BERTHAAND HER BAPTISM. 

By the Author of

AGNES AND THE LITTLE KEY;_or_, BEREAVED PARENTS INSTRUCTED AND COMFORTED. 

BOSTON:S. K. WHIPPLE AND COMPANY, 161 WASHINGTON STREET. 1857. 

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, byS. K. WHIPPLE & CO. , In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District ofMassachusetts. 

STEREOTYPED BYHOBART & ROBBINS, New England Type and Stereotype Foundry, BOSTON. 

PREFACE. 

This book, and that which is also named in the title-page, were writtenat the same time, and as one book; but they were afterward separated, asmore properly constituting two volumes, the part which was the originalof the present volume now being greatly enlarged. Thus the two booksgrew in the author's mind together, from one and the same root, --thedeath of a little child. 

CONTENTS. 

 PageCHAPTER I. 

PROBABILITIES OF AN ORDINANCE FOR CHILDREN, 9

CHAPTER II. 

THE GRANDFATHER'S LETTER. --THE NATURE, GROUNDS AND INFLUENCE, OF INFANT BAPTISM, 16

CHAPTER III. 

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BAPTISMS. --THE SUBJECTS AND MODE OFBAPTISM, 76

CHAPTER IV. 

IS THERE ONLY ONE MODE OF BAPTISM? 121

CHAPTER V. 

SCENES OF BAPTISM. --REASONABLENESS, BEAUTY AND POWER, OFINFANT BAPTISM. --USE OF SPECIAL VOWS. --HUSBANDS ATBAPTISMS. --NEGLECT OF BAPTISM, 130

CHAPTER VI. 

TESTIMONY OF THE CHRISTIAN FATHERS. --APOSTOLIC PRACTICE OFINFANT BAPTISM. --MINISTERIAL USAGES IN BAPTISMS, 143

CHAPTER VII. 

TERMS OF COMMUNION. --NON-INTRUSION. --DENOMINATIONAL COURTESYAND KINDNESS, 184

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE ROAD-SIDE BAPTISM, 198

CHAPTER IX. 

THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH. --ARE THEY MEMBERS OF THECHURCH? 216

CHAPTER X. 

MATERNAL ASSOCIATIONS. --CONSTITUTION AND RULES FOR THEM. --ACHRISTIAN MOTHER'S QUESTIONS TO HERSELF, 255

CHAPTER XI. 

BAPTISM OF THE SICK WIFE AND HER CHILDREN, 272

BERTHAAND HER BAPTISM. 

Chapter First. 

PROBABILITIES OF AN ORDINANCE FOR CHILDREN. 

 'Tis aye a solemn thing to me To look upon a babe that sleeps, Wearing in its spirit-deeps The unrevealed mystery Of its Adam's taint and woe. --MISS BARRETT. 

 Heaven lies about us in our infancy. --WORDSWORTH. 

It is generally believed that, of those who have gone to heaven fromthis world, by far the larger part have been infants and young children. Born here, they were by one man's disobedience made sinners; born of theSpirit, at their early translation to heaven, they hold an importantplace in the plan of salvation by Christ. Very beautiful, as well assublime, is the thought of so large a contribution, to the heavenlyworld, of human beings in the dawn of their existence, enhancing, as wemay suppose, the happiness of heaven by such large admixture of exotic, youthful nature, and illustrating, by their redemption from a helplessstate of sin and misery, the unsearchable riches of wisdom and grace. 

Has God done anything, in this world, to mark his regard for that classof the human race constituting, thus far, the greater part of theredeemed? We naturally look for something reminding the world of hisinterest in these subsidiaries of his kingdom. Has he confined hisnotice to those that are full-grown, and who have, thus far, the largerpart of them, withheld from him the fruit of his vineyard? God has achurch on earth, with ordinances, symbols, covenant signs: among them isthere not some sign, symbol, or ordinance, recognizing those who, morethan any other of the race, have, till now, been swelling the numbers ofthat church in heaven?

Like those elements of astronomical calculation which require and leadmen to expect undiscovered planets in a certain quarter of thefirmament, analogy, and the known intercourse of God with mankind, andour moral sense, incline us to look for some symbolic recognition ofthis earthly constituency of heaven by him who ordained and isredeeming to himself a church from among men. Words of interest and lovetoward them on the part of God, we all know, are not wanting in theBible. Acts of loving-kindness, also, proving the sincerity of thosewords, and reaching even to a thousand generations of them that loveGod, are everywhere seen in sacred history. 

But is there no great, conspicuous symbol of these things, --no type, norite? Symbols appear to be inseparable attendants of God's manifestedfavor to men. He cannot enter into covenant with an individual, muchless a people, but there is at least a stone set up, or athreshing-floor is bought for him, an altar is built, or they pour out ahorn of oil. He invites Ahaz to ask of him a sign of his promise: "Askit, " he says, "either in the depths, or in the height above;" and, whenthat man refuses, God gives him a sign. Emblems, seals and types, in theearly dispensation, burst forth like images in the waters of everythingalong the banks, and even of things far off. Everything has itsmemorial, its rite; are the children, is the parental relation, forgotten?

