or, the truth of a proposition involves the truth of its converse. Unduly to elevate human nature is to degrade that divine law by which alone, as a standard, human nature can be tried. So to Christianize Plato is to Platonize Christianity. To insert into the one a redemption which it does not contain, is to take out from the other a redemption which it does contain. And, looking closely into the system, we find Platonism fraught with elements powerful to prepare the way for Christianity, powerful possibly to aid its progress, but equally powerful to corrupt it; a most serviceable handmaid to religion, but a dangerous companion and a tyrannical master; a bright light shining amidst the darkness of heathenism, but a dark orb amidst the pure illuminations of Christianity; illustrating abundantly how profound are the moral convictions, how irrepressible the religious aspirings, how vast the capacities of the soul, and yet illustrating not less abundantly that sad and solemn truth that "the world by wisdom knew not God."

And this subject we deem specially pertinent to our own times. While the special problems which determined the outward form of Platonism have passed away, it has elements of permanent interest which, disengaging themselves from the incidental and transient, ally themselves to vital forms of error and truth, and reappear in the successive cycles of human thought. To some of these elements the present time is peculiarly favorable. Superficial as seems our age, superficial as in many respects it is, it is by no means deficient in earnest thinking, and its aspects of materialism are not without strongly contrasted strivings in the direction of idealism. This is seen in much of the scepticism of our age. It is no longer the gross, grovelling, denying, mocking, Mephistophelian scepticism of a former day, but is refined, subtle, transcendental, spiritualizing. It is an unbelief, not which scoffs at Christianity, but which patronizes it; not which sinks grovellingly below, but which soars sublimely above it; which acknowledges that Christianity has accomplished for mankind a beneficent ministry in the rudimentary stages of their culture, but declares that, antiquated and out

grown, it must surrender their maturer discipline to the higher ministry of reason and the broader illuminations of philosophy. The race must be led forth from the narrow tents of Shem, and expatiate in the more generous domain of Japhet. The concrete dogmas of faith must be expanded and sublimated into the generalized abstractions of the reason. Enlightened, liberalized, emancipated humanity must no longer fix its faith on an objective Revelation, no longer cower before a righteous and an avenging God, no longer seek in the blood of a literal atonement redemption from a literal perdition. We have changed all that—left it far behind us-deposited it in the cradle with the swaddling clothes of our spiritual infancy. Theism gives place to Pantheism. The insignificant One rejoices in his absorption into the infinite All. Individual freedom, with its terrible drawback of individual guilt, is gladly exchanged for the dark dominion of an irresponsible necessity. Virtue and vice have lost their essential distinctions, and humanity, with a humiliating retrogression, recedes from the intolerable glare of Christianity, with its fearful revelations at once of privilege and responsibility, into the sheltering and congenial gloom of fatalism. There are elements in Platonism which lend to this class of unbelievers aid and comfort. They gladly clothe themselves with the panoply of the great semi-Christian sage in their conflict with Christianity, and bring the "divine philosophy" of the Academy to confront and discredit the philosophy of the cross.

Yet there is a wide difference between the two parties. They stand seemingly on the same platform, but they have reached it from different directions. Plato is struggling out of darkness into light; they are replunging from the light which they hate into kindred darkness. He is striving with a herculean effort, though after all in vain, to break from the coils of that dark and dread fatality which wound itself around every system of heathen speculation; they have deliberately renounced their birthright of moral freedom, and rivet anew upon their souls the chains which Christianity had rent asunder. Plato's face is upward, theirs downward. He is sighing for truth, they courting and welcoming error. He exulting

in every transient gleam that flits across his vision, as a harbinger of perfect day; they shutting their eyes to the light, and then resolutely denying its existence. Assuredly Plato will be a swift witness against them-the semi-Christian Pagan against the more than semi-Paganized Christians— in the day of final decision.

ARTICLE II.-HOW DID THE "ANABAPTISTS" ADMINISTER BAPTISM?

We submit to our readers a few statements that may help to shed light on the early history of the views respecting the mode of Baptism, entertained by some of those persons in Germany and the neighboring countries who were called Anabaptists.

In 1818, Dr. Brenner, a learned and reliable Roman Catholic historian, presented the following synoptical view of ancient times and of modern, in respect to Baptism, among those who acknowledge the Papal authority :

FORMERLY.

