinal belief, hundreds of years
before Luther, they insisted on "justification through
the merits of Christ," thought confession to a priest
of no account, rejected the doctrine of purgatory and
the necessity of consecrated burial grounds, and re
garded as idolatry the worship of the virgin and of
pictures. They arraigned the nominal church as
Antichrist for putting its authority and a dead faith
6

82 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
in the place of Christ's grace and righteousness, and
baptizing children to regenerate them. They said
that " visible baptism makes no one either good or
bad, but is an enrollment among believing Chris
tians," insisting upon a •church-membership of the
regenerate only. Thus the Bible principles held
and suffered for by them are identical with those of
Baptists. By their labors in circulating the Script
ures and teaching and preaching the Lord Jesus,
the Waldenses multiplied themselves all over Eu
rope. They adopted every lawful form of labor and
business for the purpose of traveling and sojourning
on self-support to extend the gospel. Some of them
became peddlers of ornaments for the rich, that they
might quietly leave the word of life in such homes.
A picture of this Whittier has wrought in verse. A
Waldensian salesman having shown at a house his
jewelry, and -being asked if he has anything more,
replies : — " ' O lady fair, 1 have yet a gem
Which a purer luster flings
Than the diamond flash of the jeweled crown
On the lofty brow of kings, —
A wonderful pearl of exceeding price.
Whose virtues shall not decay.
Whose light shall be as a spell to thee.
And a blessing on thy way.'
" Then the cloud went ofl the pilgrim's brow
As a small and meager book,
Unchased with gold or gem of cost.
From his folding robe he took.

VOICES OF THE NIGHT. 83
'Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price ;
May it prove as such to thee, — ¦
Nay, keep thy gold : I ask it not.
For the Word of God is free.' "
And now see the hierarchs of proud and grace
less form-doing in religion turn loose their hunters
and hounds to pursue to their death these harmless
and beneficent servants of the Lord Jesus, — the
heroic keepers of the faith. It was not Christianity
that was persecuting ; it was the world persecuting
Christianity, just as Jesus forewarned: "Because
ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the
world, therefore the world hateth you ; " " and ye
know that it hated me before it hated you." The
same world, led by just such priestcraft and state
craft as hunted down and crucified Christ, waged its
relentless war on the Christ-like through the Chris
tian centuries. We may admit that there were ec
clesiastics blind enough to think they were doing
God service, but their treatment ran to enormities
as great as if the, fiends of hell had been turned loose
into those valleys.
It is scarcely possible to believe the records of
torture and murder which these Christians sufferedj
century after century. It is impossible to describe
the horrors. Men are reported to have been skinned
alive, and women to have been treated worse.
Whole communities would be at midnight driven to
fly into the snow-filled recesses of mountains, where
scores of frozen babes and mothers would be found at

84 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
daylight. Known assassins were promised impunity
if they would charge their crimes upon Christian pas
tors. Thousands on thousands died in prisons. A
writer exclaims: "Every rock and valley of Pied
mont cries aloud with a terrible voice of agony to
God for vengeance."
So late as the time of Oliver Cromwell in England,
the middle of the seventeenth century, these horrible
persecutions were still going on in Italy, under Pope
Innocent (?) X and King Charles Immanuel (?) II.
And it is among the high honors of Cromwell that
he powerfully protested, through his ambassador, to
the king ; that he personally contributed ten thou
sand dollars for the relief of the sufferers ; that he
offered them a home in Ireland, and interceded with
most of the sovereigns of Europe iu their behalf. In
this Cromwell was accompanied, if not led, by his
secretary of state, John Milton, the immortal poet
and the powerful Baptist advocate, with whom Roger
Williams was in friendly association. This sympa
thy and righteous indignation in Milton accounts for
his sublime appeal to the justice of God in the son
net so often made to voice prayer for the op
pressed : —
"Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold, —
Even them who kept thy faith so pure of old
When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones.
Forget not ! In thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled

VOICES OF THE NIGHT. 85
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To heaven, — their martyred blood and ashes sown
O 'er all the Italian fields, where still shall grow
A hundred fold, who, having learned thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe."
As all copies of the Scriptures were searched for
and burned by the persecutors, the Waldenses com
mitted whole books to memory. A Catholic writer
says: I have seen an "illiterate peasant who had
learned by heart the book of Job, and several others
who had committed to memory the entire New Testa
ment." It was required of their pastors thus to learn
most parts of the New Testament. The Bible, only,
as a supreme authority in faith and practice, was
their inflexible principle, and the right of each in
dividual to interpret it for himself.
Persecution scattered these people with their prin
ciples throughout Europe. It is claimed in their
behalf that the movement in England in the four
teenth century, headed by John Wycliffe, was started
by sparks flying from the stake-fires in Italy and
France. Remarkably after the manner of Peter
Waldo, two hundred years before, did Wycliffe con
secrate himself to giving the Bible in ^written trans
lations into the English tongue to all who could thus
read it.
The Waldenses still live. Communities of them
in the valleys of Italy, Switzerland, and Germany
bear their ancieiit name, and maintain their church

86 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
organization. Having somewhere along their course
adopted infant baptism and the Romish form of the
rite, they show inconsistently with their still avowed
principle, that the Bible alone is the standard to
which Christian and church belief and life must con
form. They still maintain vigorously the work of
circulating the Scriptures. And says a writer :
"Their pui-ity of life and faith contrasts favorably
with the defections and religious deadness of the
French, German, and Swiss Protestants. Their
firm endurance of more terrible persecutions than
any other Christians in ancient or modern times
have been called to suffer," make them immortal
witnesses of the immortal life which Jesus gives to
those who experimentally come to him.
On this prolific vine there were branches and run
ners whose fruit bore different names, and continued
to be produced in the succeeding period, as we shall
see. The Paulicians, so persistent through many
centuries, had some principles in common with the
Albigenses and Waldenses, and suffered with them
in untold numbers, a hundred thousand being put to
death by the sword, the gibbet, or the flames in
fourteen years, under the Empress Theodora. The
Petrobrusians and Henricians, arising under the
names and influence of these two powerful leaders,
filled southern France with an evangelical following
that maintained at the common cost of suffering and
death, the contention for religious liberty. Peter of
Bruys was burned at the stake, and Henry of Lau-

VOICES OF THE NIGHT. 87
sanne languished in prison for life. Arnold of Bres
cia, in Italy, also belongs with the heroes who did
valiant and telling battle with the hierarchs. He
opposed a converted and godly life and a powerful
persuading against the priestly usurpations, and even
compelled the pope at Rome to yield for a few years
his allied temporal power, and content himself with
lordship in the church. But other powers that were,
turned upon the reformers ; he was hanged, his
body burned, and the ashes thrown into the Tiber.
"He spoke, and Italy arose,
Thrilled by her prophet's tongue of flame;
Religion triumphed o'er her foes.
And freedom sung her Arnold's name.
" But ah, the martyr's voice was hushed.
His ashes strewed the Tiber's flood ;
Truth, Freedom, Right, by power were crushed.
And Rome was drunk with holy blood."
— J. Newton Brown.
That the Waldenses and other evangelical bodies
who carried this holy war for freedom through the
Dark Ages were of the regenerate character, and held
other of the Bible principles for which Baptists
stand, is the conclusive testimony of history. In
1819, two learned theologians and teachers in Hol
land, pedobaptists of the Dutch Reformed Church,
were ordered by the king to prepare for the govern
ment use a history of the Dutch Baptists.
The result of their labor was summed up as fol- •
lows : —

88 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
"The Mennonites are descended from the tolerably pure
evangelical Waldenses, who were driven by persecution into
various countries, and who, during the latter part of the twelfth
century, fled into Flanders and into the provinces of Holland
and Zealand, where they lived simple and exemplary lives, in
the villages as farmers, in the towns as traders, free from the
charge of any gross immoralities, and professing the most pure
and simple principles, which they exemplified in a holy conver
sation. They were therefore in existence long before the Re
formed Church of the Nethei'lands."
And the report concludes : — ¦
"We have now seen that the Baptists, who were formerly
called Anabaptists, and in later times Mennonites, were the
original Waldenses, and have long in the history of the church
received the honor of that origin. On this account the Bap
tists may be considered as the only Christian community which
has stood since the days of the apostles, and as a Christian so
ciety which has preserved pure the doctrines of the gospel
through all ages. The perfectly correct external and internal
economy of the Baptist denomination tends to confirm the truth,
disputed by the Roman Church, that the Reformation brought
about in the sixteenth century was in the highest degree neces
sary, and at the same time goes to refute the erroneous notion
of the Catholics that their communion is the most ancient."
Contrary to what is true in surveying natural
scenery, the field of mediaeval history shows the val
leys lighted, and the mountain summits shrouded in
darkness. Prelates and popes and monkish orders,
leagued with tyrannical political powers, lift their
heads over the vista, full often like the head of the
cobra, hooded in malice. But the true people of
God, "the many thousands of Israel," dwelling in
their vales, made them luminous with pureness of
heart and beneficence of life.

CHAPTER V.

HERALDS OF THE MORNING.

"The watchman said: The morning cometh, and also the
night." DEPARTING night has its morning star, and in
spires its voices to clearer and more joyous herald
ing. In the fourteenth century learning had begun to
revive. Universities and society schools had been es
tablished. The labor of book-making with the pen
was more widely diffused, and the ' ' theologic cramp "
employed in repressing religious freedom, became
more generally irksome. These features of the age
we shall see impersonated first and most strongly if
we call up a great Englishman of five hundred years
ago. THE STOEY OF JOHN WYCLIFFE.
He lived and died a Roman Catholic in church
connection, because that was the established church
in England, and because he had infiuence and friends
of enough rank and power to disable the church from
putting him to death ; but his principles and his
amazing life-work were fearlessly against the corrup
tions and oppressions of the hierarchy.
At the middle of the century he had graduated at
Oxford, and occupied the high position of head of
[89]

90 HEROES AND HIEEAECHS.
its theological faculty. He is believed also to have
been a member of Parliament, where he led in re
sisting the many exactions of the pope. In his preach
ing as rector and in his many circulated writings,
he boldly proclaimed that "a papal decree has no
validity except so far as it is founded on the Script
ures ; " insisted that churchly powers should not in
terfere with civil and personal rights ; and affirmed
that in the primitive church there were only the two
simple and local ministers. As to ordinances, says
Dr. Vaughn, "John de Wycliffe thought that the
value of a sacrament must depend wholly on the
mind of the recipient, not at all on the external act
performed by the priest, and that infant salvation
was not dependent on infant baptism." Thus were
involved in his doctrine a spiritual church member
ship, and the free exercise of the believers' will in
religious matters, — the Scriptural and denomina
tional principles whose long struggle for victory over
hierarchical domination we are tracing.
These principles fearlessly avowed and powerfully
advocated by Wycliffe were enough to enrage the
papacy and draw its fire. Numerous bulls were
fulminated against the reformer, and he was sum
moned to Rome for trial, and of course condemned,
and his voice and writings put under ban ; but his
king and titled friends, and the people at large,
stood around him as an effectual shield against
bodily martyrdom. Years after his burial the un
derlying spite against his work and influence decreed

HERALDS OF THE MORNING. 91
and perpetrated the robbing of his grave and burn
ing of its relics, with all that could be seized of his
writings, throwing the ashes into the stream that ran
through his parish. And thus, says the historian
Thomas Fuller, " this brook has conveyed his ashes
into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow
seas, they into the main ocean ; so the ashes of Wyc
liffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is
dispersed all the world over."
But the greatest work for spiritual emancipation
wrought by Wycliffe was in doing for the English-
reading world what Waldo did for the French, —
translating and circulating the Bible. It is now five
hundred and twenty-five years since, from his long~
toiling hand and lavish purse, this supreme boon was
given to our race in our mother tongue. Nearly a
century it had yet to wait before the art of printing
came to put it in easily accessible volumes, but the
manuscripts were multiplied by loving or hired
hands, and greedily sought and used wherever, on
island or continent, the language was spoken. In
this was Wycliffe's magnitude as " the Morning Star
of the Reformation." Under God he not only pre
ceded, but brought the Sun to shine upon, the Eng
lish world that was, and that was to be. As the
morning beams fiew swiftly abroad, the nation, and
the nations, wakened. Men were burned for read
ing these translations, but the stake fires were lights
in which more readers seized the books, and read on.
Of the wonderful diffusion, preservation, and in-

92 ' HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
fluence of this translation. Dr. R. S. Storrs has
said : —
" Nearly or quite a hundred and fifty manuscripts remain, in
whole or in part, written on vellum with elaborate care, to be
the possession of churches or the wealthy, not a few bearing
the marks of long use and the concealments into which they
were hurried in times of trouble. All these were written
within forty years after Wycliffe's death. And if we remember
what careful, destructive search for them was made in the days
of persecution, how many were borne across the sea, how
many shriveled in the fires of war, how many were burned,
with those who had read them, on public squares, how many
probably wait to be discovered, we shall see how extraordinary
their number at the first must have been. Only a spirit intense
and determined could have driven so swiftly so many pens.
How vast the impression produced by the version which thus
burst into use, on language, on life in the whole sphere of
moral, social, spiritual, even political experience, who shall
declare ?"
Says Sechler : "It marks an epoch in the develop
ment of the English language almost as much as
Luther's translation does in the history of the Ger
man tongues." " Chief of the reformers before the
Reformation," "the progenitor and prototype of
the Puritans," are other characterizations of this
master in Israel. To be identified in principle with
such a leader, and to be his successors in the great
strife which he left to be fought out, are an honor
and trust high and sacred.
The new evangelical movement in England did
not stop with Wycliffe's death. Those who had be
come enlisted in it came, for some unknown reason,

HERALDS OF THE MORNING. 93
to be called Lollards. They carried on the circula
tion of the Scriptures and the writings of their lead
ers. Preachers were converted, and their churches
became seats of revival. Traveling evangelists, as
with the Waldenses, scattered the word of God, and
showed unto the people the way of salvation. A
Romanist writer complained that half of the people
had become disaffected toward the church. But the re
pressed wrath of the persecutors found a place to break
forth. The papal power procured a statute for burn
ing heretics, and the fires were kept fiercely aglow.
"Multitudes were ruthlessly hurried to the flames or
* floods." . A hundred dreary years pass away, when,
as the Reformation approaches, estrangements be
tween England and Rome left the servants of God
less molested. Says Dr. Storrs: "The fatal laws
against Wycliffe's adherents fell dead ; it was the
time for which his quickening thought had waited,
and having brooded silent in the air, it then burst
into voice, as if touching a thousand souls at once."
Such was the preparation by the word of God and by
the seed of martyr blood, for the Reformation, and
such its welcome. THE STORY OF JOHN HUSS.
The signal gun in England was answered by one
in central Europe. The sublime faith of Wycliffe
was realized : "I am assured that the truth of the
gospel may indeed for a time be cast down in par
ticular places, and may for awhile abide in silence in

94 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
consequence of the threats of Antichrist, but extin
guished it can never be ; for the Truth itself has said.
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall
never pass."
The Waldenses, scattered as we have seen through
out the continent, are reported as eighty thousand in
Bohemia before the dawn of the Reformation. The
revival of learning established the University of
Prague ; and here, in 1393, eleven years after Wyc
liffe's death, graduated John Huss. In the library
there, " in a copy of the missal containing the old
Hussite liturgy, richly illuminated by loving hands,
Wycliffe is pictured at the top, lighting a spark ; Huss'
below him, blowing it into a flame ; Luther still
lower, waving on high the lighted torch. It is a true
picture of that succession in which others followed
with brightening luster this 'Morning Star of the
Reformation,' till the sky was glowing through all
its arch with the radiance of the upspringlng light.'"
In the university life of Huss, where he became 9
teacher, and was promoted to the head of the theo
logical faculty, as Wycliffe was at Oxford, the works
of Wycliffe fell into his hands, and received his de
lighted study and embrace. He became an ardent
preacher and disseminator in writings of the reformed
doctrines. He proclaimed, says Professor Fisher,
"that no authority is final except that of the Script
ures." "His words and his life manifested a heart
felt zeal for practical holiness, and he propounded a
»R. S. Storrs, "Five-hundredth Anniversary."

HERALDS OF THE MOENING. 95
lofty conception of the functions and duties of the
clergy. In these characteristics Huss' was not ex
celled by any ecclesiastical reformer before or since."
He was the adviser of the queen, and in great favor
with all except the papal hierarchy and those whom
it enslaved. His teachings and life could not but
commit him to spirituality in the church and full re
ligious freedom for all. He said: "We ought to
read the books of heretics, not burn them, lest they
contain something of truth." And this he said when
all the precious writings that could be hunted up, —
Wycliffe's, his own, and others, — were being thrown
into bonfires, and his person was doomed to the
same fate. Of his followers, " a letter written to
Erasmus from Bohemia states, ' They admit none
until they are dipped in water, and they reckon one
another, without distinction in rank, to be called
brothers and sisters.'"
Not daring to try such men for heresy in their
own country, the pope ordered him to a council at
Constance, where the emperor assured him of safe
guarding, and he was led to believe freedom of speech
would be granted him ; but he found himself thrown
at once into prison, where for months he lay, denied
any hearing in the council, or any utterance save in
denial of his principles to committees sent to him
to force this. There, July 6, 1415, he went forth to
the stake, calmly avowing " the rights of conscience
as against the edicts of popes and councils." Kneel
ing by the crackling fire, and praying to Jesus, just

96 HEEOES AND HIEEAKCHB.
as holy Stephen knelt and prayed, his spirit went up
in the flame into the opened heaven, and the mortal
ashes were gathered up and thrown into the Rhine,
to mingle with Wycliffe's in the same ocean, sym
bolic of their joint influence on all nations of men.
Once more the contest of hero and hierarchs was
over, and, though a martyr fell, freedom was ad
vanced toward its costly victory.
JEEOME OF PRAGUE.
This name belongs in the story of Huss. Of the
same city, at the same day, they were loving friends
in the University, and in their Christian experience,
sentiments, and labors. He became a main of ex
tensive learning, spending periods of study at the
universities of Prague, Paris, Heidelberg, Cologne,
and Oxford. He was employed by the king of Po
land to organize the University of Cracow. Though
a layman, he held discussions on the questions iu re
ligion, advocating with great ability reforms in the
church, and the doctrinal views wliich Wycliffe and
Huss had advanced. Such a discussion with the
chancellor of the University of Paris gave him wide
notoriety. He suffered imprisonment at Vienna for
his reform efforts, and was released only through
the strong intercessions of his Bohemian friends.
Learning of the danger into which Huss had fallen
at Constance, he hastened thither to defend him, but
was obliged to fly from threatened violence. Obtain
ing, as he supposed, a safe conduct, he was return-

HERALDS OF THE MORNING. 97
ing to the aid of his friend, when he was seized and
put in the power of the council as a prisoner. After
several attempts to condemn him in the council, in
one session of which he made a qualifled recantation,
he finally solemnly retracted all admission of error,
and was hurried to the same stake where Huss had
suffered, and met his fate with most impressive
courage. A long and admiring description of his defences
before the council, and of his death, is given by the
secretary of the pope. Calling him the Bohemian
heretic, he says : — ¦
"It was amazing to hear with what force of expression, with
what fluency of language, and with what excellent reasoning,
he answered his adversaries. Nor was I less struck with the
gracefulness of his manner, the dignity of his action, and the
firmness and constancy of his whole behavior. It grieved me
to think so great a man was laboring under so atrocious an ac
cusation. He began his defence with prayer to God, whose
assistance he pathetically implored. He then referred to pro
fane history, — unjust sentences given against Socrates, Plato,
Anaxagoras ; and next to Scripture, exhibiting the sufferings
of the worthies. Then he dwelt on the merits of the cause
pending, resting entirely on the credit of witnesses who
avowedly hated him. And here his appeal made a strong im
pression upon the minds of his hearers, and not a little shook
the credit of the witnesses. He had been confined almost
a year in a dungeon, of which he complained, but in the lan
guage of a great and good man. In this horrid place he was
deprived of books and papers, yet notwithstanding this, and
the constant anxiety which must have hung over him, he was at
no loss for proper authorities and quotations. The greatest
character in ancient story could not possibly go beyond him.
7

98 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
Two days were allowed him for reflection, during which time
many persons of consequence, and particularly my lord cardinal
of Florence, endeavored to bring him to a better mind. But
persisting obstinately in his errors, he was condemned as a
heretic. With a cheerful countenance, and more than stoical
constancy, he met his fate. When he came to the place, he
pulled ofl his upper garment, and made a short prayer at the
stake, to which he was bound with wet cords and an iron
chain, and inclosed as high as his breast in fagots. Observing
the executioner about to set fire to the wood behind his back,
he cried out, ' Bring thy torch hither ; perform thy office be
fore my face. Had I feared death, I might have avoided it.'
As the wood began to blaze,- he sang a hymn, which the vio
lence of the flames scarcely interrupted. Thus died this prodig
ious man. I was myself a witness of his whole behavior.
Whatever his life may have been, his death is a noble lesson. "2
Orchard's history states that he was baptized by
immersion, as was still the common practice, and
after his adult experience. His being of the follow
ers of Huss would imply as much. Thus continues
the line of those who have counted not their lives dear
unto themselves in the struggle to maintain a Bible
church and a Bible life.
Other names of those who preceded Luther might
be added, and other classes of followers, allied to
these in character ; but we pass to the succeeding
period. 2 "Baptist Martyrs," p. 44.

CHAPTER VI.
THE STOEY OF THE ANABAPTISTS.
" The Baptist party, whose trophy from the first was freedom
of conscience, unlimited freedom of mind, was trodden under
foot with foul reproaches and most arrogant scorn, and its his
tory is written in the blood of myriads of the German peasantry;
but its principles, safe in their immortality, escaped with Roger
Williams to Providence, and his colony is the witness that
naturally the paths of the Baptists are paths of freedom." —
Bancroft. THE distinguished historian, not himself a Baptist,
has here left on record the testimony which
candid and thorough study of the period of the Ref
ormation compels. It is a prejudiced and false rep
resentation which many writers allow themselves
to make when they stigmatize the Anabaptists as
" numerous licentious and fanatical sectaries, whose
excesses afforded a plausible pretext for punishing ;"
or impute to them "the wild excesses of the Com
munists at Munster." Thomas Miinzer, one of the
leaders of reform in Germany, who was borne on
into revolutionary and criminal acts, was never an
Anabaptist. He remained in the Romish Church,
and received its sacrament at his beheading. As
his platform of reform embraced the principles for
[99]

100 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
which Baptists had always contended, together with
errors of which they were free, and as they were
suffering intolerable oppressions, it was natural that
some of them should become enlisted with him, and
be implicated in wrongs of which personally they
would have been innocent ; as at all times good men
are liable to become involved in wrong-doing under
leaders with whom they are in sympathy.
"Anabaptist" meant simply a Christian whose
belief and obedience placed baptism after conver
sion, irrespective of what had been done under that
name to the person in his infancy, — just as "Jesus
made and baptized" disciples. Of- these Christians,
great numbers had been journeying down the cent
uries in different parts of Europe. The heralding
of the Reformation found them hidden in the re
cesses of their lands, repressed and preyed upon by
the endless succession of their churchly persecutors.
Hailing with joy and praise the glad signals, they
sprang forth to aid wherever they could the breaking
of the oppressor's arm ; and in the great and long
conflict, they were in the front line on the Lord's
side, and met the deadliest resistance. The banner
given by the Lord to them that feared him, to be
displayed because of tlie truth, bore this inscrip
tion : "The Bible, only, the religion of Protest
ants. " Those who were Baptist in principle and life
were the only people prepared of the Lord to re
ceive this banner, and never allow it to be lowered.
Luther and Zwingle aud others, in combating the

THE STORY OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 101
papal corruptions, claimed to stand solely upon the
word of God ; but their attempt to apply this prin
ciple was only partial. It was said of them at the
time, with cutting truth and justice, that when argu
ing against the papists, they took the Baptist posi
tion ; but when arguing against the Baptists, they
went over to the Romish position. 'Hubmeier, the
Swiss Baptist, expostulates with his friend Zwingle
thus : ' ' You said in opposition to Faber that all truth
is clearly revealed in the word of God. If now in
fant baptism is a truth, show us the scripture in
which it is found. If you do not, the vicar will com
plain that you have used against him a sword which
you now lay aside." The Lutheran Church even
formally decreed that "tlie natural meaning of
Scripture is "what the three creeds, the Apostles',
that of Nicea, and that "of Athanasius, interpret it to
be," and allowed no one to carry an appeal past
those creeds up to the Bible. Hence the Anabap
tists, disappointed of religious liberty under the
policy of the leading reformers, came instead to be
persecuted by them ; and so, between the front-fire
of the Catholics and the cross-fire of the dominant
Protestants, those who stood faithfully for the Bible
only had their fate aggravated rather than relieved.
The story of their sufferings from the time that
Luther nailed his theses to the church door (1517)
until the proclamation of toleration by William of
Orange (1676) is too horrible to be told. It seems
utterly incredible that man should so ply every in-

102 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
vention of cruelty to torture and ruin his fellow-
beings. To say that the church did it is a blasphemy.
It was fiends incarnate, "stealing the livery of
Heaven." If, in cases like Luther and Zwingle and
Calvin and others, it was Christian men who were so
under the power of the fell spirit of the time as to
assent to the punishment of heretics by maltreatment
and death, it is a relief to know that they invoked
clemency rather than atrocity in the execution of
sentences, as did Calvin in the case of Servetus, and
others ; but with few exceptions we are forced to
cry out continually as we read : "Is there no flesh in
man's obdurate heart ? " Must acknowledged good
ness and greatness of character, kindly life, Christly
piety, and forgiveness toward enemies, age, sex, the
innocence of childhood, the sacredness of maternity,
all appeal in vain for the mercy .we would extend to
a serpent which we must destroy?
Dr. Burrage, in the " Anabaptists in Switzerland,"
Dr. Cramp, in "Baptist History," Dr. Osgood, in
"Madison Avenue Lectures," and the various books
of martyrology, delineate the painful tragedies, and
vindicate the character of the heroic sufferers. " The
blood of myriads of the German peasantry " is not
an over-measure. To win their martyr prize, ' ' they
sailed through bloody seas."
Whole communities were massacred by tortures of
the gibbet, the stake, drowning, or whatever cruel
ties the raging hatred could devise. Philip II of
Spain and Henry II of France had early made a

THE STOEY OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 103
secret league to "exterminate the accursed vermins,"
and, whatever their strifes with each other afterward,
they alike carried out that murderous compact.
In a mountainous district of Switzerland, a numer
ous body of Baptists were visited by a friend from
Moravia who persuaded them to emigrate to his
country, where means of living were more abundant,
and they would be beyond the reach of their perse
cutors. They disposed of their possessions, and set
forth upon the long journey ; but in a strange land on
the way their enemies overtook them ; all the men
were beheaded, the women drowned, their property
and little ones carried off. In the different states and
districts, edicts were issued, by both ecclesiastical and
civil functionaries, that all rebaptizers should be
drowned, if not otherwise made away with, the lan
guage of the edict indicating the Baptist practice in
baptizing : "Who immerses, let him be immersed."
Executioners complained that the numbers of the vic
tims were so great and so constantly replenished as
to tire and discourage them in the work of slaughter.
Men eminent in talent, learning, and useful serv
ice by voice and pen, were particularly marked for
sacrifice, and called forth, in their excruciating but
triumphant deaths, the admiration of enemies for
their nobility, and the loving grief of disciples for
their work's sake. Hubmeier was a university pro
fessor, and a preacher and writer of great power.
His sublime response was, when the decree of ban
ishment struck him, "I appeal for justice ; if I am

104 HEEOES AND HIEEAECHS.
wrong, let me be punished." "Divine truth is im
mortal ; and although for awhile it may be arrested,
scourged, crowned in mockery, crucified, and buried,
it will nevertheless on the third day rise victorious,
and rule and triumph forever and ever." Flying for
life from country to country, baptizing many hun
dreds, and organizing them as churches of the regen
erate, but finally hunted down under the tyranny of
Austria, he prayed as he knelt by the stake : " O my
Father, I thank thee that to-day thou wilt lift me
from this valley of sorrow. With joy I die, that I
may come to thee. Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world, into thy hands I commend my
spirit." His faithful wife, who had refused to be
separated from him, with a heavy stone bound to
her neck, was drowned from the bridge over the
Danube. Felix Mantz, his friend, alike gifted and learned
and godly, from whom crowds of eager listeners
drank in the living water, was publicly executed by
the Protestant magistrates of Ziirich for his preach
ing and baptizing. Says the chronicler: "As he
was led through the shambles to the boat, he praised
God that he was about to die for his truth, as Christ
had foretold that his followers should suffer for the
truth's sake. On the way his mother and brother
came to him, and exhorted him to be steadfast ; and
he persevered in his folly even to the end. When
he was bound upon the hurdle, and was about to be
thrown into the stream, he sang with a loud voice.

THE STOEY OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 105
'Into thy hand, O Lord, I commend my spirit,' and
herewith he was drawn into the water by the execu
tioner, and drowned." The report of it to Zwingle
was : "Died gloriously, on which account the cause
of truth and piety which you sustain, is weighed
down exceedingly."
In Germany, as in Switzerland, strangely enough,
with the assent of Luther, Melanchthon, Bucer,
and (Ecolampadius, the Reformers and the Roman
ists joined in decreeing imprisonment and death
against Baptists ; and the crown of martyrdom rested
on brows as noble in the one country as the other.
Hetzer, who preceded Luther in giving much of the
Bible to the people in their native tongue, was
brought to the block at Constance, where he opened
his Hebrew psalter, and kneeling, translated with
firm voice the twenty-fifth psalm. As he read : ' ' He
shall pluck my feet out of the net," he looked down
to the cords that bound him, and the people with
sobs repeated the words. And then praying,
"Through Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world by
his blood," he asked God's presence, and calmly laid
his head beneath the ax. A preacher of the persecut
ing party reported : "Never in Constance was seen
a nobler, more manful death." The learned Denk,
who had been joined with this martyr in labors, '
shared his condemnation, but escaped his fate by the
more kind interposition of a prevailing pest.
Thus we might extend without limit the list, com
menced by the inspired writer to the Hebrews, of

106 HEEOES AND HIEEAECHS.
those of whom the world was not worthy, "who had
trials of mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of
bonds and imprisonment," and were slain with every
torture. And every name would represent crowds
of those who were "partakers with them that were
so used." THE MENNONITES.
Under the bloody rule of Spain in Holland and
Belgium during the Reformation period, the Ana
baptists came largely to bear the name of Mennon
ites, from Menno, their distinguished leader. He
was a Hollander in the Catholic priesthood. Hear
ing of an affiicting martyrdom of an Anabaptist, he
began to read the Bible with reference to the Ana
baptist belief, and saw that there was no authority
for infant baptism. After some years he came to
experience true conversion, and united with the
Baptist Church. For twenty-five years he labored,
journeying through the provinces, preaching to mul
titudes, baptizing and organizing the disciples, until,
as Mosheim says, "He was almost the common
father and bishop of all the Anabaptists " throughout
northern Europe. He opposed all disorderly poli
cies, and his followers, with loyal patriotism, served
to their best with William of Orange and the other
nobles in resisting and breaking the despotism of
Spain. In personal service, and in taxing them
selves to contribute money through the long war,
they elicited the hearty thanks of Orange, and se
cured from him, as soon as he had power, the prOc-

THE STOEY OF THE ANABAPTISTS. l07
lamation of governmental protection in their rights,
saying as he did to the Calvanistic magistrates at
Middelburg : "You have no right to trouble your
selves with any man's conscience, so long as nothing
is done to cause private harm or public scandal. We
therefore expressly ordain that you desist from mo
lesting these Baptists."
But until that deliverance the Mennonites were
preyed upon by the inquisitors with ruthless ferocity
all over the low countries. More of them, it is said,
than of all other reformers, were slaughtered by the
brutal agents of kingly and churchly tyranny.
And thus the history of this period, like that of
the preceding ones, verifies Professor Osgood's
statement that "the long struggle of God's church
against the overlying dominion of the. papacy, has
been a struggle of New Testament Baptist principles
for life and power;" "the spiritual power of the
Reformation lay wholly in those principles which it
held in common with Baptists. Its elements of decay
and formalism were in those principles which we
reject."

