Notices of Books:

Baptism: its Subjects, Mode, and Value.
By the Rev. D. MEIKLEJOHN, Liverpool.
Glasgow: Thomas Smith, 52, Argyle
Street. 1861.

of a

THIS little treatise, from the pen young minister of our Church, is not one of those ephemeral and superfluous essays in authorship with which, in these days, we are unpleasantly familiar; and in the case of which we are always tempted to address to the writer the very ancient inquiry, "Wherefore shouldst thou run, seeing thou hast no tidings? Many an Ahimaaz rushes into print without waiting to have something to say. In the course of his evangelistic labours amidst the neglected and destitute population of one of our great cities, labours which we are happy to know have borne manifest fruit, Mr. Meiklejohn has come into contact with that class of awakened and inquiring minds which, under the novel pressure of religious conviction, or in the first fervid impulses of faith and self-consecration, are liable to have their views unsettled and perplexed on the subject of Baptism. It is to this class, as standing in special need of solid and judicious instruction concerning the initiatory ordinance of the Gospel, that the author mainly addresses himself; but his work will be perused with interest and profit by the members of the Church at large, and especially by the heads of Christian households. It will be found to embody a terse and forcible résumé of the Scriptural evidence of infant baptism, as well as a lucid and convincing demonstration of the grand spiritual principles that lie at the root of the question. Well does the author remark, after having cleared his way by cogent reasoning to the con

clusion:

"The state of the question is, not that we are wrong in administering baptism to infants unless we can find an instance of Infant Baptism in the New Testament, but that you are wrong in neglecting it unless you can find a prohibition of it." p. 15.

The force and bearing of the argument from Old Testament analogy is thus concisely summed up :

basis for the practice of Infant Baptism.”— p. 20.

What Mr. M. says as to the tendency of those who hold the opposite view to exalt the mode of administration into undue importance deserves to be seriously pondered. We have been struck with a singular confirmation of the truth of his remarks, in a letter from a Baptist missionary in Burmah, which had first appeared in one of the leading religious been permitted, four Sabbaths in succession, periodicals. The writer speaks of having "to visit the beautiful waters of the large royal tank, to bury in baptism joyful converts;" of one of his brethren "leading down into the liquid grave," fourteen perat one time. If the baptisms of sons apostolic times had been recorded in this strain in the Acts, there would have been an end of all strife long ago. Is there not in this elevation of Scriptural imagery into dogmatic teaching something that reminds us of the mystical and overstrained phraseology that has come to be

associated with another ordinance of the

Gospel by the advocates of the high sacramental theory? Is there not an approach to the same spirit of ritualism in this materialising interpretation of a symbolic phrase?

We cordially recommend Mr. Meiklea well-timed and useful john's work as contribution to our religious literature. At the same time, we cannot conclude our brief notice without remarking a certain controversial asperity and over-confidence of tone in his allusions to opponents' faults, into which a young author is apt to be betrayed. We hope that when an opportunity of revising the book occurs, expressions of this kind, which we fear can only have the effect of impairing its chance of usefulness, will be carefully weeded out. The ointment will be improved in fragrance and virtue by the removal of some flies that have found their way into it.

The Blackwell Prize Essay for 1860. On

the Causes that have retarded the Progress of the Reformation. By the Rev. WILLIAM MACKRAY, A.M. London: E. Marlborough & Co. Edinburgh: Blackwood & Sons.

"One single, solitary instance of an infant receiving, by God's appointment, a church rite on the ground of his parents' faith-a rite which is a sign and seal of WE have to express regret at an uninthe righteousness of faith-would serve to tentional omission, in not having noticed all time coming as a triumphant vindi- this very valuable essay at an earlier period. cation of the principle, and a complete It is the second of the Blackwell Prize

The Essay is divided into two parts, namely,-The causes of a general kind which had a tendency to retard the progress of the Reformation; and, secondly, causes of a special nature-some of them pertaining to the movements of the Papacy, and others, attributable to Protestants themselves.

re

Essays which has been awarded to Mr. | ling with many of his brethren throughout Mackray, and the production is most de- almost all Europe and a great part of Asia, serving of the high honour which has thus "composing quarrels," it is said; been bestowed upon it. conciling multitudes to the obedience of the Holy See; leaving nothing unattempted in his desire for the salvation of men; bringing even the worst men from the revelry of their vices to penitence and the love of Jesus Christ." Dominic, in fine, owed the existence and renown of his name and order to the circumstances and events of those critical times. Five Under the head of "Papal Extension," years posterior to the consecration of St. we have the following instructive passage, Francis, he devoted himself to the Roman "The Reformation, though undoubtedly See; and, in opposition to the cardinals, the greatest, was not the first great crisis and on the ground of another dream, in which the Church had encountered. Be- which Innocent beheld the Lutheran sides earlier ones of inauspicious memory, Church falling, and Dominic stepping in her annals recorded the fearful perils of the to support it with his shoulders, he too thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when, was set apart as chief of one of the great through a most portentous schism, and missionary communities of the Papal under the claims and denunciations of rival Church. We associate these orders, some popes, the Church's boasted infallibility of them at least, in our minds only with became a byeword, and her very existence what is dark, malignant, and atrocious in seemed to be at stake. How were these religious fanaticism; but we do them perils met and overcome? Doubtless, in wrong. There were such spirits among some quarters, by no mild and gracious means-but in others by new missions and new missionary orders. We say new missions; for it is the fact, and it cannot be too well known, or too deeply pondered by the Protestant Churches, that Rome was the Missionary Church long before the Reformation. In the sixth century her missionary zeal penetrated England; and to Augustine, the monk, first Bishop of Canterbury, and through him to the occupant of St. Peter's chair at Rome, do the Papalisers of Oxford trace up their orders and observances at this day. In the eighth century the same zeal made Germany its debtor by the mission of Boniface, honoured downwards from his own age in the memory of the grateful people, as The Apostle of the Germans."""

them; but Rome can employ the best means as well as the worst. Nay, we will do her the justice to say, that when she has them in her power, she will prefer the best. Vincent Ferrier, the Dominican, was, in this point of view, the ornament of the fourteenth century; and yet he was only one of a number of gifted and energetic men of the orders to which we have been referring, who, for powerful, effective, and really useful preaching, were the Wesleys and Whitfields of the age in which they lived.

