high enough, to produce the finest and loftiest poetical effects; if he does not command the wizard enchantments which a creative imagination spreads over the pages of Spencer and Milton; if he has not the depth of sentiment, the impassioned tenderness, the mingled play of fancy and of feeling, the manifold rythmical harmonies of Lord Byron; if he has not the subtle delicacies which the etherial genius of Tennyson distils into his verse, as the very quintessence and elixir extracted from the inmost heart of poetry; yet he has given us poems glowing with life and energy, replete with animated narrative, picturesque description, and impassioned declamation, and wrought with a harmonious, though somewhat monotonous rhythm. The robust vigor of his genius stamps the same clear impress, the same sharp ontline on his poetry as on his prose, while his exactly attuned ear gives us the same flowing rythm and measured cadence. Moncontour is an exquisite little gem of the most perfect finish; the verse,

"And the long waving line of the blue Pyrenees,"

is scarcely inferior to that verse of unsurpassed imitative melody,

"When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee."

Ivry and Naseby resound with the trumpet-tone of battle, and The Lays of Ancient Rome pour "the ring of Chevey Chase around the seven-hilled city of the Tiber." His poems, like his prose, and for the same reason, have stamped their melodies on the popular mind, and we should part with them from our literature with the same regret which we should feel in the loss of his portraitures of Milton, Chatham, or Hastings. And if, finally, we must deny to Macaulay the divine faculty of creative genius; the large vision and the lofty range of the gifted ones who seem to descend with their sublime gifts from another sphere, yet among the men who stand just on the boundary of that realm, who have their foot on the earth and their head not quite among the stars, no other possesses such affluence of intellectual wealth, such variety and amplitude of endowments; no other spreads before us a page at once so learned, so instructive, and so enchanting.

ARTICLE II.-INFANT BAPTISM.

ITS ORIGIN TRACEABLE TO THE DOCTRINE OF BAPTISMAL REGEN

ERATION.

It belongs to those who deny that Infant Baptism is of divine institution, to give some reasonable explanation of its early origin and extensive prevalence in the Christian church. We accept this responsibility; and it will be our object, in the present article, to inquire what relation may be historically traced between the introduction of Infant Baptism into the church and the early belief in the sacramental efficacy of baptism. We use this form of expression,- the sacramental efficacy of baptism, as a covenient and compendious one for expressing such ideas as these: that baptism washes away original sin; that in baptism remission of sins is obtained; that by baptism the subject of it is regenerated; and that without baptism there is no salvation. It is well known that all these sentiments and forms of speech are found in ecclesiastical writers of the fourth and fifth centuries. It is well known, also, that at the same period the practice of baptizing children had already become very general in the church, though not as yet by any means universal. Taking this period in the history of the church, then, as our starting point, we find the two things in question,-the doctrine of the sacramental efficacy of baptism, and the practice of baptizing infants, coëxistent, and nearly coëxtensive, in the church. Of the two, the doctrine seems to have attained more nearly to universal prevalence than the practice. In confirmation of, this opinion, we refer to such cases as that of Gregory Nazianzen, who, writing in the middle of the fourth century, insists upon the necessity of baptism to salvation, and yet advises that the baptism of children be delayed, where there is no Vol. xxvii-3

danger of their dying unbaptized, until they are about three years of age, at which time they will be capable of being catechized.* Gregory's idea evidently is, that it is better, whenever circumstances do not imperatively require haste, that children should be baptized on their own profession of faith. And the fact that he, the son of a bishop, was not baptized until adult years, confirms still further the opinion above expressed. Indeed, we have a whole class of similar facts to show that Infant Baptism was not yet practiced by all who believed in Baptismal Regeneration. Athanasius, Basil, Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, as well as Gregory, were all baptized after they came to years of manhood.† Yet they were all the children of parents one or both of whom were Christian; and of Augustine, Gregory, and Basil, it is recorded that they were dedicated to God by their pious mothers in their infancy but not by baptism. And all these fathers were believers in the sacramental efficacy of baptism, and advocates of the baptism of infants. Such facts as these more than barely suggest the idea that the prevalence of the practice may have been the result of the prevalence of such views of the effects of the rite. But, further, we find such views distinctly stated as the reason for administering the rite to infants. This is the reason which Gregory gives in the passage above referred to. "For it is better," he says, "that they should be sanctified without being aware of it, than that they should depart out of the world unsealed and uninitiated." Augustine takes the same view of the necessity of baptism to salvation, and even opposes the idea of the Pelagians and some others, that children dying unbaptized, though excluded from the kingdom of heaven, would not be punished with positive torments, but would have assigned to them a separate place in the future world, called the "limbus infantium." And, indeed, the doctrine of the eternal perdition of all un

* Oration on Baptism (40th), vol. I, p. 658.