CHAPTER VII.
THE BAPTISTS AND EELIGIOUS LIBEETY IN ENGLAND.
BUT little is known respecting the first converts to
Christianity in the British Islands. There are
thought to be evidences that they observed the ordi
nances as originally established. Even Saint Patrick
of Ireland is confidently claimed by some as a Bap
tist ; but Romish history and tradition are the relig
ious clothing of the islands until the time of Wycliffe.
At the death of that great pioneer of reform, many
were reading his translations of the Bible, and mak
ing their protests heard against the papal assump
tions. For some unknown reason, these dissenters
had come to be known as Lollards. In large num
bers they were scattered throughout the country like
the Waldenses, circulating the word of God, and
quietly maintaining a purity of life and worship.
The sympathies of the common people were with
them. Not a few of their brethren in Holland came
over to them, in the hope of some relief from the
cruelties of the Inquisition.
But a new king had arisen, who knew not Wyc
liffe, and the persecutions which were begun before
were more let loose upon all reformers. Instigated
by the hierarchy, Parliament decreed the burning of
all the books of dissenters, and of themselves, if
[108]

BAPTISTS AND EELIGIOUS LIBEETY IN ENGLAND. 109
they would not recant or go into exile. Soon the
fagot-piles at Smithfield were blazing, and martyr
spirits were ascending to heaven. If, as in several
instances, acts of pardon were passed, Baptists,
"who held that infants ought not to be baptized,"
were excepted. Their "wicked opinions" were
fatal. A hundred and fifty years after Wycliffe translated
the Bible from the Latin, William Tyndale translated
the New Testament, and portions of the Old, out of
the Greek and Hebrew into the English tongU'C —
the first translation thus made. This greatly in
creased the knowledge and the embracing of Bible
principles, and fanned the fires of persecution.
Tyndale was strangled and burned, and his helpers
and books shared the same fate, — a sample of the
monstrous crimes under the execrable king and pope
combined, Henry VIII.
This blackened despot, masked as head of the
church, was followed by his son Edward VI, under
whom the organization of the Church of England
was carried forward by the adoption of its Articles
and Book of Common Prayer, and the substitution
of English instead of Latin in the ritual. No tolera
tion was allowed to dissenters. A royal commission
was appointed, with Bishop Cranmer at its head, to
suppress "all heretics and contemners of the Book
of Prayer," specifying particularly "the wicked
opinions of the Baptists." The first recorded suf
ferer convicted of these was a noble lady of the

110 HEEOES AND HIEEAECHS.
king's court, "a great disperser of Tyndale's New
Testament," accused of anabaptism. She was con
demned to death. All efforts of the bishops and
others failing to make her confess error, they con
signed her to be burned, the young king putting his
name to the warrant with tears and protestations that
the bishops must answer for it if it were wrong. Her
friend iu the court, Anne Askew, was also a victim
of the Smithfield fires.
' ' Bloody Mary " followed, with the restoration of
Catholicism as the religion of the state, and, with a
wild rage for exterminating Protestantism, clouded
the land with the smoke of stake-fires. The Protest
ant bishops, Cranmer, Ridley, "^ Latimer, and others,
who had approved of the capital punishment of
Baptists, now found themselves the victims of the
same deadly policy, and gave from the flames of
martyrdom their seal to the truths of the gospel.
Happy would it have been for them could they have
had the consciousness which others enjoyed, that
they had never inflicted upon any the crime which
was inflicted upon them !
Elizabeth, half sister of Mary, reversed again the
state religion, becoming herself the head of the
Protestant establishment ; but the same intolerance of
dissent characterized her long reign, notwithstand
ing the brilliance given to it by great events and
great names. The haughty queen was boldly rebuked
in Parliament for muzzling the free speech of her
legislators. The Puritans appeared in the history as

BAPTISTS AND EELIGIOUS LIBEETY IN ENGLAND. Ill
reformers in the state church, though not seceders
from it. The Independents also soon came to view,
and they were made to suffer persecution in many
forms, though the death by fire was reserved for
Baptists alone. Afflicting instances of their meeting
this fate are added to the awful preceding records.
The Act of Uniformity subjected all to legal prosecu
tions who would not submit to the forms of the
established service, and the bishops kept their-detect-
ives in search after violators of this Act, who, said
Bonner, ' ' grievously vexed and sorely infested Eng
land with sundry sorts of sects and heresies which
had risen up, specially against the christening of in
fants." As illustrative of Elizabeth's reign : On an Easter
Sabbath morning in 1576, "thirty disciples of the
Lord, men and women, had assembled in an upper
room for worship, near Aldgate, one of the entrances
of the city of London. Their meeting, though con
ducted in quietude, was detected, and a constable
and his aids, addressing them as devils, demanded
which of them was teacher. Twenty-seven of their
names were at his command recorded, and he took
seven of them to the magistrate, charging the rest to
remain," and, soon returning, drove them with
cruelty to the jail. After a few days they were all
arraigned before the queen's commission, and told
that they must renounce their belief and practice, on
penalty of banishment or death. Remaining firm,
they were remanded to prison. During some three

112 HEEOES AND HIEEAECHS.
months they were repeatedly brought before the in
quisitors, and subjected to every means of securing
their recantations ; but only meek and faithful re
sponses were elicited. Finally the larger part of
them were doomed to banishment ; but five of the
men were told that they could escape burning only
by signing the Articles of the State Church. They
were again thrust into a horrible prison, in separate
cells, and given a month to face their fate. One of
them died from the rigors of their treatment. Of
two of the others we have not the record ; but the
remaining two had their death warrant signed by
Elizabeth, in spite of powerful intercessions for a
change of sentence, and they went together to be
burned alive. For several days they were tantalized
by preparations for the burning and then deferring
it ; but on the fatal hour they went forth serenely,
Jan Peters saying : " The holy prophets and Christ
our Saviour have gone this way before us," and
Hendrick Terwoot declaring that it was far better to
depart and be with Christ. Together they were
bound to the same stake, and while a church
preacher hurled at them his accusations, and thrust
before them his Articles for them to acknowledge,
they affirmed their faith in God's mercy through
Jesus Christ, and rose triumphant over the last
enemy. One of them was an aged man whose first
wife had been burned at the stake in Holland, and
whose present wife had a former husband among the
martyrs who cry from underneath the altar, while

BAPTISTS AND EELIGIOUS LIBEETY IN ENGLAND. 113
she herself was left with nine children in poverty
and defenseless.
The first Christians in England, after the Romish
apostasy, who are seen in organized form as Baptist
churches, come into view not later than the com
mencement of the Reformation by Luther, so that
when the Reformation reached England, such
churches were already existing there. Tradition
ally, their existence dates much farther back. A
stone has been exhumed in the Baptist churchyard
at Cheshire inscribed with the date 1357. The rec
ords show the death of a pastor of the church in
1594, but it is not known how long previously the
church had existed. Soon after the close of Eliza
beth's reign, records of other churches appear.
Under James I their persecutions continued, and
drove them to secluded resorts.
Some of them, together* with Independents who
incurred similar persecutions, sought refuge in Hol
land. A Baptist church was gathered at Amster
dam, of which John Smyth, a convert from the
ministry in the Church of England, became pastor,
and was followed in the office at his death by Thomas
Helwys. The oldest English Baptist confession of
faith that has come down to us was published by this
church in 1611, the year that the King James version
of the Bible came out. This confession embraces
the distinctive Baptist principles as to the way of
salvation, the church, and its o.rdinances and officers,
and it contains this clear avowal of complete relig-
8

114 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
ious freedom : "The magistrate is not to meddle with
religions, or things of conscience, because Christ is
King and Lawgiver." This, as we have seen, was
no new principle in the faith or practice of Baptists.
The government of Holland, tolerant though it
had become, had not attained to a policy in full
harmony with this principle, and it was, at the time
of this immigration, distracted by fierce contentions
between Galvanism aud Arminianism. Galvanism
predominating, the Presbyterian became the state
religion, and persecutions ensued. The Baptist im
migrants mostly returned to England, and there suf
fered on as formerly. Soon after their return in
1612, Edward Wightman, said to be the last martyr
by burning alive in England, filled up his part of the
sufferings of Christ for his body's sake. In the ac
cusation against him he was reproached with many
names, but the only specifications were " that he be
lieved the baptism of infants to be an abominable
custom ; that the Lord's supper and baptism should
not be celebrated as they are now practiced in the
Church of England ; and that Christianity is not
wholly professed and preached in that church."
The infamous King James, whom the revisers of our
Bible smothered with their fulsome, pious flatteries,'
forced this good man to the stake through remon
strances and denunciations which he dared not again
incur. Mr. Wightman was ancestor of the honored
ministers of that name, of five or six generations, in
^ See their Dedication iu the King James Version.

BAPTISTS AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN ENGLAND. 115
Rhode Island and Connecticut, some of whom
wrought effectively in securing religious liberty in
our country.
The Reformers in England, other than Baptists,
did not contend for full religious freedom. The
Puritans strove as hard to have the civil government
uphold what they held to be right, and repress what
they condemned as heretical, as did the adherents of
the English Church. They plainly said : "Liberty
of conscience is soul murder." Even the great-souled
prophet of the future, John Robinson, the pastor of
the Pilgrims, did not see far enough to descry com
plete separation of Church and State. Says Profes
sor Fisher, of the time when the first colonies came
to New England : "At that time no political com
munity existed in which religious liberty was recog
nized, and it was.no part of the design of the Puri
tans to frame one."
Of King Charles I, Mrs. Colonel Hutchinson, a
Puritan of his day, wrote : ' ' This king was a worse
encroacher upon the civil and spiritual liberties of
his people by far than his father." " Many chose to
abandon their country, and leave their dearest rela
tions, to retire into any foreign soil or plantation
where they might enjoy the free exercise of God's
worship. Such as could not flee were tormented in
the bishop's courts, fined, whipped, pilloried, im
prisoned, and suffered to enjoy no rest, so that death
was better than life to them ; till the whole land was
reduced to perfect slavery." Fourteen years a Bap-

116 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
tist minister, Thomas Brewer, lay in a loathsome
prison " for his religion." Another, Samuel Howe,
dying in prison, " was buried in the highway, inter
ment in consecrated ground, so called, being re
fused." Of him Roger Williams afterward wrote a
glowing eulogy, as "a Scripture-learned man, forced
to seek a grave or bed in the highway ; yet was his
life and death and burial, being attended by many
hundreds of God's people, honorable and (how much
more on his rising again) glorious." For holding to
any one of eight specified errors. Parliament decreed
the penalty of death ; and for any one of sixteen, one
of which was the denial of infant baptism, imprison
ment should continue until the person promised, and
gave surety, to suppress his views.
And thus of -churchly cruelties aud heroic suffer
ings the historic muse wrote on, with pen dipped in
tears and blood, until, sick at heart, she raised her
eyes to heaven, and pleaded : O pitying skies, is
there nowhere beneath jour encircling dome a land
where this agony can cease, because the soul is free ?
— And the good stars beckoned over the western
waters. From between these opposite shores of the
stormy North Sea, where the lights of freedom strug
gled in the darkness and flickered in furious winds,
were thrust out the ' ' Mayflower " and her consorts.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE STORY OF ROGER WILLIAMS.
WHEN, in 1G20, the Pilgrims sailed for America,
Roger Williams was a young man about twenty
years of age, a native of London. There, hearing
the preachers, and attending legal courts, he showed
such proficiency in shorthand reporting as to enlist
the interest of the distinguished jurist. Sir Edward
Coke, who, " seeing so hopeful a youth," took a lik
ing to him, and sent him to .the Sutton Hospital for
schooling ; whence he was advanced to college at
Oxford. His after life and correspondence show
that his course at the university was an extended
one. Previous to his thirtieth year he had become
a clergyman of the Church of England, but he had
no sympathy with the wrongs in the established re
ligion. When near the end of his life, he wrote :
"From a child, now about threescore years, the
Father of Lights touched my soul with love to him
self, and to his only Begotten, the true Lord Jesus,
and to his Holy Scriptures." This regenerate ex
perience identified him with the Separatists in dis
owning the state establishment as Christ's Church.
Thus allied in spirit, he followed them to America
in 1630, at about thirty years of age, accompanied
by his young wife, Mary, the faithful sharer in his
[117]

118 HEROES AND HIERAECHS.
eventful future. "He was," says the chronicle of
the colony, "a young minister, godly and zealous,
having precious gifts." Of the missionary spirit,
that had begotten a longing to preach the gospel to
the Indian heathen of the land that he sought, we
shall speak in another chapter. We have first to
view him as one of the heroes in confiict with hier
archical assumptions. Mr. Bancroft's picture has
shown him as bringing to our shores ' ' the trophy of
the Baptists," seized from the hands which had fought
to destroy it, through the ages of the old world.
Let us identify his distinctive work as a pioneer of
religious freedom in America.
It is not his glory, as we have seen, to be the first
to discover and promulgate the principles of relig
ious liberty. • Others had taught the same as clearly
as he was to do, and suffered for their teaching far
more than he would suffer. At the unveiling of the
Roger Williams monument in Providence some years
since. Professor Diman, a Congregationalist, brought
out most justly, as Baptist writers have often done,
the single and splendid achievement of the great
founder of Rhode Island. It is that he, first of all
founders or rulers of states, used his opportunity and
his wisdom to incorporate in civil government impar
tial and complete religious freedom. Thus the emi
nent Judge Story decisively testified : "In the code
of laws established in Rhode Island, for the first
time since Christianity ascended the throne of the
Cffisars, the declaration was put in force that con-

THE STOEY OF ROGER WILLIAMS. 1 11<
science should be free, and men should not be pun
ished for worshiping God in the way they are
persuaded he requires."
Others, with full authority, had the opportunity of
doing what Williams did, but all of them stopped
short of doing it.
The claim to the contrary has been advanced in
favor of Lord Baltimore, in the Catholic colony of
Maryland. 'But his charter, of later date than Will
iams's colony, made "Christianity the law of the
land," and extended toleration (not freedom) to all
Christians (not all men). And consistently the
legislation of the colony proceeded to inflict penal
ties — even that of death — on denials of Christian
truths. The Massachusetts and Connecticut colonies
had their opportunity, but missed it, as did also Vir
ginia and others. Pennsylvania came nearer to
Rhode Island in its charter provisions, perhaps be
cause William Penn was the son of an English Bap
tist ; but persecutions were not so guarded against
as to be wholly excluded.
Let us notice the particulars of Williams's guidance
in New England. At his arrival there were three
centers around which society was gathering and
taking form. The Plymouth Colony was of the Pil
grims, or Independent Separatists. They had sun
dered all connection with the Church of England,
and regarded their own church as divinely authorized
to govern itself ; yet the control in religious affairs
by civil government, and in the interest of their

120 HEROES AXD HIERARCHS.
church, was not with them a fully disowned policy.
The Salem settlement was a close corporation of
Puritans, who had ceased to adhere to the Church
of England, but organized a union of Church and
State much more rigid than was accepted by the Pil
grims. No one who was not a member in their
church could be a citizen in their colony. The
Boston immigrants continued their connection with
the Church of England, seeking only relief from its
kingly oppressions.
With none of these communities did Roger
Williams find himself able to live in agreement.
He was invited to exercise his ministry in Boston,
and met with much appreciation ; but he could not
indorse their union with the English Church. At
Salem he was also repeatedly solicited to accept
service, and was heard with great favor during con
siderable periods ; but he could not consent to the
civil magistrate's coercions in religion. He also
here became accused of "inculcating principles
"tending to rebaptism." At Plymouth, where more
toleration was exercised, he was received as a mem
ber of the church, and his preaching was well ap
proved for two years, as Governor Bradford testifies.
But when the love of the people at Salem called him
back to that pulpit. Elder Brewster, acting in place
of a minister, persuaded the church to dismiss him
from their communion, "lest he should run the same
course of rigid separation and auabaptistry which
John Smyth had done at Amsterdam." And thus

THE STORY OF ROGER WILLIAMS. 121
it appears that the principles of the Baptists came
out in his ministry from the first, and were the cause
of the differences which he had with the leaders of
all the New England settlements.'
It has been charged that he was factious, dis
orderly, and pestilent ; but the testimony of those
who opposed him was that he never failed to show a
Christian spirit toward those with whom he had the
most trying controversies. Governor Winthrop wrote
him : "We have often tried your patience, but never
exhausted it." If upon some minor subjects he had
notions which seem to us whimsical, we have to re
member that they were things that were in the air in
his day, and that he was too conscientious to allow
anything to pass before him without challenging it to
take his judgment.
The principles which finally forbade his being tol
erated in Massachusetts, were those which allied him
with the Baptists. It was charged against him at
Salem that "in one year's time he filled the place
with principles of rigid separation tending to ana-
baiptism ; " and in his trial before the other ministers
of the colony,, being called to express their judgment,
they said : "Opinions which would not allow the
magistrate to intermeddle, even to restrain a church
from heresy or apostasy, were not to be endured."
The court warned against him, as having declared
' The Plymouth colony was not wholly free from the perse
cuting policy. Burrage, "History of Baptists in New
England," pp. 26, 40.

122 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
"that the magistrate might not punish a breach of
the Sabbath, or any other oft'euse as a breach of the
first table" of the decalogue. Williams acknowl
edged that he was justly charged with these senti
ments ; and also with disowning the Church of
England as unregenerate in its members, and per
secuting ; as'claiming that lands should be purchased
of the Indians rather than of the crown ; ' ' that it
is not lawful to call a wicked person to swear or
pray, as being acts of God's worship," or "to hear
any of the ministers of the parish churches in Eng
land." His words were : "I acknowledge the par
ticulars were rightly summed up. And I also hope
that as I then maintained the rocky strength of them,
to my own and other consciences' satisfaction, so,
through the Lord's assistance, I shall be ready, for
the same grounds, not only to be bound and ban
ished, but to die also in New England, as for most
holy truths of God in Christ Jesus."
The decree of banishment by the General Court of
Massachusetts, in November, 1636, " ordered that the
said Mr. Williams shall depart out of this jurisdic
tion within six weeks now next coming, which, if
he neglect to perform, it shall be lawful for the
governor and two of the magistrates to send him to
some place out of this jurisdiction, not to return any
more without leave from the court." An extension
of his time until spring was granted in hope of his
return to England ; but the fear of his establishing a
neighboring colony, in which many indignant friends

THE STORY OF ROGER WILLIAMS. 123
were ready to unite, led the authorities secretely to
dispatch a vessel to Salem to seize him and trans
port him to the mother country, where there were
ways of taking care of such troublers. Williams
learned of the plot, and in the darkness, kissing his
Mary and babes good-by, he took to the woods.
Through more than three months of dead winter he
wandered in trackless snows and forests, "sorely
tossed, not knowing what bread or bed did mean,"
save as the Indians befriended him. At last, upon
the western shore of the Narragansett, he found a
land in its virginity, covered by no title but such as
he could secure by friendliness and grace from its
wild natives.
Here, having purchased the lands for a colony,
and gathered to him his little family, he most gen
erously welcomed others who were fiying in quest of
freedom as he had done, and freely made them his
equals in the property and rights of the settlement.
His account of this is in these words : "Having, in
a sense of God's merciful providence to me in my
distress, called the place 'Providence,' I desired it
might be a shelter for persons distressed for con
science. And then, considering the condition of di
vers of my countrymen, I communicated my said
purchase unto them." "He might," says Professor
Gammell, " have retained the lands as his own perma
nent fee, and, like the founders of Pennsylvania and
Maryland, having secured them by charter from the
king, have amassed wealth and dignities, and be-

124 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
queathed them as a legacy to his children ; " yet he
lived and died a poor man as to wealth.
The Christian refugees who came into the " shel
ter "thus provided and freely opened for them by
this generous forerunner, subscribed a fraternal
league of fidelity in civil duties ; and when the char
ter was obtained and laws were enacted, their pur
pose and limitations were fixed and proclaimed in
the memorable announcement never before permitted
in a civil code : "These are the laws that concern
all men, which by common consent are ratified and
established throughout the whole colony. And
otherwise than what is here forbidden, all men may
walk as their consciences persuade' them, every one
in the name of his God. And let the saints of the
Most High walk in this colony without molestation,
and in the name of Jehovah their God forever and
ever." " Otherwise than in such cases as do disturb
the civil peace, the magistrate is not to punish the
breach of the first table."
In 1642 Williams went as the representative of the
colony to England, and secured in the following year
the patent, which, recognizing these principles of
freedom, and adopted by the settlements, was the
constitution of Rhode Island until 1663, when the
amended charter was obtained, and perpetuated
the great distinction of a civil government granting
to all equal religious freedom.
All this has an old sound to us, and as a sentiment,
it was old then ; but as an utterance from the seat of

THE STORf OF ROGER WILLIAMS. 125
legislative and executive power, to be forever made
good throughout a state, it was new and strange
enough. The same year that this charter thus pro
claimed, Massachusetts enacted that "if any person
or persons within this jurisdiction shall either openly
condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants, or se
duce thereto, or leave the congregation [where every
body was compelled to be present] during the ad
ministration of the rite, they shall be sentenced to
banishment." And the same year a poor man was
tied up and whipped for refusing to have his own
child sprinkled. All over this country, all over
Europe, there was a state church of some name, and
more or less of oppression and persecution had to be
endured by dissenters. One little spot had at last
been lighted on the dark surface of the globe, which
Christ came to irradiate with holy freedom.
Two years after this standard was erected at
Providence, the first Baptist minister in America,
as some believe, came as a fugitive from Massachu
setts persecutions to the inviting refuge. John
Clarke, M. D., had received a liberal education, and
practiced medicine in London. Among the early
immigrants to Boston, he appears to have served as
a preacher as well as a physician, and was driven
by persecutions from that colony. Williams re
ceived him and others who accompanied him, gen
erously', and aided them in getting land possessions
and charter-rights on the island, afterward called
Rhode Island, where they planted the twin capital

126 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
of the little state, Newport. Here Clarke was the
preacher and "the good physician," and soon or
ganized the Baptist church which was the second
one in this country, that at Providence being the
first. Clarke's part in establishing religious liberty as
the civil law of the state was scarcely less than that
of Williams. His sufferings in Massachusetts were
repeated when he ventured to visit a member of his
church residing in that state. A meeting was be
ing held in the brother's house, and Dr. Clarke had
commenced preaching, when constables marched in
and arrested him and the brethren who accompanied
him. They were kept some weeks in prison, and
then condemned to fines, and further confinement
and public whipping. Dr. Clarke's fine of twenty
pounds was paid. An associate preacher fared
worse, as we shall see hereafter.
After Clarke's release, he and Williams were sent
by the Rhode Island colonists to England, as Will
iams had been before, to secure charter rights.
Clarke found it necessary to remain twelve years, —
"the modest and virtuous, persevering and disin
terested envoy," as Bancroft calls him, — until he
secured from Charles II the amended charter, which
more safely secured perpetual religious liberty, and
remained the constitution of the state until 1848,
nearly two hundred years. While in England,
Clarke published his narrative of the New England

THE STOEY OF EOGEE WILLIAMS. 127
persecutions, and, with Williams, enjoyed the inti
mate friendship and hearty sympathy of John Milton.
Returning to Newport, Clarke finished his life as
pastor and physician, beloved of all, and held "in
everlasting remembrance." Rev. John Callender, in
his history, says of him: "He was a faithful and
useful minister, courteous in all the relations of life,
an ornament to his profession, and to the several
offices which he sustained. His memory is deserv
ing of lasting honor for his efforts toward establish
ing the first government in the world which gave to
all equal civil and religious liberty. To no man is
Rhode Island more indebted than to him. He was
one of the original projectors of the settlement of
the island, and one of its ablest legislators. No
character in New England is of purer fame than
John Clarke's."^
Still Roger Williams holds the place of leader in
this great achievement in civil government ; and
when helpers joined him, he was their strongest yoke
fellow. When, under the charter, a president or
governor was to be elected, he was the spontaneous
choice. Under his guidance the colony enjoyed
friendly relations with the Indians, and he magnani
mously interposed at great peril in behalf of his per
secutors, dissuading their savage assailants from
their revengeful plots. The terrible King Philip's
war was waged by the other colonies without con-
^Cramp's "Baptist History," p. 478; American Cyclopedia.

128 HEROES AND HIERAECtlS.
suiting Rhode Island, and against its humane pro
test ; so did the rights of all human kind stand
sacred on the consecrated spot.''
'The following letter from Reuben A. Guild, IJj. D., the
veteran librarian and historian of Brown University, was elic
ited by a statement that " in 1676 the town of Providence made
a sale of Indians (under a law enslaving them) and distribu
tion of the proceeds, and Roger Williams's name stands in the
records as an adviser in the division, and a sharer in the
booty." Dr. Guild's letter : —
' ' Tn Knowles's ' Li fe of Roger Williams, ' page 347, I find that
at a town-meeting, Aug. 14, 1G76, a list was made of persons
who 'stayed at home, and went not away,' referring to those
who remained in Providence during the war, and did not
flee to Newport. To tliese persons it was judged that certain
Indians who were captives ought to be delivered as slaves or
servants, to serve until they had reached the age of from
twenty-six to thirty-seven years, they to be free, of course,
after that service. The committee on the subject, appointed
at the town-meeting aforesaid, report the names of twenty
five men who 'stayed,' etc.; of course Roger Williams heads
the list. Whether he accepted any of these captive Indians
as servants, or sold their services, I have no means at present of
determining. The Indians were not sold, only their services.
I am sure that Williams in this case, aa in all other cases, acted
honorably, and according to his sense of duty.
"Yours trul}-,
"Rbubbn A. Guild.
"Providence, Jan. 30, 1S94."
Professor Gammell quotes the Providence action similarly,
When it is remembered how common in early New England
was the practice of indenture in case of indebted or criminal
or dependent persons, and that wars are still terminated by
demanding indemnity of the conquered and securities against
renewing hostilities, it will be seen how different was this
action from that of slave-dealing in Indians. Add to this

THE STOEY OF ROGER WILLIAMS. 12!'
that there is no proof that Williams was the receiver, either
of service or of money, and he stands in no need of vindica
tion. We may be sure that it would have been a favored cap
tive from that bloody war who should have fallen into his
hands whose "sole desire was to do the natives good," and
who kept up his regular preaching and kindnesses with them
past his fourscore jears, and labored to leave in print his
teaching for their use after he was gone.

CHAPTER IX.
CONSTITUTIONAL EELIGIOUS FEEEDOM THEOUGHOUT
AMEEICA : EARLY COLONIAL.
FROM the establishment of the Rhode Island set
tlements, with complete religious liberty incor
porated and made practical in their organic law,
dates the agitation for its adoption in all the other
colonies, and in the states and the nation. In Mas
sachusetts, indeed, this agitation had existed and
was spreading through the influence of Roger Will
iams and those of similar principles, before it re
sulted in the migrations to Narragansett Bay and its
island ; and those migrations did not eliminate the
whole of the disturbing element.
There had been planted " the root of compulsive
uniformity" in that colony, when, in 1631, its Gen
eral Court " ordered and agreed that for the time to
come no man shall be admitted to the freedom of
this body politic but such as are members of some of
the churches within the limits of the same," a test
which came "to deprive one who did not conform,
of more civil privileges than a non-conformist was
deprived of in England." To make the aim of this
expulsion more sure, it was afterward "ordered that
no person being a member of any church which shall
[130]

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 131
hereafter be gathered without the approbation of the
magistrates, and the greater part of the churches,
shall be admitted to the freedom of this common
wealth." But though excluded from citizenship, "every in
habitant in any town is liable to contribute to all
charges, both in church and commonwealth," and
"shall be compelled thereto by assessment and dis
tress, to be levied by the constable or other officer
of the town." THE CONTENTION IN AMERICAN COLONIES.
Against these oppressions Baptists were the per
sons who led in protesting, and in suffering under
them. They were also further oppressed by being
prohibited from all religious meetings separate from
the established churches ; and if the prohibition did
not of itself prohibit, the constable was bidden
' ' assure them that we shall by God's assistance take
some such strict and speedy course for preventing
the evils which may otherwise ensue, as our duty to
God and charge over his people do call for from
us." The strict and speedy course was soon exhibited.
A "Mr. Lenthal held that only baptism was the
door of entrance into the visible church. The com
mon sort of people did eagerly embrace his opinion ;
and some labored to get such a church on foot as all
baptized ones might communicate in, without any
further trial of them. For this end they procured

132 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
many hands [signers] in Weymouth to a blank, in
tending to have Mr. Lenthal's advice [assent] to a
call." For getting these signers, John Smith, John
Spur, and others were fined from forty-five pounds
down to as many shillings, and Mr. Lenthal had to
find citizenship in Rhode Island, where he taught
school and preached.
Hugh Bewit, being charged with infectious error,
it was "ordered that the said Hugh Bewit should be
gone out of our jurisdiction by the twenty-fourth
present upon pain of death, and not to return
upon pain of being hanged." He also withdrew to
Providence, and for many years was well known and
honored there. ^
In 1644, nine years after the banishment of Roger
Williams, the Massachusetts General Court passed
their first law in which Baptists are expressly named
as the criminals to be dealt with. The Act reads : —
"Forasmuch as experience hath plentifully and often proved
that since the first rising of the Anabaptists, about one hundred
years since, they have been the incendiaries of commonwealths
and the infecters of persons in main matters of religion, and
the troublers of churches in all places where they have been,
and that they who have held the baptizing of infants unlawful
have usually held other errors ; and, whereas, divers of this
kind have since our coming into New England appeared
amongst ourselves, it is ordered and agreed that if any person
or persons within this jurisdiction shall either openly condemn
or oppose the baptizing of infants, or go obout secretly to
^Backus, "History of the Baptists," from which many of
these facts are taken.

EELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 133
seduce others from the approbation or use thereof, every such
person or persons shall be sentenced to banishment."
The celebrated discussion by John Cotton and
Roger Williams comes in here. It was conducted
in writing and printed in England, constituting the
volumes entitled the "Bloody Tenet."
Mr. Cotton, one of the first, and the most cele
brated, of the Boston ministers, had risen to distinc
tion in the English Church ; but for sentiments
against the absolutism of Charles I and the persecu
tions of the infamous Bishop Laud, he had been
obliged to fiy for his life to this country. Adopting
the Puritanism of Massachusetts, he became its lead
ing clergyman.
An imprisoned Baptist in England wrote a paper
in argument against persecution in matters of con
science. A friend of minister Cotton placed it in
his hands, requesting him to answer it. Strangely
enough, the fugitive from such persecution pro
ceeded to justify the punishment, by civil penalties,
of opinions judged heretical, as the Massachusetts
policy obliged him to do, or sacrifice his office.
His answer was not satisfactory to the friend who
solicited it, and was sent by the same friend to Mr.
Williams to be reviewed. The answer had referred
to a " treatise sent to some of the brethren late of
Salem, who doubted, as you do." Mr. Williams
wrote for that treatise, and found it to be, "A
Model of Church and Civil Power." His review
he entitled, "The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for

134 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
Conscience' Sake." It was written while he was a
delegate in England, and brought thence in print
on his coming home. It exposed the errors of the
tenet in question, and vindicated the^ position that
civil government must leave men free in their re
ligions convictions and peaceable acts.
Mr. Cotton complained of being thus arraigned
before the public, and endeavored to defend his
teaching, and show "the Bloody Tenet Washed
and made White in the Blood of the Lamb." In
his struggling attempt to stand on the ground he
had taken, he grasped the assumption that the dis
senter "is not punished for his conscience, but for
sinning against his conscience, after due conviction
of fundamental errors." Arguments from Scripture
were also attempted.
Williams's rejoinder came under the heading:
' ' The Bloody Tenet yet More Bloody, by Mr. Cotton's
Endeavor to Wash it White," and he charges upon
that tenet the guilt of the blood of the Lamb " spilt
in the bipod of his servants, — the blood of millions
spilt in former and later wars for conscience' sake."
"Is not this the guise and profession of all that ever
persecuted or hunted men for their religion and con
science," that "conscience is deluded," that the
heretic is punished because of his obstinacy ?
These treatises by Williams were published in suc
cessive editions, and were of telling effect in the con
test for the rights of conscience.
The most notorious of the Massachusetts inflictions

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 13j
for the peaceable exercise of these rights, by Chris
tians against whom no other accusation could be
made, was the public whipping of a Baptist min
ister at the head of State street in Boston. As
alluded to iu a former clianter, Rev. Obadiah Holmes
had gone with his brother pastor from Newport,
Rhode Island, to visit an aged member of their
church in Massachusetts, the member being conflned
to his home, and requesting such a visit.
At the house jof this brother, on the Lord's day,
there was a private service of which Pastor Clarke
gives this account : —
" To my companions in the house where I lodged, and to four
or five strangers who came in unexpectedly after I had begun,
1 was imparting, from Rev. 3 ; 10, opening and proving what is
meant by 'the hour of temptation,' what by ' the word of his
patience' and their keeping it, and how He that hath the key
of David will keep those that keep the word of his patience
from the hour of temptation, — while, I say, I was yet speaking,
there came into the house where we were, two constables, who
with their clamorous' tongues made an interruption in my dis
course, and more uncivilly disturbed us than the pursuivants of
the old English- bishops were wont to do, telling us that they
were come with authority from the magistrate to apprehend us.
I then desired to see the authority by which they proceeided,
whereupon they plucked forth their warrant, and one of them,
with a trembling hand, as conscious he might have been better
employed, read it to us. "
Mr. Clarke assured the officers that there would
be nb resistance, but asked that, allowing him to
finish the service, they would remain and become
witnesses of its character. This was refused, and

136 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
pastors Clarke and Holmes, with anotlier brother
who had come with them, were carried awav to a
guard-houso ; and afterward, on their consent if
tiiey might be free to express their disfellowsliip,
they were taken to the public service of the estab
lished church. At the close of this service Mr.
Clarke, courteously asking permission to speak, and
the pastor granting it, was expressing his dissent
from their " visible order," when he was bidden
stop, and warned that he would have to answer for
his words.
They were guarded over night, and the next day
sent to the prison in Boston. After two weeks Mr.
Clarke had his conviction and fine of twenty pounds,
or whipping, rendered ; the governor, stepping up to
him and saying that he had denied infant baptism,
and deserved death, added: "You go up and
down, and secretly insinuate unto those that are
weak ; but you cannot maintain it before our min
isters. You may try to dispute with them."
Mr. Clarke accepted the challenge, and from the
prison the next day sent to the court his accept
ance thus : —
"Whereas, it pleased this honored court yesterday to con
demn the faith and order which I hold and practice, and, after
you had passed your sentence upon me for it, you were pleased
to express I could not maintain the same against your ministers,
and thereupon publicly proffered me a dispute with them ; be
pleased by these f 'W lines to understand I readily accept with
them, and therefore desire you would appoint the time when.

