mation, as well as her own literary accomplishments, to find her stating the word automaton to be adopted from the Latin language.

And we are quite as much surprised to find our own gravities dwelling on matters of this sort. But fathers and mothers, at least, will, we trust, readily pardon us, even should our taking an interest in whatever concerns the education of children, require a pardon from any quarter.

ART. VI. 1. Sermons on Various Important Public Occasions. By ROBERT HALL, A. M., Leicester. London. T. Hamilton. Pater-Noster Row. 1824. pp.

370.

2. The Works of the Rev. ROBERT HALL., A. M., Minister of Broadmead Chapel, Bristol, England. First complete Edition; with a Brief Memoir of the Author. In two volumes. New York. G. & C. & H. Carvill. 1830. 8vo. pp. 439 and 491.

3. Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Rev. Andrew Fuller, Late Pastor of the Baptist Church at Kettering, and First Secretary to the Baptist Missionary Society. By J. W. MORRIS. First American, from the last London Edition. Edited by RUFUS BABCOCK, Jun. Boston. Lincoln & Edmands. 1830. pp. 320. 4. Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and its Dependencies. Vol. xxvIII, London. 1829.

THE Baptists have long been known as a numerous and respectable body of Christians in Protestant Europe and in this country. In England, they form one of the three great denominations, into which the Dissenters are usually divided; and from their earliest history, which they trace back to the days of Wickliffe (among whose followers there were those, who denied the validity of Infant Baptism), they have borne their full share of the penalties and disabilities, common to all non-conformists, in addition to others, which at certain periods were inflicted for their peculiar sentiments as Baptists. They have been, and are still, divided into two great classes, the General and the Particu

lar Baptists; the former, maintaining the belief of general redemption, and of the other doctrines of Arminianism; the latter adhering to the five points of Calvinism, and limiting their communion, or the participation of the Lord's Supper, to their own particular sect.

In Holland and in Germany, they have usually been called Anabaptists, or Mennonites, from Menno, a native of one of the smaller principalities in Germany, and a convert from the Roman Church in the earlier part of the sixteenth century; who for his genius, eloquence, and zeal, has been regarded, to some extent, as the head of the Anabaptists. In Italy and the South of Europe, they have been classed with those ancient sects, the Albigenses and Waldenses; of whom, however, few in that part of the world remain at this day. Their history, especially in Germany, was the history of their depression and suffering; in part, unjustly inflicted by the persecuting spirit of the church from which they dissented; and, in part, richly deserved, as has been said, not for their religious opinions, to which they had a right, but for their defiance of civil government, and their factious, disorganizing conduct. They were also, for a period, in Great Britain as well as in this country, characterized rather by their zeal than their knowledge; by their contempt, or at least their neglect, of human learning as a qualification for the ministry; and by a general aversion to those distinctions, which obtain, and must be respected, not less within the church than in the world.

This, however, let it be remembered, is the history, not of the present, but of former times. Happily this darkness, and with it most of the delusions and extravagances with which it is united, has passed, and the light of knowledge, followed by its genial influences, has shone. The Baptists have partaken in the intellectual and religious progress of the times; and are now, as they have been for many years, respectable not only by their numbers and just influence as a body, but, to a large extent, by the attainments and acknowledged worth of their clergy.

Of these latter, there are many in England, who have acquired considerable distinction; not indeed, if we except a few names, for profound learning, for which the education of their seminaries, and we may add, the resources of their people, furnish but inadequate helps; but, for what is better,

a practical acquaintance with the Scriptures, and for all that is essential to the great objects of the ministry, to the forming of useful and successful preachers, of faithful and devoted pastors. Of the Particular, or Calvinistic Baptists, from the days of Gill, whose learning would do honor to any University, and of Dr. Andrew Gifford, an assistant Librarian of the British Museum, and honored by many literary distinctions, as well as by his exemplary ministry, there have certainly not been wanting those, whose conscientious devotion to the studies of their profession has only been exceeded by the purity and usefulness of their lives.

