Algernon Sydney, and plead for
unlimited religious liberty; and Vane, while dreaming of a coming
millennium and reign of the saints, and busily occupied in defending his
Antinomian doctrines, could at the same time vindicate, with tongue and
pen, the cause of civil and religious freedom. But Baxter overlooked the
evils and oppressions which were around him, and forgot the necessities
and duties of the world of time and sense in his earnest aspirations
towards the world of spirits. It is by no means an uninstructive fact,
that with the lapse of years his zeal for proselytism, doctrinal
disputations, and the preaching of threats and terrors visibly declined,
while love for his fellow-men and catholic charity greatly increased, and
he was blessed with a clearer perception of the truth that God is best
served through His suffering children, and that love and reverence for
visible humanity is an indispensable condition of the appropriate worship
of the Unseen God.

But, in taking leave of Richard Baxter, our last words must not be those
of censure. Admiration and reverence become us rather. He was an honest
man. So far as we can judge, his motives were the highest and best which
can influence human action. He had faults and weaknesses, and committed
grave errors, but we are constrained to believe that the prayer with
which he closes his Saints' Rest and which we have chosen as the fitting
termination of our article, was the earnest aspiration of his life:--

"O merciful Father of Spirits! suffer not the soul of thy unworthy
servant to be a stranger to the joys which he describes to others, but
keep me while I remain on earth in daily breathing after thee, and in a
believing affectionate walking with thee! Let those who shall read these
pages not merely read the fruits of my studies, but the breathing of my
active hope and love; that if my heart were open to their view, they
might there read thy love most deeply engraven upon it with a beam from
the face of the Son of God; and not find vanity or lust or pride within
where the words of life appear without, that so these lines may not
witness against me, but, proceeding from the heart of the writer, be
effectual through thy grace upon the heart of the reader, and so be the
savor of life to both."

WILLIAM LEGGETT

"O Freedom! thou art not, as poets dream,
A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,
And wavy tresses, gushing