Is there a single distinguished teacher of the church, either in the East or in the West, during the first four hundred years after Christ, of whom it can be made to appear that he was baptized in infancy? We know of none. There is some probability that Origen was, but no certain proof.

baptized infants was expressly affirmed by the Council of Carthage, A. D. 418.*

Only one thing more is wanting to the proof that the belief which is, in the times of which we are now speaking, so explicitly declared to be the reason for baptizing infants, was the original source of the custom. If we can show that the belief of the sacramental efficacy of baptism, or its necessity to salvation, was at least as early in its origin as the practice of Infant Baptism, then there will remain no reasonable doubt that the practice owed its rise and growth to precisely this doctrine. This is what we shall now attempt to do.

Let us examine first the writings attributed to the so-called Apostolical Fathers.

The Epistle of Barnabas is our first witness. And here our argument need not be embarrassed by any uncertainty as to the genuineness of this Epistle. Let it be granted that it was not written by Barnabas, the companion of Paul. We know that it is referred to and quoted from as genuine by Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome. It is, therefore, certainly more ancient than the oldest of these writers. Clement died before A. D. 220. The Epistle attributed to Barnabas must, therefore, be allowed, whether genuine or spurious, to be older than the beginning of the third century. If it does not belong, as it professes to do, to the latter part of the first century,† it certainly does belong to the second century. The object of the eleventh chapter of this Epistle is to show that both baptism and the cross were foreshadowed by types in the Old Testament. Near the end of this chapter, the author makes a quotation apparently from Ezek. xlvii: 12, though in language not agreeing with the Septuagint any more than with our English version. It reads as follows:§ "And there was a river flowing from the right

* Neander's History of the Church, vol. II, p. 669.

+ It purports to have been written shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem. See ch. iv and ch. xi.

The title which Hefele prefixes to this chapter is as follows: "Baptismum et crucerm Deus jam in V. T. praemonstravit.”

We quote from Arch. Wake's Translation.

hand, and there grew up out of it beautiful trees; and whosoever eateth of their fruit shall live forever." On this passage he remarks as follows: "This means, that we go down into the water full of sins and pollutions, but come up again bringing forth fruit, having in our hearts the fear and hope which is in Jesus by the Spirit.”

The work of Hermas affords a second testimony to the exaggerated efficacy attributed to baptism in that early age. This work is also mentioned, and attributed to Hermas, by Irenæus and by Clement. Irenæus died at the very opening of the third century (A. D. 202). The doctrines which are found in this work, must, therefore, have had place in the church in the second century. In the First Book, Vision Third, chapter iii, we find the following passage: "Hear, then, why the tower is built over the waters: it is because your life has been saved by water, and shall continue to be so.* Again, in the Second Book, Mandate Fourth, chaper iii, near the beginning, we read: "And I said to him, now also, Sir, I have heard from some teachers, that there is no other true repentance, except on the condition that when we descend into the water, and receive the remission of our sins, we should not sin thereafter, but remain in our purity. And he said to me, thou hast rightly heard."

Passing from the Apostolical Fathers to those of the next succeding age, we find ampler and clearer testimonies in regard to their belief in the sacramental efficacy of baptism.

Justin Martyr did not long survive the middle of the second century. The year 166 is the latest date assigned for his martyrdom; and there is much probability that it occurred three years earlier. His first Apology is addressed to Antoninus Pius, and is believed to have been written in the year 138 or 139. In the sixty-sixth chapter of this work, he speaks of "the bath on account of remission of sins, and for regeneration." In the sixty-first chapter, he says of the candidates for baptism: "They are led by us to a place where there is water, and, after the manner of regeneration by which we