maintenance" would be "a contempt of the care and faithfulness of God towards His Church, and, in plain terms, downright robbery."[30] [Sidenote: INTERREGNUM.--BAPTISTS.] A Church book of the period has thus afforded an insight into certain political relations sustained by Independents in the year 1659. A celebrated historian may next be quoted, in reference to alleged proceedings of a very different nature on the part of Baptists. Clarendon relates a strange story of overtures made to Charles before the death of Cromwell by persons of that denomination. He gives a copy of an address to His Majesty, as Charles is styled, signed by ten such persons, in which address occur violent lamentations over the troubles of the times. Attached to it are proposals "in order to an happy, speedy, and well-grounded peace." The document contains a prayer, that no anti-Christian Hierarchy, Episcopal, Presbyterian, or otherwise, should be created, and that every one should be left at liberty to worship God in such a way and manner as might appear to them to be agreeable to the mind and will of Christ.[31] [Sidenote: 1659.] According to Clarendon--the only authority upon which we have to depend in reference to the subject--a curious letter accompanied the address and the proposals; in which letter the correspondent alludes to a "worthy gentleman" by whose hands it was conveyed, and who being acquainted with the circumstances, would fully explain the case and answer objections. He refers to the subscribers as "young proselytes" to the Royal cause, as needing to be driven "_lento pede_," as being neither of great families or great estates, but as capable of being more serviceable to His Majesty than some whose names would "swell much bigger than theirs."[32] There is no sufficient reason for pronouncing the story an invention, or the documents forgeries; at any rate it appears as if Clarendon believed in them; yet on the other hand, there is not the slightest evidence that any of the leaders of the Baptist body ever concurred in any such movement--the names appended to the address are unknown--and no reference to the affair, that I am aware of, was ever made after the Restoration, either by Baptists or any other party. On the whole it is not unlikely that some few people, calling themselves Baptists, disliking Oliver Cromwell and the Protectorate, and differing from those ministers of their denomination who held parish livings, might have engaged in a correspondence with a view to the restoration of Monarchy under certain conditions--especially that of unfettered toleration. No practical result followed these reported overtures.[33] [Sidenote: INTERREGNUM--PRESBYTERIANS.]