Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/327

 ii s. i. APR. 16, i9io.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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prisoner. . . .was asked the question, ' How say you, are you guilty or not guilty ? ' If he said ' Not guilty,' the answer was, ' Culprit, how will you be tried ? ' to which the prisoner had to reply, 8 By God and my country.' " MISTLETOE.

0n

Minutes of the General Assembly of the General

Baptist Churches in England. Edited by W. T.

Whitley, LL.D. 2 vols. (Kingsgate Press.) WE have nothing but praise for this addition to the work of the Baptist Historical Society. These records show most careful editing, and Dr. Whitley's notes add much to their value.

The first volume opens with a note by the President of the Society, the Rev. G. P. Gould. We fully agree with him that these "General" Baptists, who admit us to their inmost councils in these pages, would be " remarkable in any age for their devoutness, their steadfastness, their intelligent apprehension of theit position as Christian men." The records begin in 1654, and take us down to 1811 ; and as during the nine- teenth century the General Baptists issued their minutes annually in print, those Whose desire for more information has been awakened will have little difficulty in filling up the story.

The editor in his Introduction gives in a succinct form the origin and early history of the General Baptists. Of great interest is their geographical distribution. They were a rural community. Outside London, hardly a town w;is occupied ; ' ' and if the bishops can be believed that in 1669 only 24 Dissenters of all descriptions were known at Ely, 29 at Leicester, 82 at Lincoln, 20 at Peterborough, the churches there must have been microscopic." " The first General Baptist Church in London, or in England, was that brought by Helwys and Morton from Amsterdam in 1611, which worshipped in Spitalfields." The greatest church was in White's Alley, a church which survived until quite lately. It " began its history before the Civil War, and with the practical freedom of the Press in 1640 comes to light as having several prominent men, of whom- some entertained the church at their own homes." After many moves the members erected a chapel in East Surrey Grove, Peckham, about 1863, and there died about the close of the century.

The earliest known proceedings of the Assembly \vere held in London in 1656. Many points of doctrine and discipline were then agreed upon ; marriage out of communion was declared to be unlawful ; the poor members of a church were not to beg on their own behalf, but were to have their (feeds submitted to a messenger appointed to investigate the matter, when help would be afforded. Those who had lost their money by peculation were excluded. It was enjoined that " the Saints " were to suffer long, but recourse to law was permissible in the last resort. As regards the Civil Power, the Church was to behave hi all humility, but in matters of worship, if commands were made " contrary to God's law, to suffer

meekly.''

It was long before singing was generally adopted as a part of the public worship in Baptist churches : " Benjamin Keach was responsible for the inno-

vation, and published in 1691 nearly three hundred hymns, entitled ' Scriptural Melody.' His chief disciple was Joseph Stennett, sen., who since 1689 was pastor of the Sabbatarian Calvin- istic Baptist Church worshipping on Saturdays at Devonshire Square." Stennett's Sabbath hymn " Another six days' work is done " is often sung still upon the Lord's Day. But " the Assembly churches long remained songless, and in 1782 the New Communion decided to have simple congre- gational singing without musical instruments.. Gilbert Boyce soon published a volume against the practice." Singing with organ accompani- ment is now general at all Baptist churches, with the exception of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, where the congregation sing without accompani- ment, as in the days of Spurgeon, whose objection to the use of the organ is well known.

We cannot close our notice without reference to the three carefully compiled indexes.

Early English Proverbs. Collected by the Rev

W. W. Skeat, Litt.D. (Oxford, Clarendon,

Press.)

ANOTHER of Prof. Skeat 's always welcome books lies before us. To one so long and intimately familiar with Early English literature there was probably little difficulty in making a collection of the proverbs which he had taken note of in texts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, many of which have been edited by himself. There is hardly any limit to the amount of illustrative quotations which might be produced from the singularly rich literature of proverbs ; Prof.. Skeat has been content, for the most part, to supply those which he has met in his own reading, ignoring the material ready to hand in such well- known books as Hulme's, Trench's, and Biich- mann's. The result is a volume which every one who values the wisdom and English of his fore- fathers will like to possess, and will set store by.. Many popular sayings still current are here traced to sources of great antiquity, such as " Out of sight out of mind," " Robbing Peter to pay Paul," " As like as chalk to cheese."

We notice that the saying " Joan's as good as my lady in the dark " is quoted as a parallel to the proverb " Every Jack must have his Jill " (p. 112) or " Every gray goos his make." This is incorrect. The true meaning is indicated by a pronouncement of Dr. Johnson : " W r ere it not for imagination, sir, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess " (Boswell, s.a. 1778, 9 May).

In citing the old English saw that " elmesse acwencheth tha sunne " (p. 2), elemosina ex- tinguit peccatum, some reference might well have been made to the common mediaeval folk-ety- mology that " elimosina is derived from El, which is God, and moys, which is water, as if water of God, because just as water extinguishes fire, so alms extinguishes sin " (see ' Promptorium Parvulorum,' s.v. ' Almesse,' and Florio, s.v. 'Elimosina'). So Shoreham ('Poems,' Percy Soc.,p. 37),

Almesdede senne quenketh Ase water that fer aquencheth.

As some indication of the diligence of Prof.. Skeat's research, it may be mentioned that he was only able to glean ten citations fit for his purpose from the vast field of the ' Cursor Mundi J with its twice ten thousand lines.