Baptist, preaching," &c., or whether, like the old copy in my possession, it relates the adventures of John the Immerser. If the word Baptist is not in your translation—or, rather, if it is not in God's Bible-what do you mean by the scripture sense of it?

Baptist is a foreign word, anglicised and adopted into our language; its signification, therefore, must accord with the use to which we have appropriated it by common consent. When Mr. Campbell speaks of the Baptists, we do not understand him to mean merely immersers, but those who hold and practise immersion, and on that account have obtained that distinctive name. Will you tell us, that when you complained of ill treatment from the Baptists-not any Baptists in particular, but Baptists in general-you wished to be understood as speaking of baptizers in general, and baptizers only? When I affirm that Jesus Christ was a Baptist, I mean that he was immersed; and when I say that the Reformers are Baptists, I am understood by all to mean that they are immersed, and have immersers among them.

Your remarks about the "Baptist Church of Christ," and the "Pedobaptist Church of Christ," have no application to me. You must have forgotten, for a moment, to whom you were writing. I cannot account for the aberration, unless, at the time of writing the paragraph alluded to, a vision of your crippled and very uneasy antagonist on the other side of the Mississippi, came up before your too active imagination, and you made a pass at him. ALFRED EARLE.

Yours, &c.,

NEAR DAVISVILLE, Bucks County, Pa., Sept. 4, 1851.

MR. ALFRED EARLE-Dear Sir: Being from home, for the most part, during the composition of the October Harbinger, I could not, in it, finish my remarks on your former letter, as both designed and desired, when I wrote my former response. And now, on the eve of leaving home for a few days, to attend our Christian Missionary Society at Cincinnati, and an Anniversary Convention at Lexington, Ky., I fear I cannot enlarge much on the premises before me. I will, therefore, in the first place, advert to the interrogatories you have propounded on my former letter.

And first, with regard to your inquiry as to a passage in the New Version of the "Living Oracles," published one quarter of a century ago. The third section of the testimony of Matthew Levi, in that version, reads thus: "In those days appeared John the Immerser in the wilderness of Judea, saying, Reform, for the Reign of Heaven approaches." The third paragraph of that section also conforms to the same usage, in another member of the same family, viz: "Then came Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan, to be immersed by John." Another passage of vital importance in that same Evangelist, thus SERIES IV. VOL. 1.

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reads: "Jesus came near and said, All authority is given to me in heaven and upon the earth; go, therefore, convert all the nations, immersing them in (into) the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things which I have commanded you; and behold! I am with you always, to the conclusion of this state." And so it reads uniformly through the book.

This version was much condemned by leading men of all parties, on its first appearance. Nevertheless, it has steadily grown in public favor, and several editions of it have been circulated and read with much pleasure and acknowledged profit.

You say it is impossible for you to conceive of the scripture sense of a word or phrase not occurring in the scriptures. Neither can I. But Baptist, or Baptistees, is a scriptural word, occurring fourteen times in the New Testament, in three of the four gospels. Baptisma and Baptismos, occur twenty-six times. In the Common Version both words, while retained, are abreviated-the one into Baptist, the other into Baptism. Now, these terms have a scriptural accep tation, and ought to be used in that acceptation. But Baptist, or Baptistees, never indicates one that is baptized, but one that baptizes. Hence, in the scripture sense of the word, there is not a Baptist church in America. It must, then, be a profanation or an abuse of a scriptural word, to apply it to any person or community that does not fill up the measure or meaning of that word. I challenge the socalled Baptist Church to stand up to the defence of its name, or call upon them to abandon it. Why should a Christian people or a denomination take a liberty to use a scriptural word, or name, or title, in a new sense, and yet contend for scriptural authority? The tyrant custom, never can legitimate its claims to the throne of reason or of religion.