EELIGIOUS FEEEDOM JN AMERICA. 137
and the person with whom, in that public place where I was
condemned, 1 may with freedom, and without molestation of
the civil power, dispute that point publicly ; when I doubt not,
by the strength of Christ, to make it good out of his last will
and testament, unto which nothing is to he added, and from
which nothing is to be diminished. Thus desiring the Father
of lights to shine forth, and by his power expel the darkness,
1 remain your well-wisher, John Clakeb."
The court, "after much ado, informed Mr. Clarke
that a disputation was granted to be next week ; "
but the ministers "made no small stir about the
matter." Mr. Clarke communicated in writing the
positions which he would undertake to maintain.
They embraced the doctrines that Christ is the only
Lord of the conscience in religious matters, that regen
erate believers are the subjects, and immersion is the
act in baptism, and the church is the body of those
only who are thus qualified and introduced, and that
no member of it should be restrained from exercising
his gifts, ' ' by way of prophecy, edification, exhor
tation, and comfort, where injury is not offered to
the person, name, or estate of others."
But every proposal for the discussion was thwarted
by the ministers, and Mr. Clarke was notified of his
discharge from imprisonment, friends having paid
his fine without his consent and against his judg
ment. Thus, as with Paul at Rome, the things
which happened to this imprisoned minister fell out
rather unto the progress of the gogpel, so that his
bonds became manifest in Christ throughout the

138 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
whole prosecution, and emboldened the brethren to
speak the word without fear.
Another of the imprisoned brethren from Rhode
Island had his smaller fine paid, and was released.
But the other minister. Holmes, insisted upon
suffering the alternative of being whipped, as the
only way of maintaining a conscience void of offense
toward God and man ; and after the hardships of
imprisonment for two months, that penalty was in
flicted. We have the account of it written by him
self to his Baptist friends, ministers and others, in
London. At the time of receiving his sentence, he says : —
"As I went from the bar, I expressed myself in these words:
' I bless God I am counted worthy to suffer for the name of
Jesus.' Whereupon John Wilson, their p.astor, as they call
him, struck me before the judgment-seat, and cursed me, say
ing: 'The curse of God, or Jesus, go with thee.' So we were
carried to the prison, where not long after I was deprived of
my two loving friends, at whose departure the adversary-
stepped in, took hold of my spirit, and troubled me for the
space of an hour; and then the Lord came in, and sweetly
relieved me; and although there were that would have paid
the money if I would accept it, yet I durst not accept of de
liverance in such a way. The night before I should suffer
according to my sentence, it pleased God I rested, and slept
quietly. In the morning my friends came to visit me, desir
ing me to take the refreshment of wine and other comforts;
but my resolution was not to drink wine or strong drink that
day until my punishment was over, lest in case I had more
strength, courage, and boldness than ordinarily could be ex
pected, the world should either say, 'He is drunk with new
wine,' or 'that the strength and comfort of the creature hath

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 139
carried him tlirougb.' I betook uiysulf to my chamber, where
I might communicate with my God, and commit myself to
him. I had no sooner sequestered myself, but Satan let fly at
me, saying, 'Remember thyself, thy birth, thy breeding and
friends, thy wife, children, name, and credit;' but as this was
sudden, so there came in sweetly from the Lord as sudden an
answer : " T is for my Lord ! I must not deny him before the
sons of men, but rather lose all, — yea, wife, children, and
mine own life also ! ' To this the tempter replies: ' O, but
that is the question. Is it for him? Are not pride and self in the
bottom? Thou hast so professed and practiced, and now art loth
to deny it. ' Surely this temptation was strong, and thereupon
I made diligent search ; and after awhile there was even as
it had been a voice from heaven, in my very soul bearing
witness that it was for my Lord's case and sake, and for
him alone. And when I heard the voice of my keeper
come for me, even cheerfulness did come upon me, and tak
ing my Testament in my hand, I went along with him to
the place of execution. I desired to speak a few words,
but the magistrate answered : ' It is not now a time to
speak.' Whereupon I took leave [liberty], and said: 'Men
and brethren, fathers and countrymen, I beseech you give me
leave to speak a few words, and the rather because here are
many spectators to see me punished, and I am to seal with my
blood, if God gives me strength, that which I hold and prac
tice in reference to the word of God and the testimony of
Jesus. That which I have to say in brief is this : Although I
confess I am no disputant, yet seeing I am to seal what I hold
with my blood, I am ready to defend it by the word.' The
magistrate answered, 'Now is no time to dispute." Then said
I, 'I desire to give an account of the faith and order I hold ;'
and this I desired three times, but in comes Mr. Flint, and
saith to the executioner, 'Fellow, do thine office, for this
fellow would but make a long speech to delude the people.'
So I, being resolved to speak, told the people: 'That which I
BuSer for is the word of God, aud the testimony of Jesus

140 HEEOES AND HIBEARCHS.
Christ.' 'No,' saith Mr. Nowell, 'it is for your error.' To
which I replied, 'In all tho time of ray imprisonment, wherein
I was left alone, which of all your ministers in all that time
came to convince me of an error ? ' Still Mr. Flint calls the
man to do his ofiice.' So before, and in the time of, his pulling
off my clothes, I continued speaking, telling them that I had
so learned that for all Boston 1 would not give my body into
their hands thus to be bruised upon another account, yet upon
this I would not give the hundredth part of a wampumpeag
[sixth of a penny] to frae it out of their hands ; and that 1
made as much conscience of unbuttoning one button as I did
of paying their thirty pounds [his fine]."
Of the severity of the infliction. Governor Jencks,
of Rhode Island, born about the time of it, and
intimate with the families, says : " Mr. Holmes was
whipped thirty stripes in such an unmerciful manner
that in many days, if not some weeks, he could take
no rest but as he lay upon his knees and elbows, not
being able to suffer any part of his body to touch the
bed whereon he lay." Holmes himself says: "It
was grievous, as the spectators said, the man striking
with all his strength with a three-corded whip, spit
ting on his hands three times ; " but, " so it pleased
the Lord to come in and so to fill my heart and
tongue, that with an audible voice I broke forth,
praying unto the Lord not to lay this sin to their
charge ; for, in truth, as the strokes fell upon me, I
had such a spiritual manifestation of God's presence
as the like thereof I never felt, nor can^eshly tongue
express. When they loosed me from the post, hav-
¦ ing joyfulness in my heart, and cheerfulness in my

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 141
Countenance, as the spectators observed, I told the
magistrates, 'You have struck as with roses.'"
Two of his Baptist brethren could not refrain from
shaking his hand as he went back to prison, one of
them in silence, the other simply saying, "Blessed
be the Lord." Both were arrested and fined forty
shillings for the act, or sentenced to be whipped.
Mr. Holmes was of an honored family in England,
who educated their sons at Oxford ; and after he
came in New England to unite with the Baptists,
he was a worthy leader among them, and pastor for
years at Newport.
Thus wrought and suffered these early New
England Baptists, to extend the dominion of freedom
whose standard had been raised at Providence.
The intolerance of Massachusetts went to still
more severe extremes with the Quakers, because
they, when banished on pain of death, seemed to
court the death. Refusing to go out of the jurisdic
tion, or persisting in returning, a number of them
were hanged, irrespective of character or sex.
Others wore cruelly mutilated.
During the administration of Governor Leverett,
the civil policy of Massachusetts was more tolerant
of dissent from the church. The Baptists of Boston,
thoughr compelled to meet in obscure places, were
increased in numbers, and, encouraged by the friend
liness of the governor, and by a dissuasion addressed
to the court by the king, Charles II, ventured to pro
vide themselves with a church property in the city.

142 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
It was of humble pretension and unchurchly appear
ance, and they had entered it for worship before its
design came to the notice of the authorities ; but
soon the pastor and leaders found themselves sum
moned to account before the General Court. It was
a new case, and no law fitting it, the Act was passed
"that no persoiis whatever, without the consent of
the freemen of the town where they live, first orderly
obtained at a public meeting assembled for that end,
and license of the county court, or in defect of such
consent, a license by the special order of the General
Court, shall erect or make use of any house wherein
such persons may meet." The penalty of transgress
ing was the forfeiture of the property, and its sale
or demolition by the county. Under this law it was
demanded of the arraigned officers that they pledge
themselves and the church to desist from meeting
in said house. They responded that they must con
sult their brethren ; this was at first denied them, but
subsequently a short opportunity was allowed. The
response which they made, in a most respectful
paper, does equal honor to their manliness and their
godliness. We quote in part : —
" 1. God having led us into this order and way of church fel
lowship, we do hereby confess that what we did was not out of
opposition to, or contempt of, the churches of Christ in New
England, but in a holy imitation, merely for the better enjoy
ment of the liberty of our consciences, the great motive to this
removal at first into this wilderness.
"2. That the building, a convenient place for our public
church assembly, was not thought of nffronling authority; there

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 143
being no law in the country against any such practice at the
erecting of this house, we did therefore think, as the apostle
saith, Where there is no law, there is no transgression. The
dictates of nature, or the common prudence belonging to man
kind, and the practice of the country throughout, led to the
seeking of this convenience.
" 3. There being a law since made against meeting in the
place built, we submitted to the same until we fully understood,
by letters from several in London, that it was his Majesty's
pleasure and command that we should enjoy liberty of our
meetings in the same manner as others of his Protestant sub
jects, and the General Court at their last meeting not having
voted a non-concurrence.
"4. As, therefore, the two tribes and a half (Josh. 32:11)
did humbly and meekly vindicate themselves upon the erecting
of their altar, when challenged for it by Eleazer and the
messengers of the ten tribes, so do we hereby confess in like
manner that we have not designed by this act any contempt of
authority, nor any departing from the living God, or churches
of his worship. The Lord God of gods, he knows it, though it
be our lot, with the apostle, after the way some call heresy, so
to worship the God of our fathers.
"Tour petitioners therefore, having no design against the
peace of this place, but being still as ready as ever to hazard
our lives for the defense of the people of God here, do humbly
request that this our profession and declaration may find ac
ceptance with this honorable court, as that of the two tribes did
with Eleazer; and that we may still, through your allowance
and protection, enjoy the liberty of God's worship in such place
as he hath afforded us ; and as in duty bound, we will humbly
pray." The response to this Christian appeal was to send
the constable to force his way from the adjacent
premises and nail up the doors of the Baptist meet
ing-house, posting a notice that any who should open

144 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
them without an order from the court would do so at
their peril. The next Lord's day the church met in
the meeting-house yard, but they were driven thence
also into less public resorts, and numbers of them
imprisoned. But while the century wore away amid these in
veterate persecutions, a more humane and Christian
sentiment was having growth. More and more of
the best civilians in New England and in the mother
country took the side of toleration, though few ad
vanced to the Rhode Island standard of freedom
equally for all.
Sir Henry Vane, of the nobility 'of England, and
of the nobility of Christ as well, came to Massachu
setts at twenty-three years of age, a cultured ^nd
gifted advocate of religious liberty, and but a year
afterward was elected governor ; but his principles
were too advanced for that colony, and the next
year he was superseded. His influence in this coun
try and in high court positions in England whither
he returned, was a powerful aid to Williams and
Clarke in their labors in both countries. Milton and
Locke were among the mightiest who at that day
gave their strength to the cause in which Baptists
were giving their blood.
Cotton Mather, a grandson of John Cotton, and
his successor in the niinistry, represented a greatly
changed sentiment and policy in Boston, when
in behalf of the state churches he sent a brotherly

RELIGIOUS FEEEDOM IN AMEEICA. 145
notice and assurance of welcome to the Baptist
church, as a participant in union thanksgiving
services ; and at the ordination of Elisha Callen
der as pastor of the Baptist church, the son-in-law
of Cotton, by invitation, gave the hand of fellowship,
and his grandson preached the sermon, entitling it,
"Good Men United."
The exaction of taxes, however, from all to sup
port the standing order, continued far into the
future. The other American colonies, like Massachusetts,
legalized and practiced the persecuting policy through
a century and a half, or longer.
In Connecticut we read that in 1744 "Elder Tim
othy Peckham," for baptizing in New London and
Saybrook, " and a number more, were imprisoned at
New London, one of whom was a woman with a
child at her breast.'?
In Vermont and New Hampshire similar imprison
ments, and seizures of property for church taxes,
were suffered.
In New York the Catholics were not legally tol
erated, and an Act was passed banishing their priests
and Jesuits. William Wickenden, of Providence,
the first Baptist preacher in New York City, ' ' had
the honor to be imprisoned for months for it."
Pennsylvania, under the charter given to William
Penn, whose father was an English Baptist, was
supposed to have religious liberty secured, after the
10

146 HEEOES AND HIEEAECHS.
example of Rhode Island, dated forty years earlier ;
but the security failed when partisan divisions arose,
and Quakers were fined and imprisoned for dissent,
in one instance a Baptist magistrate giving freedom
to the prisoner.
Maryland, where Catholics claim that religious
freedom was first established, did indeed give a bet
ter toleration than papists elsewhere would assent
to, probably because the charter would not otherwise
have been granted them; but penalties, culminating
even in death, were affixed to denial of some of the
doctrines of Christianity, and, under Episcopal su
premacy. Baptists were heavily fined for withhold
ing infants from baptism, and taxes for the state
church were enforced.
In Virginia, "Baptist ministers had often been
imprisoned for preaching the gospel without license
from the Episcopalians, until the war of the Revolu
tion put a stop to it." The colonial charter and laws
were most severe in enforcing conformity. Long
lists of names come down to us of ministers and
others who suffered, even to being hunted with
dogs, and who carried their scars to their graves,
for the simple rights of speech and worship.
At length, however, public sentiment took power
ful impersonations for aiding the sufferers in their
contests. James Madison, living among them, en
listed as their advocate. He "prepared memorials,
advocated bills and other measures, sustaining the
cause of conscience, and he did it well and from the

EELIGIOUS FEEEDOM IN AMERICA. 147
heart. Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson were
also. among those engaged in this cause of religious
liberty."' Carolina, both North and South, and Georgia,'
made the same record of persecutions to which Bap-
fists formed the first line of resistance. The Episcopal
Church, in which the Methodists were then included,
subjected aU to its support, on pain for refusal
of the common penalties.
The governing principle for which the Baptists
contended was demonstrated conclusively in several
instances. It was not a contention for supremacy,
nor did it assert itself because of their inequality in
civil advantages. It spoke as decidedly when it
was proposed to make them equal in advantages
under the laws with other denominations, but on
terms of state support. In 1784, when they were
getting the best of the conflict in Virginia, the parties
who had opposed them offered a compromise. A bill
was introduced for a '-'General Assessment," under
which every citizen should be obliged to pay for the
maintenance of the Christian religion, but be free to
designate his payment of the tax laid upon him to
whatever society he chose. It is recorded that as
a denomination, the Baptists stood alone in opposi
tion to this proposal ; for though it would relieve
them financially, it would conflict with their belief
as to the New Testament policy on the union of
Church and State which it prohibits. They there-
' Bitting, "Religious Liberty and the Baptists."

148 HEEOES AND HIEEAECHS.
fore embodied their principles in a declaration for
complete religious freedom, and requested Mr. Mad
ison to formulate them into a memorial, praying the
legislature to pass such a law. This was done by
him in a memorial which was circulated over the
state, and the next year the law was passed.
The same year a similar general assessment was
enacted in Georgia, under Episcopal prompting, but
the Baptists rose in remonstrance, electing legisla
tors to work for the repeal, which was soon effected.

CHAPTER X.
CONSTITUTIONAL EELIGIOUS FREEDOM THROUGHOUT
AMERICA : LATER COLONIAL.
THE STORY OF ISAAC BACKUS.
WE are now coming to the epoch when the Dec
laration of Independence was to be put forth
and sustained, and the national Constitution formed
and ratifled. In demanding and securing full re
ligious liberty in these colonial and national move
ments. Baptists were foremost, aud Isaac Backus
was their most prominent leader. For more than
twenty years he was kept by the Baptists of New
England and the country in the official position of
agent for securing the reform of government in this
particular ; and as a man of great ability and com
manding general influence, he was at the front of
the goodly company with whose honored names his
is associated.
He was the author of an extended "History of
New England, with Special Reference to the De
nomination of Christians called Baptists ; " and his
published papers in the interest of religious liberty
were numerous. In addition to his own works,
there is the "Memoir of the Life and Times of
Isaac Backus, " by President Hovey, of Newton
[149]

150 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
Theological Institution, and historical discourses and
encyclopedias, to all of which we are indebted for
the materials of our sketch. On the spot where his
long pastorate was spent, in North Middleborough,
Mass., a flttlng granite m<jnument has just been
dedicated, bearing this inscription : —
ISAAC BACKUS.
Elder Isaac Backus, A. M.,
A pioneer champion of Religious Liberty,
And the earliest Baptist Historian
in America.
Born in 1724, died 1806,
In the fiftj'-ninth year of his ministry in this precinct.
Erected b}' a grateful people.
A. D. 1893.
Rev. David Barnes Ford, of Flanover, Mass., who
had borne a leading part in securing the erection,
gave the valuable historical discourse, other ad
dresses adding great interest to the occasion.
It is noteworthy that all the flrst leaders in the as
saults upon hierarchical tyranny were men who, in
mature life, after their education and introduction to
service in pedobaptist churches, changed to embrace
and propagate the faith as held by Baptists : John
Smyth, Thomas Helwys, Roger Williams, Carey,
Judson, the Haldanes, Oncken, Baldwin, Backus,
and others.
The gracious revival which came upon New Eng
land a hundred and flfty years ago aroused excited

EELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 151
opposition in many of the standing order of clergy
men. Young Backus experienced the saving change,
and his talented, godly mother greatly joyed in the
Lord during those revivals. Their pastor, in the es
tablished church in Norwich, Conn., was grievously
incensed by the zeal of the New Lights, as the re
vival people were called. Those of this character
therefore came to hold meetings by themselves.
They were summoned by the pastor to account, and
to cease from the offensive conduct. Among them
were the widow Backus and her son Isaac, who had
promptly united with the church. "They were
brought before the church tribunal, and when inter
rogated as to their reasons for absenting themselves
from the church, gave answer in harmony with the
convictions of their own souls, and calmly but firmly
declined to yield the ground they occupied." They
were suspended, which meant exclusion until they
recanted. The rod of correction struck the soul of
young Backus, and waked to assert itself the prin
ciple of liberty that was strongly implanted there.
He left his native city to find "freedom to worship
God. " He was ready to preach ' ' liberty to the cap
tives, and the opening of the prison to them that are
bound," both in the spiritual and in the literal sense.
His mother and brother identified themselves
with the ' ' Separate " Congregationalists ; but they
were still compelled to support the minister who
had excluded them, or lie in jail for default.
About forty persons suffered the latter alternative.

152 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
The Backuses were of the forty. The mother was
advanced in years and was suffering in sickness
when the officers of law took her at nine o'clock at
night from before her fire whei-e she was reading in
the Bible, and in the late October cold and rain car
ried her seventeen miles, and placed her in a cell in
the county jail.
After thirteen days of bodily suffering, but such
spiritual consolation as led her to say that "the
cheerless cell was beautiful as a palace," she was re
leased through some unknown friend who paid the
charges against her. Her son Samuel had a longer
imprisonment. The mother's letter to Isaac after
her release was a noble expression of Christian
womanhood. Isaac had betaken himself to Massachusetts, for
he was yet a Congregationalist, and he hoped to find
brethren among whom godliness would not be crimi
nal. "Led by the disposal of Providence," as he
says, he reached the precinct of Middleborough,
which was to be his base of operation for threescore
years. He describes as follows : —
" A majority of the church members in the precinct favored
a New Light preacher, while a majority of the voters opposed
such an one, so that they had enjoyed but little preaching for
nearly a year ; and a number of the brethren, as they could
not get letters of dismission from their churches, resolved to
separate therefrom, and worship by themselves. The first time
they met was the Lord's day before I came into the place, un
known to them and they to me. A sovereign God was pleased
to accompany the labors of so unworthy an instrument with

EELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 153
such a blessing on the people that it would not avail for them
to oppose my preaching. Divine truth seemed to flow through
my soul like a river, and it was easier to speak than to refrain.
Therefore the committee came to invite me, only they wimld
have me yield to be examined and approbated by neighboring
ministers, and so come in regularly. I told them I was willing
to be examined as much as they pleased, but I should not leave
it to them whether I should preach the gospel or 'not, neiiher
should I allow the precinct to lead in calling a minister, instead
of the church of God. This did not please them, yet they in
vited me to preach to them notwithstanding. This I did for
about two rnonths, and then two of said committee forbade my
preaching on the precinct's account any longer. And a few
weeks after they met and voted a sum of money for to set up
other worship, and taxed me to the value of ten shillings
sterling toward it. And Feb. 6, 1749, their collector seized me
for refusing to pay it, and held me as a prisoner about three
hours, till one of their party called him out, and paid him the
money. This is the best reward that they as a precinct ever
offered me for two months' preaching."
Leaving, therefore, the precinct church, he became
the pastor of the seceded portion of it, called Sepa
ratists, where he continued some eight years in the
Congregationalist connection.
Then " having through much anguish of soul and
against all worldly interest " first accepted immersion
as baptism, and four years later adopted the Baptist
faith in full, he became, in 1756, in the same place,
the pastor of a Baptist church of six members, the
sole representative of its denomination on afield a
hundred miles long and nearly fifty wide. He was
now allied with the sect everywhere spoken 'against,
and became at once a leader in their struggle to ob-

154 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
tain, not for themselves alone, but for all, the rights
of conscience. These struggles were soon to take
organized form, and place upon Mr. Backus official
responsibilities. In 1769 the Warren Association, which then rep
resented all the Baptist churches of New England,
appointed a committee, of which he was a member,
to collect facts as to the oppressions which those not
of the state churches were suffering, and to prepare
petitions for redress to be presented to the govern
ments of Massachusetts and Connecticut. The com
mittee was active through the year, and found itself
loaded with the complaints of the sufferers, while
efforts for their relief continued to be futile.
At the meeting the next year it was resolved unani
mously to "send to the British court for help, if it
could not be obtained in America." Rev. John
Davis, of Boston, an excellent young minister from
the freer atmosphere of Pennsylvania, was appointed
agent of the churches, to lead in mea.sures for secur
ing release from the disabilities, taxes, and prose
cutions imposed by the state establishments. Mr.
Backus was associated with him, and gave efficient
aid in the movement.
A petition addressed to the government of Mas
sachusetts, by this agency and the committee above
mentioned, will show the grounds on which they
made their appeals for justice: —

EELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 155
" To the Honorable, the Lieutenant- Oovemor, the Honorable his
Majesty's Representatives, in General Court Assembled : —
"The petition of the Baptist Committee of Grievances,
acting in the name and by the appointment of the Baptist
churches, met in association at Bellingham in this province,
the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth days of September last,
humbly showcth : —
"That although the Baptists have been repeatedly disap
pointed in their addresses to the General Court, and have not
received that relief from their distresses which they humbly
conceive all our people are entitled to as men and Christians
and subjects of a free government, yet very unwilling to leave
any means untried, and hoping all things from this Court, —
we, the committee aforesaid, with great earnestness and seri
ousness, do recommend ourselves to you, gentlemen, whom we
consider as the guardians of our rights and privileges, as well
religious as civil, the protectors of the injured, the fathers of
our common country ; and beg leave to say that we are en
couraged in this our address from the consideration of the
rights of mankind having been so well defined in the votes
of your honorable House, by which we are taught to think
'that no taxation can be equitable where such restraints are
laid upon the taxed as take from him the liberty of giving his
own money freely.'
"This being true, permit us to aslc with what equity is our
property taken from us, not only without our consent, but vio
lently, contrary to our wills, and for such purposes as we can
not, in faithfulness to that stewardship with which God hath
intrusted us, favor. Permit us, therefore, to lay before this
honorable Court the grievances of which we complain, and
pray your friendly as well as legislative interposition, that our
brethren may be saved from threatening ruin, who have suf
fered much in their persons and estates, to the great disqui
etude of their minds and distress of their small and chargeable
families.

156 HEROES AND HIEEAECHS.
"And these evils have arisen from some of tho laws of this
province, which are ecclesiastical in their nature, and bear upon
us, and, as we think, deprive us of a charter privilege ; espe
cially one law made in favor of the proprietors of the town of
Ashfield, in the county of Hampshire, which is contrary to, and
in respect to that town, supersedes all Acts of the General Court
heretofore enacted and declared to be in favor of the Baptists.
In consequence of which law, and by a power granted in the
same to the proprietors of Ashfield aforesaid, three hundred
and ninety-eight acres of our land have been sold to build, and
remove, and repair when moved, a meeting-house in which we
have no part, though our money helped to build it, and to
settle and support a minister whom we cannot hear. The lands
were valued at three hundred and sixty-three pounds thirteen
shillings, lawful money, and were sold for nineteen pounds
three shillings, lawful money. Part of the lands aforesaid be
longed to the Rev. Ebenezer Smith, a regularly ordained Baptist
minister, who, together with his father and others, their
brethren, in the last Indian war, built at their own expense a
fort, and were a frontier ; and this they did without any help
from any quarter ; for which we beg leave to say that they de
serve, at least, the common privileges of the subjects of the
crown of England. Part of the said lands had been laid out
for a burying-place, and they have taken from us our dead.
They have also sold a dwelling-house and orchard, and pulled
up our apple-trees, and thrown down our fences, and made our
fields waste places.
"Permit us further to add, that the Act of the General Court,
made with design to favor us, and for the same purpose hath
been renewed from time to time, is attended with such difficul
ties as render it ineffectual in many instances, and by no means
sufficient to answer the good purpose for which we are willing
to believe the honorable court intended it. The difficulties
arising from this quarter, of which we complain, we are ready
to lay before the House whenever it shall please them to call
upon us.

EELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 15.7
"We must beg your indulgence while we recite one thing
more, which we deem hard, and that is, a proviso in the above-
mentioned law or Act of General Court, by which no Baptist
can avail himself even of that law in new-settled towns; and we
are thereby virtually prevented from settling in such towns.
"Should we go through wilh an enumeration of all our griev
ances, we must take up too much of the time of this honorable
court, which we are unwilling to do. We therefore pray the
General Court to relieve the following particulars, viz : —
"1. To repeal a law entitled, ' An Act in Addition to an Act
for Erecting the New Plantation called Huntstown,' in the
county of Hampshire, into a town by the name of Ashfield, and
restore the lands which have been taken from them to support
the ministers settled by law, and give them damages for the
many and great injuries they have been made to suffer.
"3. To enable our brethren, in different parts of the prov
ince, to recover damages for the losses they have been made to
sustain on a religious account.
" 3. To grant perpetual exemption to all Baptists and their
congregations from all ministerial rates whatever, according to
the full intent and meaning of the charter of the province, that
we may all enjoy full liberty of conscience, as others, his
Majesty's subjects, of this province ; and also to disannul all
such rates heretofore laid on any of our people in the gov
ernment. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever
pray. " Signed in behalf of the whole Committee. "Samuel Stillman.
"Hezekiah Smith.
"John Davis."
From petitions similarly addressed by the Baptist
citizens of Ashfield, whose efforts to obtain their
rights were fruitless through successive years, we
copy the following : —

158 HEROES AND HIEEAECHS.
"We would inform his Excellency and your Honors, that
one half of us settled in this town before the last war (which
was then called Huntstown), and built a fort, and defended
ourselves three years' time, before we had any help by soldiers
from authority, excepting ten men for ten days to gather our
corn ; in which time we could do little else iy summer but
guard ourselves, and scout in the woods to see if we could
make discovery of the enemy, and thereby were some guard
to the towns below us. After the war was over, we being of
the persuasion that is called Anabaptist, proceeded to settle
ourselves in a church form, and to settle a minister, we then
being by far the major part of the inhabitants of the town.
He was ordained by the assistance of three neighboring min
isters of the same constitution ; and we were about building
a meeting-house, but were forced to dssist by means of there
settling in town a number of men of a contrary persuasion,
who, by the help of some few that were here before, and other
proprietors, have by a major vote raised money to build an
other meeting-house which we have no privilege of, and set
tled another minister, and given him a large settlement and
salary, and compel us to pay our equal proportion with them,
so that even our own minister is compelled to pay theirs, or
we for him. By reason of which oppression, together with
the distresses of the war aforesaid, we are brought under dis
tressful circumstances, which, we think, cry aloud for some
pity to be shown to us ; for we have our own minister to pro
vide for according to our ability, and have yearly our money
taken away from us, or our land sold at an out-cry to support
their worship, so that we haVe already suffered extremely.
And they have also voted four pounds, lawful money, upon
each right, to finish their meeting-house and to support their
minister, which if we are obliged to pay, we .see nothing but
that we, or many of us, must be turned out from our houses
and lands. We pray, therefore, that his Excellency and your
Honors would take our distressed case into your wise con
sideration, and free us and our lands from paying any more

EELIGIOUS FEEEDOM IN AMEEICA. 159
toward the maintenance of the minister, or finishing the meet
ing-house, of a society we do not belong unto ; we being will
ing to pay our province taxes, and all others, except the above
mentioned. So pray your humble petitioners and loyal sub
jects. "N. B. — There are upward of ninety souls that attend our
meeting on Lord's days.
"Dated, Ashfield, May SJf, 1768."
Two years later they sent in another petition, in
which, after narrating various futile attempts to
obtain relief, they proceed as follows : —
"Therefore our lands were set at public vendue, and sold for
a very small part of their value. They, have sold mowing
ground, winter grain, orcharding, one poor man's dwelling-
house, and our burying-place — and all this for a rate which we
cannot in conscience pay ; so that we are not only deprived of
liberty of conscience, which our most gracious sovereign has
granted us in common with others his loyal subjects (which
we have a right to, in religion and reason), but we are in a great
measure disinherited, and are in a fair way to be turned naked
into the wide world.
"We humbly beg leave to say these things are hard, very
hard ; for if we may not settle and support a minister agreeable
to our own conscience, where is liberty of conscience ?
"And if we maybe allowed that liberty, which is most reason
able, by what law, or with what equity, are we forced to pay for
the settlement of another, with whom we cannot in conscience
join, or lo huild a meeting-house for a society that we do not
belong to ? . . .
"We plead for nothing but liberty of conscience and charter
privilege. We humbly pray your Honors to take these things
into your wise considOTation, and show some pity to your dis
tressed petitioners.
" Dated 1770."

