day of fasting and prayer "in behalf of our poor blind persecutors, and for the releasement of our brethren." They now made a strong effort to secure full liberty of conscience, cheered on by those distinguished patriots, Henry, Madison, and Jefferson, and they succeeded in abolishing the attempted Episcopal Hierarchy.

In February, 1785, a law for the establishment and support of religion was passed in Georgia, through the influence of the Episcopalians. It embraced all denominations, and gave all equal privileges; but in May, the baptists remonstrated against it, sent two messengers to the Legislature, and the next session it was repealed. In both ministers and members they were much more numerous than any other denomination. Their preachers might have occupied every neighbourhood, and lived upon the public treasury; but no- -they knew that Christ's "kingdom is not of this world," and believed that any dependence on the civil power for its support, tends to corrupt the purity and pristine loveliness of Religion. They therefore preferred to pine in poverty, as many of them did, than allow or sanction an unholy marriage between the church of Christ and the civil authority. The overthrow of all the above-named odious laws is to be attributed to their unremitting efforts; they generally struck the first blow, and thus inspired the other sects with their own intrepidity. It is owing to their sentiments chiefly, as the friends of religious liberty, that no law abridging the freedom of thought or opinion, touching religious worship, is now in force to disgrace our statute books. It is not here asserted, that

but for their efforts, a system of persecution, cruel and relentless as that of Mary of England, or Catherine de Medici of France, would now have obtained in these United States; but it is asserted that the baptists have successfully propagated their sentiments on the subject of religious liberty, at the cost of suffering in property, in person, in limb, and in life. Let the sacrifice be ever so great, they have always freely made it, in testimony of their indignation against laws which would fetter the conscience. Their opposition to tyranny was implacable, and it mattered not whether the intention was to tax the people without representation, or to give to the civil magistrate authority to settle religious questions by the sword. In either case, it met in every baptist an irreconcilable foe.

The question may be asked, how should this denomination, in its sentiments on religious liberty, be so much in advance of the age? The form of church government established by the Puritans was a pure democracy, and essentially that of the baptists. True; but in the reception of members, the two denominations differ widely; while a large portion of the former come into the church by birth, or mere form, the latter enter on their own responsibility. From the first, the baptists seem to have perceived the truth on this subject. Whether they derived it from particular texts, or from the general principles of the bible, it is not now for us to enquire. Their knowledge on this subject is coeval with their existence as a distinct people. Religious liberty is a baptist watchword, a kind of talisman, which operates

like a charm, and nerves every man for action. But while the baptists have been the undeviating friends of religious liberty, at the same time they have laboured, and suffered, and made sacrifices for civil liberty. The patriotism of no class has burned with a purer or steadier flame, none other has exhibited a loftier attachment to country and to civil rights. Washington himself declared that the baptists "have been, throughout America, uniformly, and almost unanimously, the firm friends of civil liberty, and the persevering promoters of our glorious Revolution."

Involuntary respect goes forth to the man who brings to light some great and useful truth in the sciences or in the arts. Such as the discovery of the art of printing, -the power and uses of steam,—the true theory of the solar system: but what are these in comparison with the great moral truth which the baptists have held forth before the public eye for centuries?—a truth without which life would be a burden, and civil liberty but a mockery. Nor is this all. While the baptists have always defended the principles of religious liberty, they have never violated them, They have had but one opportunity of forming a system of civil government, and they so formed it as to create an era in the history of civilization. In the little baptist State of Rhode Island was the experiment first attempted of leaving religion wholly to herself, unprotected and unsustained by the civil arm. The principles which were here first planted, have taken root in other lands, and have borne abundant fruit. The world is coming nearer to the

opinions of Roger Williams; and so universally are his sentiments now adopted in this country, that, like other successful philosophers, he is likely himself to be lost in the blaze of his own discovery.

The baptist churches of the United States have multiplied exceedingly, and they now assume a leading attitude amongst the religious communities of that vast republic. One sad and shameful stain rests upon some of their churches and ministers, as upon some of those of other denominations-they sanction slavery!

The "Baptist Almanack," for 1854, gives the following summary of baptists in the United States, the British Provinces, and the West India Islands :—“ Associations, 797; Churches, 16,273; Ordained Ministers, 11,079; Licentiates, 1,357; Baptized in one year, 61,973; Communicants, 1,208,765."

THE GOOD PRINCE.

IF the history of the world had ever afforded an instance of a good prince, whose government was most rightful, his administration according to the best laws, tempered with equity and moderation; his temper gentle and mild, most affable and condescending; one that treated his subjects as any father could do his children, laying himself out entirely for their benefit and service, so that the people could not but own he had done all things well: how surprising would it be, to find after all, that this good prince was assassinated by those whom he had most obliged; and that there should be any beings on

this side hell capable of such a thing. Well, in the last agonies of his life, he called some friends about him, and says to this purpose I am dying of the wounds they gave me; I had reason to expect a kinder return: however I forbid all revenge upon any of those that relent upon it; and, before I die, I order that there be an act of grace forthwith drawn up, and proclaimed for the pardon of my murderers, upon condition only that they be sensible of what they have done, that they acknowledge their fault: and to give them assurance that they may depend upon it, I will have it subscribed and sealed with some of that very blood which they have drawn. And since I find myself dying away, I do command with my last breath, that the heralds who shall proclaim this, do send the first copy of it to him who gave me the first wound, and the second to him who struck the deepest:" and so gave up the ghost. How would all the annals have rung of such an instance as this? What a noise would it have made in the world? His name would have stood for the figure of all goodness. Art and science would have lavished all their treasures upon the memory of so much grace. The historian, the orator, the poet, the painter, the statuary, would all have employed their utmost skill. Nor would they have refrained from raising altars to so much divinity incarnate. There is a person of whom all this is fact; there is a name to which all this is due: it is thine, oh JESUS! that lovely name! Even Jesus, that hath delivered us from the wrath to come," by dying under our hands, and for our sakes.

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