THE SAINTS' EVERLASTING REST


Richard Baxter, the Puritan author of one hundred and
sixty-eight volumes, of which "The Saints Everlasting Rest"
was, and is, the most popular, was born in 1615 during the
reign of James I., and died in 1691, soon after the accession
of William III. His lifetime, therefore, was coincident with
the troubles of the Stuart House. For fifty years Baxter was
one of the best known divines in England. Throughout, his was
a moderating influence in politics, the Church, and theology.
His best known pastorate, one of extraordinary success, was at
Kidderminster, between his twenty-sixth and forty-fifth years,
and there, in an interlude of ill-health of more than
customary severity--for all his life he was ailing--he wrote,
anticipatory of death, "The Saints Everlasting Rest." The
book, which was dedicated to his "dearly beloved friends the
inhabitants of the Borrough and Forreign of Kederminster," was
published in 1650 and had an immediate and almost
unparallelled success. Twenty thousand copies were sold in the
year after publication, and various editions are now in
circulation. The saintliness of this broad-minded divine's
character emerges unsullied from an age of contentious
bigotry.


_I.--THE NATURE OF REST_