Here let us consider that God began with the first parents and thefirst children of the human race to set forth that great law of hisadministration, the connection of children with parents for good orevil. Every descendant of Adam is an example under that law. Thus it wasfor nineteen generations, --from Adam to Abraham. 

When, therefore, God reëstablished his church at the call of Abraham, itwas no new thing to connect parents and their children in covenantpromises and blessings. It had its origin in the very nature of man. Abraham, and the covenant made with him for all believers and theirchildren, are, indeed, a striking illustration of a principle recognizedand applied by the Most High; but the principle itself is older thanAbraham, --it is coëval with the moral constitution of man. In making acovenant with Noah, God included his children; so with David, makingmention of his house, "for a great while to come. "

As soon, therefore, as religion was established in the earth, bysecuring its perpetuity through the conservative influences of oneselected line of descent, the child was taken, as being the object ofthe covenant, and the means of its perpetuation, and received its seal. God designed to perpetuate religion in the earth, thenceforward, chiefly by means of the parental relation; for the parent represents Godto the child more than any other fellow-creature, or thing, cando, --more than any instituted influence, whether of prophet, priest, church, or ritual. Setting up his church for all future time, withAbraham for its founder, God included children with parents whocovenanted with him, as the objects of special regard and promise, andhe appointed a rite to mark and seal that covenant. Thus it was fromAbraham to Christ, during three times fourteen generations. 

But the day of types and symbols was succeeded by another era, in whichthe church of God comes forth with the glory of God risen upon her, andall the nebulous matter of types and ceremonies is gathered togetherinto two permanent sacraments; for human nature was not beyond the needand help of outward signs. Now, in the earlier of the two ages of thechurch, the child was recognized by a rite of the church; the child, with that rite inscribed on him, was the sign-bearer of the church'sperpetuity. Yet, in the age following, the child was as dear to theparent as ever; the Christian parent was as much concerned to havereligion flow through his seed, as were his predecessors; the salvationof the child was regarded with the same solicitude, and the principle ofperpetuating religion by the family constitution was still the same. 

But did God withdraw from the children of his servants, from the mosthopeful of all the sources of his church's increase on earth and inheaven, all token of his regard in any sacramental act? Is parentalaffection, under the reign of Immanuel, debarred the enjoyment of one ofits most valuable privileges, the sealing of the child to be the Lord'sby the use of a divinely-appointed symbol? Had no ordinances and symbolsbeen allowed after the institution of Christianity, this question wouldnot arise; the inference would have been that human nature, under theGospel, will no more need the aid of rites in religion. But there areChristian rites, expressly and solemnly instituted. Is not that mostimportant relation of a believer's child to God perpetuated; and is itnot still to be sealed by the use of one of the Christian ordinances?

In considering this question, and the many interesting topics connectedwith it, the writer will be allowed to take his own way, following anhistorical order in the occurrences which may be supposed to have madethe subject interesting and clear to the minds of two parents. 

Chapter Second. 

THE GRANDFATHER'S LETTER. 

THE NATURE, GROUNDS, AND INFLUENCE, OF INFANT BAPTISM. 

 If temporal estates may be conveyed By cov'nants, on condition, To men, and to their heirs; be not affraid, My soule, to rest upon The covenant of grace by mercy made. GEORGE HERBERT, --"_The Font. _"

 --No finite mind can fully comprehend the mysteries into which his baptism is the initiation. --COLERIDGE, --"_Aids_, " &c. 

 Christian faith is the perfection of human reason. --IBID. 

MY DEAR DAUGHTER BERTHA:--I am glad that you think of taking your littlenamesake to the house of God for baptism. You wish to know my viewsabout it in full. My new colleague having relieved me of many cares andlabors, I shall hope to write more frequently; but not often so long aletter as I fear this will be; for I wish to tell you of someconversations which I have had on the subject in question. This willshow you the common difficulties, in which, perhaps, you share, and myway of removing them; and also set before you the privileges andblessings connected with the baptism of your child. 

A man and his wife--sensible, plain people--came to our house oneevening last July, when the "vines with the tender grape gave a goodlysmell, " through that trellis which you and Percival have such pleasantreason to remember. We were all sitting there in the moonlight, whenthis Mr. Benson and his wife came up the door-way, and were welcomedinto our little group. After a few words of mutual inquiry and answer, he said:

"Wife and I, sir, thought that we would make bold to come and troubleyou a little to tell us about baptizing our boy. He is getting to befour months old, and we are not willing to put it off much longer. Still, we would like to know the grounds of it a little better. People, you know, do not think much about it till it comes to be a case in hand. 

