of the sect also came there and settled from England and from Barbadoes; but they were never molested or in any manner called to account, and at one period they appear to have united as a political party, and to have acquired the ascendancy in the government. Among the numerous victims of this law who suffered the various penalties of fines, imprisonments, whippings and death at Boston, several of the most conspicuous were inhabitants of Rhode Island. They were protected there solely on the ground of religious freedom. The colony at first had no sympathy with their doctrines or their practice. Roger Williams opposed them in argument, and when seventy years of age, went to Newport in an open boat, which he rowed with his own hands, in order to hold a public discussion with George Fox, their most distinguished champion. But no aversion to their doctrines could make him or his compeers in the government lose sight for a moment of the distinction between personal argument and legislative force, or induce them in the slightest degree to encroach on the inalienable liberty of the human soul. They resisted the importunities of the united colonies, and even petitioned the government of Cromwell that they might not be compelled to exercise any civil power over men's consciences.

The only instance in which an attempt, even, has been made to charge upon Rhode Island any departure from the principle of unqualified religious freedom, relates to a law said to have been passed in March, 1664, and contained in the earliest printed collection of the colonial statutes. This statute, as printed first in 1719, provides "that all men [professing Christianity] and of competent estates and of civil conversation, who acknowledge and are obedient to the civil magistrate, though of different judgments in religious affairs [Roman Catholics only excepted], shall be admitted freemen, and shall have liberty to choose and be chosen officers in the colony, both military and civil.” It has been often referred to as an unqualified proof that Rhode Island had proved faithless to her own principles, and been guilty of limiting citizenship to men "professing Christianity," and also of proscribing Roman Catholics. This charge, however, is by no means admitted to be just. It is true that such a statute is found in the earliest printed edition of the laws;

but it is not true that any such statute has ever been found in the legislative records of the State, though these records contain a multitude of enactments wholly at variance with it. Roger Williams was one of the assistants in this legislature, and was appointed by it to transcribe the new charter, the very terms of which condemned any such enactment not less than his own most cherished principles. Besides, at this very session laws of precisely the opposite character were enacted; a few years later Jews came to reside in the colony, and were admitted as citizens without question, and there were withal no Roman Catholics in the colony or in either of the neighboring colonies. Mr. Arnold pronounces these restrictive clauses to be "additions of later times," interpolated by some transcriber of copies of the laws that were to be sent to England. In full accordance with this opinion is the testimony of Mr. Samuel Eddy, who was for many years Secretary of State in Rhode Island, and who published the result of his careful and repeated examinations of the Records, and also of Mr. John R. Bartlett, the present occupant of that office, whose compilation of the colonial records, now in the course of publication, deservedly ranks among the most thoroughly prepared contributions ever made to the materials for American history. Difficult as it always is to prove a negative, we consider it well nigh demonstrable that no such statute was ever enacted in Rhode Island.

In 1686, commenced in New England the despotic sway by which James II. was, at that time, attempting to overthrow the liberties of the British empire on either side of the Atlantic. Writs of quo warranto had already been served upon the colony, and the government had made its submission to the authority of the king, and declined to stand suit with his majesty on the question of the royal prerogative. In December, 1686, Sir Edmund Andros arrived at Boston with a commission from the king, appointing him governor of New England, and clothing him with an authority little less than absolute over all the settlements. The charters of the several colonies fell before him, and their governments were all concentrated in his hands. Free New England was stripped of her popular institutions; her towns were garrisoned by soldiers, and her

people were compelled to submit to the arbitrary sway of the hated viceroy of James II. Rhode Island suffered in common with all her neighbors, though, as she was without an ecclesiastical establishment, she presented fewer points to provoke the despotic changes of Andros. The king, himself a Roman Catholic, and bent on establishing the Roman church in Protestant England, had put forth a "Declaration for the Liberty of Conscience," in order to further the advancement of his favorite faith. This "Declaration" became, of course, an element in the new administration. It immediately overthrew the theocratic institutions of the other New England colonies; but in Rhode Island there was nothing of the kind to overthrow, for by the very terms of her charter, both Episcopalians and Roman Catholics were as free to worship there as were Baptists or Quakers. It also chanced, that in the disputes which the colony was still carrying on, respecting a portion of her territory, the royal governor decided in her favor. In consequence of these and some other incidents in the administration of Andros, it is probable that Rhode Island suffered less than either of her sisters, during this gloomy period of tyranny and violence. A second commission to Andros annexed New York and New Jersey to the dominion over which he was to rule, and Rhode Island became a mere county in the broad principality that was placed beneath his jurisdiction.

