dents from all parts of Europe crowded to her seminaries of education, and were received with open arms and splendid hospitality. An interesting memorial of all this is still preserved by Prince Elfrid,* of Northumberland, of which we have given, at the head of this article, a rarely beautiful and very exact translation, by James Clarence Mangan.

Art. III.-DALE ON BAPTISM.†

By Rev. W. J. BEECHER, Professor in Theological Seminary, Auburn, N. Y. BAPTIST writers have been accustomed to insist that a word has but a single meaning, which always clings to it, and from which it cannot be dissevered. Upon the application of this claim to baptizo they have largely depended. This word, they say, has one signification, and only one, throughout the Greek literature. Their opponents have generally deemed it quite important to dislodge them from this position. They have dealt largely in the instances in which the secondary significations of words have virtually become new significations. They have fortified the position, that even if immerse could be proved to be the original and classical meaning of baptizo, the word may, nevertheless, in its technical use in describing religious rites, have become independent of that primary meaning. In Dr. Dale's controversial attitude all this is changed.

This Elfrid must not be confounded with Alfred the Great, who reigned more than a century afterward in the south of England.

† Classic Baptism. An Inquiry into the Meaning of the word BANTIZO, as Determined by the Usage of Classical Greek Writers.

An Inquiry into the Usage of BAITIZ, and the Nature of Judaic Baptism, as Shown by Jewish and Patristic Writings.

An Inquiry into the Usage of BAITIZO, and the Nature of Johannic Baptism, as Exhibited in the Holy Scriptures.

An Inquiry into the Usage of BAITIZO, and the Nature of Christic and Patristic Baptism, as Exhibited in the Holy Scriptures and Patristic Writings. By James W. Dale, D.D., Pastor of Wayne Presb. Church, Delaware Co., Pa. Philadelphia: Wm. Rutter & Co., 1871-74.

Instead of insisting that Baptists adhere too rigidly to the physical signification of the word, hei nsists that they have never been half rigid enough. Instead of asking leave to vary from the generic meaning which they have assigned, he narrows this to the limits of a specific meaning. Instead of complaining that they make the word too scant, he complains that they make it too wide. He claims that it means only a part of what they count it to mean; and that the other part is that from which all their conclusions are drawn.

Other controversialists on his side of the question have been accustomed to say, 'A word may have secondary meanings: therefore, our opponents may be mistaken; and the facts show that they are mistaken.' Dr. Dale says, Dr. Dale says, 'Our opponents must be mistaken, because the primary meaning of the word is so specific as to contradict their conclusions. By it their views are not only not proved, but disproved. Most of the propositions which men on our side of the question are accustomed to hold, as ascertained by induction, may not only be reconciled with the strict meaning of the word, but positively deduced from it.'

Some Baptist writers give baptizo a sufficiently broad scope of meaning to make it include the condition of being within a receptive element, as well as the act of coming within, or putting something within, such an element. Others, in terms, confine it to the act, and deny that it can be used to express the mere condition; although nearly all of these sometimes use the word in the latter sense, and inconsistently with their own definitions. In other words, some of them say, "dip, and nothing but dip," and others say " dip, or immerse." Against both Dr. Dale sets up the opposing definition, "immerse, or rather, merse, as distinguished from dip." The difference he affirms to be radical in two respects. First, dip expresses action, rather than condition; but merse, condition, rather than action. Secondly, the act of dipping is always brief, quickly terminated, unless the contrary appears from additional statements, or from circumstances; while the condition of mersion, unless the contrary appears from circumstances, or from additional statements, is not terminated at all, but is permanent. Physical baptism is, in all the extent of this distinction, not dipping, and not dipping or immersion, but mersion, as distinguished from dipping. But Dr. Dale is careful to

explain that he does not employ the word merse as the equivalent of baptize, but only to distinguish the intusposition which constitutes baptism, from all the inconsistent notions with which his opponents have confounded it.

It absolutely follows that the water used in the rite of baptism cannot possibly be the receptive element within which the baptized person is placed. If the distinctions just made are correct, then, in the natural meaning of words, to baptize one within water, as distinguished from dipping him, would be to drown him. The intusposition, in ritual baptism, must needs be into something else than the water,-something within which the baptized person can stay; and the use of the water must be for something else than an enveloping element.

