Duke of Anjou, who was acknowledged by all but Holland and Zealand, and the Walloon Provinces, which last, as we have said, had gone over to Philip. The King of Spain now issued a ban against Orange, denouncing him as the enemy of mankind, and setting a price upon his head. The conduct of Anjou shewed the Provinces how much they could trust the man to whom they had given their allegiance. He treacherously endeavored to seize Antwerp; but the burghers repulsed his forces. With a few other towns he had been more successful. A reconciliation was, at length, effected. The Prince of Parma had taken advantage of the general confusion, to capture some important towns. Many efforts had been unsuccessfully made to take the life of Orange: another effort was destined to be more successul. Gerard, a Burgundian, was the assassin. He was known to Orange, who had befriended him, and it was subsequently proved, that the weapon, with which he performed the deed, had been purchased with money which Orange had given him! As the Prince was proceeding to his private apartments, after dinner, the murderer, who had been concealed by an arch, fired. The Prince received three balls, exclaiming, as he fell, "O, my God, have mercy upon my soul ! O, my God, have mercy upon this poor people!" A few moments after, he expired.

Thus perished William the Silent, the champion of Netherland freedom. Few men have accomplished so much with such slender resources; and few are more deeply enshrined in the heart of every lover of freedom. Though dead, the remembrance of his deeds nerved a gallant people to achieve their independence. From the tomb of the Silent went forth an influence, which wasted the gold and the blood of Spain, nd reared an empire of unrivalled prosperity on the shores of he Zuider Zee.

ART. VI.-CHRYSTAL'S MODES OF BAPTISM.

A HISTORY OF THE MODES OF CHRISTIAN BAPTISM, from Holy Scripture, the Councils Ecumenical and Provincial, the Fathers, the Schoolmen, and the Rubrics of the whole Church, East and West, in illustration and vindication of the Rubrics of the Church of England since the Reformation, and those of the American Church. By Rev. JAMES CHrystal, A. M., a Presbyter of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Philadelphia Lindsay & Blackiston, 1861. pp. 324.

THOUGHT has been free, through all the ages, and in all climes, just as the soul is free, and within itself feels the consciousness of its lofty independence of all external forces. Still, in a certain sense, free thought was at once the parent and the offspring of the Reformation, and therefore most free in those countries where it triumphed most. And there, of course, its maddest vagaries, and its wildest excesses, were exhibited. Nothing damaged the Reformation more, than the extravagancies and excesses of the numerous Sects, to which it gave birth.

Considering the importance attached to the primary, initiative Sacrament of the Gospel, Baptism, and the strange deviations, in the course of ages, and the progress of error, from the primitive practice, and the Apostolic Doctrine with regard to it, which, at the West, everywhere prevailed, it is not at all surprising, that certain Sects should have sprung up, both in Germany and in England, calling in question the regularity and validity of Roman Catholic Baptism, both with regard to its subjects and its mode.

Political agitations, and more engrossing controversies relative to Doctrines and Worship, occupied the attention of by far the greater portion of our English ancestors for more than an hundred years. Indeed, as a Sect of any considerable prominence, English Baptists did not appear upon the stage much above two hundred years ago. Indeed, they come much nearer to being an indigenous American Denomination, than

any other amongst us. Of the others, some, like the German Sects, have a race, or national origin; some, like Congregationalists and Scotch Presbyterians, an historic, or strictly European, sectarian origin; and one denomination, at least, the Protestant Episcopal Church, has an organic and self-expanding origin. With the exception of Churchmen, who, as far as their principles are older than the specialities of the State Church of England, and based upon eternal and immutable truth, the Baptists alone have assumed positions, which, if tenable and true, are suited to all times, and all peoples. And, in this sense, they are much more an American Denomination, than an English. The acorn, planted by Roger Williams in Rhode Island, and which, as far as any culture on his part was concerned, might, and would have perished in the ground, has become a prodigious oak, whose branches extend over all our land; and vigorous offshoots from it have taken root on far distant shores, and, by its side, the original English stock is, in comparison, a diminutive shrub.