160 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
Mr. Davis was removed from the agency by death
soon after his appointment, and in 1772 Mr. Backus
was chosen by the association to continue the service.
He assumed this leadership with a decided opposition
to the legislative attempts successively made in that
period to relieve persons unjustly taxed and prose
cuted for the support of state churches. The legis
lation required certificates to be obtained, on difficult
and humiliating conditions, for presentation to assess
ors in order to claim exemption. "And if the un-
sympathizing authorities neglected their duty, or
even violated these laws, no penalty was affixed to
this neglect or transgression. " Hence the extortions,
fines, seizures, and sacrifices of ill-spared property
went on.
Mr. Backus, with a committee appointed to cooper
ate with him, soon issued the following circular to
the Baptist churches : —
"Beloved Fhibnds : These lines are to acquaint you that
five of our committee, appointed to take care for and consult the
general good of the Baptist churches in this country, especially
as to their union and liberties, met with me at Boston, on May
5, 1773, when we received accounts that several of our friends
at Mendon have lately had their goods forcibly taken from
them for ministerial rates, and that three more of them at
Chelmsford (two of whom were members of the Baptist church
there), were seized for the same cause, last winter, and carried
prisoners to Concord jail ; so that liberty of conscience, the
greatest and most important article of all liberty, is evidently
not allowed, as it ought to be in this tfountry, not even by the
very men who are now making loud complaints of encroach
ments upon their own liberties. And as it appears to us- clear

EELIGIOUS FEEEDOM IN AMEEICA. " 161
that the root of all these diffleulties, and that which has done
amazing mischief in our land, is civil rulers' assuming a power
to make any laws to govern ecclesiastical affairs, or to use any
force to support ministers ; therefore, these are to desire you
to consider wli-ether it is not our duty to strike so directly at
this root as to refuse any conformity to their laws about such
affairs, even so much as giving any certificates to their assessors.
We are fully psr3uaded that if we were all united in bearing
what others of our friends might, for a little while, suffer on
this account, a less sum than has already been expended with
lawyers and courts, on such accounts, would carry us through
the trial, and, if we should be able to treat our oppressors with
a Christian temper, would make straining upon others, under
pretense of supporting religion, apjjear so odious that they
could not get along with it. We desire you would consider of
these matters, and send in your mind to the assembly of our
churches, which is to meet at Medfleld, on the seventh of Sep
tember next, when it will be proposed to have these matters,
both as to principle and facts, as clearly stated as we can, and
to see if all our churches cannot agree upon publishing our
joint testimony for true liberty, and against the oppressions of
the present day. •'From yours in gospel bonds,
"Isaac Backus, Agent.
"By advice of the Committee.
"P. S.^Our charter gives other denominations no more
power to tax tbe Baptists, than it does the Baptists to tax
others ; and in the town of Boston they have all along had this
equality, so that there has not been any occasion for one society
to give certificates to another ; and why may not the country
enjoy the same liberty ? "
The response to this circular, and the action which
followed, are detailed in a letter to Rev. Dr. Stennett,
of London : —
11

162 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
" MiDDLBBOROUGH, Oct. 9, 1773.
"Reverend and Deae Sm: Last May our committee were
called together at Boston, when we had late accounts of the suf
ferings of our brethren in sundry places, and in violation of the
pedobaptists' own laws, upon which we wrote to all our
churches to consider and to give their mind upon the affair.
Accordingly, they sent in their thoughts to our association at
Medficld, Tuesday, September 7 ; and though we were agreed
that our legislature had no right to impose religious taxes upon
us, yet some doubted the expediency of our now refusing any
compliance with their laws in that respect ; and since we
were not all of a judgment in this case, they stood against our
coming to any vote upon it, lest our want of union should give
an advantage to our adversaries. Thus matters labored all day
Wednesday, until many of the brethren became very uneasy
about being thus held back. But on Tuesday morning, Mr.
Stillman, who had been against our coming to a vote, brought
in the following paper, which was unanimously adopted: —
"'1. That the mind of the association, respecting giving or
not giving certificates, be taken by written vote, in order to
confine the difference which subsists among us on this matter,
in tlie association.
"'3. That those churches that agree to neglect the law for
the future, shall, in a spirit of meekness, plead, as the reason,
that they cannot in conscience countenance any human laws
that interfere in the management of the kingdom of Christ,
which is not of this world.
"'3. That the churches which think it expedient to give
certificates for the present, be advised by letter how many are
of a contrary mind, and be desired to consider the matter
against the next association, and to unite with their brethren
if possible.
" '4. That the churches allow each other entire liberty,
without any hard thoughts one of another.
" ' 5. That all the churches whi«h shall be called to suffer
through the year, shall transmit an account of such sufferings

RELIGIOUS FEEEDOM IN AMERICA.' 163
to their agent, to be made use of by him as may be thought
best to subserve tbe common cause.
" '6. That our true state, with what we have transacted at
this association, be sent to our agents in England, and their
opinion be requested by the next meeting of the churches.
"'7. That if any are called to suffer, their sister churches
be applie.d to, to assist them in their trouble.'
"When we came to act upon the first of these articles, there
appeared thirty-four elders and brethren against giving any
more certificates, six for it, and three at a loss how to act.
Then it was voted by all that an appeal to the public, which 1
had read in part to them, should be examined by our commit
tee, and then published. And our association was, dismissed in
a very comfortable and happy manner, and all seemed well
pleased with what was done. The following week our com
mittee met at Boston, and deliberately examined and approved
of our appeal, a copy ot which I now send you. We were pri
vately encouraged in this attempt for religious liberty by sev
eral members of both houses of our great General Court ; and
the state of people's minds of various ranks through New Eng
land is such that I cannot but hope to obtain our freedom with
out a necessity of appealing to his Majesty. The use of force
in religious affairs is become odious to great numbers besides
our own denomination, and that is increasing very fast.
"Thus, dear sir, I have given you as concibc and just an ac
count of our state as 1 can ; and we request the best advice
from yourself. Dr. Slewalen, and Mr. Wallin that you can give
us. We are greatly obliged to you all for the friendship and
favors you have already shown us, especially concerning the
ca,se of Ashfield, for which we hope and pray that God may
abundantly reward you."
The appeal mentioned in this letter is not now in
print, but it is described by Dr. Hovey as a pam
phlet of sixty-two pages, discussing the difference

164 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
between civil and ecclesiastical government, and the
oppressions which were inflicted by confounding the
two. He exposes the calumny that opposition to
the religious taxes sprang from penuriousness, de
claring: "Many of us have expended ten or twenty
times as much in setting up and supporting that wor
ship which we believe to be right, as it would have
cost us to have continued in the fashionable way."
The address closes with the following reasons why
the Baptists should refuse longer actively to obey
the unjust laws in the matter of pretended exemp
tion of dissenters : " (1) Because to give certificates
implies an acknowledgment that civil rulers have a
right to set up one religious sect after another, which
they have not ; (2) Because civil rulers are not rep
resentatives in religious matters, aud therefore have
no right to impose religious taxes ; (3) Because such
practice emboldens the actors therein to assume
God's prerogative, and to judge the hearts of those
who do not put iuto their mouths ; (4) Because the
church is to be presented as a chaste virgin to
Christ ; and to place her trust and love upon any
other for temporal support, is playing the harlot,
and so the way to destroy all religion ; (5) Because
the practice tends to envy, hypocrisy, and confusion,
and so to the ruin of civil society."
To Governor Samuel Adams, the great leader of
the revolt against British taxation without represen
tation, Mr. Backus wrote this letter, January,
1774 : —

RELIGIOUS FEEEDOM IN AMEEICA. 165
' ' To Mr. Samuel Adams.
"HoNOKED Sir: As you have long exerted yourself, and
improved your abilities with great applause, for civil liberty,
I beg leave, though a stranger to your person, to address you
upon the cause of religious freedom. I fully concur with your
grand maxim, that ' it is essential to liberty that representation
and taxation go together.' Well, then, since people do not
vote for representatives in our legislature from ecclesiastical
qualifications, but only by virtue of those which are of a civil
and worldly nature, how can representatives tins chosen have
any right to impose ecclesiastical taxes? Yet they have as
sumed and long exercised such a power. For they assumed
a power to compel each town and parish in this province to
settle a minister, and have empowered the majority of the in
habitants to give away as much of their neighbors' estates as
they please to their minister ; and if they refuse to yield it to
them, then to take it by force. And 1 am bold in it that taxes
laid by the British Parliament upon America are not more con
trary to civil freedom, than these taxes are to the very nature
of liberty of conscience, which is an essential article in our
charter ; for certainly the discharge of a good conscience
toward God as much concerns the support of his worship, as
does the attendance upon it, though modern nations would
confine it to the latter. Yea, many take away our money to
support a way contrary to our consciences ; and after they
have got it, reflect upon us for not supporting our own way
better. And though many pretend that the case is not as I
have now represented, because Acts from time to time have
been made to exempt our denomination and others from taxes
to the established worship, yet ff we examine, we shall find
that this exemption is just like the proceedings of the power
at home in taking off some of the taxes which they had laid
upon this country, while they still claim the power to tax us
when they please. Two thousand dollars will not make good
the damages that the Baptists in this province have sustained
within these ten years by being taxed to the other party, and

166 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
by suing for their rights before judges and jurors who were
of that party. . . And now, for no other crime than refusing
last year to yield any further obedience to that taxing law,
which is unjustly called an Act to Exempt our Denomination
from Taxes, a number of people who have been my steady
hearers for twenty years are, by Judge Oliver's direction, taxed
to his minister.
" Our reasons for the above refusal I here send you in print ;
and as the Act aforesaid is now out of date, 1 hope, sir, that
you will give proof both to the court and to the world that
you regard the religious as well as the civil rights of your
countrymen ; that so large a- number of as peaceable people,
and as hearty friends to their country, as any in the land, may
not be forced to carry their complaints before those who would
be glad to hear that the Legislature of Massachusetts deny to
their fellow-servants that liberty which they so earnestly insist
upon for themselves. A word to the wise is sufficient. There
fore I add no more, but am,
" Your friend and humble servant,
"Isaac Backus."
The next month the energetic agent of the suffer
ing, in view of new and severe persecutions, hastened
to address to the Massachusetts government the fol
lowing petition : —
"The Memorial and Petition of Isaac Backus, agent for the
Baptist churches in the province, humbly showeth : That
whereas, by the charter of this province, liberty of conscience
is granted to our denomination equally with other Protestants,
and it is declared to the flrst General Court, after thp charter
was received, that the magistrate is most properly the officer
of human society, and that a Christian, by conformity to this
or that way of worship, does not break the terms on which he
is to enjoy the benefits of human society, and that a man has
a right unto his life, his estate, his liberty, and his family.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 167
notwithstanding such non-conformity, which declaration was
then received witli the thanks of the House of Representatives
(Magnalia, B. 7, pp. 28, 29) ; yet it has been a common custom,
ever since, to impose taxes upon the inhabitants in general
in every town and precinct in this province, to support pedo
baptist worship ; and though there have been sundry temporary
Acts made to exempt our denomination from such taxes, yet
great numbers of them have, from time to time, been taxed
and despoiled of their rights ; and I have direct information
that eighteen men of the inhabitants of Warwick, who belong
to the Baptist society in Royalston, and had the same certified
to the assessors of Warwick, last June, yet were seized, last
week, for the minister's rate of that town, and carried prisoners
to Northhampton jail, by which they are deprived of their
precious rights ; and their dear families, in a new country, are
exposed to suffering greatly for want of their help.
"This is therefore to beseech your Excellency and Honors,
as guardians of the rights of your people, immediately to order
these men to be set at liberty, and that reparation be made of
the damages they have sustained ; and also to take some effect
ual methods, as in your wisdom you shall see fit, that for the
future all persons within this province, who shall demean them
selves as good members of civil society, may not be despoiled
of the aforesaid rights, under a pretense of supporting religious
worship, but that all persons, who shall presume thus to en
croach upon the rights of their neighbors, may be punished ac
cording to the demerit of their crimes. And your petitioner,
as in duty bound, shall ever pray. " Isaac Backus.
"Middleborough, Feb. 15, 177 i."
Of the effect of this petition, he gave to a pastor in
London this account : —
" I have been called to address our legislature in behalf of a
number of our friends, who were seized the second week in

16^ HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
February, and carried, in that extreme sea.son. forty miles, and
confined in jail, for a pedobaptist minister's rate ; though most
of them had, for many years, been of the Baptist denomination,
and had la'.ely moved into that town. The president of his
Majesty's council, and several other men of note of both
Houses, gave their opinion in favor of the first article in the
praver of the petition ; but the majority turned the case against
it. L'pon which some friends in Boston sent to our friends in
prison, to bail themselves out. and sue for their rights in execu
tive courts, which they did, after being confined fifteen days.
Upon the other article of providing a more effectual remedy
against such things for the future, the House of Representatives
sent out a committee upon it, who conferred with Mr. Stillman
and others of our committee in Boston ; and they framed an
Act more favorable than they had done before, which passed
both Houses. But in the contest about .Judge Oliver, the court
prorogued so abruptly that it was not laid before the Governor,
so that there is no Act in force at all in the province to exempt
us from taxes to their ministers. But the more they stir about
it, the more light gains; so that my hope of deliverance in due
time increases."
Long and serious was this contest for religions
freedom in New England. Oppressions and protests,
involved and ineffective legislation, petitions and
appeals to the authorities in this country and to king
and counsel in the mother country, were kept up
through the century. Mr. Backus continued, until
his death in 1806, to voice the murmur of the un
resting, ceaseless agitation. His denomination, grow
ing in its influence, held with steady unanimity to
the use of every legitimate means for securing the
personal and corporate rights of every citizen and
society, irrespective of religions views or connec-

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 169
tions. Statesmen, and Christians of different names,
came gradually to see the justice and importance of
these principles ; but so late as 1820, in a Massachu
setts convention for revising the constitution, Baptist
members having introduced a resolution for equal
religious liberty, Daniel Webster, who was a member,
opposed it, saying: "The constitution, as it is, is
good enough for me." Of the three hundred and
sixty-five who voted on the resolution, a change of
four would have carried it, but it was lost, and the
oppression went on.
Finally Massachusetts, that for two hundred years
had led in the oppression, gave to it the death-blow.
In 1833 the State so amended its Bill of Rights as
to sever the connection of State and Church, and se
cure impartial religious freedom. The little seed
planted in Rhode Island two hundred years before
had now evolved the trees whose shade and fruits
were falling on all New England and the whole en
larged sisterhood of States. But we must go back a
little way, and study another evolution from the
same seed and of similar history, — the growth of
this freedom in the field of our national polity.

CHAPTER XI.
coNSTmrnoNAL religious freedom
THEOUGHOUT AMEEICA.
APPEALS TO CONTINENTAL AND COLONIAL CONGRESSES.
"\"0 sooner did the American colonies, driven by
i ' British oppression, propose to consolidate into a
union for better resistance, than the question of re
ligious liberty claimed its place in their counsels.
Established churches had been the policy in most of
the colonies, and restricted liberty was instituted in
all of them except Rhode Island ; yet there were
many citizens who were determined that a general
government should not grow up clothed with the
power which had obliged them to fly from their
mother countries.
When, therefore, the first continental congresses
met in New York and Philadelphia, representatives
of this sentiment made themselves present and
heard. The Congress in Philadelphia, in 1774, was a body
of delegates from all the colonies except Georgia.
In it were Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard
Henry Lee, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Roger
Sherman, Philip and William Livingston, John Jay,
Dr. Witherspoon, of Princeton College, and many
[170T

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 171
others whose names are historic. Its purpose was to
secure union of effort, and judicious measures for
gaining relief from British oppression.
The Baptists and Friends and others, who were
suffering from infractions of their religious liberty in
the colonies, felt that this Congress was a propei-
place to seek equal justice in this matter, as well as
in others ; and their leading men who met that year
at the college commencement in Providence, and in
the Warren and Pennsylvania associations, appointed
their agent, Mr. Backus, and cooperating committees
to wait on the congress, and submit their grievances
for consideration. The committee of New England
and New York were President Manning, of Rhode
Island, Dr. Hezekiah Smith, of Massachusetts, and
Dr. John Gano, of New York. The Pennsylvania
committee was a large one, in which Reverends Will
iam Rogers, William Van Horne, Morgan Edwards,
Samuel Jones, and numerous gentlemen not minis
ters, were members.
Assembling in Philadelphia, the first efforts of the
agent and committees were directed to securing the
sympathy and cooperation of individual members of
Congress. The Massachusetts delegates were seen,
and an informal consultation with them and others
was secured. Of this conference, Mr. Backus enu
merates, beside the Baptist committees, "Thomas
Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat
Paine, Massachusetts delegates ; Stephen Hopkins
and Samuel Ward, of Rhode Island ; James Kinzie,

172 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
of New Jersey ; Joseph Galloway and Thomas Mif-
lin, of Pennsylvania, as members of Congress ; Mr.
Rhodes, mayor of Philadelphia ; Israel and James
Pemberton and Joseph Fox, Quakers, and others."
The conference was opened by President Manning
in a short address, and the reading of the following
Memorial : —
"It has been said by a celebrated writer in politics, that but
two things were worth contending for, — religion and liberty.
For the latter we are at present nobly exerting ourselves through
all this extensive continent ; and surely no one whose bosom
feels the patriot glow in behalf of civil liberty, can remain
torpid to the more ennobling flame of religious freedom.
"The free exercise of private judgment and the unalienable
rights of conscience are of too high a rank and dignity to be
subjected to the decrees of councils, or the imperfect laws of
fallible legislators. The merciful Father of mankind is alone
the Lord of conscience. Establishments may be enabled to
confer worldly distinctions and secular importance. They may
make hypocrites, but cannot create Christians. They have
been reared by craft or power, but liberty never flourished per
fectly under their control. That liberty, virtue, and public
happiness can be supported without them, this flourishing
province [Pennsylvania] is a glorious testimony, and a view
of it would be sufficient to invalidate all the most elaborate
arguments ever adduced in support of them. Happy in the
enjoyment of these undoubted rights, and conscious of their
high import, every lover of mankind must be desirous, as far
as opportunity offers, of extending and securing the enjoyment
of these inestimable blessings.
"These reflections have arisen from considering the unhappy
situation of our brethren, the Baptists, in the province of Mas
sachusetts Bay, for whom we now appear as advocates ; and
from the important light in which liberty in general is now be-

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 173
held, we trust our representation will be effectual. The prov
ince of Massachusetts Bay, being settled by persons who fled
from civil and ruligious oppression, it would be natural to im
agine them deeply impressed with the value of liberty, and
nobly scorning a domination over conscience ; but such was the
complexion of the times, they fell from the unhappy state of
being oppressed, to the more deplorable and ignoble one of be
coming oppressors.
"But these things being passed over, we intend to begin
with the charter obtained at the happy restoration. This
charter grants 'that there shall be liberty of conscience allowed
in the worship of God to all Christians, except papists, inhabit
ing this province, or territory ; ' or, in the words of the late
Governor Hutchinson : 'We find nothing in the new charter
of an ecclesiastical constitution. Liberty of conscience is
granted to all except papists. ' The first general court that met
under this charter returned their thanks for the following sen
timents delivered before them : ' That the magistrate is most
properly the officer of human society ; that a Christian by non
conformity to this or that imposed way of worship, does not
break the terms upon which he is to enjoy the benefits of
human society ; and that a man has a right to his estate, his
liberty, and his family, notwithstanding his non-conformity.'
And on this declaration the historian who mentions it plumes
himself, as if the whole future system of an impartial admin.
istration was to begin. By laws made during the first charter,
such persons only were entitled to vote for civil rulers as were
church-members. This might be thought by some to give a
shadow of ecclesiastical power ; but by the present [charter],
' every freeholder of thirty pounds sterling per annum, and
every other inhabitant who has forty pounds personal estate,
are voters for representatives. ' So that here seems an evident
foundation to presume they are only elected for the preservation
of civil rights, and the management of temporal concernments.
Nevertheless, they soon began to assume the power of establish
ing Congregational worship, and taxed all the inhabitants

174 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
toward its support ; and no Act was passed to exempt other de
nominations from the year 1692 to 1727, when the Episcopa
lians were permitted to enjoy their rights.
"The first Act for the relief of the Baptists was in 1728,
when their polls only were exempted from taxation, and not
their estates, and then only of such as lived within five miles
of a Baptist meeting-house. The next year, 1729, thirty per
sons were apprehended and confined in Bristol jail, — soine
church-men, some Friends, but most of the Baptist denomina
tion. Roused by these oppressions, the Baptists and Quakers
petitioned the General Court, being determined if they could
not obtain redress, to apply to his Majesty in council. Where
fore, the same year a law was passed exempting their estates
and polls, but clogged, however, with a limitation for less
than five years. At the expiration of this Act, in 1783, our
brethren were obliged again to apply to the General Assembly,
upon which a third Act was passed (1734), exempting Baptists
from paying ministerial taxes. This third Act was more clear,
accurate, and better drawn than any of the former ; but for
want of a penalty on the returning officer, badly executed,
subjecting our brethren to many hardships and oppressions.
This Act expired in 1740, and another was made for seven
years, but still liable to the same defects. In 1747 the Baptists-
and Friends, wearied with fruitless applications to the Assem
blies, once more proposed applying at home for relief, when
the laws exempting them were reenacted for ten years, the
longest space ever granted.
"To show what the liberty was that these unhappy people
enjoyed, it will be necessary, though we aim as much as pos
sible at brevity, just to mention that if at any time a Baptist
sued a collector for the breach of these laws, any damages he
recovered were laid on the town, aud the Baptists residing
therein were thereby obliged to pay their proportionable part
toward his indemnification. At this time such an instance oc
curred in the case of Sturbridge, when Jonathan Perry sued

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 175
the collector, Jonathan Mason, and the damages were sustained
by the town, though the Baptists in town-meeting dissented.
And here it may not be improper to observe that the judges
and jury are under the strongest bias to determine for the de
fendants. In the beginning of the year 1753 an Act was
passed, breaking in upon the time limited, enacting that ' no
minister or member of an Anabaptist church shall be esteemed
qualified to give certificates, other than such as shall have
been obtained from three other churches commonly called
Anabaptist, in this or the neighboring provinces, a certificate
from each respectively, that they esteem such church of their
denomination, and that they conscientiously believe them to
be Anabaptists.'
"But not to take too much of your time, we would here just
observe that all the laws have been made temporary, and
without any penalty on the collector or assessors for the breach
of the law ; and come more particularly to speak of the law
passed at the last June session, as it has been generally under
stood to be so framed as to take away complaint, and establish
a general liberty of conscience. This Act is like all the others,
temporary, and indeed limited to a shorter duration than most of
them, being only for three years. It is without any penalty
on the breach of it, and an additional trouble and expense is
enjoined by requiring the certificates every year (though in
some others obtaining one certificate during, the existence of
the law was sufficient), and concludes thus : 'That nothing in
this Act shall be construed to exempt any proprietor of any
new township from paying his part and portion with the major
part of the other proprietors of such new township, in settling
a minister and building a meeting-house, which hath been or
shall be required as a condition of their grant.'
"And here we would just add a few words relative to the af
fairs of Ashfield. On the twenty-sixth day of December next,
three lots of land belonging to people of our denomination will
be exposed for sale, — one of them for the payment of so small a

176 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
sum as ten shillings eleven pence. Although we have given
but two instances of oppression under the above laws, yet a
great number can be produced, well attested, when called for.
"Upon this short statement of facts, we would observe that
the charter must be looked upon by every impartial eye to be
infringed, so soon as any law was passed for the establishment
of any particular mode of worship. All Protestants are placed
upon the same footing, and no law whatever could disannul
so essential a part of a charter intended to communicate the
blessings of a free government to his Majesty's subjects. Under
the first charter, as was hinted, church-membership conferred
the riglits of a freeman ; but by the second, the possession of
property was the foundation. Therefore, how could it be
supposed that the collective body of the people intended to
confer any other power upon their representatives than that
of making laws relative to property and the concerns of
this life ?
"Men unite in society, according to the great Mr. Locke,
' with an intention in every one the better to preserve himself,
his liberty, and property. The power of the society, or legis
lature constituted by them, can never be supposed to extend
any further than the common good, but is obliged to secure
every one's properly.' To give laws, to receive obedience, to
compel with the sword, belong to none but the civil magistrate ;
and on this ground we affirm that the magistrate's power ex
tends not to the establishing of any arlicles of faith or forms of
worship by force of laws ; for laws are of no force without
penalties. The care of souls cannot belong to the civil magis
trate, because his power consists only in outward force ; but
pure and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of
the mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God.
" It is a just position, and cannot be too firmly established
that we can have no property in that which another may take,
when he pleases, to himself ; neither can we have the proper
enjoyment of. our religious liberties (which must be acknowl
edged to be of greater value), if held by the same unjust and

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 177
capricious tenure ; and this must appear to be the case when
temporary laws pretend to grant relief so very inadequate.
" It may now be asked. What is the liberty desired ? The
answer is. As the kingdom of Christ is not of this world, and
religion is a concern between God and the soul, with which no
human authority can intermeddle, consistently with the princi
ples of Christianity, and according to the dictates of Protest
antism, we claim and expect the liberty of worshiping God ac
cording to our consciences, not being obliged to support a
ministry we cannot attend, whilst we demean ourselves as faithful
subjects. These we have an undoubted riglit to, as men, as
Christians, and by charter as inhabitants of Massachusetts
Bay." After Dr. Manning had taken his seat, Mr.
Backus says : — •
" The delegates from Massachusetts used all their arts to repre
sent that we complained without reason. John A,dams made a
long speech, and Samuel Adams another, both of whom said :
' There is, indeed, an ecclesiastical establishment in our prov
ince, but a very slender one, hardly to be called an establish
ment.' When they would permit, we brought up facts,*which
they tried to explain away, but could not. Then they shifted
their plea, and asserted that our General Court was clear of
blame, and had always been ready to hear our complaints, and
to grant all reasonable help, whatever might have been done
by executive officers ; and S. Adams and R. T. Paine spent an
hour more on this plea. When they stopped, I told them I
was sorry to have any accusations to bring against the govern
ment which I belonged to, and which I would gladly serve to
the utmost of my power, but I must say that facts proved the
contrary to their plea ; and gave a short account of our legis
lature's treatment of Ashfield, which was very puzzling to
them. In their pleas, S. Adams tried to represent that regular
Baptists were quite easy among us, and more than once insinu
ated thiit these complaints came from enthusiasts wh;) made it
13

178 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
a merit to suffer persecution; and, also, that enemies to the
colonies had a hand therein. Paine said : ' There was nothing
of conscience in the matter, it was only a contending about
paying a little money ; and also that we would not be neigh
borly, and let them know who we were, which was all they
wanted, and they would readily exempt us.'
"In answer 1 told them they might call it enthusiasm or
what they pleased ; but I freely own, before all these gentle
men, that it is absolutely a point of conscience with me ; for 1
cannot give in the certificates they require, without implicitly
acknowledging that power in man which I believe belohgs only
to God. This shocked them, and Cushing said: 'It quite
altered the case ; for if it were a point of conscience, he had
nothing to say to that,' and the conference, of about four
hours' continuance, closed with their promising to do what
they could for our relief ; though, to deter us from thinking of
their coming upon equal footing with us, as to religion, John
Adams, at one time, said we might as well expect a change in
the solar system as to expect they would give up their estab
lishment ; and, at another time, he said we might as soon ex
pect they would submit to the Port Bill, the Regulating Bill,
and the Murder Bill, as to give up that establishment, which
he and his friend, in the beginning of their plea, called a very
slender thing. Such absurdities does religious tyranny produce
in great men."
The prejudiced account which John Adams wrote
of this conference shows the spirit of the standing
order in Massachusetts, of which he was an immov
able pillar. He writes : —
"Governor Hopkins and Governor Ward, of Rhode Island,
came to our lodgings, and said to us that President Manning,
of Rhode Island College, and Mr. Backus, of Massachusetts,
were in town, and had conversed with some gentlemen in Phil
adelphia, who wished to communicate to us a little business.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. l79
and wished we would meet them at six in the evening at Car
penter's Hall. Whether they explained their affairs more par
ticularly to any of my colleagues, 1 know not ; but I had no idea
of the design. We all went at the hour, and to my great sur
prise found the hall almost full of people, and a great number
of Quakers seated at the long table with their broad-brimmed
beavers on their heads. We were invited to seats among them,
and informed that thoy had received complaints from some
Anabaptists and some Friends in Massachusetts against certain
laws of that province, restrictive of the liberty of conscience,
and some instances were mentioned in the General Court, and
in the courts of justice, in which Friends and Baptists had been
grievously oppressed. I know not how my colleagues felt, but
I own I was greatly surprised and somewhat indignant, being,
like my friend Chase, of a temper naturally quick and warm, at
seeing our state and her delegates thus summoned before a self-
created tribunal, which was neither legal nor constitutional.
" Israel Pemberton,' a Quaker of large 'property and more in
trigue, began to speak, and said that Congress was here endeav
oring to form a union of the colonies, but there were difficulties
in the way, and none of more importance than liberty of con
science. The laws of New England, and particularly of Massa
chusetts, were inconsistent with it, for they not onl^ compelled
men to pay for the building of churches and support of ministers,
but to go to some known religious assembly on first days, etc. ,
and that he and his friends were desirous of engaging us to
assure them that our state would repeal all those laws, and
place things as they were in Pennsylvania.
"A suspicion instantly arose in my mind, which 1 have ever
believed to have been well founded, that this artful Jesuit — for
I had been apprised before of his character — was endeavoring
to avail himself of this opportunity to break up the Congress,
or at least to withdraw the Quakers and the governing part of
Pennsylvania from us ; for, at that time; by means of most un
equal representation, the Quakers had a majority in their House
of Assembly, and, by consequence, the whole power of the

180 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
state in their hands. I arose, and spoke in answer to him.
The substance of what 1 said was that we had no authority to
bind our constituents to any such proposals ; that the laws of
Massachusetts were the most mild and equitable establishment
of religion that was known in tlie world, if indeed they could
be called an establishment ; that it would be in vain for us to
enter iLito any conference on such a subject, for we knew be
forehand our constituents would disavow all we could do or
say for the satisfaction of those who invited us to this meeting ;
that the people of Massachusetts were as religious and consci
entious as the people of Pennsylvania; that their conscience
dictated to them that it was their duty to support those laws,
aud therefore the very liberty of conscience which Mr. Pember
ton invoked, would demand indulgence for the tender conscience
of the people of Massachusetts, and allow them to preserve their
laws ; that it might be depended on, this was a point that could
not be carried ; that I would not deceive them by insinuating
the faintest hope, for I knew they might as well turn the heav
enly bodies out of their annual and diurnal courses, as the
people of Massachusetts at the present day from their meeting
house and Sunday laws.
"Pemberton made no reply but this: ' O, sir, pray don't
urge liberty of conscience in favor of such laws !' If 1 had but
known the particular complaints which were to be alleged, and
if Pemberton had not broken irregularly into the midst of
things, it might have been better, perhaps, to postpone this
declaration. However, the gentlemen proceeded, and stated
the particular cases of oppression which were alleged in our
general and executive courts. It happened that Mr. Cushing
and Mr. Samuel Adams had been present in the General Court
when the petitions had been under deliberation, and they
explained the whole so clearly that every reasonable man must
have been satisfied. Mr. Paine and 1 hud been concerned at
the bar in every action in the executive courts which was com
plained of, and we explained them all to the entire satisfaction
of impartial men, and showed th.it there had been no oppres
sion or injustice in any of them."

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 181
In his diary Mr. Adams describes the affair thus : —
"In the evening we were invited to an interview, at Car
penter's Hall, with the Quakers and Anabaptists. Mr. Backus
is come here from Middleborough, with a design to apply to
the Congress for a redress of grievances of the anti-pedo-
baptisls>in our province. The cases from Chelmsford, the case
of Mr. White of Haverhill, the case of Ashfield and Warwick,
were mentioned by Mr. Backus. Old Israel Pemberton was
quite rude, and his rudeness was resented ; but the conference,
which held till eleven o'clock, I hope will produce good."
The motives of the Baptists in these efforts with
the Continental Congress were grossly misrepre
sented by their opponents. Prominent leaders in
the state churches publicly accused them of aiming
to defeat a union of the colonies for resisting the
oppressions of England, and thus playing the Tory
under false colors. In view of these accusations,
Mr. Backus, prompted by President Manning and
others, addi'essed the Massachusetts Congress, recit
ing the grounds of the action of the Baptists, and
aflirming as follows : —
"At a time when all Americans are alarmed at the open and
violent attempts that have been made against their liberty, it
affords great cause of joy and thankfulness to see the colonies
so happily united to defend their rights, and particularly that
their late Continental Congress has been directed into meas
ures so wise and salutary for obtaining relief and securing our
future liberties, and that they have wisely extended their re
gards to the rights and freedom. of the poor Africans. Since,
then, the law of equity has prevailed so far, we hope it will
move this honorable Assembly to pay a just regard to their
English neighbors and friends at home.
"It seems that the Wo main rights which all in America are
contending for are, not to be taxed where they are not repre-

1S2 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
sented, and to have their causes tried by unbiased judges.
And the Baptist churches in this province as heartily unite
with their countrymen in this cause as any denomination in
the land, and are as ready to exert all their abilities to defend it.
Yet only because they have thought it to be their duty to claim
an equal title to these rights with their neighbors, they have
repeatedly been accused of evil attempts against the general
welfare of the colony. Therefore we have thought it expe
dient to lay a brief statement of the case before this Assembly.
"And when our churches understood that the Congress at
Philadelphia was designed not only to seek present relief but
also to lay a foundation for the future welfare of the country,
they desired me to repair to that city, and with the best advice
I could obtain, to try if something couid not be done to obtain
and secure full religious liberty to our denomination with
others. I proceeded accordingly, and with a number of gentle
men and friends had a conference with the honored delegates
of this province upon this subject. But one of them repeat
edly declared that he believed this attempt proceeded from the
enemies of America, — the injustice of which refiection let
facts declare."
This vindication is closed by the manly expression
of the determination to abide the consequences of
neither paying the religious taxes, nor seeking ex
emption through the unjust and ineffectual require
ments of the relief acts : —
."Not only upon your principle of not being taxed where we
are not represented, but also because we dare not render that
homage to any earthly power which we are fully convinced
belongs only to God, we cannot give the certificates you re
quire without implicitly allowing to men that authority which
we believe in our conscience belongs only to God. Here,
therefore, we claim charter rights, liberty of conscience. And
if any still deny it to us, they must answer it to him who has

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICV. 183
said, 'With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to
you again.'"
The action at Philadelphia was also justified as
both patriotic and pertinent by the resolution of a
civil assembly of Suffolk county, the county of
Boston, which reads : • " This county, confiding in the
wisdom and integrity of the Continental Congress,
now sitting at Philadelphia, will pay all due respect
and submission to such measures as may be recom
mended by them to the colonies for the restoration
and establishment of our just rights, civil and relig~
ious." And to this resolution the Philadelphia Con
gress gave express approbation.
It does not appear that these efforts in connection
with that meeting of Congress secured, or directly
sought, any formal action of the body. The com
mittee of the Pennsylvania Association, after the con
ference, expressed their dissatisfaction with the
action of the Massachusetts members of the Con
gress, and resolved ' ' to pursue every prudent meas
ure to obtain a full and complete redress for our
brethren in New England." And they presented to
every delegate of the Congress a copy of their res
olution, with the Memorial read to the conference by
President Manning, and the appeal to the public by
Mr. Backus. A month or two afterward the Provin
cial Congress of Massachusetts, in response to an
. address by the Baptist committee of grievances,
passed the following respectful resolution, John
Adams himself saying that he was apprehensive it

184 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
might cause a division among the provinces if they
did not do something about it : —
"Resolved, That the establishment of civil and religious
liberty to each denomination in the province is the sincere wish
of this Congress. But being by no means vested with powers
of civil government whereby they can redress the grievances of
any person whatever, they therefore recommend to the Baptist
churches that when a General Assembly shall be convened in
this colony, they lay the real grievances of said churches before
the same, when and where this petition will most certainly
meet with all that attention due to the Memorial of a denom
ination of Christians so well disposed to the public weal of
their country. " By order of the Congress.
" John Hancock, President.
•'Benjamin Lincoln, Secretary."
And yet when this recommendation was acted
upon by the Baptists of Massachusetts as often as the
General Court met, it was threescore years before
that body gave them the just and promised due.
The men who led in state affairs in Virginia came
earlier to use their influence for equal freedom in re
ligion. James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick
Henry, and General Washington gave their advo
cacy to the Memorial of the Baptists, Mr. Madison
even preparing that to the legislature for them, and
Mr. Jefferson drawing up the "Act for Establish
ing Religious Freedom," which was passed Dec. 17,
1785 ; by which, says Bishop Meade of the Episcopal
Church of Virginia, "the warfare, begun by the

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 185
Baptists seven and twenty years before, was now
finished. The church was in ruins, and the triumph
of her enemies was complete." "The Baptists
were the principal promoters of this work, and in
truth aided more than any other denomination in its
accomplishment. "

CHAPTER XII.
CONSTITUTIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM THROUGHOUT
AMERICA : THE NATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT.
" Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth
the truth may enter in."
AS the organic laws of the national government
came to be fixed, the principle of religious lib
erty claimed in them its place. First, in the Decla
ration of Independence, by which the colonies were
transformed into free and independent states, this
Magna Charta of American citizenship proclaims the
rights for which the ages had contended, "that all
men are created equal ; that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable rights ; that
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap
piness ; that governments derive their just powers
from the consent of the governed, and the people
are to institute such forms of government as to them
seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
Under these principles, all citizens must have equal
liberty of religious opinion and action, as the prime
condition of pursuing their happiness, and rendering
consent to the government exercised over them.
How had these principles so gained currency as to
become the unanimous avowal of the distinguished
[186]

