Canne, Rev. John.—Mr. Canne was a native of England. He was born about 1590. For some time he ministered to a church in the Episcopal establishment of his native country,

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Canne, Rev. John.—Mr. Canne was a native of England. He was born about 1590. For some time he ministered to a church in the Episcopal establishment of his native country, and for many years he was pastor of ‘The Ancient English Church” of Amsterdam, in ILolland. In Amster- dium he carried on the business of a printer and bookseller, thouzh it is certain that he could have given little, if any, personal attention to these pur- suits, when we consider his zeal and. journeys to preach the gospel and found churches, and his very numerous writings. In 1634 he published in Amsterdam ‘The Ne- cessity of Separation,’ a work which was widely circulated in England, and which produced very important results. The object of the book was to show the Puritans in the English Church that they were bound to forsake her ceremonies, her bishops, and her comfortable livings and found pure churches of their own. The Boston Puritans were angry with Roger Williams for holding the same doc- trine. One of the most successful efforts of Mr. Canne’s life resulted from a visit he paid to Bristol in 1641. At that time there was a clergyman_ in Bristol named Hazzard, rector of one of the city churches, a Puritan. Mrs. Dorothy Hazzard, his wife, was a lady of great faith and of firm resolu- tion. When Bristol was besieged, as the rumor spread that some of the enemy had penetrated within the lines of its defenders, ‘she and other women, with the help of some men, stopped up Froome gate with woolsacks and earth to keep the enemy from entering the city ; and when the women had done this they went to the gunners and told them that if they would stand out and fight they would stand by them, and they should not want for provisions.” Mrs. Hazzard, Goodman Atkins, Goodman Cole, Richard Moone, and Mr. Bacon had formed a separate meeting in 1640, in Mrs. Hazzard’s house, to worship the Lord according to the requirements of his Holy Word. The meet- ing, however, was not intended to be a church, and in all probability would have perished, like thou- sands of similar unions for social worship, had not John Canne visited Bristol in 1641. ‘This bap- tized man,” as he is called, or Baptist, “‘ was very eminent in his day for godliness and for reforma- tion in religion, having great understanding in the way of the Lord.” Mrs. Hazzard having heard of his arrival, brought him from the hotel to her residence, and he instructed the little meeting in the way of the Lord more perfectly, and constituted them into a church of Christ, and he showed them the difference between a true and a false church, und when he left them he gave them books to con- firm and establish them in church order and gospel purity. Broadmead church, Bristol, thus ushered into life, is a flourishing community at this day, and its record for usefulness is behind few churches of any denomination in the Old World. Edward Terrill, baptized seventeen years after John Canne formed the church, at his death, left a valuable bequest to educate young men for the Baptist ministry. His enlightened liberality led | to the establishment of Bristol College, and indi- rectly of our other British colleges. The greatest work of John Canne’s laborious and useful life was his marginal references to the Bible. It-was published at Amsterdam about 1637. It was the first English Bible that had mar- ginal references throughout. This effort of Canne has been a blessing of the greatest magnitude to the readers of the English Bible ever since, and, like the “‘ Pilgrim’s Progress,” it justly purchased for Mr. Canne an immortality of fame. The labor expended upon it was immense. Before the writer lies a copy of the Edinburgh edition of 1747, with Canne’s preface, in which he states: “It is said of Jacob that he served seven years for Rachel, and it seemed but a few days for the love he had for her. I can truly speak it; I have served the Lord in this work more than thrice seven years, and the time hath not seemed long, neither hath the work been any way a burden to me for the love I have had for it.” One reason which he gives for the preparation of his work is, ‘‘ Some people will be more willing and forward to read and search the Scriptures, having by them a guide and help, as when they meet with any place that is dark, and they under- stand it not, than by direction to some other text of Scripture immediately to be informed and satis- fied, without looking into commentaries, which it may be they have not. <A Scripture interpreter will encourage men to exercise themselves in the meditation and study of the Scriptures, as when a man hath a light carried before him he goeth more cheerfully than if he were in the dark and groped for his way. By this means not only the knowledge of God and his truth will grow and increase, but the Scriptures will be unto people more familiar and more their own (as I may say) than they were before.’ His leading principle is that “ the Scripture is the best interpreter of the Scripture.’ Mr. Canne was governed by the Baptist maxim that the Bible is everything in religion, and as a result of this that the Scripture should be studied by every human being. ‘To his eighteen published works, Canne intended to add ‘‘an edition of the Bible in a large and fair character, with large an- notations,”’ a work upon which he had spent many years, a commentary ; but he did not live to see it completed. He was frequently persecuted, very much loved, and widely useful. He died in 1667. From the Baptist Encyclopedia by William Cathcart photo of the Canne noted Bible was from Abebooks

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