A curious speculation with regard to most other denominations, does not apply with like force to our Baptist friends— how their European peculiarities have proved themselves capable of transplantation to the soil of America, and how far they have been subject to change, or, at least, to modification, by various native influences. Of the great Presbyterian family, there is not a branch which has not an historic, European, and strictly sectarian origin: and why and how their differences have been so long perpetuated, is hardly to be accounted for, even by their distinctive pertinacity; so evidently is it the tendency of American institutions and American ideas, to blend into one all shades of mere opinion, of transatlantic origin. Fusion, amalgamation into one homogeneous mass of all races, of all Sects, of all opinions, seems to be a part, at least, of the great and good work for which this great American alembic was set up; and if, under the supervision of the Great Purifier, the result can only be, the consuming of all dross, and the refining of the pure gold, then all the scorching endured in the process will be very little to be deplored.*

* The fervent heat of some great social convulsion may be needed, in order to

Just so far as the Baptist Denomination stands apart from an historic or European origin, it may be independent of American influences, and, being indigenous to the soil, may be the better able to endure the changes of the climate. But American influences are very potent, and they are exceedingly subtle. Those who are most completely transformed by them, are often the very last to be conscious of any change. A citizen of Rhode Island, and a graduate of Brown University more than forty years ago, who has spent the greater portion of a long Ministry in those parts of Virginia and Kentucky where Baptists most abound, cannot fail to have observed the remarkable and very great changes which are going on in their midst, under influences which are strictly American, and consist, in various measures, of the influence of travel, of higher culture, of larger and more comprehensive views, and of a more Catholic and genial piety.

In many rural districts of Kentucky, large communities can still be found, amongst whom Alumni of Old Brown and graduates of the Newton Theological Seminary, would find themselves far less at home, than Oxford men in the midst of the wild back-woodsmen of Canada. Free-will, open-communion, highly educated Baptist Ministers! oh, shocking! Jansenists amongst the Jesuits were more at home! So great have the changes been, which have taken place within a few years, that, in various places, the rallying cry of the Simon Pures of the old interest may be heard, calling for a firmer defense of all the ancient land-marks. But still the change goes on, and is marked by these several striking peculiarities.

1st. The standard of the age at which a child may be considered an adult, and entitled to lay claim to Baptism, on the score of personal religion, and a conscious faith, is continually becoming lower and lower. And when, in this connection, the much lower standard of religious profession is taken into account, and the greater ease with which a claim of individual conversion is set up, and admitted, it would prove very diffi

hasten this process. The tendency of the Evangelical Alliance movement, for a time, seemed to be, the union of many, if not most, or even all the branches of the great Presbyterian Family, in England and America.

cult indeed to draw any well-defined line, between Adult Baptism, as practised by them, and Infant Baptism, as practised by the Church in all ages. Indeed, the margin is overlapped considerably, of the ages between which a very liberal Campbellite Baptist would administer Baptism, as to an Adult, and a very strict Churchman would insist upon doing it, as to an Infant. In practice, Infant Immersion has, at length, been extensively restored, though not exactly after the rubrical fashion.

2d. But, as far as the original positions of the Denomination are concerned, a more serious departure may be traced, in the gradual abandonment, one by one, of the old lines of demarcation-no fellowship in the Pulpit, no fellowship in the Lord's Supper; and as little as possible in any Christian communion whatever. Now, no class of Christians amongst us brands, with severer reprobation, the claims of an exclusive Apostolic Succession in the Ministry, or boasts more loudly its special liberality in an interchange of Pulpits with a brother considered as destitute of Baptism indeed, but not as at all deprived of Orders thereby. A large and highly respectable and rapidly increasing body amongst them, warmly advocate open communion with all Orthodox and Evangelical Protestant Christians, of every name: and thus,

3dly. Conceding, in their practice, the very principle which gave rise to their Denomination, they then loudly proclaimed, that the mode and the subjects of Baptism were matters of immeasurably greater importance than the Unity of the Church. In practice, hundreds of thousands of them now declare, that Union amongst Christians is of vastly more importance than any mere matters of form. Of course, they still prefer that this Union should take place upon their platform; and for this, these same multitudes will, probably, continue warmly to contend. Many of their distinguished scholars, however, are very ready to admit, that Union amongst all the followers of our Lord is of infinitely more importance than more or less water in Baptism.

Thus far, the influence of America in reducing to a practical form impracticable ideas, and extracting from all Sects much of the excess of virulence, would, probably, have gone,