the honour of striking the death-blow of British negro slavery? To Baptists."

In the constitution of a baptist church, conversion is essential to membership; for no child can be born a baptist, and no adult can be admitted into communion until the christian character is formed; membership is then matter of choice. This unfettered freedom of judgment and will, exists in the appointment of officers, and in the modes and seasons of public worship. With these things no external power can interfere, and no general standard is recognized; so that a wide difference is perceivable between the baptists and the Churches of Rome and England. The whole apparatus of a systematic priesthood; of catechisms, creeds, and books of prayer; of laws and formularies, formed for the very purpose of trampling on the right of individual judg ment; together with the acts of uniformity, and courts of Inquisition, which religious despotism had formed, have always been regarded by baptists as unhallowed innovations on the intellectual and moral property of man. Against such innovations have they always loudly protested, and still protest. On the subject of baptism the following positions are maintained :

1st, That baptism commenced with the christian dispensation, and was peculiar to it, bearing no analogy to any previous institution, but revealed as a positive law of the kingdom of Christ.

2ndly, That baptism is only scriptural as administered by immersion of the whole body in water.

3rdly, That it cannot be scripturally administered

to any but on a personal profession of faith in the Lord Christ Jesus.

4thly, That, as a command of the New Testament, it is obligatory on all who profess faith in Christ, and is intended to form the great line of separation between the Church and the world.

In closing this sketch, one inquiry forces itself on our attention. Why were the baptists so cruelly treated in every age, and by every power? It was not that at any period they were, in a political sense, of such importance as that their existence might be deemed dangerous, and their extinction necessary to the safety of a State; but there was, as when christian truth commenced its march, a mysterious power that acted on the fears of rulers, and they were alarmed they knew not why. Let it be observed, that the element of freedom is identified with the doctrine of Christian baptism, for on the free exercise of judgment and choice it has its foundation. A baptist, therefore, cannot coerce the will of another; and on the same principle, if placed under civil or religious despotism, he will be found panting and struggling for liberty; his profession of baptism is a public avowal of the rights of man to live unfettered by his fellowman, and consequently a public condemnation of oppression.

Here then, we find the source of the wrongs which they endured. Wherever they are found, they appear as the champions of freedom, the friends of truth and humanity, hated by tyrants, but admired by the enlightened and the free. With the progress of liberty in

England they have always been associated, and we have seen the distinguished part they took in its establishment in the United States.

By no denomination of christians are the great principles of civil and religious liberty better understood, and by none in times past have they been more strenuously defended, than by Baptists. Who more eloquently pleaded for them than JOHN MILTON? Who more

patiently and manfully suffered for them than JOHN BUNYAN? And they were both Baptists. Nor is our denomination unmindful of its duty at the present juncture. Our ministerial brethren and respected laymen throughout the country are, we believe, taking part in all public measures relating to these subjects. It is not to be concealed, that we consider the union of church and state to be the foundation of all our wrongs. Out of this root all our grievances have grown; and though these grievances may be partially redressed, we state plainly, that nothing short of an entire severance of things ecclesiastical from things civil can give us satisfaction. We do not affect to hide our real sentiments. We make a surrender, no, not of one jot of that precious liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. His kingdom knows nothing of compulsion, or of a state church. Every concession we gain must and will be used by us only as vantage-ground from which to achieve further victories, till all religious sects are left upon equal terms, and CHRISTIANITY, purged from every earthly adhesion, be left to run her race of glorious and triumphant benevolence through the world, unfettered, unaided, and alone!

A MOTHER'S PRAYERS ANSWERED. ON the east end of Long Island are two aged pilgrims, who have been the parents of eleven children. Three are not; but they all hope to meet again, an unbroken family in heaven. One of the sons has his home on the deep. He is now master of the whale ship L. A. of G. His voyages have varied in length from one to three years. On his last voyage save one, he sailed around the world, and in just

one year from leaving home returned with his ship full, and without having dropped his anchor during the whole voyage. His visits have usually been short at home. But his aged mother did not let them pass without repeated admonitions respecting the "chief concern." But he would turn all off by the reply, "Oh! mother, we can't have religion at sea. When he left home for the last voyage the mother's heart was very anxious. In remembrance and prayer she followed her beloved son in his long and trackless way; and often, as she said, was so burdened in spirit that it seemed to her she must die. In none of the former voyages had that son been the object of so much earnest prayer. When the ship had been gone a year, a neighbour, who also had a son in the same ship, came in to bring the news that she had been unsuccessful, and had gone to the northwest coast. This was sad news to the parents. They sat up till a late hour, talking of the absent ones; and when they lay down it was to think and pray.

Two hours after midnight, the mother heard a footstep in the entry-way. The door opened, and some one entered. "Who is there?" No reply: but the footsteps. approached the parents bed-room? "Who is there?" A well-known voice replied, "Edwin." In a few minutes the aged mother's arms were around the neck of her sailor son. Her first words of greeting were, 'Oh! Edwin, have you found the Saviour?" Let pious parents who have long wrestled for the conversion of an impeni tent child, imagine how the heart of that yearning mother throbbed, when her son replied, "Mother, I trust I have."

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