They constantly appealed to the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament, as their only guide and rule of faith and practice as to religious duties. They are perpetually accused by Catholic writers of rejecting all human institutions, traditions, and inventions, and both friends and foes are unanimous in confessing that there was scarcely a person among them, either man, or woman, or child, that was not better acquainted with Holy Writ than the doctors of the church. They were likewise accused of being without priests. This must be understood as applying to the absence among them of a certain class of men paid or pensioned by yearly salaries for discharging the ministrations of the gospel. An old historian who was intimately acquainted with their affairs, observes, "That they severely denounce the whole body of the clergy on account of their idle course of life, and say that they ought to labour with their hands, as did the Apostles." Another says—"Their preachers are weavers and mechanics, who get their own living, and are not chargeable upon their hearers." The same author goes on to say that even their missionaries were accustomed to travel from place to place in the character of travelling merchants; and this, he assures us, subserved to good purposes; first, they were enabled to support themselves; and second, they gained thereby readier access to persons of rank and fortune. Their treatment of females in their religious assemblies was liberal and courteous in the extreme. They were not only allowed to preach, but bore an equal part with the men in all the business of the church; and the deeper we go into antiquity the more evident does this appear. Against war, capital punishment, and oaths, they were decided in expressing their disapprobation. Their opposition to bearing arms, and to war in all its operations, was unanimous and unequivocal. Whoever commanded them to the field they refused to obey, alleging that they could not conscientiously comply. No contingencies would induce them to assume the weapons of death; and this peculiarity was well understood by all the world, and made the onsets of the inquisitors and crusaders upon these weaponless Christians the more cruel and contemptible. Concerning oaths, they appear to have adopted the language of our Saviour in a literal sense, where he commands his disciples, "Swear not at all." Such were their rules. Whatever deviations there might have been were exceptions. Such deviations, it is natural to suppose, frequently occurred; but they generally came from those portions of the community who had been educated in the faith of Rome. As it relates to their Baptist character I shall produce but one quotation, although a multitude might be given.