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 187
representatives of all the colonies, and command the
enthusiastic acceptance of the people of the land ?
No reader of history has ever questioned that the
century and a half of agitation and light-spreading
in this country and Europe, in which Baptists were
the irrepressible leaders, had greatly to do with the
evolution of the principles of freedom. In fact, it
appears unquestionable that not only a general influ
ence from this source, but a specific and immediate
one, acted in the production of the Declaration of
Independence. The great document was written by Thomas Jeffer
son, and the spirit of the Virginia patriots had been
schooled up to its grade. To various writers we are
indebted for the fact thati "near Monticello was a
Baptist church, which Mr. Jefferson sometimes at
tended. Rev. Andrew Tribble was pastor. On one
occasion Mr. Jefferson stated to Mr. Tribble, refer
ring to the polity of Baptist churches, ' that he con
sidered it the only form of pure democracy that then
existed in the world, and he had concluded that it
would be the best plan of government for the Amer
ican colonies. ' " This was several years before the
Declaration was written. Mr. Tribble narrated this
to Rev. Dr. Fishback, by whom a record was made
of it. Mrs. President Madison also testified that it
was a Baptist church from which these views of Mr.
Jefferson were gathered. Other members in that
Congress from Virginia, Rhode Island, Pennsyl
vania, and elsewhere had been brought into sym-

188 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
pathy with those who were suffering for conscience'^
sake, and acknowledged the justice of their cause.
And notwithstanding the slow progress which free
dom of opinion and equality of rights were to make
throughout the land, — notwithstanding slavery, North
as well as South, was to cling long to the body politic,
and church establishments were still to distrain and
distress, — it was yet a step forward on to high van
tage-ground, when equal liberty was embodied in the
creative act of the nation-makers, and was ever and
everywhere to look down from this banner set up in
the name of the Lord.
The next important gain in constitutional religious
freedom was in the forming, by Congress, in 1787,
of the ordinance for the- government of the Terri
tories, and the drawing up of the Constitution of
the United States by the National Convention at the
same time.
In the Congress of 1784, Mr. Jefferson, as chair
man of the committee to report a plan of govern
ment for the Northwest Territory, true to his prin
ciples which he had embodied in the Declaration,
reported, as an article, "that there shall be neither
slavery, nor involuntary servitude in any of the
States [that should be created], otherwise than in
punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted." To bind citizens by law to
involuntary servitude of a church which in con
science they hold to be antichristian, and to punish
them as criminals for not paying the service, vio-

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 189
lates this article to the worst extreme. The mem
bers of the Congress, by a strong majority, adopted
the article ; but its adoption by the delegations of
the States being also required, and one anti-slavery
State not being represented, a majority of States
was not secured. But in the Congress of 1787, this
article was incorporated, 'verbatim, and made per
petual, as was also that exalted decree: "General
morality and knowledge being necessary to good
government and the happiness of mankind, schools
and means of education shall be forever encour
aged." In the framing of the Constitution, where Wash
ington was presidentof the convention, and Madison,
Franklin, Hamilton, and other heads of the nation
were members, the most earnest and critical discus
sions were upon slavery, as destructive of both re
ligious and civil rights. Jefferson was an ambassador
in Europe, but his principle of equality of rights in
all men, which had been indorsed in Congress, was
advocated by Mr. Madison and the majority of
members, for incorporation in the Constitution. But
it was known that some of the States would not ratify
a constitution thus pronounced in the matter, and so
the Constitution limited itself to affirming its purpose
"to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves
and our -posterity."
Immediately after the Constitution was published
and submitted to the States for ratification, Baptists-
gave their attention to it, with the inquiry whether it

190 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
would sufficiently guarantee religious freedom. In
Virginia their general committee was called together,
and took up the question " whether the new Federal
Constitution, which had lately made its appearance
in public, made sufficient provision for the secure
enjoyment of religious liberty ; " and it was agreed
unanimously that it did not. So upon consultation
on the subject with Mr. Madison, the committee de
termined to address General Washington. An ad
dress was accordingly prepared and presented in
1789, after Washington's election as the first presi
dent. In the address it was said : —
"When the Constitution first made its appearance in Virginia,
we, as a society, had unusual struggles of mind, fearing that the
liberty of conscience, dearer to us than property or life, was
not sufficiently secured. Perhaps our jealousies were height
ened on account of the usage we received in Virginia, under
the regal g.ivernment, when mobs, bonds, fines, and prisons
were our frequent repast."
President Washington kindly returned his personal
answer, promising to use his influence in rendering
the Constitution satisfactory. He said : — •
"If I could have entertained ihe slightest apprehension that
the Constitution framed in the convention where I had the
honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights
of any ecclesiastical society, I would never have placed my sig
nature to it. While I recollect with satisfaction that the relig
ious society of which you are members, have been, throughout
America, uniformly and almost unanimnusly the firm friends of
civil liberty, and the persevering promoters of our glorious Rev
olution, I cannot hesitate to believe that they will be the faith-

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 191
ful supporters of a, free yet efficient general government.
Under this pleasing expectation, 1 rejoice to assure them that
they may rely on my best wishes and endeavors to advance
their prosperity."
Mr. Backus also wrote to General Washington
at this time, sending him his "History of New
England, with Special Reference to the Baptists,"
and referring to the continued oppressions under
Massachusetts laws. His letter closed with the
prayer "that your Excellency may still be guided
and preserved in your exalted and difficult station
until righteous government shall be well established
in this land, that your latter days may be peaceful
and happy, and your end be eternal life."
It has been stated that Washington, in his first
message to Congress, recommended essentially what
is the first Amendment to the Constitution. Madi'
son had previously, at the request of the Baptists
of Virginia, prepared the Memorial to the State
Legislature which secured the ' ' Act for Establish
ing Religious Freedom,'' which ended all state-
church oppressions in that State. Jefferson was
Washington's secretary of state. Under the power
ful infiuence of these and other leaders, early in
the session of the first Congress, and as the first
of all amendments to the Constitution, it was en
acted : " Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free ex
ercise thereof ; or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press ; or the right of the people peaceably

192 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
to assemble and to petition the government for a
redress of grievances."
Although this did not abolish in the separate
States their established churches, as some States
still retained them, the policy was yet condemned
as anti-national, and powerful aid was contributed
to the local efforts which soon removed the oppress
ive distinction throughout the country. Thus, at
last, constitutional religious freedom was completely
won in America.
In Canada and in Mexico, disestablishment had
to follow. Although hierarchical persecutions have
been and are often attempted by Romanists, and the
civil authorities sometimes connive at them, the
. genius of government is yet one and the same over
North America.
Dr. H. C. Fish— "Price of Soul Liberty" —
quotes from the German philosopher, Gervinus, in
his introduction to the "History of the Nineteenth
Century," as follows : —
"In accordance with these principles, Roger Williams in
sisted, in Massachusetts, upon allowing entire freedom of con
science, and upon the entire separation of the Church and the
Slate; but he was obliged to fiee, and in 1636 he formed, in
Rhode Island, a small and new society, in which perfect free
dom in matters of faith was allowed, and in which the majority
ruled in all civil affairs. Here, in a little state, the funda
mental principles of political and ecclesiastical liberty practi
cally prevailed, before they were even taught in any of the
schools of philosophy in Europe. At that time people pre
dicted only a short existence for these democratical experi-

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 193
ments — universal suffrage, universal eligibility to office, the
annual change of rulers, perfect religious freedom — the
Miltonian doctrines of schisms. But not only have these
ideas and these forms of government maintained themselves
here, but precisely from this little state have they extended
themselves throughout the United States. They have con
quered the aristocratic tendencies in Carolina and New York,
the High Church in Virginia, the theocracy in Massachusetts,
and the monarchy in all America. They have given laws to
a continent, and formidable through their moral influence,
they lie at the bottom of all the democratic movements which
are now shaking the nations of Europe."
To this. Dr. C. C. Bitting justly adds : —
" Here and now, except Romanists, all Christians and the
unconnected masses defend the doctrines of religious liberty.
Just here it is that, on review. Baptists claim their noblest
moral victory in the contest. Not only in codes, but in hearts,
have they lodged those sublime principles for which their
blood was profusely shed in the past, for which they once
and long stood up alone, and by which every man of any faith
may find immunity from the fierceness and relentlessness of
religious hate, persecution, and vengeance. Baptists do not
cite the facts in mere love of boasting, or with any wish to
wound, but simply to defend their history, to repel the mis
statements of malice or ignorance, to remind themselves and
their children of the cost of our heritage of freedom, and to
warn them to preserve it from the bigotry which would pro
scribe any man's religious privileges. Let them beware of the
germs of evil in the pleas of non-essentials, unforbidden things,
innocent forms, inferences, church regulations, etc.
" Obsta princvpiis — resist beginnings ! And remembering the
glorious truth, as ordered of the providence of God, and ex
pressed by Tertullian, Sanguis mmrtyrum, semen Ghristianorum
— the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christians — sow the
sacrifices, that they may reap the advances. Pliancy, where
13

194 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
principles are compromised, is sin ; and the most intolerant of
dispositions is that which hates merely because of differences.
'"With a great sum' did Baptists buy that liberty wherein
we were 'born free.' Let no Baptist stain or disgrace it with
either infidelity or intolerance."

CHAPTER XIII.
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN HIGHER EDUCATION.
THE history of modern institutions of learning
opens with the establishment of universities and
parochial schools. Down to the middle of the last
century these were founded and controlled by state
and church authority ; and it followed that those
who dissented from the established churches, and
thus subjected themselves to legal disabilities, were
either excluded from the schools or at disadvantage
in them. Nor is this condition even yet entirely
changed in some of the old countries.
Harvard, the first college started in this country,
was established by state action when the Puritans
were the state church. Its first president was of
that order, but after years of preeminent use
fulness in his office, he was promptly removed be
cause he had embraced Baptist sentiments. This
would have been just if the college had been founded
and secured under their control by a denomination,
as such. But as a state institution, for which all
were alike taxed, the complaint and removal were
persecution. And how inexorable was its spirit is
shown by the high standing and efficient service with
which the president was credited ! [195]

196 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
Mr. Dunster graduated at Cambridge, England,
having as fellow-students John Milton, Jeremy Tay
lor, Ralph Cudworth, and John Harvard whose gift
gave name and commencement of instruction to the
American College. The new president had just
arrived in this country when, by the death and be
quest of his friend. Harvard, the projected institu
tion was enabled to start.
A writer of his times says of President Dunster :
" He was fitted from the Lord for the work, and by
those that have skill in that way, reported to be an
able proficient, both in the Hebrew, Greek, and
Latin languages, — an orthodox teacher of the truths
of Christ, and very powerful through his blessing to
move the affections." Another says he was "one
of the greatest masters of the oriental languages that
hath been known in these ends of the earth."
A more adequate tribute is that of Quincy, the
historian of Harvard College : —
"Among the early friends of the college, none deserves more
distinct notice than Henry Dunster. He united in himself the
character of both patron and president, for, poor as he was, he
contributed at a time of its utmost need one hundred acres of
land toward its support, besides rendering to it for a succession
of years a series of official services well directed, unwearied,
and altogether inestimable. Under his administration, the first
code of laws was formed ; rules of admission and the principles
on which degrees should be granted were established ; and they
were such as governed during the century. The charter of
1643 was probably, and that of 1650 was avowedly, obtained
on his petition. By solicitations among his friends, and by
personal sacrifices, he built the president's house. He was in-

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN HIGHER EDUCATION. 197
stant in season and out of season with the General Court for
the relief of the college in its extreme wants.
"Dunster's usefulness, however, was deemed to be at an end,
and his services no longer desirable, in consequence of his fall
ing, in 1653, as Cotton Mather expresses it, into the briars of
anti-pedobaptism, and his having borne public testimony in
the church at Cambridge against the administration of baptism
to any infant whatever. Indicted by the grand jury for dis
turbing the ordinance of infant baptism in the Cambridge
church, sentenced to a public admonition on lecture day, and
laid under bonds for good behavior, Dunster's martyrdom was
consummated by his being compelled, in October, 1654, to re
sign his office of president.
" He found the seminary a school ; it rose under his auspices
to the dignity of a college. No man ever questioned his talents,
learning, extmiplary fidelity, and usefulness."
Thus wrote an ex-president of Harvard, whose de
nominational sympathies were averse from Dunster's.
When an infant came to his own home, he was in
dicted again by the grand jury, and tried in the county
court, " for not bringing his child to the holy ordi
nance of baptism." And again he was convicted,
solemnly admonished, and placed under bonds.
Eleven days after his forced resignation, he sent
to the General Court a petition, wherein, with nothing
of recantation, he asked, "in consideration of his
circumstances, an allowance in salary which a com
mittee had recommended, to be permitted to remain
in the president's house during the settlement of his
accounts with the corporation, and to be allowed to
continue in the colony, in the work of teaching or
preaching, or in any other laudable or liberal calling.

198 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
as God shall chalk out his way." This appeal, says
Quincy, "was treated in a heartless way, and the
reply to the last request was equivalent to warning
him out of the colony."
He therefore moved to the more just Plymouth
colony, where he labored in the ministry, until, in
the midst of his years, death brought him the fruition
of the trust in which he had said : "I know for what
and for whom by grace I suffer." His unquenched
love of Harvard inspired him in his last will and
testament, and secured his burial among its honored
graves. Sympathy with him in his ill-treatment had been
awakened in England, and means were offered for
his return and support there, — ^ Henry Cromwell, son
of Oliver, and lord deputy of Ireland, advancing
money for the return. But he chose to remain in
New England.
It had not been in vain that Obadiah Holmes
chose the prison and the scourge as his penalty, in
stead of voluntarily paying his fine, for exercising
his rights of worship ; for it was the cruel tyranny
that tortured him and others which led the noble
president of the college to abjure and denounce such
oppression, and to investigate and adopt the tenets
of the sufferer. And so had his successor in the
presidency, Chauncey, been brought to studj' the
persecuted sect, and accept immersion as the only
baptism, causing him to be admonished on his elec
tion to the presidency that "it was expected and

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN HIGHER EDUCATION. 199
desired that he forbear to disseminate or publish
any tenets concerning the necessity of immersion in
baptism. "
Baptists were the first to put forth efforts for freeing
the parent college of the religious tests ; and their
efforts were costly and long-continued. Of their de
nomination were the Hollis families, which through
five or six generations, and during a hundred years,
made themselves the most liberal contributors in the
endowment and furnishing of the college ; and their
gifts, while inspired by the motive of aiding to supply
trained Christian laborers of every name, were accom
panied by the express desire that Baptists should
have equal privileges with others. In one of the
first letters of Thomas Hollis, the head of this noble
line of benefactors, is the following : "You may be
informed by Mr. Callender of my foundation in
Harvard College, and the provision I have made for
Baptist youth to be educated for the ministry, and
equally regarded with pedobaptists."
It was through the young pastor of the Baptist
church in Boston, Elisha Callender, a graduate of
Harvard, that Mr. Hollis became enlisted in these
endowments of the college ; and the more so because
he learned of the fraternal sentiments expressed by
the Mathers in joining in the ordination of Mr.
Callender. He therefore ventured, in connection
with his large donations, to suggest the appointment
of the Baptist pastor as one of the board of overseers
of the college. The board, being controlled by the

200 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
ministers of the standing order, promptly rejected his
proposal, though by the charter, Backus claims, he
was as eligible as any one. Still the benefactions of
the Hollises were maintained.
A professor, in one of the chairs endowed by
Thomas Hollis, says of him: "By his frequent
and ample benefactions for the encouragement of
theological as well as human knowledge among us
who are Christians of a different denomination than
himself, he hath set such an example of generous,
catholic, and Christian spirit, as has never before
fallen within my observation, nor, as far as I now
remember, within my reading." And in his funeral
sermpn. Dr. Colman said: "His heart and hand
were the same to us as if we had been one in opin
ion and practice with him. And in this, let him
stand a teaching pattern and example to us of a
noble. Christian, apostolic spirit of love, — a shining
testimony against a narrow party spirit."
Yet, except as individual students have enjoyed
helps from the scholarships established, the Baptists
have received little advantage from these generous
provisions made by their brethren of these worthy
families. One hundred years after Harvard, thus generously
contributed to and served by Baptists, removed
President Dunster for adopting their belief, Yale
College expelled students for electing to worship
with the people called Separatists. And as impar
tial freedom and Christian consecration could not

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN HIGHER EDUCATION. 201
be hoped for in existing institutions, the intelligent
leaders in the Baptist denomination addressed them
selves to the founding of such a school.
The Philadelphia Association, in correspondence
with the English Baptists, and with the Charleston
Association of South Carolina, the next oldest one
in the country, led in the planning of a denomina
tional school. The Hollises of England were among
the first contributors. Instruction was commenced
at Hopewell, New Jersey, by Rev. Isaac Eaton, the
capable and consecrated pioneer in this work. The
Holy Spirit was found a dweller in the school.
Among the first students and first converts was
James Manning, who soon proved to be the master-
builder of Rhode Island College. Hezekiah Smith
was a fellow-student, — the renowned chaplain and
friend of Washington in the Revolution, and the
Baptist minister at Haverhill for fifty years. Other
great men and great results came from that little
mother school.
Soon the Baptist fathers decided to establish a col
lege, and Rhode Island, their free asylum, was
chosen as its seat. Young Manning, but twenty-five
years of age, having graduated at the college of New
Jersey, had committed to him the work of rearing
the institution, with Morgan Edwards, a pastor of
Philadelphia, as his financial co-worker. He com
menced the school in 1765, at Warren, Rhode Isl
and, being also chosen pastor of the Baptist church.
It was in conception and character a sacred school

202 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
specially for the raising up of a godly and educated
ministry. In contrast with the form-doing of the
age, salvation through a regenerate experience was
what young Manning prayed for and taught and
preached. Never in his counseling of his students,
especially in his addressing them at their graduation,
did he fail to warn them against entering the minis
try without genuine piety of heart and life.
The first, and for a time the only, student, Will
iam Rogers, converted about the time of his gradu
ation, became the eminent pastor of the First Church
in Philadelphia, a distinguished chaplain throughout
the Revolution, and afterward professor in the Uni
versity of Pennsylvania.
After five years, the college was removed to Prov
idence, and later had its name changed to Brown
University. Its charter, as proposed by its Baptist
founders, was the first one in history to give impar
tial freedom in privileges and honors to all persons.
While, as founded and supported by Baptists, it was re
quired that the president and a majority of the trus
tees should be of that denomination, it was also
required that all of the other denominations then
existing in the state should be represented in the
college government. The care with which these
provisions were secured is shown in the declara
tion : —
" Into this liberal and catholic institution shall never be ad
mitted any religious tests. But, on the contrary, all the mem
bers hereof shall forever enjoy free, absolute, and uninterrupted

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN HIGHER EDUCATION. 203
liberty of conscience ; and the places of professors, tutors, and
all other officers, the president alone excepted, shall be free and
open for all denominations of Protestants, and the youth of all
religious denominations shall and may be admitted to the equal
advantages, emoluments, and honors of the college or univer
sity ; and the public teaching s'nall in general respect the
sciences, and the sectarian differences shall not make any part
of the public and classical instruction."
Thus in college and university law, religious free
dom was instated, not as now by state authority, but
by the voluntary and unprecedented action of benev
olent founders ; and under that law religion did not
suffer disorder and decline, as the dominant senti
ment of the day would have predicted, but the
college showed itself a husbandry of the Lord, most
fruitful in the conversion of students, and in their
consecration to godly service in all denominations of
Christians. From the first, most gracious revivals
were enjoyed in the institution.
One of these in the college and in the city of
Providence, under the labors of President Manning,
who was also pastor of the Baptist church, is thus
described by him : —
"Frequently when I went to the recitation room, I would
find nearly all the students assembled, and joining in prayer
and praise to God. Instead of my lecture in logic and philoso
phy, they would request me to speak to them of the things con
cerning the kingdom of God. Mountains seemed to melt at
the presence of the Lord, and the pride and haughtiness of men
were laid low. In the space of about six months, I baptized
more than one hundred persons. Many were also added to
other churches of the town ; and this was at the time of the

204 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
fearful excitement of the outbreaking of war. At the church
it was frequently an hour before I could get fi'om the pulpit to
the door, on account of the numbers thronging to have an op
portunity of stating the condition of their minds. There I
would stand, pointing to the all-sufficient Saviour, and saying :
'Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the
world ' "
President Manning had the joy of baptizing his
graduate and colleague as teacher, who at the presi
dent's early death became his successor, — Dr. Jon
athan Maxey, the brilliant scholar and eloquent
preacher, of whom the graceful pen of Professor
Elton wrote : "So long as genius, hallowed and sub
limed by piety, shall command veneration, he will
be remembered in his country as a star of the first
magnitude." The next president. Dr. Asa Messer, was also con
verted as he was leaving the college, and baptized
by Dr. Maxey. His useful service of thirty-nine
years as professor and president followed. And
under President Wayland, the gracious revival spirit
showed its presence in the college, as if "the pillar
of cloud stood over the door " of this hallowed school
of the prophets.
Well does Backus exclaim, in view of this history
of Brown University: "How false, then, are the
pretenses of many, that religion and learning would
fail from among us, if they were not upheld by the
power of the magistrates ! " More than one fourth
of all the graduates of this university up to 1866 —
its first hundred years — became ministers of the

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN HIGHER EDUCATION. 205
gospel, large numbers of these and others being
converted during their college course. Of foreign
missionaries, commencing with Judson, a most influ
ential body have gone from these hallowed halls,
while Christian teachers and leaders in the civil and
business world have been and are a most distinguished
force. Happily this example, which is illustrious because
it was the first one in higher institutions of learning,
has been copied more and more widely, until in our
country the antitypes of it prevail as far as do the
principles of Protestantism and civil liberty ; just as
from the same Rhode Island spot the first example
of religious freedom in civil government was the cre
ation of "the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in
itself after its kind ; and God saw that it was good, "
and its disseminating pervaded the land. May both
creations scatter their seeds and reproduce them
selves upon all lands ; and for the blessing, "Honor
to whom honor is due."

PART II.

BAPTIST MISSIONS AND RELIGIOUS
LIBERTY.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE FORERUNNER IN THE MODERN MISSIONARY ERA.
IT is the missionary spirit in Christians that de
mands religious liberty. If the disciple of Christ
could be silent and inert in his religion, he would
have little use for freedom of speech and action.
Occasionally he might be commanded to do things
in violation of a good conscience toward God and
man, but ordinarily he would be unmolested. It is
because personal salvation is a well of water in the
soul, springing up and overflowing, that it must be
left free to flow. It is because Christ is revealed
in his regenerate servants to be preached among the
Gentiles, and he commands them to go and make
disciples of all nations, and baptize them, and teach
them, that no fence must cross any out-going road.
When, therefore, the messengers come upon a hu
man obstruction bristling with threats, their answer
is: " We must obey God rather than men." "We
cannot but speak the things which we have seen
and heard." And pealing again, from God's angel
comes the voice of command: "Go ye and stand
and speak in the temple to the people all the words
of this life." Hence the message-bearing spirit, the
missionary spirit, is the force that has broken the
, 14 [209]

210 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
way through the tyrannical obstructions of freedom.
To illustrate this from modern missionary history
more specifically is the design of our concluding
work ; and we turn back to look at —
ROGER WILLIAMS AS A FOREIGN MISSIONARY.
This characterization may seem forced, because
the facts which justify it have been less dwelt upon
than has his great distinction in the civil realm.
What are the facts ?
Professor Fisher ( ' ' History of the Christian
Church " ) remarks : —
"The Protestant churches were not at the outset moved by a
desire to carry the gospel to the nations which lay beyond the
confines of Christendom. Many years passed before the mis
sionary spirit, now so characteristic of all evangelical com
munities, began to make itself felt. In 1644 the General
Court of Massachusetts ordered that the county courts should
see to it that the Indians residing within their respective shires
should be instructed in the knowledge and worship of God.
To further these and similar efforts, the Long Parliament, five
years later, created a corporation called ' The President and
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England.'
This, the first Protestant missionary society, contributed to
the support of John Eliot and others who labored among the
Indians dwelling in the neighborhood of the Puritan colonies."
"The religious life,'' he adds, "of Protestant
Christians must first be quickened. Instead of a
dead orthodoxy there must be a living Christianity.
The work of Spener and Francke, German Pietists,
was influential in bringing about so needful a

FORERUNNER IN THE MODERN MISSIONARY ERA. 211
change." And he traces to this the Danish, Ger
man, and Moravian missions.
But there was nothing of missions to heathen
peoples in the work of these Pietists. It was a cult
of home religious life, of more positive character
than the nominal Christianity which prevailed around
them. Hence their name was given them by the
contemptuous spirit which they provoked in proud
formalists. Francke established a charity for the
orphaned or friendless children in his own commu
nity, but no pagan cry from across oceans was heard
calling to come over and help.
The Swedish, Danish, and Moravian missions had
a different origin. They were started, and given an
uncertain continuance by the government or the
king, in connection with foreign colonies, and em
ployed at times as aids in collecting tributes ; or, as
in the case of the Moravians, the old evangelical
spirit was in them, as the hunted Hussite and Wal
densian refugees, and stood ready to enlist when
Count Zinzendorf, returning from a kingly corona
tion, told the story of his meeting the African from
the West Indies and the Greenlanders from the
arctic regions.
It was a hundred years before this that Roger
Williams went preaching in the wilderness to the
pagans of America, showing himself to be, so far as
we have discovered, the John the Baptist of the later
missionary era, whose fruitage now blesses the
nations.

212 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
For there is evidence that his mind was turned to
this service before he left England, and that he ap
plied himself to it immediately on arriving in Amer
ica ; for he says : ' ' The Spirit of God had moved
me with a desire to be a missionary to the Indians."
And in his first preaching, while his choice gifts and
spiritual unction endeared him to the congregations
of his fellow colonists, his ruling passion was a
Christ-like compassion for the pagan souls in the
wilds around him. "My sole desire," he writes,
"was to do the natives good. God was pleased to
give me a painful, patient spirit, even while I lived
at Plymouth and Salem, to lodge with them in their
filthy, smoky holes, to gain their tongue." Mingling
with them thus, he did gain their tongue, formed for
them a written language, and wrote and published
his Indian grammer, "A key to the Language of
America," and gave to tlie Indians in their printed
language, which he taught them to read, portions of
the word of God. This was years before the Gen
eral Court and Parliament provisions, or Eliot's hold
ing with the Indians his first service — twenty years
before Eliot gave to them his translation of the Bible.
When the decree of banishment was upon him,
and he knew that the ship was in port to take him and
his family to England, where, if he would, he might
have lived in comfort and honor, it was this spirit,
devoted to the evangelizing of the heathen, that led
him to mortgage his little home, unloose himself
from the clinging arms of wife and little ones,

FORERUNNER IN THE MODERN MISSIONARY ERA. 213
and, houseless through the long winter, make the
Indians his rough hosts ; until, on heathen soil, he
could buy lands of the natives, and establish a home
among them, not less for their good than for his own
freedom and that of others "distressed for con
science' sake."
" Here," he says, "though I paid the Indians lib
erally as I could for the lands, it was not thousands
nor tens of thousands of money that could have
bought for the English entrance into this bay ; but
I was the procurer of the purchase by that language
acquaintance, and favor with the nations, which it
had pleased God to give me."
Thus here, in the midst of the barbarians of abo
riginal America, he was the pioneer missionary.
From the first in all the colonies, as later until
his death in his own colony, it was the habit of
his life to preach to them and teach them, and in
friendly counsels, and by every service, to make
himself tlieir Christian benefactor. With a noble
magnanimity he influenced them to abandon their
war against his Massachusetts persecutors, and
taught them forgiveness. "Covenants of peaceful
neighborhood with all the sachems and natives
around " having been formally made, and Williams,
with eleven others, having, through the believers'
baptismal burial, entered into covenant as a Baptist
church, of which he was appointed pastor, during
the forty years of his subsequent life he devoted
himself, so far as his multiplying civil duties al-

214 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
lowed, to evangelistic work. Though after a time
he yielded to his doubts as to whether he had rightly
inaugurated the observance of the ordinances, and
ceased to continue his attendance upon them, he yet
lived on in love with the church, and maintained
that its principles were the scriptural ones. His
preaching to the Indians in their tongue, and his
personal friendship with them, were a mutual joy to
the end of his life, in 1683 ; and probably he had no
more sincere mourners than his life-long brethren of
the bay and the forests.
A fine evolution it was in history that, when the
material monument to Roger Williams was built,
there was a sense in which it needed not the State or
the nation to do it ; but the dead hand of his Indian
friends did it, in requital for his ministries to them.
This is the touching poetry of the story : Two and
a half centuries had passed, and Providence and
Rhode Island had not built their memorial of stone
and bronze for their illustrious founder ; but a gift
which the Indian chiefs, Canonicus and Mianto-
nomoh, had made to Williams in his lifetime for his
homestead, had now become princely in value. It
was a hundred acres of beautiful land and lake, ly
ing on the edge of the city. It had remained in
possession and occupancy in the Williams family.
Its aged owner. Miss Betsey Williams, of Roger
Williams a granddaughter with a line of ' ' greats "
prefixed, was moved to give this to the city of Provi
dence, on the condition that a humble monument

FORERUNNER IN THE MODERN MISSIONARY ERA. 215
should be erected upon it, and that the whole should
be forever kept as a public park. The city accepted
the trust, and with grateful liberality made the
monument and the park a noble memorial, — the
statue of the immortal benefactor, in unsullied gran
ite, standing aloft with the symbol of freedom in
his hands, and the light of God on his brow. Thus
Christian compassion for pagan souls was appreci
ated by its befriended children, who rose up to call
it blessed, and do it undying honor.
When Roger Williams crossed the boundary of
English settlements into the Narragansett wilds, there
was not on this globe a foot of ground on which a
freeman could stand. When he died, one of the
original colonies shone brightly under the risen sun
of liberty, civil and religious, and was reflecting its
radiance, to illuminate the other colonies and the
nation which they were to become. And a Baptist
mission to the heathen was God's leading agency in
bringing in the epoch !

CHAPTER XT.
THE STORY OF WILLIAM CAREY.
AT the time when this missionary entered Asia, one
hundred years ago, there was on that thronged
continent no spot where religious liberty could be
enjoyed, nor had there ever been through the ages
of its history. The idolatrous systems that had ever
enslaved its various and swarming peoples, were
cruelly despotic. The races and castes of mankind
were loaded with numberless priests, like fungus
growths, drawing a corrupted life from deformed
and diseased society. Civil rule was allied with
priestly rule, and was heartlessly arbitrary. Des
potism and slavery expressed the sum of human ex
perience. »
Dr. Thomas, an English surgeon in the East
India Company's service, and a Christian man, who
afterward became a missionary, restored from sick
ness a native Hindu. Having spoken to him of
Christ, the physician of the soul, and invited him to
share his meal, the grateful convalescent sat down
to eat, when he was set upon with murderous vio
lence by his kindred. He had broken caste, and
death was the penalty. Such was heathen law, and
heathen oppression had numberless other forms.
[216]

THE STORY OF WILLIAM CAREY. 217
Earlier missionaries in India, as Ziegenbalg, Swartz,
and others, had secured partial toleration in connec
tion with colonists from Denmark and Holland, but
nowhere was there established freedom.
The English East India Company, whose sway
was over many scores of millions, was dominated by
greed for the wealth of the Indies, and its policy
was shaped to guard, and even to patronize, the cruel
practices of idolatry. It therefore concerned itself to
persecute intruders upon these practices. It prohib
ited all white men from entering the country without
its license ; and, the better to command the trib
utes it was grasping from the people, it gave large
contributions to support idolatry, with its inhuman
atrocities. By the act of England herself, through
this arm of her government, five thousand rupees
was at one time voted and paid to aid an idolatrous
observance, with its burning of widows and drown
ing of children, and every other crime. Of course,
should the Christian religion be admitted, it would
spoil this business of bribing the poor devotees of
idolatry. Some years after missionaries had been
trying in vain in India to secure the toleration of the
English government, a Scotchman of wealth and
rank asked permission to take out, at his own ex
pense, a body of Christian laborers, and see them
supported there. He was refused, a director of the
company saying, "I would rather see a band of
devils in India than a band of missionaries. "

218 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.

WILLIAM CAREY.

Born in England in 1761, he was educated and
trained a rigid churchman. By trade he became a
repairer of boots and shoes, but made his shop his
study. The geography of the earth and the condi
tion of its peoples were portrayed on the wall of his
shop, and photographed on his soul. At twenty-two,
having experienced renewing grace, he was baptized
by Dr. Ryland, and commenced lay preaching, walk
ing a tour of twelve miles to perform each Sunday's
service. Four years afterward he was ordained and
settled as pastor, at seventy-five dollars a year, with
a wife and two children to support. Upon him was
laid, in a leading and inspiring measure, the "woe
is me if I preach not the gospel " to the benighted
nations for whom none seemed to be actively caring.
He applied himself to the study of languages with
a capacity unexampled and prophetic. "In seven
years he learned Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and
Dutch, in acquiring which he had scarcely any
assistance." He was also for a time the village
schoolmaster. He shared, before his ordination, in
instituting the monthly missionary concert of prayer
for the conversion of the world. At all ministers' or
associational meetings his theme was of missions to
the heathen. A first paper on the subject was his
published one : ' ' An Inquiry into the Obligation
of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of
the Heathen." Thie minds of other Baptist minis-

THE STOBY OF WILLIAM CAREY. 219
ters were becoming similarly exercised, and at the
annual associational meeting. May, 1792, Mr. Carey
preached his trumpet call, " Expect great things from
God ; attempt great things for God ; " text, Isa. 54 :
2, 3. This inspired the resolution to organize a
society, and October 2 of that year the English
Baptist Missionary Society was formed, — the first
organized body of the kind in modern times discon
nected from governmental support.
The following year Mr. Carey and Dr. Thomas,
the Christian surgeon who had been in professional
service in India, were appointed as the pioneer mis
sionaries, and took passage for that country ; but
the East India Company learned of .their sailing,
and ordered the ship back to discharge them. After
delays, it was only by the accommodation of a Da
nish vessel and Danish protection that they reached
India, and began their work, being compelled to
locate beyond the reach of governmental interfer
ence, and to bear the trials of the surrounding native
barbarity long and bitterly. The missionaries were
obliged to make themselves a necessity to their
persecutors, healing their sick and helping their
¦ money-making. Carey became superintendent of the
English company's indigo manufacture ; but all the
while he was tasking to the utmost his marvelous
power of acquiring languages,' and dealing out the
gospel in his speech, and soon in print, in the dia
lects of the pagans.
An English lord built a college in Calcutta to

220 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
teach arts and sciences, and he was obliged to ap
point Carey as a professor, because no other man
had enough knowledge of the people's language.
Portions of the Bible were translated, and after
seven years of personal toil as fishers of men, Krisna
Pal, as the first captive to Christ, was drawn out of
the great sea of heathenism. The Christian world
heard the new song put into his mouth, as it made
for itself the words : —
" O thou, my soul, forget no more
The Friend who all thy sorrows bore."
And they said: "Then hath God also to the
Gentiles granted repentance unto life." The senti
ment in England commanded the godless trading
company and the servile pagan kings to "touch not
the Lord's anointed, and do his prophets no harm."
The missionaries and the supporters of the mission
at home had set themselves, by prayer and labors, to
secure the civil and religious liberty which belongs
to man ; but it was twenty years before the English
wholly ceased to embarrass the mission with forms
of persecution, though Carey himself commanded,
by his wonderful labors and learning, and his helpful
service of the government, their respectful and re
munerative treatment. At length his influence, with
the powerful cooperation of Andrew Fuller in Eng
land, whose writings and personal labors, beyond
those of any other man, are credited with the result,
.secured the amendments in the company's charter.