In the very same way did Rome meet the crisis of the sixteenth century. Thus, instructed in her own history, did she equip herself to repair the disasters inflicted upon her by the Reformation. The Papal Court itself became, as it were, a body of Thus did Rome meet and overcome her new men. The easy, effeminated elegancies perils of the thirteenth and fourteenth of Leo gave place to the gravities and centuries. She laid hold of, and conse- solemn earnestness of minds engrossed crated to her service the remarkable and with one great ruling idea and purposetalented men who placed themselves before the subjugation of the world to the Roman her. Francis, for example, laid his claim See. Institutions previously existing, for an ecclesiastical order at the feet of the having for their object the defence and pontiffs; and, when the cardinals hesi- propagation of the faith, were remodelled tated-deeming the existing fraternities and infused with new life and vigour, numerous enough-Innocent opportunely and communities, having the purpose of dreamed that he saw "a palm-tree growing more extended and formidable operations, up at his feet," and forthwith sanctioned were plauned and organised. Among an order which, ere ten years had elapsed, these, our present subject leads us to the numbered five thousand members, having order of the Jesuits, and to that order authority to preach at large, and without particularly in its missionary character. It licence from the bishop of the diocese. is a remarkable fact, that just at the time Benitus, of Florence, too, appeared, and having obtained the pontifical sanction to the order of "The Servants of God," gave it organisation and intense energy, travel

when disaster had come over the cause of Rome in the Old World, she was busied sending forth her apostles to make aggres* Roman Breviary; Philip Benitus,—Aug. 23rd.

on details. Suffice it to say, in the words
of our greatest modern historian-now,
alas! with us no more :-" The Jesuit mis-
sionaries invaded all the countries which
the great maritime discoveries of the pre-
ceding age had laid open to European
enterprise. They are to be found in the
depths of the Peruvian mines, at the marts
of the African slave-caravans, on the
shores of the Spice islands, and in the
observatories of China. They made con-
verts in regions where neither avarice nor
tempted any of their
curiosity had
countrymen to enter, and preached and
disputed in tongues of which no other
native of the West understood a word."t
We need not say how desirable it is that
such a work as this should meet with a
wide circulation.

sions on the New. Instead of waiting till prehended 250 churches, 3 seminaries, and she could concentrate her forces upon 400,000 converts. But we cannot dwell Europe, to retrieve her losses there, she set on foot new and daring enterprises in foreign regions; doubting not that, by the triumphs of the faith abroad, she should soon reconquer the territories that had been wrested from her at home. The idea was a noble one; and worthy of a higher and holier cause. Luther died in 1546; and, five years before that time, the renowned missionary leader of the Jesuits had gone to India, and commenced those Eastern Missions which gave the Church an empire in Asia more extensive by far than that which she had lost in Europe. The whole missionary life of this wonderful man extended to only ten years and a half; but during that time he gained many thousands of converts in the continent of India, and visited, more than once, the island of Ceylon, the peninsula of Old Jonathan for the present month is Malacca, and the islands of the Indian The noble woodcut, which Archipelago. He was the first Christian mis- excellent. sionary that landed on the island of Japan. adorns its first page, represents the His labours there were continued during journeyman-baker at his useful but laborNo better or "cheaper " two years and a half, till his death at the age ious toil. of forty-six; and fifty years after that pennyworth can be had, of its kind, than period, the mission he had founded com- this.

* Xavier.

+ Macaulay.

Presbyterian Church in England.

THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE. THE Winter Session of the Theological College of the Presbyterian Church in England will be opened (D.V.) on Tuesday, the 8th of October, at Six o'clock p.m., when the opening lecture will be delivered by the Rev. Dr. McCrie. The lecture will be of a popular character, and all friends are invited to attend.

The course at this College embraces six sessions of four months each, extending to three years. The terms on which bursaries and scholarships are awarded may be learnt on application to the Professors, at the College, 29, Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London, W.C.; or to Archibald J. Ritchie, Esq., Treasurer and Secretary, 26, Poultry, London, E.C.

COLLECTIONS AND DONATIONS.

FOREIGN MISSIONS.

Etal Sabbath School
Lowick (collection)
Risley (collection)
Do. (association)
Collections :--

£0 14 9
060

109

540

2.17 7

016 0

Dudley
Warrington
Michael Church, Herefordshire

JAMES E. MATHIESÓN,
Joint Treasurer.

77, Lombard Street, E.C.,
London, 20th Sept., 1861.

Presbyteries' Bracerdings.

PRESBYTERY OF NEWCASTLE.

A pro re nata meeting of this Presbytery was held in the John Knox Church, Newcastle, on the 19th ult., to consider and dispose of an application from Laygate congre gation for the moderation in a call. Pre