Christian faith. And it is a work which requireth the greatest judgment and zeal in them that must perform it. It is a doleful thought, that five parts of the world are still heathens and Mahometans, and that Christian princes and preachers do no more to their recovery, but are taken up with sad contentions among themselves; and that the few who have attempted it, have hitherto had so small success." The venerable man is still thinking in Genevan channels, concluding that the only hope of the world is from the rulers in Church and State. The duty is recognized; but the obligation, as binding upon all who profess the name of Christ, is considered to be practicable only through the high agency of established leaders.

In 1656 he published his "Exhortation to Unity," which was founded on the rules of a voluntary association which he had actually organized amongst the ministers of Worcestershire. He aimed at effecting a general union of all ministers who sincerely professed the common Christianity. Although the scope of the association was confined to ministers, yet the principles avowed would, had they prevailed, have led to a visible union among all true Christians. In 1680, he published again on the same subject, which was, in fact, connected with his lengthened controversy on "Catholic Communion."

The popularity of Baxter's preaching occasioned crowds to follow him in London, to the frequent endangering of the buildings in which he officiated. This is not to be wondered at; for Dr. Calamy tells us that "he talked in the pulpit with great freedom about another world, like

one who had been there and was come as a sort of express from thence to make a report concerning it."

In December, 1657, he gave to the world his "Call to the Unconverted," which he had written at the request of good Archbishop Usher. Twenty thousand copies of this treatise were sold in little more than a year from the date of its publication. The conversions which originated through its persual were unprecedented in number. In the preface to this work he thus laments the irreligious tendencies of his age::"O Lord! how heavy and sad a case is this, that even in England, where the Gospel doth abound above any other nation in the world; where teaching is so plain and common, and all the helps we can desire are at hand; when the sword has been hewing us, and judgment has run as a fire through the land; when deliverances have relieved us, and so many admirable mercies have engaged us to God, and to the Gospel, and to a holy life ;—that after all this, our cities and towns, and countries shall abound with multitudes of unsanctified men, and swarm with so much sensuality as everywhere to our grief we see! One would have thought that after all this light, and all this experience, and all these judgments and mercies of God, the people of this nation should have joined together, as one man, to turn to the Lord."

After unwearied and unexampled labours as a theological writer, (extending to about sixty thick volumes,) ere he laid down his pen at the command of his Master, he thus notes the change which time had made by ripening the spirituality of his thoughts and feelings. He says, "In my youth, I was quickly past my fundamentals, and was running up into

a multitude of controversies, and greatly delighted with metaphysical and scholastic writings; but the older I grew, the smaller stress I laid upon these controversies and curiosities, though still my intellect abhorreth confusion, as finding far greater uncertainties in them than I at first discerned, and finding less usefulness, comparatively, even where there is the greatest certainty. And now it is the fundamental doctrines of the Catechism which I most highly value, and daily think of, and find most useful to myself and others. The Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, do find me now the most acceptable and plentiful matter for all my meditations. They are to me as my daily bread and drink; and as I can speak and write of them over and over again, so I had rather read or hear of them than of any of the school niceties which once so much pleased me. And thus I observed it was with Bishop Usher, and with many other men. "'*

The two great voluminous writers of the Puritan age, Owen and Baxter, terminated their literary labours, the one with his "Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ;" the other, with "Dying Thoughts," of the same noble tenor. Fitting close was this of life-long labours for the advancement of Christ's kingdom on earth. Owen's letter to Fleetwood, written the day before his death, is very characteristic of the man :-"I am leaving the ship of the Church in a storm; but while the Great Pilot is in it, the loss of a poor under-rower will be inconsiderable. Live, and pray, and hope, and wait patiently, and do not

* Orme, vol. ii., p. 457.

despond: the promise stands invincible, that He will never leave us nor forsake us."

It is affecting to find him, amidst the strife of tongues in which he himself was a perpetual actor, sighing for some lone mission station amidst the Indians of the Far West, where he could preach Christ without controversy.

It is clear that the best men in all ages have not regarded their lives as their own, but as belonging to God and mankind. They used their faculties for the accomplishment of an end beyond the interests of themselves or their families; they acted and endured in order to establish and exhibit the reign of God on theearth.

The gloomy days of the Bartholomew Act were relieved in the west end of London by the active piety and winning manners of Mrs. Baxter, who was indefatigable in renting, buying, or building, chapels and schools, distributing books, and collecting the poor together to hear the Gospel. When all her efforts to obtain a peaceful shelter for the preaching of her husband were frustrated, she got others, less obnoxious to the rulers to supply the truth she so much loved. She was one of those ardent, active, devoted, winning, accomplished women, whose admirable example has never been wanting, in any period of our history, to grace the progress of the Gospel on the earth. possessed in an uncommon degree the faculty of attracting people's affection, and, whilst unwearied in her schemes of evangelical philanthropy, did not neglect the cultiva tion of her own communion with God. Her lot was cast amidst jars and discords, but personally she everywhere brought music and peace.

She

A period of decadence is often diversified by the occurrence of some rare temporary instance of prosperity, like a rich autumnal flower blooming beyond its time amidst the decays of the fading year. Thus Flavel, who lived on until after the Revolution of 1688, published, during the godless times of the Restoration, his fine treatise on the Soul;-seeking to win the attention of society, by pathos and persuasion, to the great argument concerning the Unseen. The title-page runs thus :-"The Invaluable Preciousness of Human Souls, and the various Artifices of Satan (their professed enemy) to destroy them, discovered; and the great duty and interest of all men seasonably and heartily to comply with the most great and gracious design of the Father, Son, and Spirit, for the salvation of their souls, argued and pressed." His earnestness and eloquence were not in vain the nooks and corners of South Devon witnessed many a happy transformation in answer to his appeals: but the fervour did not spread,—the frivolity of the age overcame it. In vain he sought to impress society with respect for the presence of God in their midst. They were unworthy of such exquisite remonstrances as the following:-"No man would light and maintain a lamp fed with golden oil, and keep it burning from age to age, if the work to be done by the light of it were not of a very precious and important nature. What else are the dispensations of the Gospel, but lamps burning with golden oil, to light souls to heaven!"*

:

Some unknown voice, about 1683, thus pours forth the soul's aspiration for a better-that is, a heavenly country :

*On the Soul, p. 338.