I pretend to no gift of prophesy, and yet predict that the name Baptist will not continue till the Lord comes, as the cognomen or title of a community, because a few individuals in it perform such an office. To call the city of Philadelphia an Alderman city, because there is a suite of aldermen in it, would not be a more glaring aberration from truth and propriety, than to call the Church of Christ in America a Baptist Church, because it has a few Baptists or immersers in it. To believe in immersion or baptism, and believe in aldermen, as a political institution, does not convert the believers into Baptists or aldermen.

You ask me, when I complained of the Baptists, did I not use the term Baptists as they do? I used the term because they chose to be called by that name, and because they were known and recognized

under that style and title, without recognizing its propriety. So I speak of the Pope, and so I speak of the prelates of England. But, in so speaking, I neither sanction the title, nor believe it to be either true or canonical. I trust, so soon as the Union Bible Society has completed the contemplated new version of the Living Oracles, and speak of John the forerunner, they will not call him John the Baptist, but John the Immerser, and then enter a solemn protest against being themselves any more called Baptists. They must, in all propriety, either call themselves Christians or Immersionists; and even the latter would be an impropriety, which time and the progress of the age will as certainly annul as it will the Pope and the Cardinals. But the courage and the Christian zeal of the denomination in the aggregate, is not yet, I fear, equal to such a triumph over tradition and the doctrines of men.

I am sorry that my leaving home for the Cincinnati Convention, prevents my finishing iny remarks on your communication in the present number. In Christian affection, yours,

A. C.

FRIENDLY NOTICE OF OUR ARTICLES ON THE
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.

THE following communication, from a beloved and distinguished Physician and Christian gentleman-one of the choicest graduates of Bethany College--an anti-slavery man, too, we lay before the readers of the Harbinger in the absence of the Senior Editor, believing it will be as acceptable to the great majority of our brotherhood as it has been to us here.

SL, July 24, 1851.

Esteemed Friend and Brother: "The strong should bear with the infirmities of the weak." So says, in substance, the man whom you admire above all others; and will you bear with me while I presume to infringe upon your time? I know you receive thousands of letters infinitely more interesting than any thing that I could write; yet, knowing you so well, I feel assured you will not throw it aside unread, though it may command no further attention.

I have read, with infinite delight, your unanswerable essays on the slavery question, and I feel profoundly grateful to you for them; and I feel assured that I express the sentiments of thousands. We live in troublesome times; in a country glorious and happy-blest, by our Divine Father, beyond all expression, but now threatened with the greatest of calamities; and what depth of gratitude and love is due to the Christian and Patriot who stands up to face the storm; to ward off the thunderbolts from this side and from that; who

speaks, openly and fearlessly, his sentiments upon the great politicoreligious questions of the day; who stands up in defence of the two greatest blessings ever vouchsafed to mankind-Christianity as taught in the Bible, and Liberty as guaranteed by our Constitution? Sir, I have no words to express my admiration of your conduct. You are the advocate of the century for the Bible, freedom, and tolerance of opinion, and for sound and rational views of Biblical criticism and interpretation; and the world is more indebted to your efforts for the light on these subjects which they now enjoy, than to all others beside. What, sir, are the principles of the Reformation you have been pleading for thirty years? Let those who have emerged from darkness almost Egyptian, and have been immersed in the flood of light that has been, and is being poured upon the world, tell.

But I mean not the purely religious views; but those principles that free the mind from the shackles of human authority; that elevate the mind to its own proper dignity; that teach us to decide questions by reason and argument, and not by passion or predilection. Why, if there were no truth in the Bible, I would still be thankful for the ennobling principles which I have imbibed from this Reformation. These principles not only disinthrall the mind as regards matters of religious faith and practice, but also as regards the efforts of the human mind in every department of learning-religious, political, or scientific. I look upon these principles and their undiscovered cognates (if there be any) as destined, by Providence, to revolutionize, free, and bless the world-as much so, and more, than the principles of civil and religious liberty we enjoy are destined to bless the whole race of man. I may be an enthusiast, and guilty of the same error I would condemn in another-too elevated conceptions of my own principles. I think not, however, else the devout, ardent, and untiring Christian, would be an enthusiast. Ardent devotion, the result of unwavering conviction, I need not tell you, is no blind enthusiasm.

