One day I was outside doing some cleaning on the front porch. I was using the water hose, and at one time I bent over to pick up the hose, and what to my wondering eyes appeared but my son's graduation ring. He had lost it about two years before this. It had been right there in the grass the whole time. It was bent, so I took it to a jeweler and had it straightened again. Then I gave it back to my son as a gift. He was, of course, excited about getting his ring back.

This makes me think of our Baptist forefathers. We look back in our history books to find them. Many of them were very influential in our history, but many people do not know them. They are hid somewhere in the portals of history outside the view of most students of history.

Some think that God used the anti-Christian church of ancient times to harbor and protect our forefathers within their walls, but that would be as a hawk protecting the life of its prey.

Neither can light and darkness have fellowship, nor can enemies light upon an agreement which so strongly divides them.

Our forefathers would also have been so distinct from the false doctrines of the popular church that they would not acquiesce to it but repel from it and be separate, and they would also rebuke it. Their very existence would be a constant reprimand to the popular church, and that church would hate our forefathers and kill many of them.

Thus, our forefathers were found in ancient times in caves, woodlands, and in other obscure places where they were hunted like deer to be exterminated. The history of our forefathers is written by their enemies, and we must read these histories from this bias.

But our forefathers lived through those trying years through much persecution. They remained a separate and particular people up to and through the Reformation period, and they brought to our day churches which have throughout history from Christ's time remained a separate and peculiar people.

The Lord's churches are a precious stone. If you find one, polish it and cherish it. It will look just like the churches of the New Testament. It will be a precious stone to you. Find it and wear it well. To Him be glory in the church.

Ron Wolfe, Dean