Gunning at the Savoy Conference, when all the town looked at them as at two boxers in a ring. These are but specimens of other like exhibitions. And yet he was as far as possible from being a quarrelsome man. It was in charity for his opponents that he fought. His pertina city in contention was the fruit of the sincerity of his aims. He must have been a delightful companion to those who shared his religious or scholastic sympathies. How pleasant and profitable it would have been to witness the intimate intercourse at Acton between him and Sir Matthew Hale ! He was at once a man of fixed belief and large appreciation, so that his dogmatism and his liberality sometimes came into collision. There was a universality in his genius which distinguishes him from most other men. His popularity as a preacher was deservedly pre-eminent ; but no more diligent student ever shut himself up with his books. He was singularly fitted for intellectual debate, but his devotional tendency was equally strong with his logical aptitude. Some of his writings, from their meta physical subtilty, will always puzzle the learned ; but he could write to the level of the common heart without loss of dignity or pointedness. His Reasons for the Christian Religion is still, for its evidential purpose, better than most works of its class. His Poor Man s Family Book is a manual that continues to be worthy of its title. His Saints Everlasting Rest will always command the grateful admiration of pious readers. Perhaps no thinker has exerted so great an influence upon Nonconformity as Baxter has done, and that not in one direction only, but in every form of development, doctrinal, ecclesiastical, and practical. He is the type of a distinct class of the Chris tian ministry, that class which aspires after scholarly training, prefers a broad to a sectarian theology, and adheres to rational methods of religious investigation and appeal. The rational element in him was very strong. He had a settled hatred to fanaticism. Even Quakerism he could scarcely endure. An infusion of ideal sentiment would have been beneficial to the conduct of his life, as well as to his expositions of truth. The ministers of whom he was the type are to be found in all divisions of the Christian church, but with characteristic modifications. Sometimes their rationalism is most distinctive, sometimes their learning, sometimes their sympathetic feeling. But Baxter excels most of the men he thus represents in his union of those qualities, as well as in the intense sense of religion by which he was actuated. Religion was with him all and in all, that by which all besides was measured, and to whose interests all else was sub
ordinated.A good Life of Baxter, by the Rev. William Orrne, was prefixed to his Practical Works (published in 23 volumes) ; Dr Calamy abridged his Life and Times. The abridgment forms the first volume of the account of the ejected ministers, but whoever refers to it should also acquaint himself with the reply to the accusations which had been brought against Baxter, and which will be found in the second volume of Calamy s Continuation. Sir James Stephen s interesting paper on Baxter, contributed origin ally to the Edinburgh Review, is reprinted in the second volume of his Essays. The best recent estimates of Baxter are those given by Principal Tulloch in his English Puri tanism and its Leader^, and by Dean Stanley in his address at the inauguration of the statue to Baxter at Kidderminster. But most valuable of all is Baxter s autobiography, called Reliquiw Baxteriance, or Mr Richard Baxter s Narrative of the most memorable Passages of his Life and Times. It is almost as real as a personal knowledge of its subject could have been. The account he gives at the end of Part I. of the spiritual changes he had undergone will never cease to be regarded as a rare and profoundly interesting instance of faithful self-knowledge, and it has served the cause of Christian charity more, probably, than any treatise ever written on the subject.
There are two testimonies to Baxter s worth which, though they have frequently been quoted, cannot be omitted from any fair notice of him. Dr Barrow said that " his practical writings were never mended, and his controversial ones seldom confuted," and Bishop Wilkins asserted that "if he had lived in the primitive time he had been one of the fathers of the church."
born, of a noble family, at the chateau Bayard, Dauphin 6, in 1476. He served as a page to the duke of Savoy until Charles VIII. , attracted by his graceful bearing, placed him among the royal followers under the count de Ligny. As a youth he was distinguished for comeliness, affability of manner, and skill in the tilt-yard. In 1494 he accom panied Charles VIII. into Italy, and was knighted after the battle of Fornova, where he had captured a standard. Shortly afterwards, entering Milan alone in pursuit of the enemy, he was taken prisoner, but was set free without a ransom by Ludovic Sforza. His powers and daring were conspicuous in the Italian wars of this period. On one occasion it is said that, single-handed, he made good the defence of a bridge over the Garigliano against about 200 Spaniards, an exploit that brought him such renown that Pope Julius II. sought to entice him into the Papal service, but unsuccessfully. The captaincy of a company in the royal service was given him in 1508, and the following year he led a storming party at the siege of Brescia. Here his intrepidity in first mounting the rampart cost him a severe wound, which obliged his soldiers to carry him into a neighbouring house, the residence of a nobleman, whose wife and daughters he protected from threatened insult. On his recovery he declined a gift of 2500 ducats, with which they sought to reward him. At this time his general was the celebrated Gaston de Foix, who acted greatly in accordance with his advice, and, indeed, fell at the battle of Ravenna through neglecting it. In 1513, when Henry VIII. of England routed the French at the battle of the Spurs, Bayard, in trying to rally his country men, found his escape cut off. Suddenly riding up to an English officer who was resting unarmed, he summoned him to yield, and the knight complying, Bayard in return gave himself up to his prisoner. He was taken into the English camp, but on relating this gallant incident was immediately set free by the king without ransom. On the accession of Francis I. in 1515 he was made lieutenant- general of Dauphine" ; and after the victory of Marignano, to which his valour largely contributed, he had the honour of conferring knighthood on his youthful sovereign. When war again broke out between Francis I. and Charles V., Bayard, with 1000 men, held Mezieres, a town which had been declared untenable, against an army of 35,000, and after six weeks compelled Nassau to raise the siege. This stubborn resistance saved Central France from invasion, as the king had not then sufficient forces to with stand the imperialists. All France rang with the achievement. Parliament thanked Bayard as the saviour of his country; the king made him a knight of the order of St Michael, and commander in his own name of 100 gens d armes, an honour till then reserved for princes of the blood. After allaying a revolt at Genoa, and striving with the greatest assiduity to check a pestilence in Dauphine", Bayard was sent, in 1523, into Italy with Admiral Bonivet, who, being defeated at Rebec, implored him to assume the command and save the army. He repulsed the foremost pursuers, but in guarding the rear at the passage of the Sesia was mortally wounded. He had
himself placed against a tree that he might die facing the