This accords with the constructions which ordinarily follow baptizo. Eis with the accusative, denotes the receptive element within which that which is baptized is brought by baptism. The dative, or in Hebraized Greek, ev with the dative, denotes some special agency used in the baptism. In purely physical baptisms the agency may be the same with the receptive element, or may be different. In other baptisms, the receptive element, expressed by εis with the accusative, is the new condition of character, or of relation to other beings, within which that which is baptized is placed by the baptism; while the agency, expressed by the dative, with or without ev, may be either water, fire, Holy Ghost, wine, ashes, stones, tear drops, blood drops, opiate pills, or something else, according to the character of the particular baptism in hand; and may be used by dipping, pouring, sprinkling, swallowing, or otherwise, according to the circumstances.

Hence, ritual baptism is not the placing of a person within the water, or fire, or Holy Ghost, or ashes, and taking him out again, which is contrary to the established meaning of the word baptize; but the putting of the person into certain new conditions or relations, and leaving him there, this being done by the appropriate symbolical use of water or other agencies. Has Dr. Dale succeeded in establishing his position?

He begins with the question, whether the results heretofore reached by Baptist investigators are so satisfactory as to preclude the need of further investigation? This question he answers in the negative, on merely prima facie grounds.

First, these investigators confound the two words, bapto and baptizo, which is presumptively contrary to the analogies of language. Secondly, to the two words thus confounded, they attribute various and irreconcilable meanings and uses. They define them by "dip, and nothing but dip," plunge, sink, overwhelm, cover by flowing, by rising up, by pouring over, immerse, immerge, submerge, plunge, imbathe, whelm, and a multitude of other incongruous terms, some indicating act, some indicating condition, some changing with juggler-like agility from act to condition, and back again.

Having found these former investigations thus unsatisfactory, Dr. Dale enters upon an independent inquiry. In the following synopsis, the attempt is made to retain the essential substance of his argument, though, for the sake of brevity, an entirely different order of arrangement is adopted.

I. Dr. Dale sustains his opinion, first, from the presumption that the Greek language, having already the word bapto to express the act of momentary intusposition, would not gratuitously form another word from the same root for exactly the the same use. This presumption is certainly very strong. Synonyms, and especially those formed by ordinary processes, from the same root, are almost invariably formed for the distinct object of expressing differences as well as resemblances. These differences seldom fade out, because they constitute the very reason of being of the new word. No other differences between words are so persistently maintained. It is extremely improbable, then, at the outset, that the difference between bapto and baptizo was either originally so slight, or has so vanished from view, as to leave the two words with practically the same use and signification.

Some of the lexicons call baptizo the frequentative of bapto, and give "to immerse repeatedly" as its primary meaning. This definition Dr. Dale distinctly repudiates. Probably he would not object to designating baptizo as the intensive of bapto, so dipping its object that it will stay dipped. If his opponents prefer to call it causative, they must still admit that causative and intensive forms, in different languages, are often interchangeable, and may be so in this instance. Make the word bapto, therefore, causative-intensive, or intensive-causative, by

the formative appendage, izo, and you have, as a natural grammatical result, even if it is not a result absolutely inevitable, that baptizo should cause its object permanently to assume the condition which, in being bapted, it would assume momentarily. Form the derivative in this way, according to the usual analogies, and all vestiges of modal act and of brevity in the act at once vanish. The condition reached by the object becomes the one important fact under consideration. It is no longer of the least consequence how that condition came to be, or whether it will ever cease to be.

II.Dr. Dale further argues from the analogy of the use of two distinct classes of words in various languages. One class, like bapto, call attention to the act by which a given condition is secured. The other class, like baptizo, call attention to the securing of the condition, without reference to the form of the act by which it is secured. Among the words currently used in the Baptistic controversy, for example, dip, dive, plunge, tingo, etc., belong to the former class; bury, whelm, merse, steep, drench, drown, etc., to the latter class.

Verbs of the first of these two classes differ among themselves in the form of the act they describe. Dip presents a quiet, momentary act; plunge, a violent, momentary act; dive, an act more prolonged. When used intransitively, the motion of the act is performed by the subject of the verb. The boy dives. The oar dips in the water. The sailor plunges overboard. When used transitively, the motion of the act is performed by the object of the verb, "He dips the oar." It is still the oar that moves, though oar is now the object of the verb, and no longer its subject. "The pirate plunges the sailor overboard." The object that moves is the sailor. In words of this sort, in fine, the differences and changes of meaning belong to the act described. Except through the act, they have. no reference to the condition secured by the act. Their primary meaning in the passive voice precisely corresponds to their meaning in the active.

On the other hand, the words of the second of the two classes, differ among themselves in regard to the condition in which the object is placed. The animal inmersed in water is simply within the water, and if it happens to be a fish, may