death do us part? no, but eternally unite. Therefore, in love which never faileth, I am your affectionate brother." This loving brother, blessed to the very end of his fourscore years, in the church and in his family, had calmly and joyfully met the change whose last pangs he had always dreaded. Mr. Fletcher too had gone. So gentle and pure a life as his, so cheerful and holy a character, so tranquil an end, the world has rarely seen. He was born at Nyon, on the shore of lake Geneva, and the many vicissitudes of his early life, seemed to indicate that Providence was guiding him to an object that he knew not. Unsatisfied with the clerical profession to which he was early devoted, he left Switzerland and entered the military service of Portugal, destined for Brazil. What a beautiful soul seemed on the point of being lost! An accident (so men call it) changed his whole destiny. On the eve of embarkation, a servant overturned a kettle of boiling water upon his leg. He was left behind on the sick list. Recovering, he sought active service in Holland, but peace was declared and he passed into England. After a time he took orders in the Episcopal church, joined the Methodists, and by his holy life has made the little parish of Madeley, to which he was appointed, a name always to be heard with joy. His account of himself as he drew near the close of his useful but not protracted life, is too "beautiful," as Southey justly calls it, to be passed over. "We are two poor invalids," he says of himself and wife," who between us, make half a laborer. She sweetly helps me to drink the dregs of life, and to carry with ease the bitter cross.' "I keep in my sentry-box till Providence removes me. My situation is quite suited to my little strength. I may do as much or as little as I please, according to my weakness; and I have an advantage which I can have nowhere else in such a degree; my little field of action is just at my door, so that if I happen to overdo myself, I have but to step from my pulpit to my bed, and from my bed to my grave. If I had a body full of vigor and a purse full of money, I should like well enough to travel about as Mr. Wesley does; but as Providence does not call me to it, I readily submit. The snail does best in his shell."

A man averse to authority and the honors of office, but full of gentleness and benevolence, after a life of self-sacrifice, was now about to end his connection with the world and seek his home in heaven. His death was as remarkable as his life.

The hand of disease arising from previous exposure pressed heavily upon him. As he was performing the services of the Sabbath, he nearly fainted, but recovered and insisted on going on.' After the sermon he walked to the communion table, saying, "I am going to throw myself under the wings of the cherubim, before the mercy-seat." "Here," says his widow, "the same distressing scene was renewed, with additional solemnity. The people were deeply affected while they beheld him offering up the last languid remains of a life which had been lavishly spent in their service. Groans and tears were on every side. In going through this part of his duty, he was exhausted again and again; but his spiritual vigor triumphed over his bodily weakness. After several times sinking on the sacramental table, he still resumed the sacred work, and cheerfully distributed with his dying hand, the love memorials of his dying Lord." From that long service, made longer to him by hymns and exhortations, he retired to his chamber, never to leave it again. The next Sunday, the whole parish were in mourning: the poor whom he had befriended, and many of whom had come from a distance, wished once more to look upon their beloved pastor and friend. Permission was granted, and they passed along by the open door of his chamber, and looked in upon the sick man, who sat supported in bed "unaltered in his usual venerable appearance.' A few hours later his earthly career was ended. "I was intimately acquainted with him," says Mr. Wesley, "for above thirty years. I conversed with him morning, noon, and night, without the least reserve during a journey of many hundred miles, and in all that time I never heard him speak one improper word, nor saw him do an improper action. Many exemplary men have I known, holy in heart and life, within fourscore years, but one equal to him have I not known, one so inwardly and outwardly devoted to God; so unblamable a character have I not found, either in Europe or America. Nor do I expect to find another such on this side of eternity." "Wesley," adds Mr. Southey, "had the temper and talents of a statesman; in the Romish church he would have been the general, if not the founder of an order, or might have held a distinguished place in history as a cardinal or a pope. Fletcher, in any community would have been a saint."

وو

And now the messenger came for Mr. Wesley himself, and brought the token that he was a true messenger. "Those that

look out of the windows shall be darkened, the grasshopper shall be a burden." Fourscore years found him still active, travelling four thousand miles annually, preaching, writing, and directing the extended business of the society. Six years more, and he began to feel that the machine was wearing out, that the "weary wheels of life must stand still at last.” He could not well preach more than twice a day. His service at five in the morning, continued for so many years, was given up. He wrote in his cash account book with a tremulous hand, "For upwards of eighty-six years I have kept my accounts exactly. I will not attempt it any longer, being satisfied with the continual conviction, that I save all I can and give all I can, i. e. all I have." Thus closed the accounts of one, who, never being rich, gave away during his life thirty thousand pounds! Time has shaken me by the hand," he said in the words of his father, "and death is not far behind." The second day of March, 1791, came at last. Sixty-five years of his ministry had passed away. The horologe had pealed out the eighty-eighth year of his life, and the hands of the dial stood still forever.