THE STORY OF WILLIAM CAREY. 22l
which gave essential freedom. The powerful Bap
tist preacher and writer, Robert Hall, shared iu
achieving this victory for religious "liberty, but the
efforts of all sprang alike from the missionary work
in which they became engaged.
After nearly another score of years in his labors,
Carey saw the terrible oppressions of the idolatrous
priesthood and civil despotism restrained by law.
Against all his efforts to have it arrested, the burn
ing of widows on the funeral pile of their husbands
had gone on until, under the eye of the English
government, more than seventy thousand had thus
been sacrificed ; when, of a Sunday morning, as he
was preparing to preach, the government order pro
hibiting suttee came to his hand. He must trans
late it into Bengali ; for the government had made
him their official translator. Sending another to
the pulpit, he seized the document, and by even
ing it was ready to go out through the vast realm,
as the extinguisher of those awful fires.
Thus, one by one, the strongholds of oppression
fell before the peaceful but puissant assault of mis
sions in Baptist hands.
The giving of the Bible, the Magna Charta of
freedom, to the nations in their mother tongues,
made these reforms both possible and permanent.
Carey had been doing this with marvelous rapidity
and correctness from his arrival in India until his
death. In thirty years Carey, Marshman, Ward,
and their associates had rendered the word of God

222 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
accessible to one third of the human race, whose
dark places had so long been full of the habitations
of cruelty; and there had actually been scattered,
through forty dialects, nearly a quarter of a million
copies of the word that bringeth light, four hundred
thousand dollars of the cost of the mission work
having been earned and given by these men them
selves, who consecrated all that came to them in their
offices and services under government to the work for
which they went forth. The translations of the Bible,
and the educational and religious books which Carey
gave to these people, have been in use from that
day to this by all denominations and by government.
The Church of England, whose representatives at
first hunted the missionaries off their territory, came
at last in a better representative, — the good Bishop
Wilson,— and kneeling by Carey's dying bed, asked
of him a dying blessing.
William Wilberforce, the great emancipator from
human bondage, was the fitted eulogist to say, in
the House of Commons, "Carey had the genius, as
well as the benevolence, to devise the plan of a
society for communicating the blessings of Christian
light to the natives of India," and the eulogy pro
ceeded to describe the execution of the "truly noble
enterprise." MARSHMAN, FATHER AND SON.
These associates with Carey wrought on their per
sonal lines of effort with coordinate and well-nigh

THE STORY OF WILLIAM CAREY. 223
commensurate efficiency in tlys great emancipation
of the Eastern nations. The son, John C. Marsh
man, rose to be alearifed and statesman-like Chris
tian evangelist. He established The Friend of India.,
the first paper published in the East and in the Ben-
galese language, and made it a powerful advocate of
civil reforms. Forbidden to publish it within the
company's jurisdiction, he sent it over the country
from beyond their border, and its English edition
produced great effects in the home country, as well
as upon its readers in India. It freely criticised the
wrongs in the government, and pleaded the cause
of the dumb. Later in life he became " the trusted
adviser of the government in important affairs," and
few men exercised greater influence upon the rulers
and the ruled. A layman, he yet was a most valued
missionary laborer aud generous contributor.
The father, Joshua Marshman, had been a teacher
in England, and was of thorough education, espe
cially in Semitic languages. Six years later than
Carey he joined the Serampore mission, being
driven, as the others were, for a shelter under the
Danish flag. He soon commenced the study of
the Chinese language, that he might give the word
of God to another third of the human family; and
after many years of laborious application, the first
translation of the Christian Scriptures iuto the lan
guage of China was sent forth from his hand. His
son had shared with him in the great labor. He
also translated into English the works of Confucius.

224 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
The outgrowth of these labors affected greatly the
breaking down of the Chinese wall, and the admis
sion of a freer spirit into the hoary exclusivism of the
nation. And to-day, over that great empire, its
monarch charges its executives to see that all are
protected in their religious rights.
These pioneer labors at last challenged the highest
estimation of the civilized world. Philanthropy,
science, and statesmanship paid tribute to the men
who inaugurated and made permanent Christian
missions to the heathen. The sneer of the cynic
gave place to the reverent ascription of well-earned
renown. And again it is Baptist missionaries that
have broken the roads for liberty, — not for themselves
alone, but for all men. No such changes in govern
ment aud among a people had ever been wrought,
or would ever have been wrought, by colonists seek
ing wealth, or any worldly gain. They could better
prosecute their objects by arbitrary power, and by
leaving the people in ignorance and superstition. It
is the missionary, Christ, who is sent in his servants,
as in his person, to preach deliverance to the cap
tives, to set at liberty them that are bruised, and
bring the prisoners from the dungeon.

CHAPTER XVI.
THE STORY OF JUDSON.
ANOTHER large section of the Eastern world
was opened to freedom by the Burman mission.
When Mr. and Mrs. Judson were driven to Rangoon
by the oppression of the East India Company, they
found themselves under an unmitigated despotism.
There was not a spot in that teeming kingdom of
Burmah where slavery of body and soul did not hold
sway. Persecution had followed the missionaries
from port to port wherever they sought to land, bent
upon forcing them back to America or England.
Only the forecasting providence of God had availed
to bring them to this shore, as the Spirit led Paul to
cross the sea into Europe.
And now began the seeming unequal conflict be
tween the solitary and humanly helpless invader and
the raging heathen kings and rulers, who set them
selves against the Lord and his anointed. Said
Judson : —
" One malicious Intimation to the king would occasion our
banishment ; and banishment is no small thing, being attended
with confiscation of all property, and such various abuses as
would make us deem ourselves happy to escape with our lives.
Such a situation may appear somewhat alarming to a person
accustomed to the liberty of a free government ; but let us re-
15 [ 225 ]

226 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
member that it has been the lot of the greater part of mankind
to live under a despotic government, devoid of all security for
life or property for a single moment ; that the Son of God
chose to become incarnate under the most unprincipled and
cruel despot. And shall any disciple of Christ refuse to do a
little service for his Saviour under a government where his
Saviour would not refuse to live and die for his soul ? God
forbid." The annoyances of orders summoning him into the
presence of officers to give account, and threats of
banishment, were soon suffered. Taxes were arbi
trarily imposed upon the missionary. He learned
the pitiful fate of a priest who had forsaken Bud
dhism, and become a Catholic Christian, and who
had been imprisoned and beaten until, at the point
of death, a plea of insanity in his behalf gained for
him an escape from the country.
Judson and Coleman, with their costly presents
and petition for toleration, were spurned from the
royal presence. Thirty dollars was extorted for a
passport to return to Rangoon, after they had been
commanded to leave the capital.
The first converts in the mission had much of per
secution to face, and when the British government
had changed its policy to toleration of missions, the
Burman missionaries sought to remove their base of
operations to a point within the company's territory.
Judson, however, remained in Burmah.
And finally, in his sufferings from persecution,
came that historic, unparalleled endurance of the
twenty-one months' imprisonment and torture in Ava,

THE STORY' OF JUDSON. 227
Amarapoora, and Ong-pen-la. What Mr. and Mrs.
Judson and Dr. Price went through in that long pe
riod of horrors, words faintly depict. With the pros
pect of death constantly before them, by execution,
by cruel tortures, by extreme sicknesses, without care
or medicines, and often with no knowledge of each
other's fate, every capacity of innocent suffering, in
body, mind, and heart, was kept upon the rack.
"Ministering angel" is the common conception of
Mrs. Judson's part throughout the long agony; but
ministering angels do not, we trust, have to bear in
themselves what she bore.
Well has Dr. Wayland said of her : —
"Then were revealed those elements of character which des
ignated Mrs. Judson as one of the most remarkable women of
her age. She was the only European female in Ava, and the
only foreigner who was not consigned to prison. Her whole
time, with the exception of twenty days when she was, confined
by the birth of her child, was devoted to the alleviation of the
sorrows of her husband and his fellow prisoners. Perfectly
familiar with the Burman language, of a presence which com
manded a respect even from savage barbarians, and encircled
her with a moral atmosphere in which she walked unharmed in
the midst of a hostile city, she was universally spol^en of as the
guardian angel of that band of sufferers. Sometimes she ap
pealed to the officers of government, but more frequently to
their wives, and pleaded for compassion with an eloquence
which even they could not resist. Fertile in resources and
wholly regardless of her own privations or exposures, she was
incessantly occupied in alleviating the pain or ministering to
the wants of those who had no other friend."
Thus for nearly two years —

228 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
"There was seen, in the midst of the horde of ruffians, a
whose intelligence and refinement had quite lately won the ad
miration of the highest circles of the British metropolis, soothing
the sorrows of the captive ; ministering to the wants of the sick,
providing and preparing food for the starving ; consoling the
dying with words of heavenly peace ; heedless of meridian suns
and midnight dews, though surrounded by infection; devoting
herself with prodigal disinterestedness to the practice of heav
enly charity, and sustaining the courage of men inured to danger
and familiar with death, by the example of her own dauntless
resolution." In her own pitiful narration, describing her daily
visits and lingerings at the gate through which her
husband must see her, she says : —
"For days together 1 could not go until after dark, when I
had two miles to walk in returning. O how many, many times
have I returned from that dreary prison at nine o'clock at night,
and thrown myself down, and endeavored to invent some new
scheme for the release of the prisoners ! So engrossed was
every thought with present scenes and sufferings, that I seldom
reflected on a single occurrence of my former life, or recollected
that I had a friend in existence outside of Ava,"
Her sick and moaning babe was borne in her arms,
and at times she herself was prostrated in sickness,
but never remitted her care.
Dr. Judson, worn out and famished in torturing
confinement, burning with fever and lost in deliriums,
was driven and dragged from prison to prison, and
confronted with orders for being put to death. The
terrible last removal to the place of purposed execu
tion, over the distance of eight miles, on foot, in the
midst of his sickness, under the hottest sun, and on

THE STORY OF JUDSON. 229
burning sand that scalded the skin from his naked
feet, was an extreme of brutality of which history has
hardly a parallel .
But it was the Lord's way, marvelous in our eyes,
of having his servant prepared and in readiness to
aid the warring nations in the establishment of peace,
and in bringing the mission field into the enjoyment
of unhindered evangelization ; and more and more
has the spirit of freedom gained ascendency in all
those realms that the missionaries found under every
infliction of slavery. To-day the gospel has free
course, and is glorified in Burmah, diffusing its bless
ings through all the races of its dwellers. A church
of Baptist Christians overlooks the old prison-ground
of Ong-pen-la, and the Ha Dolorosa that was trodden
by the bleeding feet. The missionary work, with its
Bible in all the tongues, its church ministries, its
schools and presses, has given character to the polit
ical changes that have come over those lands.
Says an English writer, speaking of Dr. Judson's
labors for religious freedom : "He clung to the hope
that through our influence Jind power Burmah would
be opened, and that which induced him to accornpany
Mr. Crawford, the commissioner, and to afford him
invaluable aid, was the hope of securing a treaty
favorable to religious toleration," and he "devoted
his great abilities and thorough acquaintance with
Burmah, its princes, and its people, to aid in the
conduct of the negotiations." Dr. Wayland elo
quently concludes : —

230 HEROES AND RTERARCHS.
"When the kingdoms of the world shall become the king
doms of the Lord and of his Christ ; when every pagoda shall
have been leveled, and every hilltop from the Bay of Bengal
to the foot of the Himalayas shall be crowned with a temple to
Jehovah ; when the landscape shall be thickly studded with
schools, scattering broadcast the seeds of human knowledge ;
when law shall have spread the shield of its protection over the
most lowly and the most exalted ; when civil and religious lib
erty shall be the birthright of every Burman, then will the spot
where stood the prison of Ong-pen-la be consecrated ground.
Thither will pilgrims resort to do honor to the name of their
benefactor; and mothers, as they teach their children to pray
to the eternal God, will remind them of the atheism of their
forefathers, and repeat to them the story of the life and labors
of Adoniram Judson. He asked that he might redeem a few
immortal souls from eternal death, and it was granted him to
lay the foundations of Christian civilization for an empire.
Such honor doth God bestow upon holy, humble, self-denying,
longsufflering love."
And' over the rest of Asia the history is similar.
The missions of other denominations have wrought,
as have those under Baptist leadership, incorporating
into the life of the people and the policies of govern
ments the principles of the Christian religion. The
Christian nations are brought into sympathy with the
evangelization of the pagan world ; and in their
national influence they demand the recognition of
the human brotherhood as to civil and religious
rights. England, the mistress of the seas of the
East, and of great peoples of the earth, has asserted
this demand, and compelled assent by her invincible
power ; and so in Burmah, in Siam, in China, in
Japan, in Turkey, and in Syria, slowly the peaceful

THE STORY OF JUDSON. 231
light of freedom of conscience and of all religious
acts has rolled back the darkness and its cruelties.
Up the mountains of higher Burmah the light-bound
ary has, by the power of England, moved on within
the last few years. More recent is the imperial
proclamation of China, commanding all executives
of the civil law to secure to every person freedom in
the peaceable exercise and diffusion of his religion.

CHAPTER XVII.
THE STORY OF THE HALDANES.
THE missionary century, of whose dawn we have
written, came upon the British Islands and the
continent of Europe when their forms of Christianity
partook of the coercive type. State establishments
claimed to be the exclusive church, and compelled
all the people to share in supporting them.. Their
membership, based on infant baptism and child con
firmation, was but another name for all "the children
of this world " ; and dissenters were burdened with
many exactions and disabilities, or suppressed by
violence or exile.
The originators and supporters of the English
Baptist Missionary Society were among the first and
the leading contestants for the abolishment of these
oppressions. The Rylands and the Halls, Carey,
Fuller, Marshman, Pearce, and others were a potency
which could not be ineffectual. Under their influ
ence others of later birth were raised up to increase
the power which strove for spirituality in churches
and freedom in religious action. Such were the two
men whose names head this chapter, and of whom
too little is generally known.
In the English navy, while its ships hung like
birds of prey off the coast of our struggling colonies
[232]

THE STORY OF THE HALDANES. 233
in the war of the Revolution, were two orphaned
brothers, young boys of noble birth and high prom
ise, — James and Robert Haldane. They were the
only survivers of a family of rank and wealth in Scot
land. Their uncle. Lord Duncan, who was in high
naval office, gave them favored positions in that serv
ice. In battles with French ships, Robert, the older,
early attracted notice for his wise and heroic actions.
Afterward James became a distinguished captain.
When Robert became of age and of good educa
tion, he chose to leave' the sea, though he ardently
loved the service, and high promotion was before
him. The care of his estate claimed his attention,
and he married a lady of great worth in character,
who for fifty-seven yeai-s was to be a benison in his
life and a partner in his Christian work. He lived
as a gentleman of the world until the moral questions
involved in the French Revolution blazed upon the
notice of thoughtful men.
His thoughts, thus awakened, strangely turned into
gracious convictions as to his spiritual state. The
prayers of his godly mother, whom he vividly re
membered though she had died in his young child
hood, came up in remembrance before God ; and
especially the interested conversation of a pious and
Bible-learned stone-mason, who was in his employ,
led him in penitence to an intelligent and stable
trust in Christ. His education had been good, his
mind was of a commanding order, and habits of
studiousness and lively discussion were his delight.

234 HEROES A.ND HIERARCHS.
He was then in the national church of Scotland, —
the Presbyterian.
In 1795 a friend of Robert Haldane sent him Dr.
Carey's report of missionary work at Serampore, In
dia. The newly converted soul of the gifted young
man was kindled at once by it into a flame of mis
sionary zeal. After prayerful deliberation by him
self and his wife, he decided to consecrate himself
and all that he possessed to the great dawning enter
prise of foreign missions. The purpose settled into
the plan of a personal mission in Bengal. His large
property was to meet the expenses of outfit and sup
port on the field, in. the case of all engaged. He se
cured as associates his eminent friend whose ministry
he had enjoyed, — Dr. Bogue, afterward the distin
guished theological teacher and author, — with two
other ministers, and others as teachers, and a printer
aud artisans. The London Missionary Society, to
which he and his brother were original and_ large
contributors, and influential public men, notably
William Wilberforce, earnestly seconded the pro
posed mission. It involved, however, too much to
be placed at stake unless the permission of the East
India Company could be secured. Mr. Haldane,
with great.wisdom, employed every means of influ
encing a favorable answer to his application, spend
ing a season at London in the efforts; but the inflex
ible opposition, strengthened by such high officials as
Pitt and Canning, had nothing better to say than
that "the court have weighty and substantial reasons

THE STORY OF THE HALDANES. 235
which induce them to decline a compliance with your
request." It was then that in their discussions a
member is reported to have said : " I would rather
see a band of devils in India than a band of mission
aries" — a confession honest and natural for those
who are doing the devil's work. So would not have
felt the nobler spirit of Burke, who on another
occasion thus expressed his indignation: "If we
were to be driven out of India this day, nothing
would remain to tell that it had been possessed dur
ing the inglorious period of our dominion by any
thing better than the orang-utan or the tiger. Every
other conqueror of every other description has left
some monument either of state or beneficence behind
him. England lias erected no churches, no hospitals,
no palaces, no schools ; made no high-roads, cut no
navigations, dug out no reservoirs."
Thus defeated in his great scheme, Mr. Haldane
had to look elsewhere for an opening that his mis
sionary spirit could enter ; for he did not abandon
his purpose. His settled conviction was : "I was
spending my time in the country to little profit,
whilst, from the command of property which through
the goodness of God I possessed, I might be some
where extensively useful." In this conviction he
proceeded to sell his beautiful estate which his taste
had so adorned, and look for ways in which he
could promote the Christianity which he said "is
either everything or nothing," and which he had
come to know to be everything.

236 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
He had not fiir to seek. Scotland itself was
missionary ground. Though all the people were
church-members, they were dead in sin. "It was
the midnight of the church in Scotland," says one.
The infidelity of Hume and others infected the uni
versities and poisoned the ministry. Many of the
latter were avowed Unitarians, in sympathy with
the New England defection into those views. Igno
rance of the Bible and scoffs at experimental re
ligion characterized the people. Still the Good
Shepherd was keeping his own on these northern
hills. Faithful servants had he in such godly pas
tors and teachers as John Campbell, David Bogue,
John Aikman, and those apostolic preachers who
came on divine errands from England, — John New
ton, Abraham Booth, Andrew Fuller, and Rowland
Hill, and whose visits awakened wide-spread evan
gelical interest. With the spiritual Christianity in
which these men were leaders, Robert Haldane
ardently allied ^himself.
His brother James, meanwhile, retired from his
captaincy in the navy, and became, like Robert, ex^
perimentally a convert from a worldly to a Christly
life. Their minds were now harmoniously turned
to evangelical work in their own country. They
became lay preachers, associating with others simi
larly called; and gathering the people' in halls or
open-air assemblies, they preached the gospel unto
them with the power of "the Holy Spirit sent forth
from heaven. " They built spacious free tabernacles

THE STORY OF THE HALDANES. 237
in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and else\vhere, and secured
helpers to maintain constant services, all at their
own expense. Extensive tours for preaching, tract
distribution, and all personal labors were made
through the country and on the islands. Independ
ent churches were organized, congregational in gov
ernment and of converted membership.
And now came the light from the word of God
on the subject of baptism. They searched in vain
for authority to baptize infants, and found that the
baptism of believers is immersion. In loyal obedi
ence, they were baptized ; and James, receiving or
dination, and serving nearly fifty years as pastor
in his tabernacle in Edinburgh, had the Baptist
usage on this ordinance, and yet they both ear
nestly endeavored to practice church-fellowship with
all Christians. But they found that for this it is
not enough for Baptists to receive all to the Lord's
table, or partake at it in other churches. In spite
of their doing this, their position on baptism made
their loved brethren withdraw into pedobaptist or
ganizations. The formal clergy of the established church insti
gated persecutions against their 1 ay preaching. James
Haldane and his associate preacher were arrested, and
conducted to a distant town before the sheriff ; but
his insistence upon his rights foiled the attempt to
suppress him, and crowds received him joyfully on
his return, and listened to his preaching with rapt
attention. The good Dr. Erskine, of the state church,

238 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
came out strongly for tolerating the lay preachers,
but thought they ought nofto take a text. The social
and spiritual power of the evangelists, and the gra
cious results of their work, drew the people to de
mand for them religious freedom, and so the cause
of liberty again was advanced by the missionary
spirit. The Haldanes also sustained Christian and theo
logical schools, where at their expense several hun
dreds of ministers were educated, and sent thence
over the world, during the long service of these gen
erous benefactors. Thirty boys at one time were
imported from Africa, sent by their parents or friendly
guardians on request of Robert Haldane, and placed
in school in England at his expense. He also pre
pared and published a work on the "Evidences of
Christianity," as seen from the spiritual point of
view, which was highly commended.
His interest in missions in India was not suffered
to die, though the way thither had been shut against
him. By bringing the well-known Andrew Fuller
to Scotland, he gave an impulse to the Serampore
translations of the Scriptures, which were then lan
guishing for want of funds, and were scoffed at as
"the abortive efforts of a nest of consecrated cob
blers." His invitation to Fuller contained the gift of
five hundred dollars, with the promise that his brother
would be equally interested. "He had printed for
distribution myriads of religious tracts, and circulated
Bibles, when as yet there was no London Tract Soci-

THE STORY OF THE HALDANES. 239
ety or British and Foreign Bible Society ; and he
had formed, or assisted in forming, many Sunday-
schools." In these various forms of evangelization
he had in twenty years expended some three hundred
and fifty thousand dollars.
MISSION OF ROBERT HALDANE ON THE CONTINENT.
The religious condition of the countries on the con
tinent of Europe had deeply exercised the mind of
this devoted exemplar of the missionary spirit, and
at length the time came for him to attempt a long-
cherished scheme of personal labor in those countries.
In some of them religious toleration was granted, but
in none was there full religious freedom. His plan
was first to make trial of labor in France and Switz
erland, whither himself and his wife now made their
journey. His education, his early travels, and per
sonal intimacies with men of culture, had made him
familiar with these countries and their language. As
an evangelist he was furnished with a well-studied
knowledge of the word of God, and a prayerful de
pendence on the Holy Spirit.
In Paris they found gross papal darkness and
frigid atheism, alike so impervious as to resist every
attempt to introduce the truths of the gospel. Provi
dentially they met there Mr. Hillhouse, an American
gentleman of New Haven, Conn., who in his travels
had been searching to find whether regenerate piety
was surviving anywhere in Europe. Through names

240 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
which he supplied they were furnished better means
of introduction, and went on to Geneva.
Some years ago the writer heard it publicly stated
by a Presbyterian clergyman, who had studied
abroad in his young manhood, that when Robert
Haldane entered Geneva, in 1816, there was not
known to be a converted person at that historic cen
ter of nominal Christianity. The surprise awakened
by the statement was increased by the investigation
which verified its substantial truth ; so that Europe
was almost unbroken missionary ground when the
evangelists of this century began there their efforts,
for if not in Switzerland, then not anywhere were
regenerate Christians standing out in clear view.
The established forms of Christianity had come to
bear but their wild grapes. The Holy Spirit was
not in them as the life-juice which produces the
fruits of the Spirit. Indeed, professed Christians
were ready, like those at Ephesus, to confess igno
rance as to whether there is any Holy Spirit. ' State
religions, with their graceless hierarchies and masked
infidelity, overgrew and concealed true piety, which
yet had its places of sustained life.
Under this spiritual death, the creed of Calvinism
was but a skeleton, nor even that without the loss of
its principal parts. Pastors and theological teachers,
students, and people at large had gone over to for
malism and rationalism. Arian, Unitarian, and
rationalistic essays had usurped the place of preach
ing and teaching the Lord Jesus. Bible instruction

THE STORY OF THE HALDANES. 241
was unknown. Worldly life and dissipating pleas
ures overran the Sabbath, and vitiated common
morality. It had even come to the pass that the
fundamental doctrines in our religion were prohib
ited themes of discussion. Candidates for the minis
try were required to sign a pledge not to agitate
such subjects as the innate sinfulness of man, the
Godhead of Jesus, the trinity, spiritual regeneration,
and the election of grace.
Taking apartments at a hotel, the learned evangel
ist sought interviews with the preachers, teachers,
students, and others, inviting them to his rooms for
conversation and Bible study. It was soon learned
that he was discussing prohibited subjects, and the
religious "liberalists" applied to the civil rulers to
banish him from the city. He could not, however,
be ejected from his own hired rooms.
For a time his efforts seemed hopeless. Thus
discouraged, he planned to go on into southern
France. The evening before he should leave had
come, when unexpectedly a courteous but unsym-
pathizing minister begged the privilege for the next
morning of taking Mr. and Mrs. Haldane in his
carriage to visit a work of art. At the appointed
hour the carriage came, but with a student escort,
bearing the regrets of the minister that ill-health
forbade his coming in person. Mr. Haldane at
once took his seat by the side of the student, and
engaged him in such a conversation as that in which
our Saviour engaged the woman of Samaria. The
16

242 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
Lord opened the heart of the young man, as the
heart of Lydia was opened, to attend unto the things
spoken. Thus providentially the abandonment of a mo
mentous personal mission was prevented. The
young man, a student in theology, but ignorant of
Christ, had convictions awakened which resulted
in his conversion, and in his becoming a useful
preacher. He urged Mr. Haldane to remain and
teach him, and others whom he induced to join
him, the way of the Lord more perfectly. Soon
there was a class of students, with neighboring
ministers dropping in, making the number of twenty-
five coming regularly to the rooms of the gospel
teacher. They requested him to commence anew
a more systematic course of instruction ; and, tak
ing up the epistle to the Romans as the text-book
of his course, he brought its great truths home to
the understanding and the heart with the effectual
power of the Holy Spirit. His rich commentary
on Romans survives as a reminiscence of that year's
work at Geneva.
An illustration of his dealing with the souls of
these men is given in the grateful tribute paid to
him by the author of the "History of the Reforma
tion," Merle D'Aubigne, who was one of his stu
dent class, and was there brought to the experimental
faith. He describes hearing Mr. Haldane read from
his Bible a chapter from Romans concerning the
natural corruption of man, a doctrine to which

THE STORY OF THE HALDANES. 243
D'Aubign^ was blind. He was astonished and
convinced as the passages were made to speak
their solemn import. He exclaimed to the teacher :
"Now I do indeed see this doctrine in the Bible ! "
"Yes," rei^lied the good man, with his finger as
though pressing a lancet; "but do you see it in
your heart?" And D'Aubigne felt the godly sor
row unto life, and became an exemplar, and the
great portraye.r of the belief of the heart which is
unto righteousness.
In the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in
London in 1851, a speaker was recommending the
Foreign Aid Society on the ground that it employed
French and Swiss preachers, and did not send out
Englishmen, when Dr. Merle D'Aubigne rose and
said : "I for one cannot accept this as a recommen
dation ; for if it had not been for the grace of God
in ordering the mission of the venerable Robert
Haldane from Scotland, I myself, so far as man can
see, would not have been here to-day."
Other names of men who by these godly labors in
Geneva, and afterward in Montauban, were brought
out as a cluster of bright stars to shine in the spirit
ual darkness of their countries, and forever and ever
in glory, are Charles Rieu, Henry Pyt, and the doc
tors Monod, Malan, and many more ; while scarcely
less decisive was Haldane's influence upon Dr.
Gaussen, Felix Neff, and others.
One of the class afterward wrote: "Almost all
the students in theology attended these studies. Of

244 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
the whole of them there was but one who did not ap
pear to have been touched, but some did not after
ward show that they were savingly benefited. Still it
is certain that the greater part of those who attended
have become men eminent in the service of God."
The personal mission of Haldane was a divine suc
cess. Dr. George B. Cheever, of New York, visiting
Geneva and tracing the results of the work, wrote :
"This was a most remarkable movement of divine
providence, — one of the most remarkable to be found
on record. Such an incursion of divine grace into
the very citadel of error was anything but peace
able to its guardians ; but the strong man armed
must give up his house when a greater than he comes
upon him." The revival extended into other parts
of Switzerland and into portions of France.
But to the converted preachers and disciples the
words of the-apostle were to have address : " Unto
you it is given in behalf of Christ, not only to believe
on him, but also to suffer for his sake." Presbyteri-
anism had made itself a leagued hierarchy in power,
as well as a body of spiritual death and doctrinal
corruption. These Christians were forbidden ordi
nation, irrespective of the wishes of those to whom
they would minister.
Dr. Malan was an eloquent young preacher in
high office in the state church and university. A
Socinian rationalist, his mind was first inclined
toward evangelical truth by a visit of Dr. Mason, of
New York ; but he experienced the truth as it is in

THE STORY OF THE HALDANES. 245
Jesus under Mr. Haldane's labors. Then he entered
his pulpit, and, before the officials of school and
church and state, poured forth the gospel with all
his eloquent power and with the demonstration of
the Spirit. It was "like bolts of fire shot from
heaven." His august hearers "almost gnashed on
him with their teeth." He descended from the pul
pit, and passed through their opening ranks unrec
ognized, an avoided and rejected man. His own
relatives turned away from him with mingled emo
tions of disappointment, vexation, and shame. His
attached wife (afterward partaker of the like precious
faith), beheld him with a grieved and wounded
heart, tenderly pleading, "How could you do it?"
He walked in his robes from the ancient temple of
Calvin to his own house, dejected aud overwhelmed,
about to hide himself in his secret chamber ; but on
entering his door the manly form and benignant
countenance of Robert Haldane revived him like a
cordial, and grasping hands', the good evangelist ex
claimed, "Thank God, the gospel has been once
more preached in Geneva ! " But God made the
wrath of man to praise him. The persecutions
served to make the revival more effectual by separat
ing the regenerate life from the dead incumbrances,
and giving it appropriate organic .growth.
Mr. Haldane, though known as a Baptist, did not
teach of the ordinances, or cause their observance,
being a lay evangelist, and, as he said, like the apos
tle Paul, "sent not to baptize, but to preach the

246 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
gospel." Independent churches, however, were
formed, and laborers were sustained, aided by their
generous help from England ; and an evangelical
school of theology was established with Gaussen,
D'Aubigne, and others as teachers, whence many
useful laborers were supplied for the continuous har
vest. D'Aubigne has said that "the narrative of
the revival would form one of the most beautiful
episodes in the history of the church."
But the mission of the godly man and his wife
was not to be limited to Geneva ; for in the forms of
work that awaited them, the helpmeet is more to
come into view. After less than a year in this
capital, they changed their place of labor to Montau
ban, in the south of France, where more than two
years were spent in teaching the Scriptures, and
securing their translation into French, with that of
his "Commentary," his "Evidences," and other
Christian publications. In these labors Mrs. Haldane
bore her helpful part.
The same opposition to evangelical truth, and the
same restrictions on freedom of speech, were encount
ered there that had been in Paris and Geneva. The
Protestant clergy applied to the civil authorities to
expel the evangelist, but he was able to entrench
himself against their power, and God gave him
power to make inroads upon the rationalism that was
giving to the people the stone and the serpent instead
of the bread and the fish. The theological school was
a seminary with no Christ in what it disseminated, but

THE STORY OF THE HALDANES. 247
its dean came soon to bewail with tears that "since
the appearance at Montauban of that disastrous
meteor, Mr. Haldane, all had been poisoned with his
doctrine." "Many young students were brought to
Christ, many ministers were delivered out of error,
and the seed was sown of a future and abundant
harvest." The Bible and religious books and tracts
were put in general circulation through the munifi
cence of Mr. Haldane, and faithful preachers went
forth into the fields.
After three years of absence, the worthy couple
returned to the enjoyment of their home in Scotland,
but the work on the Continent was not displaced
from their care. Mr. Haldane conceived and led in
constituting the Continental Society, whose object
was the sustaining of the evangelical laborers in the
several countries, and through this agency he
wrought on in the work which he had inaugurated ;
and to the end of his life he was cheered by the
communications which recounted the continuous
progress of what his personal labors had started.
For the furtherance of the work, both abroad and
at home, he instituted and sustained in Scotland and
England the theological instruction of classes of
consecrated young men, numbers of whom became
eminent ministers. Archibald Maclay, D. D., was
educated by Robert Haldane, and selected as one
of the missionaries in his projected mission in India.
This mission being defeated, by his patron's advice
Mr. Maclay came to America, preaching in New

248 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
York first to a Congregational church ; but embrac
ing Baptist sentiments with his Scottish friends, he
rose as such into his well-known prominence.
The missionary spirit in the Haldanes drew them
into hearty and liberal cooperation in organizing
and sustaining the British and Foreign Bible So
ciety, of which a Baptist, Rev. Joseph Hughes, was
the originator. In this society Christians of all
denominations combined to give the word of God,
without man's adding or taking away, to people of
all tongues and lands ; but without the knowledge
of its originators and principal officers, the indiffer
ent and compromising spirit of nominal Christianity
came to secure editions, through auxiliary societies,
which incorporated the apocryphal books. Against
this Robert Haldane became the champion of the
unadulterated Bible. For twelve years the contest
was waged. His writings were voluminous, and his
influence a leading one, until the society freed itself
from the defection. The inspiration also of the
Holy Word was defined and insisted upon with an
earnestness intense and fruitful through his whole
life. The uncompromising fidelity to Bible truth, in
doctrine and in policy, which the brothers de
manded in their teaching, they illustrated in their
lives. Their obedience in Christian baptism, in mid
dle life, and in their religious, social, and public
standing, was a most faithful testimony. When
past his fourscore years, James wrote: "When I

THE STORY OP THE HALDANES. 249
was baptized, nearly fifty years ago, I was con
vinced that it was the will of God. It is not with
me a party matter. I would prefer associating with
a Church of England man or a Presbyterian, who
was spiritual and humble, rather than with a Baptist
who was lifted up with conceit that he was sotne-
thing ; but I would not give up the benefit I have
received from right views of baptism in regard to
the gospel, for any consideration."
The home and foreign missionary work, with its
Bible and publication work, inaugurated by the
Haldanes and maintained by their abundant labors
and means through half a century, and the Bible
Society and Religious Tract Society work, in which
Joseph Hughes was a founder and leader, are worthy
to stand on record beside the works of Carey,
Marshman, and Judson. Alike noble Baptist trios
were these great forerunners in the missionary cent
ury ; and their services for religious freedom, over
the continents which they blessed, were a prime
factor in its effectual struggles. In the case of
Robert Haldane this is further to appear from our
next chapter.

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE STORY OF ONCKEN.
ANEW view will now be opened, to awaken
adoration of the working of Him "in whom
are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."
Doubtless the revelation may be a surprise to many.
In the latter period of Mr. Haldane's labors in
Europe he had much upon his mind, and in his cor
respondence, the organization of a society which
should support in those countries evangelical preach
ers and Bible colporters. On his return to Scotland
the organization was effected, its name being the
Continental Society.
John Gerhard Oncken, appointed in 1823, was
among the first laborers sent over into the field.
He was a young German who in early youth emi
grated to England. His genuine, inspiring con
version occurred the year that the society was
organized, and he was encouraged to devote himself
to study and personal Christian work. After three
years thus occupied, he was sent by the society, "a
joyous herald of the truth he had embraced in a
foreign clime," to preach the glad tidings and dis
tribute the precious volumes of the gospel in Ham
burg and Bremen and East Friesland. In 1828 he
[250]

THE STORY OF ONCKEN. 251
was transferred to Hamburg, to an agency of the
Edinburgh Bible Society, an organization in which
the Haldanes were leaders.
When Oncken entered upon his work, the fact
was soon developed that there was still no spot on
the continent of Europe where religious freedom
could be enjoyed. He was not then a Baptist, but
his earnest and effectual labors, dislodging many
from their dormant formality, and leading them to
Christ, aroused the hostility of the clergy into vio
lent opposition. And when his prayerful study of
the Bible led him to the Baptist belief, the perse
cution became more determined.
When there had been brought with him to this
belief six other disciples, and all were desiring to
obey their convictions, they were found by Professor
Barnas Sears, of Hamilton Literary and Theological
Institution, satisfactorily examined, and at the dead
of night, while their enemies slept, they were bap
tized in the river Elbe, at Hamburg, by Dr. Sears.
This was in 1834. The organization as a church
was completed, and Mr. Oncken was set apart for
its ministry by prayer and the laying on of hands.
And now, by the little obscure seven, possessed
of nothing but the Sword of the Spirit, commenced
the contest to win religious freedom for a continent.
This little church was to be the picket-line whose
service should bring on the great action of the de
nomination which during the last sixty years has
effected such wonders in Europe.

252 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
The persecutions, not yet wholly ceased, have been
as severe as the spirit of the age would allow the
hierarchies of the different nations to perpetrate.
The standing wiiich Mr. Oncken had attained, and
his personal attractiveness, for a time restricted the
opposition to depriving him of public ministrations,
while other laborers were fined or imprisoned. But
when the Hamburg church had grown to a hundred
and more members, and the places of preaching
were thronged, while the state clergy saw their own
assemblies thin and indifferent, the jealousy burst
out into harsher violence. The Baptists were ' ' made
objects of derision, from the lowest dram-shop to the
most fashionable drawing-room." The Lutheran
clergy forced the head of police to arraign Oncken.
The senate prohibited baptism within their jurisdic
tion. Mr. Oncken was put on trial ; and when it was de
manded of him to account for having violated the
prohibitions put upon him, his response was the
martyr one of history: "Because I was following
the command of Christ, and the dictates of my con
science as controlled by the Scriptures ; and because
I believe that no magistrate has the right to interfere
with a man's conscience." And to the question
whether he would now cease thus violating, he said :
"I shall never depart from this line of conduct."
Then said the court : "It is ordered that he be im
prisoned four weeks, aud pay the amount of eighty
dollars, and if he shall still persist, there will be

THE STORY OF ONCKEN. 253
severer measures." During this imprisonment he
was allowed only the briefest communication with
his wife, and that only in the German language.
The officers were to inspect his writing, but they
could not prevent his scratching into the plastering
of his cell words of God which might bless others
who should be placed there, nor could his preach
ing through the grates of his window to outside
listeners be wholly suppressed.
Such imprisonments and fines were repeatedly in
flicted on him, and as he went out on mission tours,
he met similar treatment. When he had served his
sixty years in Europe as evangelist and reformer, he
wrote: "I have been formally banished from
nearly every state in Germany," for preaching the
plain truths of the New Testament.
When through Oncken's labors the mission took
root in Denmark, it encountered persecution still
more rigorous. Mr. Koebner, ou a visit thither, was
the first to suffer. Afterward the Reverends Peter
and Adolph Munster, brothers, who became pastors
of the church in Copenhagen, had torturous and
extortionate infiictions repeated upon them through
successive years. Sickness was incurred by being-
thrown into wet and cold dungeon cells ; their home
was stripped of its furniture despite the pleading of
a dying -wife ; and the exhaustion of one penalty was
followed by re-arrests, because they could not but
speak as the people crowded to hear their liberated
pastors. Parents were fined for not bringing their

254 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
infants to their persecutors for baptism" — ten dollars
for the first week's delay after notice, and double
the amount subsequently. Aud every manifestation
was kept up of "the animosity. against the gospel,
which passed description, especially among the higher
classes." Under all their sufferings these faithful brethren
lost not their faith or patience, expressing the trust
that it was best they should suffer, it being God's
way of publishing and making to triumph his saving
truth. Of their oppressors in church and state they
write : "Who art thou, O great mountain ? Before
Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain. And he shall
bring forth the head-stone, with shoutings, crying,
Grace, grace unto it."
In Hanover, and Russia, and Sweden, and where-
ever the German mission made inroads, through the
Spirit's working in the word and witnesses of Christ,
the battle against God's chosen "weak things of the
world" was joined by the whole array of ecclesias
tical and civil oppression.
The penalty in Norway for seceding from the
national church was imprisonment at hard labor, for
women as well as for men. The bishops and their
clergy formed a third of the legislature in its con
stituency, and the whole of it in influence, and the
laws against "absence from the communion" cost
one his citizenship, forbade his marriage, and de
prived him of business as a tradesman or an artisan.
The king himself was powerless to change these laws.

THE STORY OF ONCKEN. 255
A message from the king of Sweden to his legislators
said that the constitution secured toleration to all in
religion ; that Protestantism demanded it ; and that
it belonged to the fame of the great Gustavus Adol-
phus, the father of his country, who won with his
blood freedom for all in the nation. .This message
to the law-makers was, however, but "a glittering
generality." Mr. Nilson, of Stockholm, from Oncken's mission,
returned to his country as an evangelist, but was
arrested, and permanently banished. Disciples were
multiplied, however, and took joyfully the spoiling
of their goods, and submitted to the cruelties of
the police, who entered their houses and took them
from their beds, and carried their babes to the
mockery of a baptism. "Fifteen times in prison,"
was the way-mark left by pastor Heydenberg as
he still looked forward, knowing that bonds and
afflictions awaited him.
Years went by,' the decade and the score, and
the relentless war was kept up against our missions.
A tantalizing promise was given when the revolu
tions in 1848 sought to erect republics, and pub
lished proclamations of religious freedom ; but the
reaction and the replacing of monarchies set in
action again all the machinery of persecution. In
some of the states the rigor was so stern and per
petual that nothing was left for the sufferers but
chains and beggary, or fiight across the ocean. It
is but half a century since Christians in England

256 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
and America were having brought to their ears by
every ship the cries of these European Baptists who
were ''distressed for conscience." It will do the
generations that have since arisen good to make
the acquaintance of those faithful sufferers. Let
us approach a representative company of them, and
hear their doleful story, told eloquently in manly
and righteous indignation.
Twenty -seven Baptists of Mecklenburg, Germany,
one of whom was pastor, worn out by years of per
secution, started together for America. Spending
the Sabbath at Hamburg, surrounded by a great
and deeply affected congregation, Mr. Oncken ad
dressed them, as John Robinson did the embarking
pilgrims of 1620. And this was the solemn protest
which they drew up and, signed by them all, sent
back to the sovereign from whom they were flying: —
" To his Boy al Highness, the On-and Duke of Mecklenburg : —
"The undersigned, hitherto subjects of your Royal Highness,
are compelled by the persecutions for conscience' sake to which
they have been subjected in their fatherland, and the positive
impossibility of living according to their religious convictions,
to emigrate to America. Before their departure, however, con
science constrains them before God to submit to your Royal
Highness a solemn protest against the supposition that they are
voluntarily leaving their native shore.
" We go not voluntarily, but forced by the severe, relentless
measures adopted against us, which have both hindered our
efforts for the extension of the kingdom of God, and our
practical fulfillment of the divine command to love our neigh
bors as ourselves ; for our assemblies have been broken up.

THE STORY OF ONCKEN. 257
and men and women imprisoned, threatened with severer
punishment, and bereft of their property.
"Against such measures on the part of the government of
your Royal Highness, we have, assisted by a deputation of the
Evangelical Alliance, made repeated but ineffectual remon
strance. Our hearts wore knit to our fatherland, and it re
quired seven years of oppression to suggest the thought of
emigration. " Your Royal Highness has sanctioned these measures, and
undertaken all the responsibility. There is within us the con
sciousness of having ever revered and loved your Royal High
ness as our sovereign, of which we deem no higher proof to be
given than by reminding you, sire, of this responsibility as held
toward the King of kings.
"As regards ourselves, we no more come with a petition to
your Royal Highness ; for, driven from our native country, we
go to seek a new home on free American soil. Yet on behalf
of our brethren who remain, we venture to pray that your Royal
Highness may be graciously pleased to free them from the yoke
which has forced us to depart. We venture this request, not
only because every persecution for conscience' sake is unright
eous, but because no Protestant country in Germany can less
afford to dispense with Christian men ; for the most effectual
supporters of a throne are God-fearing subjects. And those
are, in our estimation, truly God-fearing subjects who in tem
poral matters render unto Csesar what is Csesar's, and in all
things spiritual unto God what is God's. 'We look with con
fidence to a compliance with our petition, inasmuch as it in
volves the highest interests of the throne, as well as those of
our brethren and the kingdom of Christ generally.
"We abide with profound veneration."
They also addressed their protest to the ecclesias
tical head, whose instigations they charge with excit
ing the persecutions, and, " in the name of the Most
17

258 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
High," made their appeal to Him who will avenge
his own elect.
In the protests, allusion is made to the inter
position of the Evangelical Alliance, a society of
Christians of all denominations and of all lands, in
behalf of the persecuted Baptists in Europe. Action
was also taken in England and in this country by the
denomination of which the sufferers were represent
atives. The English Baptists sent delegates on dif
ferent occasions to intercede with the heads of
government and of the church establishments.
Some members of Parliament, and particularly the
distinguished Friend, Joseph J. Guerney, joined
their personal visits and influence with these delega
tions. The address of one of the delegations to the
bishops and clergy of Denmark so depicts the situa
tion and demonstrates the claims of justice and
Christian comity, that it should be preserved as a
classic beside the one addressed by Milton to the
persecutors of the Waldenses.
The delegates say : —
" By various associations of Baptists, and by ministers and
Christians of all other denominations iu Great Britain, we have
been deputed to lay before his gracious Majesty, the king of
Denmark, numerously signed and duly attested memorials,
praying for the release of the Baptist pastors, Peter and
Adolph Munster, from prison, and from all other legal inflic
tions ; and for the extension of religious liberty to the denomi
nation to which they belong. This duty, in a full and gracious
audience with his Majesty, it has been our happiness to dis
charge. And we now, reverend gentlemen, respectfully call

THE STORY OF ONCKEN. 259
your attention to the subject, in the hope that our efforts,
through your Christian infiuence and intercession, may not
fail of the desired success.
"In venturing to urge upon you a duty so much in harmony
with the office of ministers of Christ, permit us to remind you
that in Copenhagen pastor Adolph Munster, after having for
nearly four months, and pastor Peter Munster for nine months,
undergone the hardships of imprisontnent, .besides the various
other inconveniences which such a situation necessarily in
volves, are now sentenced to a fine of sixty dollars each, with
costs; also that in Langeland, among other instances of hard
ship, a poor man named Andreas has been called to suffer the
loss of all his worldly goods, together with imprisonment on
bread and water, and that similar fines and punishments are
threatened against all Baptists who do not bring their children
to the Lutheran font.
"That measures so severe should have been adopted against
men guilty of no other crime than the peaceable diffusion of
their conscientious opinions, cannot in our judgment be recon
ciled with the principles either of humanity or justice ; and
while it must occasion pain to those who are actuated by no
feeling higher than philanthropy, it wiU especially be deplored
by all who have felt the love, and are animated by the spirit,
of Christ. Hence, throughout Great Britain and America,
wherever these proceedings have been made known, they have
been received by the several branches of the Christian church
with such unmingled feelings of grief and astonishment, as
that clergymen of all denominations have with most unusual
promptitude availed themselves of the opportunity afforded
by our visit to this country, of laying their sentiments on this
subject at his Majesty's feet. Most willing, reverend gentle
men, are we to believe that, by what has already taken place,
your pious and benevolent feelings have been painfully
shocked, and that you must feel with us that to seize the prop
erty, deal harshly with the persons, and distress the faihilies
of men conscientious, however mistaken you may suppose

260 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
them in their views, can never, as it is alien to the spirit of
Christ, promote his glory.
"That under all forms of government and religion the Bap
tists are permitted unmolested to maintain and propagate their
opinions except in one or two of these countries which owe
their religion to the right of private judgment established by
the immortal Luther, appears to us, and to the whole Christian
world, as far as the circumstance is known, an anomaly most
strangely unaccountable ; and therefore, in the name and for
the honor of our common Christianity, we earnestly invoke
your powerful aid to take from the enemies of divine truth
the prolonged opportunity of saying that professed Christians
withhold from each other that charity which pagans are un
willing to deny.
"That the Lutheran in England has the fullest liberty to
practice and propagate his faith we most heartily rejoice ; and
were an attempt made by any class of British Christians to
injure him, either in his person or estate, for doing so, we
should unhesitatingly denounce its spirit as injurious to religion
and dishonoring to Christ.
"It is alleged against the Baptists in general that, using no
written confessions of faith, their sentiments must of necessity
be fluctuating and indefinite. As to this, we adduce the de
cisive testimony of three hundred years to show that, while
churches with written confe~ssions of faith have been and still
are agitated by great differences of opinion, a striking uni
formity of sentiment in all important points has prevailed
amongst the Baptists, as the result of that more direct appeal
which they are in the constant habit of making to the word
of God ; so that the tenets anciently expressed by Johnson,
Bunyan, and Gill are with little or no difference those which
have been more recently propounded by Fuller, Carey, and
Hall. "And now, reverend gentlemen, fully assured of the truth
and importance of these statements, and with a solemn antici
pation of that day when we must all appear before the judg-

tHE STORf OF ONCKEN. 261
ment-seat of Christ, we beseech you, by the mercies of Him
'who hath redeemed us into God by his blood,' to rise in
stantly, 'as with the heart of one man,' and join with us in a
holy testimony against regulations and practices which involve
so dangerous a supposition as that it is possible by carnal
weapons to promote the interests of truth. So, reverend gen
tlemen, shall it once more on earth be said, 'See how these
Christians love one another.' And Jesus Christ, accepting as
a personal service your kindness to his disciples, will say at
last, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of
these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' "
In this country every available means was used
to throw the influence of the Baptist denomination,
and also that of the United States government, into
serving the cause of the oppressed in Europe. The
eminent Dr. Welch, of Albany, was sent by the
Foreign Mission Board to Washington, to confer
with President Van Buren and the secretary of ¦
state, and enlist their help so far as consistent. Hon.
William L. Marcy, who was then counselor of the
president as to foreign affairs, doubtless assisted on
that occasion, as he did afterward when secretary of
the state, and also of war, in the cabinets of Polk
and Pierce.
Deputations were sent by the board to Germany
and Denmark to endeavor to influence their govern
ments. Professors Hackett and Conant, of Newton
and Hamilton theological seminaries, were consti
tuted one of these deputations. Professor Hackett's
report as to the sufferings of the persecuted is very
affecting. He states that the younger Munster,

262 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
after being thrown into prison while on a tour, and
subjected to cruel treatment, received a letter from
his wife that she was drawing nigh unto death. He
petitioned that he might be transferred to a prison
at his home, and have liberty to visit his wife.
The petition was denied. Some of the public jour
nals criticised the heartlessness, and it coming to
the knowledge of the king, he ordered the request
to be granted, and during the short time before
consumption finished its work, the prisoner had the
privilege of seeing his dying wife.
It happened that at the time when these American
brethren visited Copenhagen, the preachers were
out of prison for a season ; and in the house of
one of them, where they were urged to sit at a
meal, a door was taken from its hinges to serve as
•the table, so thoroughly had the fines exhausted all
their means and everything that could be seized out
of their houses. "Tears of joy bore witness to the
emotions which filled their bosoms in the reception
which awaited us. We had come with consolation
to hearts that needed it and could feel it."
The prison official was interviewed, and mani
fested a humaneness in striking contrast with the
harsh self-justification of the bishop and his subordi
nates. This overseer of the prisoners volunteered to
assume some of the fines which all their effects failed
to cancel ; and when thanked for his kindness by the
deputation, he said : "It is no merit of mine ; they
deserve it all," — adding with much emotion: "I

THE STORY OF ONCKEN. 263
have nothing but good to say of them — nothing but
good." And he was a member of the persecuting
church ! The deputation itself was not allowed its
visit without being summoned before the authorities,
and subjected to an annoying examination.
Their departure was amid the prayers and tears of
the sufferers. As with Paul at Miletus, they accom
panied them to the ship in gathered numbers. " It
seemed as if they could not let us go. Th§y con
tinued on the shore after we had embarked, exchang
ing signals until the distance hid us from each other.
The response of our hearts was : ' Farewell, dear
brethren, for a while farewell. Oceans may roll be
tween us for the rest of our days ; but these passed,
and we, found faithful at the coming of our Lord,
shall meet again on the shores of a blessed eternity,
where no' storms of persecution can reach you, —
where you shall enjoy forever the rest and peace
of heaven.' "
The deputation addressed a letter to the Baptists
of the country, which might be published as a proof
of the fellowship and sympathy of American Baptists
with them, for their own encouragement, and for
commending them to just consideration with their
countrymen. Assuring them of sorrowing sympathy
and unceasing prayer to God, which has been awak
ened in their behalf, the letter continues : —
" We rejoice in the evidence afforded us that the trial of
your faith and patience has not been in vain ; that it has left
you unshaken in your desire and purpose to do the will of God

264 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
in all things, and that you can still cast yourselves without fear
upon the promise : ' My grace is sufficient for thee.'
"We feel, dear-brethren, deeply the difficulties of your pres
ent situation, and know well that they are no ordinary Chris
tian qualities which you have occasion to exercise. May He
who has the treasures of wisdom and grace impart them freely
to you, making you perfect and unblamable to do his most
holy will. We find, as was to have been expected, that the
eyes of many are upon you, who scrutinize rigidly your con
duct, and judge of you by the severest principles. We are
persuaded that you need not shrink from this scrutiny, but
will continue to adorn in all things the doctrine of God our
Saviour, not only because this is required of you by your pro
fession as the disciples of Christ, but on account of the pretext
which any offense, or even so much as the appearance of evil
among you, would furnish for persevering in the opposition
to you from which you have already suffered so long. If there
are any who reproach you willfully, who speak evil of you
without cause, you know that so long as you have a good con
science, and maintain a good conversation in Christ, you may
hope to conciliate the minds even of such, and that at all
events you may appropriate to yourselves the consolation of
those words of the apostle : ' If ye suffer for righteousness'
sake, happy are ye ; be not afraid of their terror, neither be
troubled.' We cannot doubt that you will make it abundantly
manifest, in all your conduct and proceedings, that you are
actuated in the course you pursue by no fickleness of mind,
or love of innovation, or spirit of insubordination or dis
loyalty ; but on the contrary, that your aims are purely
religious, that you are governed by the most sacred convictions
of duty and conscience, and have no other wish than to be
permitted to hold the doctrines and practice the duties of the
gospel, according to your sense of accountability to Him who
has called you to lead quiet and peaceable lives, in all godliness
and honesty.
"Of your future prospects, beloved, we cannot speak with

THE STORY OF ONCKEN. 265
certainty ; but when we consider the nature of the principles
which your ease involves, when we reflect on the reasonable
ness of the privilege which you ask, — namely, that of being
suffered to worship God according to the dictates of your con
sciences and your understanding of the Holy Scriptures, —
when we recollect that it is the privilege which it was the
object of the glorious Reformation to assert and establish, that
it lies in fact as to its spirit at the foundation of the church
constitution of Denmark itself, and that it is now so generally
acknowledged in all Protestant lands both of Europe and
America — we would fain hope that it will ere long obtain the
same practical recognition here also, and thus there be fur
nished to the world a new proof that the true unity of Chris
tianity is to be maintained, not by that mere appearance of
harmony which results from attempts to coerce the opinions
of men, but rather by the generous charity which tolerates
those minor differences of opinion that may separate brethren
of the same faith, and insists only, as the great bond of Chris
tian brotherhood, on a community of good works and Christian
graces. "We deeply regret that his most gracious Majesty, the king
of Denmark, is at this time absent from Copenhagen, and that
we are thus prevented from seeking an audience with him. We
should have been happy in an opportunity to thank him for the
interest which he has on former occasions expressed in your
behalf, and to pray him to exert his royal authority to preserve
you from further molestation, and to secure to you the religious
privileges which your brethren enjoy in other countries. You
will continue, we are sure, as in duty bound, ever to respect his
exalted station, to honor his person, and pray for the happiness
and prosperity of himself and all who are related to him.
"We have been favored while here with access to individuals
of distinction and influence, both in church and in the govern
ment, who have received us with the greatest courtesy, have
listened with kindness to our statement of the objects of our
mission, and allowed us to urge upon them the consideration of

266 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
your present unhappy situation, and the grounds upon which
you, in common with those who hold your principles in other
places, feel that you are worthy to receive the toleration, and,
so far as regards security against any infringement of your
religious freedom, the protection also of an enlightened and
Christian government.
"And now it only remains for us to commend you anew to
God and the word of his grace. The Lord give you rest, and
build you up in the faith and order of the gospel. In him we
may put our trust ; for he is faitliful, and will never forsake his
servants who commit to him their cause.
"Yours in the bonds of Christian faith and fellowship,
"Horatio B. H.\ckbtt,
"Thomas J. Conant."
Thus the Baptists of America and the Baptists of
Great Britain landed themselves on the field of
Europe, as they had done on the field of Asia, as
the army of conquest, assigned by the King of kings
to the service of winning freedom for his truth and
his people. Other denominations of Christians had
their place in the conflicts ; but none, we think, have
been called to positions so critical, of such cost in
suffering and decisiveness of achievement, as our
trophy-intrusted people.
It was Oncken's high honor, conferred by the
guidance of the Holy Spirit, as in Paul's entering
Europe eighteen hundred years before, to be the
pioneer in securing religious liberty under the civil
governments of Central and Northern Europe. So
had it been the honor of Carey and Judson, under
the same guidance, to be the first to raise this banner
and lead in its victories over the despotisms of Asia,

-THE STORY OF ONCKEN. 267
and of. Roger Williams, also thus guided, to be the
pathfinder for liberty of the soul in America.
When the heroic German missionary had served
out his sixty years of official labor in Europe as
evangelist and reformer, had been in prisons oft, de
spoiled of his property and maltreated in his person ;
when his army of fellow soldiers raised up to serve
with him had shared in all his persecutions, — hunted
like depredatory beasts through all the countries, im
prisoned, robbed by unjust laws and violent hands,
pursued in some instances to martyrdom ; and when,
finally, the voice of Christendom, through its relig
ious organizations, and from its seats of national gov
ernment, demanded that these oppressions should
cease, — a victory was won of transcendent import.
Thus is fulfilled the prophecy of an early Writer, that
the German Baptist mission appeared set not only for
propagating Christianity in that land, but to assert
the claims of humanity and the rights of conscience
for its whole family of nations.
To-day, with the few exceptions where we shall
have to see our brethren still in the midst of the
fight, religious toleration, if not complete equality of
liberty in church matters, is enjoyed throughout
Europe. The seven Baptists of 1834 are multiplied
into eighty-nine thousand one hundred and nineteen
iu the churches of Europe, with tens of thousands in
America who have been sent here from those
churches, and won to Christ here by laborers from
thence. And how vast the numbers also who, out of

268 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
their great tribulations, have gone up with the blood-
washed white robes, and joined the song that can be
learned only by the redeemed of earth ! Schools for
the educating of laborers, in the ministry and other
wise, are established in those countries, and publish
ing houses send out the Bible, and periodicals,
books, and tracts to go everywhere preaching the
word. Ali-eady more than two hundred laborers
have gone forth from the school in Stockholm,
whence Nilson and the other pioneers were so long
banished ; and these graduates, at home, in our own
country, and in all countries, are at work in wonder
fully fruitful fields.
We have thus brought out the old portraits of the
]>erhaps unheard-of Haldanes and of Hughes, and
the fresher ones of Oncken and his co-workers, that
the generations risen up since they passed out of
mention, and the generations to rise up hereafter,
may learn something of what is due them from the
world that was not worthy of them, and from Chris
tians who reap the harvest of which martyrs' blood
is the seed.

CHAPTER XIX.
REMAINDERS OF PERSECUTION.
"Aud it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a
little time, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren,
who shallbe killed even as they were, should have fulfilled
their course.'' Rev. 6 : 11.
THE, inscription on the Peristyle at the Columbian
Exposition, — " Ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free," — was as -fitting to the
history commemorated as it was gratifying to Chris
tians ; and it spoke a prophecy as well as a history ;
for " there remaineth yet much land to be possessed "
before the flag of equal religious rights and privileges
shall float over all the earth. State establishments,
which still sit heavily upon the nations of Europe
and Asia,, and upon portions of the other continents,
must go down before the emancipating power of thes
truth ; and even in our free American republic,
where the victories of religious liberty have seemed
complete, there are lui-king-places of oppression for
the truth to clear away.
In class legislation on the subject by States, we
had supposed Tennessee to be the last armed foe to
[269]

270 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
expire ; where Baptists and brethren of Adventist
faith, with their chronic rigidity of conscience and
loyalty to what they understand God's word re
quires, have continued to suffer arrests, fines, and
imprisonments for their religious principles. Some
may think it a misfortune, but none can show it to
be a crime, to interpret the fourth commandment as
making our Saturday to be the seventh day, which
God has blessed and required to be kept holy, and
that the same commandment requires labor on the
other six days. For so interpreting and practicing
these Christian people in most other States are un
molested, and even respected for the sacrifices they
choose to make for conscience' sake.
But in Tennessee, cases like the following are
persistently brought before the courts : —
"The Grand Jury indicted five farmers living on small places
near the village of Springville. The cases were tried in Paris.
The prosecution did not attempt to .prove that any one was
disturbed by the work of these poor farmers ; indeed, the
witnesses for the State each declared that he was not dis
turbed. One of the prisoners had been seen plowing straw
berries on Sunday, another cutting sprouts, and another loading
wood upon a wagon. The accused did not employ counsel,
but each made a simple statement of his case, relying upon
the guarantee of the constitution, and the intelligence of the
judge and jury, for acquittal. The following is the statement
of Mr. W. S. Lowry : ' 1 would like to say to the jury that, as
has been stated, I am a Seventh-day Adventist. I keep the
seventh day of the week as the Sabbath. 1 read my Bible, and
my convictions on the Bible are that the seventh day of the
week is the Sabbath, which comes on Saturday. I observe

REMAINDERS OF PERSECUTION. 271
that day the best I know how. Then I claim the God-given
right to six days of labor. I have a wife aud four children,
and it takes my labor six days to make a living. I go about
my work quietly, — do not make any unnecessary noise, — but
do my work as quietly as possible. It has been proved by the
testimony of Mr. Cox and Mr. Fitch, who live around me, that
they were' not disturbed. Here I am before the court to an
swer for this right that I claim as a Christian. I am a law-
abiding citizen, believing that we should obey the laws of the
State ; but whenever they conflict with my religious convictions
on the Bible, 1 stand and choose to serve the. law of my God
rather than the laws of the State. I do not desire to cast any
reflections upon the State, nor the officers and authorities exe
cuting the law. I leave the case with you.' "
It would seem impossible that at this day, in the
United States, a judge would charge, and a jury
find, otherwise than to cause the immediate dis
charge of the prisoners; but they were promptly
convicted and fined with costs. Of the verdict they
afterward said : " We did not pay our fines and
costs, which amounted to about twenty-five dollars
each, because we considered them unjust; and,
besides, if we had paid them and returned to our
work, we would have been re-arrested, and thus
compelled to spend all the little property we own
in paying fines."
The alternative was that, after lying in jail for
over forty days, three of these conscientious citizens
were taken out in the chain-gang, with three negro
criminals who had been sentenced for drunkenness,
shooting in the street, and fighting the city marshal,
and set to work on the public highway. And it is

272 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
reported that through recent years worthy seventh-
day observers have been systematically persecuted in
Tennessee and Arkansas, by fines and imprisonments.
That it is distinctively religious persecution, is
shown by the fact that other and flagrant violations
of the Sunday laws are allowed full impunity, — ^as
Sunday excursions, and labor simply for gain,
which desecrate the day to the great disturbance
of those observing it. The hierarchical instigation
must therefore be behind these prosecutions, gener
ating a spirit of intolerance in the churches of
Sunday observers, and venting that spirit upon
defenseless dissenters from their creed.
Strangest of all in these proceedings is the action
of the supreme court of the State of Tennessee in
sustaining the action of the lower court, on the
ground that Christianity is a part of the common
law of that State. Does Christianity then make
the observance of the seventh day instead of the
first a crime ? When and where since the resurrec
tion of Christ has Christianity done this ? And the
Supreme Court of the United States, while express
ing the opinion that the sufferers in Tennessee were
wrongly convicted, put the case out of their hands
by ruling that the court of Tennessee is the final
judge of what is law in that State. And so it must
be said, in the words of a certain writer : ' ' Poor
Mr. King, of whom I have written before, was
pursued with the relentless ferocity supposed to be
characteristic of demons, until death came to his

REMAINDERS OF PERSECUTION. 273
relief. He, and these two victims of religious in
tolerance, belong to the chosen band of royal souls
who in all ages have been persecuted for conscience'
sake. They hold the same position as that formerly
occupied by the martyrs and heroes for conscience'
sake, whose sufferings and heroic deaths form
luminous examples of high thinking and noble act
ing amid the gloom of the past."
The persistency with which these persecutions are
kept up, instigated by surreptitious informers, and
often with religious pretensions, recalls the tedious
annals of suffering two hundred years ago. To-day,
while we write, the report lies before us of new
indictments, convictions, and imprisonments of
numbers of conscientious observers of Saturday
instead of Sunday, though no disturbance of others
is alleged ; and now, as ever. Baptist bodies and
enlightened advocates are not failing to make pub
licly heard their protests against these oppressive
laws and cruel penal infiictions.
Maryland, also, has the bad record standing
against her of using her Sunday laws to persecute
those who observe the seventh instead of the first
day of the week, — Maryland, the State which Roman
ists claim was the first colony to establish religious
freedom. Even the toleration which she did early
proclaim, she now denies to a humble. God-fearing
people. In the large cities of many States the municipal
government has not scrupled to appropriate money
18

274 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
raised by taxing all the people, to the institutions
of a religious sect, these to be managed in the
interest of the sect ; and large sums have been
appropriated from public funds to parochial schools
of the Catholic Church. , This policy would destroy
the free common schools of our country, on the
false pretense that they are either sectarian in re
ligion, or godless. It is not sectarian to recognize
the existence and authority over men of God and
the revelation from him which the entire civilization
of our country. Catholic as well as Jew and other,
accepts. And more than this the common school
does not necessarily demand.
To appropriate the public funds to the schools and
the charities of a church would be to adopt the com
promise which the Baptists of Virginia and Georgia
so promptly rejected and defeated, when those States
attempted to tax the people for church rates, but
allow each tax-payer to designate his payment to his
own church. The Baptists said. This will relieve
us, but it is union of Church and State, which, we
condemn, as violating New Testament policy by
compelling the support of churches.
The Baptists also lead in rejecting and condemn
ing this policy in the general government, as applied
to the support of church schools for the Indians. It
was adopted by the government, and accepted by the
denominations, resulting, of course, in the Catholic
mission schools' securing most of the appropriations.
The late United States Indian commissioner, Gen-

