tistos, and swims on the surface of the sea, being of a nature which is abaptistos; in like manner, I am abaptistos."

Pindar was describing the utter incompetency of his enemies to plunge him into ruin. It is only necessary to say to the English scholar that the letter a (in Greek, "alpha "), prefixed in the foregoing extract to baptistos, conveys a negative idea. Abaptistos, therefore, means "unplunged," "undipped," "unimmersed." 'Unsprinkled" or "unpoured" is perfectly out of the question.

HIPPOCRATES, who lived about four hundred and thirty years before the Christian era, says: "Shall 1 not laugh at the man who SINKS (baptisanta) his ship by overloading it, and then complains of the sea for engulfing it with its cargo?"

ARISTOTLE, who died three hundred and thirty-two years before Christ, "speaks of a saying among the Phenicians, that there were certain places, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, which when it is ebb-tide are not OVERFLOWED (mee baptizesthai)."

HERACLIDES PONTICUS, a disciple of Aristotle, says: "When a piece of iron is taken red hot from the fire and PLUNGED in the water (hudati baptizetai), the heat, being quenched by the peculiar nature of the water, ceases."

DIODORUS SICULUS, who lived about the middle of

the century before Christ, uses these words: "Most of the land-animals that are intercepted by the river [Nile] perish, being OVERWHELMED." Again: "The river, borne along by a more violent current, OVERWHELMED (ebaptise) many.”

STRABO, the celebrated geographer, who died a. D. 25-a very short time before John the Baptist began to preach in the wilderness of Judea-" speaking of a lake near Agrigentum, says: Things that elsewhere cannot float DO NOT SINK (mee baptizesthai) in the water of this lake, but swim in the manner of wood." Again: "If one shoots an arrow into the channel [of a certain rivulet in Cappadocia], the force of the water resists it so much that it will scarcely PLUNGE IN (baptizesthai)." Again: "They [the soldiers] marched a whole day through the water PLUNGED IN (baptizomenon) up to the waist." Once more: "The bitumen floats on the top [of the lake Sirbon], because of the nature of the water, which admits of no diving; nor can any one who enters it PLUNGE IN (baptizesthai), but is borne up."

JOSEPHUS, who died A. D. 93, aged fifty-six, and was therefore contemporary with the apostles, "speaking of the ship in which Jonah was, says: Mellontos baptizesthai tou skaphous—the ship being about TO SINK." In the history of his own life, "speaking of a voyage to Rome, during which the ship that carried him

foundered in the Adriatic, he says: Our ship being IMMERSED or SINKING in the Adriatic. Speaking of Aristobulus as having been drowned by command of Herod, he says: The boy was sent to Jericho, and there, agreeably to command, being IMMERSED in a pond (baptizomenos en kolumbeethra), he perished."

PLUTARCH, who died about A. D. 140, refers to a Roman general "DIPPING (baptisas) his hand into blood," etc. Again: "PLUNGE (baptison) yourself into the sea."

LUCIAN, who died A. D. 180, represents Timon, the man-hater, as saying: "If a winter's flood should carry away any one, and he, stretching out his hands, should beg for help, I would press down the head of such an one when SINKING (baptizonta), so that he could not rise again."

The reader, by referring to Professor Stuart's treatise on the Mode of Baptism (pp. 14-20), can test the accuracy of these quotations. I might add to their number, but these are sufficient. It will be seen that I have used Roman instead of Greek letters. This has been done for the satisfaction of a large majority of those who will read these pages.

"Immerse" is clearly the classical meaning of baptizo. In all the preceding extracts it might with propriety be employed. A "sinking ship," for example, is a ship about to be immersed. Nor is it any abuse

of language to say that places "not overflowed" are not immersed. I solicit special attention to the fact that, of the Greek authors referred to, some lived before the coming of Christ, some during the apostolic age, and others at a period subsequent to that age. Seven hundred years intervened between the birth of Pindar and the death of Lucian. During those seven centuries usage shows that baptizo meant " to immerse." Most of the classic Greek writers lived before.baptism was instituted, and knew nothing of immersion as a religious ordinance; those who lived after its institution cared nothing for it. There was no controversy as to the meaning of baptizo during the classic period of Grecian history; there was no motive, therefore, that could so influence Greek writers as to induce them to use the word in any but its authorized sense. That sense was most obviously "to immerse." Even Dr. Edward Beecher, though carried away with the notion that baptizo, "in its religious sense," means "to purify," admits that in classic usage it signifies "to immerse." He says: "I freely admit that in numerous cases it clearly denotes to immerse,' in which case an agent submerges partially or totally some person or thing. Indeed, this is so notoriously true that I need attempt no proof. Innumerable examples are at hand." * No man of established reputation as a Greek scholar * Beecher On Baptism, p. 9.

will deny that baptizo, at the beginning of the Christian era, meant "to immerse," and that usage had confirmed that meaning. Dr. Doddridge virtually admits this to be its import in the New Testament when used as descriptive of the sufferings of Christ. Hence he paraphrases Luke xii. 50 thus: "But I have, indeed, in the mean time, a most dreadful baptism to be baptized with, and know that I shall shortly be bathed, as it were, in blood, and plunged in the most overwhelming distress."* Baptizo literally means "immerse," and therefore in its figurative applica tion it is used to denote an immersion in sorrow, suffering, and affliction.

But some say that though baptizo, in classic Greek, means "to immerse," it does not follow that it is to be understood in this sense in the New Testament. They discourse learnedly on the difference between classic and sacred Greek. They insist that baptizo has in the Scriptures a theological sense. In short, they forget what they have learned from Ernesti's Principles of Interpretation—namely, that "when God has spoken to men he has spoken in the language of men, for he has spoken by men and for men."

For the benefit of these ingenious critics, I quote from an able Methodist work on theology. The author is showing, in opposition to the Socinian view *Family Expositor, p. 204.