But at an unexpected moment, intelligence was received at Boston that the Prince of Orange had landed in England, and had made his way to London without opposition, and that James II. had deserted his throne and fled from the kingdom. Scarcely had the fact been announced to the people, when Andros was already on his way from the council chamber to the prison. The sceptre immediately fell from his now nerveless grasp, and that colossal fabric of despotic power, which extended from the banks of the Penobscot to the shores of Lake Erie, faded away forever, “like the unsubstantial pageant of a dream." The governments of the several colonies were soon re-established as they were before the arrival of the fallen viceroy, and his entire career forms but an exciting episode in New England history, without affecting in the slightest degree the course of

subsequent events. In Rhode Island, as in the other colonies, he had demanded the surrender of the charter, but when he came to receive it, the instrument had been taken from the archives, and could nowhere be found. It was now drawn forth from its concealment, and again installed in its wonted. authority, though not till after serious and disreputable delay on account of the timidity of those who should have resumed their offices in the government.

But we have lingered longer than we intended over these passages of early Rhode Island history, as they are suggested by Mr. Arnold's volume. They borrow their interest and importance, not from the magnitude of the colony, or the wisdom of its inhabitants, but solely from the nature of the principles which they illustrate. They present to us a little group of settlements springing into existence in the first half of the seventeenth century on the shores of a beautiful New England bay, and alone, of all the colonies and states of that or of any preceding age, asserting and constantly maintaining, that the civil magistrate has no right to dictate in matters of religion. Toleration, as broad as Christianity itself, had before been wrought into the legislation of Protestant Holland, and had been still more distinctly embodied in the charter of Roman Catholic Maryland. But here was asserted, and carried into practice, the idea of perfect religious freedom-a freedom inherent in the human soul itself, which compacts and laws might indeed guarantee and recognize, but which compacts and laws could neither give nor take away. Of this freedom the history of Rhode Island records the earliest incorporation in a civil society; and the struggles through which it made its way, amid the ignorance and folly of its friends, as well as the contempt and obloquy of its foes, till at length it triumphs over both, and becomes the priceless possession, or the kindling aspiration of every people in Christendom. This history we now leave at the close of the seventeenth century, with which the volume before us comes to an end. But even here, the grand idea which it celebrates is no longer the despised and persecuted heresy that it was sixty years before, when first incorporated in the plantations of Providence. The great events

of the age-the English Revolution of 1688, the Act of Toleration, and the liberal policy of William and Mary—had all given it countenance and encouragement, and were imperceptibly aiding in that ultimate triumph which it has since accomplished among all the varieties of the English race, wherever they are scattered in the four quarters of the globe.

ARTICLE IV.-WHAT ARE THE QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE ADMINISTRATOR OF BAPTISM?

AMONG Baptists there is no controversy as to the sole authority of the Bible, and especially of the New Testament, as the rule of faith and practice for Christians and Christian churches. They learn this lesson of Scripture authority from the very words of Christ himself. "My sheep," he says, "hear my voice, and they follow me." The New Testament. is Christ's "voice." It is therein, as Paul tells us, that God has "spoken unto us by his Son." Accordingly, we all hold, that no practice in religion can be valid unless it be authorized by the New Testament. It must have the sanction of this, Christ's "voice," or it is not "following" him. And it is equally obvious, that it is the whole business of Christians, as the sheep of Christ, thus to follow him in all things, and at all times.

The question, then, in regard to the essential qualifications of the administrator of Christian baptism, is simply a question of Scriptural authority and instruction. If the New Testament is entirely silent on this subject, then no special qualifications are essential. If, on the contrary, it prescribes any qualifications, then those qualifications must be found in every one whose administration of the rite is valid. The following will, I think, be found to be a careful exhibition of the whole Scripture testimony on this subject: