most vitally into the prosperity of a free nation. It was given to them, and is a glory which no other churches can in the same sense share, that they founded, and their polity entered fundamentally into, this American Republic. The compact which the Pilgrims of The Mayflower' signed was 'the birth of popular constitutional liberty.' I speak not at random, nor in the spirit of empty self-gratulation. When De Tocqueville began his investigations in America, he began at Boston, and with the town-meeting. He finds that the purest and most distinctive elements of the American nation are to be found where the town-system prevails. The farther we go to the South' (this is his language), 'the less active does the business of the township or parish become. It has fewer magistrates, duties, and rights; the population exercises a less immediate influence' on affairs; the public spirit of the local community is less excited, and less influential.' This town-system fades out in just the proportion that we recede from the region, east and west, where Congregational influence and emigration have prevailed; for the town-system had its origin in the Congregational Church. The typical school-system of America had the same birth. The American college had its origin in Harvard and Yale, founded by Congregational churches. The republican spirit was earliest and strongest in New England. The church polity of those States, says a Tory writer, 'had hardened them into republics.' John Wise's book concerning that polity was reprinted twice at the Revolutionary epoch, and was read with new interest, we doubt not, by men who took a prominent part in the organization of the independent nation. If there be any church polity which may be called American, it is this. It was born of the same impulse which gave us free institutions. It was thought out by the men who planted those institutions. All its affinities ally it to the American history and character.

"It is a significant fact, confirming what has just been said, that, in the region covered by the late Rebellion, only one

It was in no

church of this name existed before the war. close connection with the sisterhood it claimed. It may be doubted, indeed, whether it did not rather disown such connection. The spirit of these churches was too Puritan and free to allow of their existence on slave soil. But no sooner had freedom asserted its sway there than twenty such churches were planted in three months, carrying with them the same seeds of loyalty which their sister churches. had before borne across New York to Ohio and the great North-west.

"And why did we have that bitter and fierce onset upon the Puritan States, unless, in those cities and towns of the forefathers, there dwell in more perfect development than elsewhere those radical principles which have led on and still lead the nation? That eminent Kentuckian, Robert J. Breckenridge, who has so gallantly led the loyal thinkers of his State, wrote, in the height of the recent struggle, 'I never doubted, and now less than ever, that the roots of whatever produces freedom, equality, and high civilization, are more deeply set in New England than in any equal population on the face of the earth.' Let me not be arrogant enough to claim that all this comes from the influence of the churches in which these had their early home; but the calm, philosophical inquirer, whether he be native or foreign, who shall go beneath those surfaces of rugged soil and climate which seem now to be the universal solvents of social problems, will not rest till he trace an intimate connection between those churches and the freedom of this whole land. Such a one, reading to-day the telegrams which tell with what overwhelming majorities Massachusetts keeps her place, as of old, at the head of Union States, cannot fail to remember, that in sight of her sandy cape the Pilgrims signed their civil compact, and that on her soil they asserted and illustrated the freedom of the local church. So is it again demonstrated that the pure free churches of God are lights of nations as well as of souls: they are the salt of the political as well as of the moral earth."

"The Baptists claim that they have been, from the first, the true and undeviating conservators of the rights of man to self-government and soul-liberty. Early in the present century, the King of Holland appointed his chaplain, Dr. Dermont, and Dr. Ypeig, professor of theology at Gröningen, to prepare a history of the Dutch Baptists, with the purpose of tendering them State patronage if their origin seemed to warrant it. The work of these thorough historians was published at Breda in 1819; and the king at once offered them support from the State treasury, which they declined, as irreconcilable with their holy principle of personal liberty, and responsibility to God. These historians say, The Baptists may be considered as the only Christian community which has stood since the days of the apostles, and as a Christian society which has preserved pure the doctrines of the gospel through all ages.' They add, that the perfectly correct external and internal economy of the Baptist denomination goes to confute the erroneous notion of the Catholics, that their communion is the most ancient.' This testimony harmonizes exactly with that of Sir Isaac Newton, who said, The Baptists were the only Christians who had never symbolized with the Church of Rome.' And John Locke puts the case more strongly still when he says, 'The Baptists were from the beginning the friends and advocates of absolute liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty.' John Milton, the champion of republicanism against Salmasius, was a Baptist, and exerted the greatest possible influence as a secretary to the council of State, under Cromwell, in establishing the constitutional rights and religious liberties of Great Britain.

"As the time approached for the colonies to shake off the civil yoke of Great Britain, the Baptists of America seized the opportunity to break off also every trammel of religious

* From a very able paper by Rev. THOMAS ARMITAGE, D.D.

tyranny in the government of the colonies themselves, as they should come to assume the independency of States. Their American history had been little else than a perpetual struggle for toleration among Protestant sects; and as they claimed that they never were Protestants coming out of the Church of Rome, because they had never been in it or of it, but had been the outside heretics' of all ages, they determined to spare no effort to make the power and breadth of their principles felt in founding the grandest empire of the earth. Their principles were radical, rooted in the manhood of man, and covering all his responsible relations toward both God and man.

"The Baptists had been so schooled in conscience, and so scourged into unconquerable resistance to tyranny at the hands of the Puritans in New England, Episcopalians in Virginia and Georgia, and Catholics in Maryland, that they were prompted by every honorable incentive to organize in the most spirited manner for the Revolutionary contest.. Scarcely was the first shot fired at Lexington before every Baptist on the continent sprang to his feet, and hailed the echo as the pledge of his deliverance from foreign and domestic oppressors. In the field, and out of the field, they were among the first to sacrifice and suffer for the American

cause.

"The first Continental Congress was held in Philadelphia in 1774, two years before the Declaration of Independence. It had been in session little more than a week when Baptist committees memorialized it for a general redress of grievances. On the 14th of October, they obtained à hearing, in which they besought Congress to secure the rights of conscience for all. Here they met with determined resistance from the Massachusetts delegation, who insisted, that, with them, it was a matter of conscience to support ministers by law,' and that the Baptists denied them the liberty of conscience in denying their right to do so.'

"Yet, while the State-church party were resorting to every

expedient for the defeat of full religious freedom, the masses of the people began to see that the principles of the Baptists were to shape the future civil government of the country. Benjamin Franklin was their firm friend. Patrick Henry became their able defender, against the persecutions of the Episcopal Church, at the Virginia bar. But they were indebted most of all to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Jefferson seems to have been greatly assisted by the Baptists in forming those clear and comprehensive democratic ideas which have immortalized him as the apostle of democracy. Curtis states, on the authority of Mrs. Madison, that there was a small Baptist church which held its monthly meetings for business at a short distance from Mr. Jefferson's house, eight or ten years before the American Revolution. Mr. Jefferson attended these meetings for several months in succession. The pastor, on one occasion, asked him how he was pleased with their church government. Mr. Jefferson replied, that it struck him with great force, and had interested him much; that he considered it the only form of true democracy then existing in the world, and had concluded that it would be the best plan of government for the American colonies.'

"After all, it was in Virginia that the Baptists fought their great battle. As early as 1606, every form of religion had been prohibited in the colony, but that of the Established Church of England, on pain of arrest and imprisonment. Four years later, the code of Sir Thomas Dale required every person in the colony to pass a satisfactory examination of their faith at the hands of the Episcopal clergy; and, on refusal to do so, for the first time of refusal to be whipped; for the second time to be whipped twice, and to acknowledge his fault upon the sabbath day in the congregation; and, for the third time, to be whipped every day until he hath made the same acknowledgment, and asked forgiveness of the same; and shall repair to the minister to be further instructed as aforesaid.' In 1623, a tax was levied for the