REMAINDERS OF PERSECUTION. 275
eral T. J. Morgan, as a Baptist saw at once the in
consistency of the action of the government, and
made his sentiment known, though carrying out the
policy so far as was his duty. He was subjected to
much persecution by the Catholic powers, and Presi
dent Harrison, who sustained him, incurred a telling
political opposition ; but all the Protestant denomi
nations have come to see the wrong in such appro
priations, and take action in relinquishment of them.
The support of chaplains is thought by some to
infringe on freedom in religion ; but such support
is not in aid of any church, but in aid of govern
ment itself ; and if service is employed without
partiality toward any denomination, and for ends
which are common to all, no injustice is done.
The people as a whole desire the government to
enjoy and confer the benefits of such a recognition
of the religion which characterizes this country and
the more enlightened nations of the earth.
As has been said, in Mexico, and in the Catholic
portions of the Dominion of Canada, priestly domi
nation excites persecutions in violation of law, and
prison confinements, even, are still reported as suf
fered by the Baptists ; but religious liberty is the
law, and the intolerant spirit finds it more and more
difficult to face the condemnation of the public
sentiment. The New Baptist missions in Cuba have had trial
of arrests and confinements and contested property
rights, but the molestations have failed of serious

276 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
effect. The countries of South America have yet to
take their place among the nations freed from the
oppressions of Church and State unions.
The most severe contest which Bible principles
have now to sustain is under the government of
Russia. The imperial power places in the hands of
the Greek hierarchy the regulation of all religious
organizations and services. This state religion is as
graceless and as heartlessly intolerant as was ever the
Roman Catholic, and under it Baptists are called to
"fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of
Christ in their flesh, for his body's sake, which is the
church." Of regular Baptists by name there were
reported, in 1892, six thousand and sixty-four with
six hundred and forty-seven baptisms ; while of the'
quarter of a million of Stundists more than one third
are Baptists.
From a foreign letter in a recent number of Tlie
Standard, we copy extracts which read as if they
were cries in the Dark Ages : —
" ' Since the commencement of the year I am without employ
ment, as it is officially forbidden to employ the Baptists, and
hence impossible for me to find work. I must tell you in a few
words that to-day the authority has informed me that I am exiled
to the Persian frontier for five years. I rejoice that the Lord has
found me worthy to suffer for his cause. Do not forget to re
member me in your prayers. Soon we shall be near to the
Lord, where there will be no more tears. Sister K. has died of
hungfer and fever, and was buried while bur brother, her .hus
band, with their four children at home, were prostrated from
the same cause. His heart is broken ; he cannot recover. What
makes the case sadder, is that he and Brother S., because they

REMAINDERS OF PERSECUTION. 277
have consoled us with the word of God, are sentenced to go into
exile, apart, where they will be alone in the midst of ferocious
Tartars, and exposed to their murderous attacks. Brother W.
is always in prison and in chains on account of his faith. Our
sufferings and our needs cannot be described.'
"From another; 'Take care of my wife and children. I
have no clothes, and I know not where I can find bread ; but
to-day I had the joy of baptizing seven converts.'
"Another writes: 'The deportations of our brothers and
sisters, oppressed on account of their faith, become more fre
quent and more numerous. The sufferings we see endured by
them in passing through our town are impossible to describe.
Tell it to our brothers, that they may think of us at times.'
"Another Russian brother relates 'how he escaped, almost
by a miracle, just when he was about to be deported to Siberia
for sixteen years, simply for having read and explained the
Scriptures to sixteen of his friends.'
"Pray for the Russian Baptists, who are making notable
progress in the midst of cruel persecutions."
The following was sent to the Baptist Missionary
Magazine (December, 1893), for publication, by
Mr. Niclas Fadroff, of Los Angeles, Cal. It was
written by his mother, who is still in Russia, and
is an eye-witness of the heart-rending scenes de
scribed : —
"My Beloved Son : We are all very well, and give thanks
to our heavenly Father for his abundant blessings to us, and
to his Son, our Lord and Saviour, that he keeps his promise
that he once spoke to his beloved disciples. He does not
forget us in our bitter persecution that we are now in. The
district chief superior forbids the Christians from buying or
selling, and our churches are all burned by a mob led by the
Greek church priests, and all country property belonging to
Christians has also been destroyed by fire, and our cattle de-

278 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
stroyed, and our dwelling-houses in cities must have their
street windows closed, because the Greek church people throw
stones when they see us by the windows, and sometimes they
throw stones at us when we walk on the streets, and our Bap
tists are hurt very badly.
" But worse than all past orders by the imperial and most
holy church senate, is the decree that all Baptists shall be re-
baptized in the Greek Catholic Church, and if they do not give
themselves to that order, then their children shall be taken
from the parents, and be baptized by force, and given to the
members of the Greek Church or to the convents, and the
father and mother be banished to Siberia for life, and their
property confiscated to the Greek Church. These orders are
now executed against us one after another. Eight of our Bap
tist brothers have been flogged with rods almost to death, and
sent to Siberia, and their children scattered away from them,
some to the convents and some given to members of the Greek
Church. This was done by district authorities and the Greek
Church priests. They allege that we are the cause of all the
misfortunes that come upon Russia, including the cholera and
the famine.
"But we give thanks to our heavenly Father for his abun
dant blessings to us, and that he protected us from the cholera.
We are trying to endure all these things by the help of God.
He only is our helper, and we believe that he does not forget
us in our bitter persecution. We hope that you yvill s'peak to
American Christians. We hope that American Baptists will
remember us in prayer, that we may have faith in His promise
that he gave in Matthew 5 : ' Blessed are they which are per
secuted for righteousness' sake : for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.' And I ask you, my dear son, to do your best to
release your suffering mother and your brothers. We are
praying for you, that you might have good success to do this
quickly. We all join in sending kind love to you.
" Yours truly,
"Mother."

REMAINDERS OP PERSECUTION. 279
The gentleman who sends this pathetic commu
nication writes in explanation: —
"I take on myself to elucidate about the rods used for flog
ging in Russia. They take branches of willow trees about one
quarter of an inch thick and two feet long, and about twenty
in the bunch, tie them at one end, and before using them put
them in hot water for about ten hours. They take a man, strip
ofl his clothes, and fasten him to the scaffold. The first stroke
makes bloody marks thick as a pencil, the second stroke cuts
these marks open, and blood flows in streams in all directions.
When they have been continued to one hundred or two hun
dred, then no more flesh is left on the man's back, and you can
see the bones. This is the flogging our Baptist Christians re
ceived, thus suffering for Jesus Christ and for their own nation,
that the people of Russia might repent, and turn from idolatry
and come to Christ.
" This persecution movement began, properly, last year,
when an edict was sent out to compel all members of the Bap
tist Church and other evangelical denominations to send their
children to the Greek Church, and forbade them being taught
any other faith. A few hundred children, whose unfortunate
parents gave no heed to the proclamation, were forcibly taken
and placed in monasteries, with no expectation of seeing their
parents again. It is described as one of the most terrible pict
ures of horror imaginable, by witnesses who saw the screaming
children torn from the embrace of distracted parents who had
no power to hold them, and could only cry out in agony as they
saw them carried ofl by rough, unfeeling men. One woman, a
widow, and the mother of seven children, the eldest of whom
was ten years of age, was seen weepingly to kiss her little
family and bless them, saying, 'My God will be with you.' "
It almost passes belief that a government of the
civilization of Russia, under the friendly relations
and interminglings of the nations at this day, in view

280 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
of reliefs for her starving which have filled her ports
with bread-laden ships from the Christian countries,
and in face of earnest appeals from these sister na
tions, still persists in such barbarous persecutions,
infiicted upon her best citizens, for peaceable obedi
ence to the word of God. That word she pretends
to hold as the supreme law for every man to obey.
But a hierarchy, bigoted to the last extreme, and
ruthless in its treatment of dissenters, dominates the
civil authorities in their religious interpreting and
executing of law. If the civil government was freed
from this interference, there would, we presume, be
no molestation of those serving God in dutiful ways
as conscience should dictate. It is, therefore, the
same old war of graceless hierarchs upon godly
heroes. Religion on dress-parade upon the floor of its
"Parliament," where " we listened to the marvelous
plea of the great Greek archbishop, and to that
wonderful prayer with which he lifted us in commun
ion with the unseen God," shows quite differently
from what it does on the field of its riding with
bloody horse-hoofs over faithful Christian citizens in
Russia. Also the religion of Buddhists, fulminating in the
Parliament against the slaughter of animals ap
pointed for food, shows a different view of the sa
credness of life when it instigates and rewards the
butchery of five evangelical Karen laborers, of the'
Burman Baptist mission. {Missionary Magazine, De-

REMAINDERS OF PERSECUTION. 281
cember, 1893.) "If ye had known wha,t this mean-
eth, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not
have condemned the guiltless."
The officials of the state Greek Church are plying
their efforts to suppress Baptists in Greece, and have
arrested our missionary pastor, Mr. Sakellarios, re
peatedly, and driven converts from the country ;
but the civil authorities, through their favorable
knowledge of the pastor, and the interposition of
the American consul, could not be forced to violent
measures. Mr. Sakellarios, speaking of his late arrests and
release by the prime minister, who knows his char
acter and work, and by the American consul. Pro
fessor Man att, says : —
"Even my Presbyterian brethren did publish in the news
papers that ' Mr. Sakellarios is not one of us, as an evangelical,
for he does not accept the baptism of the Greek Church, as
we do respect it.' They did this that they might protect
themselves. "After all the means which my persecutors have used, and
the anxiety which they have shown to succeed in their designs,
they could not do anything. Neither could they stop my
preaching even one Lord's day. They intended to form a
mob to attack my house to stop my preaching,
"Liberty of religion and of conscience will come through
the Baptist Christians, as it did in every country of Europe and
America." At Dresden, the capital of Saxony, the Baptist
pastor is now under sentence of fine and imprison
ment for baptizing disciples. Thus even Germany

282 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
has not yet entirely suppressed the violent measures
which her state church excites.
Spain and the Mohammedan countries have been
supposed to be the most merciless in their treatment
of dissenters, but we are hearing less of their per
secutions, except in Turkey, where the horrible
slaughter of Armenian Christians is the latest woe.
In Switzerland, generally considered the freest and
most republican of European governments, while all
men are declared equal before the law, the declara
tion must have respect to the abolition of titles of
nobility and rank ; for established religions are still
maintained, the Reformed in some cantons, in others
the Catholic. This must imply that citizens are taxed
to support these churches, and that educational and
other state institutions are under church control.
Jesuits are expelled from the country, and their
schools are prohibited. The laws of toleration are
extended to "all recognized Christian denomina
tions ; " but the state is the recognizing power, and
may except and banish bodies judged unchristian.
The school laws make attendance compulsory on
school days. Saturday is one of these days, and
observers of this as the Sabbath are prosecuted for
not sending their children on that day, — a severe
infraction of religious liberty.
Sweden, where so much has been suffered by Bap
tists, but where their persistence and increase have
been so distinguished, even yet grants but limited
toleration. The Lutheran, as the state church, has

REMAINDERS OF PERSECUTION. 283
to be sustained by dissenters equally with its ad
herents, — an oppression which the poverty of the
common people makes very burdensome. The Lu
theran clergy exert "a controlling influence in the
government." They are often also the civil mag
istrates, and are extremely intolerant. They have
unlimited rule in the national education. Their
archbishop and the subordinate bishops are nomi
nated by the king. None but a member of the
established church can hold civil offlce. An ' ' au
thorization from the king" must be obtained for
the organization of any dissenting society.
As the Baptists, with growing strength and un
wavering trust, wage on their contest for equal liber
ties, a recent visitor from our country reports of
them: "They still rest under many exasperating
civil and religious disabilities. There is, however,
a rapid growth of a more liberal spirit, so that un
prejudiced observers, even among the staunch ad
herents of the state church, take no pains to conceal
the conviction that complete religious liberty, and the
disestablishment of the Lutheran Church, though not
immediately at hand, are ultimately inevitable."
Over the "dark continent," though her barbarous
tribes meet Christianity with no such organized re
sistance as nominal Christian nations have employed,
the liberty wherewith the truth makes free has yet to
be diffused. But on its coasts and up its rivers are
luminous breaks in the thick night that has so long
rested on those vast regions.

284 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
"Weep not in bitter grief, O earth !
Weep not in hopelessness !
From out the heavens 'a still small voice'
Whispers returning peace.
Thy tears are precious in the sight
Of One who marks their flow.
Who purposes of mercy spoke
Six thousand years ago !
" Thy days of grief are numbered all.
Their sum will soon be told ;
The joy of youth, the smile of God,
Shall bless thee as of old.
Shall shed a purer, holier light
Than at thy morning hour
First beamed upon thy peaceful brow.
Six thousand years ago.''

CHAPTER XX.
UNITY IN FELLOWSHIP, DIVERSITY IN VISION.
"That they may be one even as we are one ; 1 in them and
thou in me."
THE persecutions in religious history have all been,
in reality or in pretense, in the interest of relig
ions union ; but in effect they have been utterly de
structive of religious uftty. Union and unity may
be very different things. Union in sin and unity in
¦Christ are at the opposite poles in the sphere of
human life. Union in creed and unity in spirit are
not necessarily found together.
It is a mistake at these points that causes many
Christians to deplore that Christ's prayer cannot, as
they think, have answer, and to locate their hope
of its answer in a far-distant and greatly changed
future. But this prayer is either never to be answered
in this world, or else it was answered when offered,
has been in the history of all good Christians, is now,
and will be perpetually. If the oneness prayed for
is absolute in every point of view, it must await equal
perfection of knowledge of truth, and of obedience
in duty, in all Christians. Whether such attainment
in knowledge will ever be reached, even in the heav-
[385]

286 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
enly state, is a matter not beyond present question ;
but none will question that Christian oneness will
there be enjoyed. No more do we question that the
history of Christianity is not to leave Christ's prayer
unanswered here ; and we believe that in good meas
ure the answer has been and is enjoyed.
For what is sought in the prayer? — It is not one
ness of manifestation or visible organization. The
expressions used do not allow of this. The type of
the oneness prayed for is that which exists in the
Father and the Son: "That they may be one as
weare." But the Son was at that time manifest
in human flesh. The Father was a Spirit whom no
man has seen or can see. The Son was working
after his manner, the Father after his manner ; but
there was essential oneness of being and purpose and
work, and this is what Christ desires in his followers,
and what is attained by true and faithful Christians.
Those who clamor for union by decrying all de
nominational distinctions, and insisting that all
should go into one church, — the church of their
devising, — are a great distance outside of the prayer
of the Master, and of any possible road into true
unity. Christian unity, in the present state of
knowledge and habituated thought, demands differ
ent organizations, instead of prohibiting them. The
oneness of character, spirit, aim, and work, will
make the world know the divinity of Christ's mis
sion. A union of organization will produce no sucli
effect on the world.

UNITY IN FELLOWSHIP, DIVERSITY IN VISION. 287
Nor, if knowledge were adequate, would a one
ness of intellectual belief teach what Christ says the
answer to his prayer will do. All Christians are
united in the belief that marriage is a relation which
nothing but death should sever, and which should
promote the highest happiness in society ; but this
oneness of belief does not make the world know
that marriage is of God, and that all married pairs
enjoy its blessedness. If all married pairs were
godly, and their lives constantly exhibited a divine
blessedness, the world would know that the relation
is of God, and that he has from creation connected
his blessing with it and made it as durable as life.
All who possess the true Christian character love
the same things, choose the same things, work for
the same things, and work by the same methods so
far as they severally see that the methods are the
right and the best ones. It is not necessary that
they work together personally, or that they agree in
judgment as to all methods of work. Even the
loving John mistook here, in his moment of short
sight: "Master, we saw one casting out demons
in thy name, and we forbade him because he fol
loweth not with us ; but Jesus said. Forbid him not,
for he that is not against you is for you." The
Master had not commanded this man to follow him
in personal attendance, as he had bidden John and
the rest of the twelve to do.
The principle of obedient service of the Lord is
the unifying principle in Christians. All whom

288 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
it supremely controls are one. All who knowingly
violate this principle throw themselves out of the
oneness. If the violation, by act or neglect, is for
the sake of union, it buys the name of union at the
cost of real unity, and the name stands for a sinner's
union, and not for a Christian's ; for Christian unity
depends upon the seeing, by the different members
in it, that each one is supremely loyal to Christ, as
he learns Christ's will. Violating the principle of
obedience shows disloyalty, and destroys Christian
unity. To illustrate : Two friends are completely one in
their love and associated lives. Together they be
come Christians. Now a new tie, the strongest of
all heart-ties, binds them more sacredly to each
other. The command to repentance and trust in
him who is the propitiation for our sins they have
seen and obeyed alike. The same love of Christ
constrains them. Their prayer becomes one breath,
"Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" The will
and Testament of their Saviour is their law, and
they set themselves prayerfully to learn its contents,
and obediently carry out its provisions.
But they have grown up under different influences,
and there are points of knowledge which they ap
proach somewhat differently prejudiced ; nor are
they of the same capacity to apprehend knowledge,
and see the importance of exact conformity to it.
Together they come to one of these points. One of
them thinks he sees the will of Christ directing him

UNITY IN FELLOWSHIP, DIVERSITY IN VISION. 289
upon a certain path, the other thinks he sees it di
recting him upon a different path. The paths will
take them into different but Christian churches ; and
perhaps the faiths and practices of the churches will
outwardly separate these friends at a point of tender
interest, and not without pain.
What shall they do? Shall they say at such a
fork in the roads. We cannot even seem to be sepa
rated here ; we are joined together, and nothing
shall break the union ; we will compromise ; one
shall go with the other, though he sees the directing
by Christ to be different ? If they do this, they make
their social fellowship the law, and Christ's authority
must accommodate itself to their principle of union ;
and their Christian fellowship for each other is
wounded to the extent to which this matter affects it.
How much more Christian, and how much more for
the confidence and love between the friends, to say.
To be a Christian is to follow Christ ; we must
each obey as we understand his will ; to love any
one or anything more than Christ, is to be not
worthy of him.
The apostle Paul has given the rule in this case :
"Be ye followers of me even as I also am of
Christ." That is, in following man we must see
Christ over the man's head, and keep the range on
the Christ line. If the man swerves, though he be
an apostle, — as apostles did swerve in conduct, not
in their writings, — let the follower look unto Jesus :
"Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids
19

290 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
look Straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy
feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not
to the right hand nor to the left. "
Said Christ : "I have kept my Father's command
ments, and abide in his love." That is the unity in
the Godhead. "If ye keep my commandments, ye
shall abide in my love." That is the unity which
the faithful believer has in Christ. "If we walk in
the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another." This is the unity in all who fol
low Christ. The light of God shines to us in Jesus
Christ. Each walks in the light as it comes to him.
Imperfect vision may see Christ, — the light, — some
what displaced ; but we must walk as we see. Look
ing at the same light, and -advancing in it, no
variance of vision can cause much divergence, or
prevent our soon coming together. At farthest, the
lines will coincide at the crossing, and on the shore
where there is no night, the knowledge which was
in part shall be done away, and unity will become
perfect union.
Looking thus at present differences among faithful
Christians as proofs of fidelity to personal convic
tions as to Christ's will, there will be love and re
spect, — never persecution. Across the space which
may separate their church life, they will take sweet
counsel, and walk together still in all the ways of
common experience, beliefs, and works. Whoever
is seen to be supremely devoted in love and the
obedience of faith, committed to put his feet in

UNITY IN FELLOWSHIP, DIVERSITY IN VISION. 291
every print of the feet of Jesus that he can find
left for him to follow, and obey every voice of his
Lord which says to him, "This is the way, walk ye
in- it," is in the oneness for which Christ prayed
and left his example and teachings ; and such fol
lowers will show to the world this singleness of type.
But, as we have said, until knowledge is perfect
in all, there will be differences which, from the fun
damental principle of Christian fellowship, will
demand different church organizations, instead of
demolishing them. Sectarian feeling and conduct
are the source and the result of demands by some
that others shall surrender or repress their Christian
convictions. Christian unity is the cause and fruit
of each one's answering his conviction to his Lord.
What is true between genuine individual Chris
tians is true between churches and denominations
of such membership. All of experience, and all of
knowledge, and all of work, that they have in
common, they enjoy and pursue in a oneness of
manifested life. They commune together in spirit,
which is the only Bible communion of saints. They
pray together for the same things ; they preach and
publish and personally testify to the same saving
truths. Their beneficence fiows in the same forms,
though in separate channels, to the same objects
throughput home and foreign lands.
In matters of denominational difference, local
churches and general bodies pursue, with fraternal
recognitions, their parallel or converging lines of not

292 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
wide separation, and rejoice in each other's achieve
ments. They are the " one fiock " of many "folds."
Contrast this unity in evangelical Christians of
every name and land with the rivalries and hostili
ties between great worldly corporations in manufact
ure, transportation, and trade, or between parties in
politics, all professedly aiming at the same good end,
or between schools and contestants in the secular
professions, and every fair-minded observer will say
that our Lord's prayer for unity has not failed of
answer. From these peaceful and prosperous sources of
God's spiritual people, how far adrift are the perse
cuting hierarchies, in their forced unions of formal
religion! How blind, — how brutal often, — their
attempts to force a Christian oneness by coercing
men into subjection to their form-doing ! The
ancients looked northward over the clouded, cold,
a.hd storm-vexed Euxine, and located the Cimmerian
darkness on its distant shore ; the moderns called it
the Black Sea. It is the symbol of the hierarchical
religions. Little of Heaven's unclouded light breaks
through their sky. The torpidity of cold and of
spiritual death, drift in their darkness ; or the vexing
unrest of oppressed souls heaves the billows upon
each other.
Contrast again the cooperative fraternal oneness
in regenerate Christians with the forced conformity
attempted by priests and bishops and courts. Per
secution works hard for poor pay. It acts upon

UNITY IN FELLOWSHIP, DIVERSITY IN VISION. 293
Christianity on the line of resistance, never of help.
The moiety and mimicry of union it secures is the
fatal destruction of unity. As Napoleon said, the
empire of Jesus is built not' upon force, but upon love.
Its subjects are held together not by the pressure of
power, but by the constraint of cohesion.
Against this only real oneness Baptists, by their
principles, can do nothing. For it, in their history,
they have done much. They are the last ones who
should have been persecuted for making schisms in
the body of Christ. Few have had oftener to say
with their Master, "They hated me without a cause."
Personally they have not been perfect, but have
shared with others the inconsistency which drew
from Christ the reproof, "Ye know not what man
ner of spirit ye are of." Churches have too often
failed to cherish and manifest the Christian spirit ;
but so far as they are charged with breaking peace
in the house of God by their beliefs, held and prop
erly practiced, they can meet the charge with ,a firm
denial. The charge can be based only upon the
fact that, for themselves, they act upon the principle
of supreme loyalty to Christ, learning his will from
his word alone ; and this principle and action we
have shown to be fundamental in the maintenance
of Christian fellowship and unity.
The peculiarities of the denomination, therefore,
instead of provoking accusations of unbrotherly
sectarianism, ought to commend them to the fellow
ship and respect of all Christians. It costs some-

294 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
thing, — it has cost much, — to persist in this loyalty.
It is worth something, — worth something not to
themselves alone, but to the cause which is supreme
with all who are on the Lord's side.
And the most intelligent and candid of other
denominations do commend the Baptists for their
consistency. Thus Dr. John Hall, of the Presby
terian pulpit in New York, says : ' ' There is some
gain to society as a whole from a large denomina
tion's making a stand at a particular point, and
reminding their brethren that there are church
matters which we are not bound to settle, or at
liberty to settle, according to popular demands."
President Woods, of the Andover Theological Semi
nary, Congregationalist, said: " I have wish'ed that
our denomination was as free from erratic specula
tions, and as well grounded in doctrines and experi
mental principles, as the Baptists are. It seems to
me that they are the Christians who are likely to
maintain pure Christianity, and to hold fast the
form of sound words." The Independent credits
the Baptists with "holding and practicing as we
do, in all good conscience, and in exemplary defer
ence to what we regard as the teaching of the
Bible." The Christian Union, considered liberally
Congregational, says: "We have no disposition
to join in the censure which is so freely bestowed
upon the Baptists. Their course, however mistaken,
is certainly consistent, and we must yield them the
respect due to all who adhere firmly to their con-

UNITY IN tELLOWSHIP, DIVERSITY IN VISION. 295
scientious convictions." The Interior rightly claims
and defends the same principle Baptists act upon
when it says : " We Presbyterians ask at the hands
of our sister denominations the liberty to execute
our own laws, to know our own theology, and to
manage our own affairs, without being made the
subject of ungenerous criticism ; and this which we
ask for ourselves we very freely accord to others.
To chide Baptists with bigotry because they abide
by the logical consequences of their system, is
absurd. "
Such fair and respectful treatment should always
be emulated by Baptists. What, with honest relig
ious intention, others hold and practice, in their
policy within their own bodies, should never be
charged upon them as bigotry or treated with dis
respect. However unscriptural any matter may look
to us, the religious acts of those to whom it pertains
are entitled to the respectful treatment which con
sistent Christians accord to each other's words and
acts when they stand face to face. Thus our broth
erly exchange of words and ministries, and our
united labors, will have behind them the force of
correspondent feeling and action within our separate
spheres ; and then the law of Christian unity will
work without friction its happy results, and the
world will believe that the Father sent his Son to
bring this grace to men. Aye, the more will they
be convinced of this if the unity of the Spirit and
bond of peace are seen in coexistence with differ-

296 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
ences in beliefs and church observances ! for less
wonderful and less divine in its origin and main
tenance would be a unity where all were at com
plete agreement. Thus shall we seek the continued
and completed answer to the blessed prayer of our
Lord, that all who believe on him may be one, not
by compromising our convictions of truth and duty,
not by tethering the Christian conscience, but by
imitating him who could say, "Herein do I exercise
myself, to have a conscience void of offense toward
God and men alway."
It is popular with those of little thought or easy
principle to protest that there are too many churches,
especially in small communities. Wherever the pro
test is just. Baptists cannot plead guilty, if the com
munity contains or gives promise of a body held
to their understanding of the Scriptures ; for that
understanding necessarily restrains them from mem
bership in any other church, and constrains them not
to keep furled the " banner given to them that fear
the Lord, that it may be displayed because of the
truth." They should be ready, however, to cooper
ate in the worship and work which are common to all
Christians, whether or not they organize separately.
Differences between denominations of other faiths
may not be so fundamental in church building, or so
composed of Bible precepts. In this case, union
would express fellowship ; in the other, it would be
a futile attempt to smother disfellowship of church
order.

DIVERSITY IN VISION. 297
It is a perpetual surprise to Baptists how different
from their vision of the New Testament church is the
idea of others, even the most evangelical. In the
Centwry magazine of March, 1886, Professor Hodge,
of the Princeton Seminary, says : ' ' There are only
two generally distinct doctrines of the Christian
Church. These are the hierarchical succession (as
the Romish), and the universal, invisible, spiritual
body of regenerate men." To the Baptists, neither
of these is a church at all. The only churches are
the visible, organized, local bodies of regenerate and
baptized people, maintaining each, independently of
human domination, the laws of Christ. Such were
the churches in Judea, in Asia, in Galatia, in Mace
donia, — separate bodies in the various towns of
those countries. The term "church" is indeed ap
plied to the whole body of which Christ is the head ;
but the conception is figurative, as when the same
body is called ''Jerusalem"; or it suggests the ab
stract idea of the Christian institution, as when we
say. The common school, of which the only visible
organization is the concrete district-school of a com
munity. Again the article of Professor Hodge says : "It
is certainly true that communities loyal to historic,
catholic [universal] Christianity, can never organize
upop any principle involving the exclusion of the
children of professing Christians from church mem
bership." In this, he says, he "represents the
seventy millions of pedobaptist Protestant Christians

298 HEROES AND HIERARCHS.
of the English-speaking world." Well, if all except
Baptists include the children of all professing Chris
tians in their church membership, they cannot expect
or desire that a Baptist shall make himself respon
sible for such a membership by uniting in it. They
will see the propriety of his limiting his cooperation
to things in which he is not an indorser of what he
believes to be transgression of Christ's law, and the
source of corruption and impotency in Christ's church.
Rev. Washington Gladden, Congregationalist, went
still farther in his noted magazine articles on ' ' The
Christian League of Connecticut. " With much cap
tivating fiction he elaborated the plan of a com
munity combining to support one minister and one
church, the door into whose membership should
welcome all who expressed a desire for the main
tenance of Christian worship in the place, irrespec
tive of personal experience or views upon religious
matters. It would be interesting to see what kind
of letter would be dictated to such a church by him
who "holdeth the seven stars in his right hand ; he
that walketh in the midst of the seven golden can
dlesticks." In the article accompanying Professor Hodge's,
Dr. Howard Crosby spoke a truth which all mere
outside work at union-making has written large. He
said : ' ' Down deep in the fundamentals of Christ's
divine incarnate sacrifice for sin are the gifts of the
Spirit, — faith, repentance, the new life. Christians
of all evangelical creeds and customs agree upon

UNITY IN FELLOWSHIP, DIVERSITY IN VISION. 299
these, and on these they can unite, but on nothing
else" — that is, on nothing in which they are not
agreed. The unions otherwise formed, he says, are
like "putting together the beams of a house with
Spaulding's glue, and plastering over the, outside. It
looks fair, but a breath of the zephyr brings chaos."
Mr. Beecher's forcible watchword in aiming at
Christian unity was: "Respecting each other's
rights and each other's liberty, living together in
harmony, cooperating where we can, and where we
cannot, letting each other alone."
For this comnion-sense ground which is the castle
of every man and the basis of unity in fellowship
among all unto whom the love of God brings the
love of his begotten. Baptists have had their long
contention, as one of the redoubts of religious lib
erty ; and for what remains for them to do and
suffer, let them appropriate to themselves, as most
justly they may, the immortal words of the martyred
Lincoln, as the great sacrifice which he was to crown
was drawing to its close, and liberty of soul and
body was to be given to the millions of a race, and
established as the birth-right of all beneath our na
tional fiag : —
"With malice toward none, with charity for all,
with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the
right, let us strive to finish the work we are in,"
until in every land every human being shall have
found the quest of all the ages, — " Freedom to wor
ship God."

INDEX.

Anabaptists, 99.
Adams, Samuel, letter to, 165.
Adams, Samuel, opposes lib
erty, 177.
Adams, John, opposer at
Philadelphia, 177, 178.
Arnold of Brescia, 87.
Ashfield persecutions, 158.
Augustine, 72.
Backus, Isaac, 149, 160, 166,
181.
Baptists, characteristics, 56,
7.3, 147, 293.
Baptists, laws against, 132.
Baptism, first attempt to
change, 70.
Baptism, infant, 68, 70.
Bloody Mary, 110.
Bloody Tenet, 133.
Bible, translation, 312, 221.
Boston meeting-house nailed
up, 142.
Buddhist persecution, 280.
Burmah, result of mission,
381.
Carey, 216.
Clarke, John, 125, 136.
Calvin, 103,
Catholics and school funds,
274.
College persecuting, 195, 200.
College, Rhode Island, 201, 204.
Colonial oppressions, 131, 173.
Cromwell's interposition, 84.
Constantine, 71.

Constitution, national, 189,
191.
Consistency approved, 294.
Church, regenerate member
ship, 35.
Church, self-governing, 36.
Church involves liberty, 37.
Churches, too many, 296.
Declaration of Independence,
186.
Denmark, persecution, 358.
Decrees, "76.
Deputations, 258, 263.
Denominational comity, 291.
Docetus, 55.
Donatists, 70.
Dunster, 196.
East India Company, 317, 334.
Ebionites, 54.
Ezekiel foreshows the church,
38
Elizabeth, 110, 113.
English Baptists, 113, 115.
Europe, present state, 376.
Gladden, Ohristian League,298.
Germany, persecution,281, 282.
Gervinus, history, 193.
Greece, persecution, 281.
Gnostics, 55.
Guild, letter, 128.
Haldanes, 232, 234, 339, 340,
343.
Henricians, 86. [301]

302

INDEX.

Henry VIII, 109.
Heresies, 48.
Hetzer, 105.
Holland, historians, 88.
Holmes, Obadiah, 135, 138.
Hubmeier, 101, 103.
Huss, 93.
Jefferson on Baptist polity,
187.
Jerome of Prague, 96.
Jovinian, 76.
Judson, 335, 227.
Love, the Christian charac
teristic, 51, 58.
Lollards, 108.
Limit in following man, 389.
Lincoln, watchword, 399.
Madison, 146.
Malan, 244.
Manning, memorial, 172.
Mantz, 104.
Maryland, persecution, 273.
Marshman, 222.
Martyrdoms, 61.
Massachussetts, final act, 169.
Massacre of emigrants, 103.
Mecklenburg protest, 256.
Mennonites, 106.
Milton, 84.
Missions and liberty, 309.
Mohammedan persecutions,
282.
Munzer,. 99.
Nicolaitans, 55.
Norwich persecutions, 151.
Novatians, 68.
Oncken, 350.
Orange, Wm. of, toleration of,
106.
Paulicians, 86.
Prayer for oneness, 386. i'^

Peter's confession, 33.
Peter's defense before priests,
45.
Petrobrusians, 86.
Pliny's letter, 61.
Priests, 5, 17.
Polycarp, 63.
Quakers, 141, 146.
Regenerate church, 31.
Russian persecutions, 276.
State church, 75.
Saul and the priests, 47.
Stephen, 47.
Sweden persecutions, 255, 283.
Stillman, petition, 155.
Switzerland, 383.
Storrs, R. S., 93.
Suttee, 331.
Tennessee persecutions, 370.
Theodoric the Goth, 78.
Tertullian, 63.
Tertullian opposes children's
baptism, 67.
Tyndale, 109.
Unity and diversity, 385.
Unity, principle of, 288.
Unity destroyed by persecu
tion, 293.
Unity, false pretensions of,
297.
Vane, Sir Henry, 144.
Virginia, 146, 184.
Waldenses, 78.
" War of Christianity and
Science," 60.
Warren Association, 154.
Webster's opposition, 169.
Williams, Roger, 117, 210, 214,
Women martyrs, 64.
Wycliffe, 89,

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