Our opportunities, however, have made us more familiar with the character, as a denomination, of the General Baptists. Among the most eminent of these, without referring to an earlier period, is Gale, the friend of Le Clerc, known by many excellent publications, and specially by his noble defence of religious liberty against the exclusive ministers of London, who in the memorable Exeter controversy on the Trinity, insisted upon subscription to human tests of Orthodoxy. There is also the celebrated James Foster, who became a convert to the practice of adult baptism after he had entered upon his ministry, and whose sermons and other works have given him a place with the best preachers and writers of his day. Having succeeded Dr. Gale in a Baptist church, where he officiated for more than twenty years, he was appointed the successor of Dr. Jeremiah Hunt; who, though not himself a Baptist, was the pastor, counsellor, and friend of that generous patron of learning and honored benefactor of Harvard College, Thomas Hollis, Esq. This gentleman, as is well known, was a Baptist; and it may be taken as no small proof of the liberality of his spirit, not only that his numerous benefactions, of which those to our University were but a part, were not confined to a party, but that he served for more than thirty years faithfully and cheerfully as deacon in a church, in which an Independent, or probably, as it would be termed among us, a Congregationalist was the pastor; expressing his cordial satisfaction in the sentiments and preaching of his minister, and availing himself of Dr. Hunt's counsel, with that of other of his most intimate friends, of whom were Drs. Harris, Lowman, and Neal, in the foundation of his theological professorship, and his most important plans of Christian charity.

In a copious history of the English Baptists, not long since completed,* we find that the learned Dr. Fleming is mentioned as the successor of Drs. Foster and Hunt in PinnersHall, the same church of which Mr. Hollis was so long a member. We cannot indeed sympathize with this historian in his astonishment or regrets, that a pulpit once filled by Orthodox worthies of his own school, should be occupied by such persons as Dr. Foster and Dr. Fleming,' over the first of whom he laments, as that popular, but, alas! erroneous minister.' But we accept his annals of that church as an interesting record of the progress of liberal opinions; and in the moderation of the ministers and the people, the Independent pastor uniting in cordial friendship with his Baptist deacon and Baptist hearers, we see a beautiful exemplication of a Christian charity, which, we would to God, might be imitated and honored in the present times.

6

Of some later worthies among the General Baptists, the names are already familiar to many of our readers. Among these are the ingenious and learned, but eccentric Robert Robinson; Evans, the well-known author of the Sketches'; and especially Dr. Joshua Toulmin, one of the best of men, as well as of faithful ministers; never to be mentioned but with reverence and affection by those who knew him. And there are others also, of both classes of Baptists, who in any larger enumeration than either our limits or opportunity will allow us here to make, would claim much more than a passing mention.

Of Robert Hall, whose works and character we have lately noticed somewhat largely, we are not curious in what sect or under what name he is to be classed. For though, as we have seen, he has engaged much and earnestly in the

* See an interesting History of the English Baptists, comprising the principal events of the History of Protestant Dissenters from the Revolution in 1668 till 1760, and of the London Baptist Churches during that period; in three volumes; by Joseph Ivimey.

+ It does not appear, that Dr. Fleming was a Baptist. Like his predecessor, Dr. Hunt, he was of that denomination, which is now in London, somewhat strangely, called Presbyterian. He was a man of eminent learning and worth; was the author of several important works; and resisted in his youth several alluring offers of preferment in the Established Church, which the fame of his talents and character procured for him.

field of controversy, and sometimes, too, like most other controversialists, has attempted to settle questions of doubtful disputation by other helps than argument, yet we are disposed to regard him, as we believe posterity will regard him, and as we firmly believe he will himself wish to be regarded, when the bitterness of controversy shall be passed, not as the advocate of a sect, but as the preacher of righteousness; as the servant of God and of Christ Jesus for the salvation of men. In truth- may our Baptist brethren forgive the presumption - Mr. Hall belongs to no party. His genius, his eloquence, above all, his enlarged and elevated conceptions of the objects of religion, are the property not of a sect, nor even of a nation, but of Christendom. And we here dismiss a more particular consideration of this collection of his works, in which, as we have had occasion to remark, some things have found a republication, which should never have been republished, and one, which the writer himself absolutely interdicted, with the hope, that the judicious friends and admirers of this eloquent man, who are not confined to his native country or his own persuasion, would favor the religious community with such a selection, as they have reason to believe the writer himself would approve. We have now before us a beautiful volume of this description, by his London publishers, from which the Polemics' and Political Tracts, the bitterness of which was never redeemed by the ability, are all excluded, and only such pieces admitted, as are unquestionably worthy of his character. The title of this selection we have set at the head of this article. Of the sermons, of which it is chiefly composed, one had reached, even seven years ago, its eleventh, another the fifteenth, edition. We have already given large extracts from these in a previous Number; and our readers, who may have glanced over them, will not want even this remarkable attestation of the public favor, to show to them their excellence. They are the works on which, beyond all controversy, the eminence of Mr. Hall as a writer and a Christian teacher is destined to rest.

From these brief notices in the History of the Baptists, and of the most gifted individual who bears the name, we pass to a few remarks on those great religious enterprises, in which that denomination has now for many years been en