Baxter's scheme did not touch any ecclesiastical point beyond that of discipline. He, doubtless, was himself prepared to go much further, and to contrive a comprehensive policy which should embrace elements belonging to the three denominations of Christians mentioned in his Agreement. Though commonly called a Presbyterian, he did not object to some things characteristic of Episcopacy, and to others peculiar to Congregationalism. Such a Presbyterian as Baxter, with such an Episcopalian as Ussher, and such an Independent as Howe, might possibly have framed a plan of ecclesiastical government, embracing Congregational election, Episcopal presidency, and Presbyterian union, within certain local limits--so as to constitute a number of federal groups, without any subordination of Courts, or any development of a Hierarchy, or any Congregational isolation. But for all this the Worcestershire clergy were not prepared. Baxter did not attempt what was Utopian, but only what was practicable. So far as he went, he seems to have succeeded, and if the experiment had been longer tried, it might have issued in something less imperfect.[186] But whatever opinions are held on such vexed questions, there will be but one, respecting the disinterestedness and zeal of this great Divine. We learn from one of his unpublished letters, that he declined several good livings--one of them being valued at £500 a year--simply that he might remain in the parish with which his name will evermore be identified, and where his annual income did not exceed the sum of £90. He remitted tithes where people could not pay them; and when he felt it his duty to recover them by law, rather than "tolerate the sacrilege and fraud of covetous men," he gave both his own "part and the damages" to the poor. The history of his parish labours is a beautiful episode in church history. Preaching was his forte. His practical works contain the substance of many of his discourses. His treatises on "Crucifying the World," "Saving Faith," "Sound Conversion," "Peace of Conscience," together with his "Call to the Unconverted," were all composed at Kidderminster; and they abound in specimens of forcible reasoning and eloquent appeal. Evangelical and practical, instructive and awakening, convincing and pungent--now grappling with the understanding, and then aiming at the heart--he must sometimes have both convinced and confounded his hearers by his fidelity and acuteness, and then have melted them down completely by his extraordinary fervour. Working out his logic, not in frost but fire, he flung from his lips burning words, which made men start and weep. He had a clear articulate tone of enunciating truth, such as is possessed only by healthy souls, and is utterly different from the indistinct mutterings of those who, by mimicry, have caught up a few religious commonplaces. Nobody can mistake the one for the other; and Baxter's congregation in the old church of St. Mary must have felt that