I fear, my dear sir, that many who are in our ranks--many who have embraced the general views of this Reformation--have not imbibed its spirit. I fear they have brought with them their own contracted and selfish views, which profit no one, but are injurious to all-destitute of all harmony and love. They have come with passions and prejudices similar to those that filled the breast of the self-conceited and supercilious Jew, in the days of the apostles, who never did, and, as it appeared, never could appreciate the liberty which the gospel and the teachings of our Divine Redeemer inspire. They are but little removed from the Jew in point of reasoning ability; for both fail to understand and appreciate the spirit and teachings of the book of God. And what hope have we of their deliverance from this slavery to prejudice and "morbid sentimentality"? If the principles that you have advocated with such untiring ability and gratifying success, fail to inspire more humble views of their own importance, and more just conceptions of the rights and liberty of others, then, indeed, they are left without remedy. And what if they do fail? Alas! even for Christianity itself; alas! for all that is worth the possession in life-life, liberty and happiness! None are secure. The spirit is promotive of anarchy, ruin, desolation.

Is there not, then, my noble friend, an adjoining field of action for you, although wearied with the fatigue of past labors? Are there not duties growing out of the question discussed in those essays, of a temporal character, that require your tongue and pen? If any there be, I presume you see and know them. What, my dear sir, if this agitation is to continue, will be the end of our hopes? Is this glorious confederacy, that is to us the source and means of incalculable blessings, to be rent assunder by intestine feuds, bringing in its train the direst calamities to all? Is there to be no end to this meddlesome impudence on the part of some with the affairs of others, for which they are in no wise responsible? Will there be no rest for their grieved and troubled spirit until the Union is dissolved? Alas! and not then. That event will be but "the beginning of sorrow." Are reason and argument to lose all their influence on the mind of man, and prejudice and passion to be enthroned supreme?

You have showed conclusively that the relation of master and servant is not sinful. How, then, can communion with slaveholders be sinful? And you have also proved the recent act of Congress to be constitutional, and that all men ought to obey it, citing the highest example on record-the conduct of Paul towards Philemon, in a similar case. If these things be true, and they are true, why all this senseless agitation about abstractions, and that, too, by men calling themselves the followers of the Lord Jesus? Upon the Christian depends the hope of the world. If the Christian be no better than the vilest sinner (and sometimes they are worse) as regards this agitation, what may we not expect? How fearful the prospect, when the Christian becomes blinded by superstition or fanaticism! What will not the conscience then do! "If the light that is in you be darkness, how great must that darkness be!"

Shall we not hear from you, then, in an address to Christians, upon their duties in the premises; the duty they owe to God, to the world, and to themselves, to do all in their power, by the divine assistance, to allay this agitation-to draw more closely the bonds of love and union between the whole family, and to preserve inviolate the great blessing conferred on us by our Divine Father--the integrity of the United States? This is not merely a political duty, but, on account of the blessings we enjoy, a religious duty, binding upon every member of this great family, and especially those who acknowledge the authority of the great King.

Political duty! What is that when there is a "higher law?" Aye, and what is the throne of Jehovah, when there is a "higher law?" There was a "higher law" doctrine once promulged among the armies of heaven, and Satan led off the hosts. And who can tell what will be the end of "higher law" doctrines among men? Analyze them, and there will be found ambition, hatred, prejudice, passion, selfishness, presumption.

Nothing has preserved us from divisions but our principles. Let them be inculcated anew. Let them sink deep into every heart, inspire every soul, and awaken in us higher conceptions and more vivid realizations of our own responsibilities in the great matter before us the preservation of the union of the United States-that