The body, dressed in his clerical habit, with gown, cassock, and band, lay "in a kind of state" in the plain chapel of the denomination, and multitudes flocked to look once more upon the mild and venerable features. The mourners were many, and at the funeral, early in the day for fear of a crowd, when the preacher read that part of the service, "Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother"-his voice changed and he substituted the word father. The whole congregation burst into weeping. Thus ended the life of one of the most influential men of his age; whose authority at the time of his death, extended over more than a hundred and twenty-five thousand followers; and whose influence will reach down a thousand years.

ARTICLE VII.

BAPTISM.

By the Rev. Edward Beecher, President of Illinois College, Jacksonville, Illinois.

[Continued from p. 109.]

Ar the close of my last article I made the following remarks. "It was my intention to finish the discussion in this article; but the reception of Mr. Carson's violent attack, and the general interest now felt in the subject, seemed to indicate the propriety, not to say necessity, of a discussion more thorough and extended than is consistent with the limits of one article." I proceed, therefore, to complete the discussion thus announced.

§ 59. Reasons for a further notice of Mr. Carson.

It may perhaps be alleged by some, that it is needless to take any further notice of Mr. Carson. For if his fundamental principles are false, as I have shown, then all that grows out of them is false, and therefore there is no need of exposing his errors in detail. Besides, the spirit of his work is so bad, that it cannot exert any power over a candid mind: indeed Mr. Carson has completely exposed himself, and totally destroyed his own power by the manner of his reply. Besides, it is humiliating to argue with an antagonist who so far forgets the laws of honorable controversy, as to indulge in such assumptions of superior wisdom, and such gross personalities as fill his reply. Such an antagonist is more properly answered by a dignified silence.

Such things may be said, and I freely admit with much plausibility; indeed such considerations have often occurred to my own mind in reading Mr. Carson's reply.

But it must be remembered that no organized body of men is willing to see the truth of principles which are at war with the fundamental principles on which they are organized; and if principles which they are unwilling to see are established, they are always more desirous to overlook and forget them than to apply them and carry them out to their ultimate results. And if we would correct errors which are kept alive not by logic,

but by organic power, we must not only develope principles, but seek from God the discretion and energy needed in order wisely and efficiently to apply them. Then by his aid may we hope to see such errors finally and thoroughly destroyed.

Moreover, the fact that a work is written in a bad spirit, is not always a sufficient reason for not giving it a thorough and detailed answer. The bad spirit of a work may operate in two ways. It may either react upon the author, and destroy his power, or it may infect and corrupt the body in whose behalf it was written, and bring them down to its own low standard. But so strong are the temptations of party spirit, and so powerful is the unsubdued pride of organized bodies even of good men, that a zealous partisan, though he writes in a bad spirit, is notwithstanding applauded and hailed as a leader if he seems to argue the cause of the party with power. In short, organic bodies are always in danger of preferring intellectual power and the victory of their own peculiar principles to holiness and truth. And if they do, a work written with intellectual power, but in a bad spirit, will corrupt the whole body: like poison it will diffuse itself through the whole system. Hence, to write in a bad spirit is the highest sin which a man of great intellectual power can commit, for it is throwing poison most malignant into the very springs of spiritual life. Nor can any one body of Christians be corrupted without endangering the spiritual life of others. For pride in one body tends to beget both pride and anger in all others, and to lead to a spirit of bitter and malignant recrimination, by which the Spirit of God is grieved and provoked to take his flight.

In all such cases it is our duty to seek for grace and wisdom from God, not only to resist in ourselves the infection of the bad spirit which is poisoning the body politic, but also to destroy its malignant power, by stripping off the garb of piety in which it seeks to veil itself, and exposing its true and pestilential nature. Then, by the blessing of God, will its infectious power be destroyed by the fire of divine truth and holy abhorrence, and thus will the moral nature of the community be restored to soundness, and the plague be stayed.

Had any person in the Baptist denomination undertaken to do this work in the case of Mr. Carson, it would have indicated a moral soundness in that body which would have been cheering to any holy heart. It is therefore with no small grief that I have noticed the fact, that on both sides of the Atlantic some