Thirteen hundred years, Baptism was generally and ordinarily an immersion of the person under water, and only in extraordinary cases a sprink, ling or pouring with water; the latter, as a mode of Baptism, was, moreover, called in question, aye, even forbidden.

AT PRESENT.

Now Baptism is generally and ordinarily a pouring of the person with water; and only in the Church of Milan immersion still continues, as something peculiar to this church alone, and extraordinary; elsewhere it would be punishable.*

According to this statement, a great change must have occurred after the beginning of the fourteenth century; and it is well known that, before the time of the Lutheran Refor

Geschichtliche Darstellung der Verrichtung der Taup, von Christus bis auf unsere Zeiten. (History of the Administration of Baptism, from Christ to our times, p. 306.)

mation, early in the sixteenth century, sprinkling, or rather pouring, had very generally taken the place of immersion. This, if we mistake not, was more generally the case on the continent of Europe than in Great Britain. Queen Elizabeth, it will be recollected, was immersed in her infancy.

Luther and other leading Reformers made little or no contest with the Romish church about Baptism. Affusion continued to prevail among the Protestants, as well as among the Romanists. At the same time, immersion was recognized in theory and in formularies; and certain scriptural and kindred expressions, derived from the use of the ancient mode, were retained in religious discourse, very much as the expressions "dead unto sin," "buried with Christ," "partaker of his resurrection," and the like, are at the present day in the liturgical formularies of the English church, while the act performed or alluded to may be only a sprinkling or pouring. Thus, in the English liturgy, it is said of the officiating minister, in reference to the child to be baptized, "He shall dip it in the water discreetly, or shall pour water upon it, saying, I baptize thee," &c. Thus, too, it is added, "Remembering always that Baptism doth represent unto us our profession, which is to follow the example of our Saviour Christ, and to be made like unto Him, that as He died, and rose again for us, so should we who are baptized die from sin, and rise again unto righteousness."

The great Reformer himself, in his work entitled the Babylonian Captivity (Captivitas Babylonica), after speaking of the Apostle Paul's representation of Baptism as a symbol of death and resurrection, says: "On this account I could wish that such as are to be baptized should be completely immersed into water, according to the meaning of the word and the signification of the ordinance, not because I think it necessary, but because it would be beautiful to have a full and perfect sign of so perfect and full a thing, as also without doubt it was instituted by Christ."*

* Hac ratione motus, vellem baptizandos penitus in aquam immergi, sicut sonat vocabulum et signat mysterium, non quod necessarium arbitrer, sed

Still, in practice, affusion had long been firmly established, as being equivalent to any other mode. It had been sanctioned by the highest ecclesiastical and civil authorities. It had become sacredly associated with a transaction whose supposed mysterious and supernatural efficacy in imparting spiritual blessings outweighed every other consideration. And it had been so connected with passages of Scripture in the solemn baptismal services as to commend it to the most favorable regard. For example, as a part of those services the forty-first Psalm was rehearsed, in which a voice is heard, saying, "All thy billows and thy waves are gone over me.” And then, at the close of the Psalm, after an ascription of glory to the Father, the response is uttered, "I will pour upon you clean water, and ye shall be cleansed from all your iniquities, saith the Lord."*

In view of these facts, and considering how the human mind has often been affected in similar circumstances, we need not wonder that the people were generally predisposed to adhere to the prevalent custom.

Luther and his brother theologians were absorbed with other themes. He was calling attention to his great doctrine of justification by faith. What could have been more natural than that thoughtful and earnest men, coming forth in different places, should think that faith must be requisite in baptism? And some, or even most of these, might never have had any particular objection to the mode in which, from their childhood, they had been accustomed to see that ordinance administered. The grand prerequisite for Baptism was one thing, and the act of Baptism was quite another. Many a man has thought intensely on the one, long before he has done so on the other. Some years ago, when we were in France, a young gentlemen at one of the public religious meetings in Paris, was introduced as a Baptist preacher from Berne, in

quod pulchrum foret, rei tam perfectae et plenae signum quoque et perfectum dari, sicut et institutum est sine dubio a Christo. See the collection Omni. Oper. M. Lutheri, vol. II, p. 76, ed. 1554.

* See Rituale Romanum Pauli Quinti Pontificis Maximi Jussu editum, &c., p. 29.

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