In 1853, the American, John Quincy Adams, published his Baptists: The Only Thorough Religious Reformers.60 When Adams was in London in 1868, Charles Haddon Spurgeon told him that he (Spurgeon) had used Adams’ volume as a textbook in his College because he thought it the best manual of Baptist principles he had come across. In 1980, Backus Book Publishers, Rochester, New York, reprinted 3200 copies of the work and, two years later, a further 3000 copies under the title Baptists: Thorough Reformers. Fred R.Leuck of Metamora, Michigan, in his Preface for the 1982 reprint, expressed his preference for the original title, undaunted by the fact that his stance might lead some to call him ‘narrow’. Nearly forty years too late, alas, I applaud his spirit! |