CHAPTER V. 



" The deeds we do, the words we say, 

 Into still air they seem to fleet. 

 We count them ever past, 

 But they shall last. 

 • In the dread judgment they 



And we shall meet !" 



Lyra Innocentiam. 



rpHE History of the Baptist denomination in Rossendale has 

 -*- been ably written by the late Rev. James Hargreaves, in his 

 "Life of John Hirst," and in the appendix thereto. In the present 

 brief outline it is my intention simply to state a few general parti- 

 culars of the rise and present status of this important body in 

 Rossendale, and to notice a few of their more celebrated preachers. 



At the end of the seventeenth century, Bacup was a small and 

 unimportant place, scant of inhabitants, and with but a few 

 straggling houses. In these respects it was of less account than 

 either Newchurch or Goodshaw, both of which possessed their 

 Episcopal Chapels. Prior to the establishment of the Baptist 

 denomination in Rossendale, it would appear, from all that can 

 be gleaned, that no place of worship of any kind existed in Bacup. 

 The few inhabitants that composed the hamlet crossed the bills 

 and worshipped at Newchurch, as occasion served. 



In the list of " Licenses to Preach " in Blackburn parish and 

 district, preserved in a State Paper in the Record OlSce, and 

 bearing date Dom. Chas. II., r672, a memorandum to the following 

 effect, occurs : — " The barn of John Pickop, in Dedwinclough [in 

 Newchurch-in-Rossendale], to be an Indep. [Independent] meeting 