"But I do not know, " said he, looking round on your mother and thechildren, "but that we do wrong to take this time for it. It will berather a dry subject for these young friends to hear. "

_Pastor. _ Not at all. They owe too much to what was done for them whenthey were little children, to dislike it. Besides, there is nothing dryabout it, as I view the subject. It is one of the most beautiful thingsin religion. 

_Mrs. Benson. _ It is next to the Lord's Supper, I always thought, ifpeople take the right view of it. 

_Pastor. _ It makes you love God the Father in some such way as theLord's Supper makes you love the Saviour. I think, sometimes, that thebaptism of children is our heavenly Father's Sacrament. 

_Mr. B. _ I like that; but there is so much to study and learn about the"Abrahamic covenant, " that I feel a little discouraged. I have had bookslent me on the Abrahamic covenant, and I began to read them; but theylooked hard; so I told my wife that perhaps you would make the thingmore clear, and bring it home to our feelings, and that we would comeand get your ideas about it. 

_Pastor. _ How glad I am that you came! But tell me what you take theAbrahamic covenant to mean. 

_Mr. B. _ I suppose it means that God told Abraham to circumcise hischildren, and infant baptism comes in the place of it, and we must do itif we are Abraham's spiritual children. But I wish to see the use of it. I am willing to do it, but I should like to feel it more; and I want toknow how baptism comes in the place of circumcision, and a great manyother things. 

_Pastor. _ I think that you may possibly have what may be called someJewish notions about the Abrahamic covenant, though I trust you areright in the main. That phrase sounds foreign and mysterious, and Inever use it except in talking with people who I know have the thingitself already in their hearts. 

I called Helen to me, and told her to say the hymn which she hadrepeated to me the last Sabbath evening. 

She cleared her voice, leaned against me, and twisted her fingers in myhair behind, and, with her eyes fixed there, she said this hymn:

 "Begin, my tongue, some heavenly theme, And speak some boundless thing; The mightier works or mightier name Of our eternal King. 

 "Tell of his wondrous faithfulness, And sound his power abroad; Sing the sweet promise of his grace, And the performing God. 

 "Proclaim salvation from the Lord For wretched, dying men; His hand has writ the sacred word With an immortal pen. 

 "Engraved as in eternal brass The mighty promise shines; Nor can the powers of darkness rase Those everlasting lines. 

 "He who can dash whole worlds to death, And make them when he please, He speaks, and that Almighty breath Fulfils his promises. 

 "His very word of grace is strong As that which built the skies: The voice that rolls the stars along Speaks all the promises. 

 "He said, 'Let the wide heavens be spread;' And heaven was stretched abroad. 'Abra'am, I'll be thy God, ' he said; And he was Abra'am's God. 

 "O, might I hear thy heavenly tongue But whisper, 'Thou art mine!' Those gentle words should raise my song To notes almost divine. 

 "How would my leaping heart rejoice, And think my heaven secure! I trust the all-creating voice, And faith desires no more. "

_Pastor. _ What a happy man Abraham must have been when the Almighty madethis engagement and promise: "I will be a God to thee!" That was the"Abrahamic covenant, " in part. 

"Does covenant mean that?" said Mrs. B. 

"What?" I inquired. 

"Why, sir, what you have just said, --engagement, promise?"

"Nothing more, " said I. "But what a happy man, I say, Abraham must havebeen! 'A God to thee!' To have the Almighty say to one, 'I will be a Godto thee!' You know that this is everything. "

"That is a fact, " said Mr. B. , wiping his eyes; "for, when I went to mystore, the morning after I became a Christian, I went along the street, saying to myself, 'Now I have a God. God is God to me. Thou art myGod. '

"Yes, " said his wife; "Deacon B. , the post-master, heard you, as youwent by his side-window, and he made an excuse to bring me up a paper, that forenoon, and asked whether you had not met with a change in yourfeelings on the subject of religion. "

"Did he?" said Mr. B. "Well, I did not mean to be heard, and yet I waswilling that everybody should know how happy I was in having one whom Icould call my God. How I had lived so long without God for my God, amazed me. "

_Pastor. _ You make me think of a man who, one night, on reaching hishouse, after having attended a lecture in a school-room, was filled withsuch surprising views and feelings, with respect to the greatness andgoodness of God, that he saddled his horse, rode three miles, waked upthe minister, and, as he came to the door, took hold of each arm, andsaid, "O, my dear sir, what a God we've got!" He would not go in, butsoon hastened back. It was the substance of all that he wished to say;he desired to pour out his soul to some one who would understand him. Hewas like a thirsty land when at last the great rain is descending. 

_Mr. B. _ I suppose many people would have thought him crazy. 

"I suspect the minister did, at first, " said Mrs. B. 

"And yet I suppose, " said I, "he was never more rational. Just thinkwhat it is for a poor sinner all at once to feel that the eternal God ishis; that He will be a God to him! We hear of some people dying at thereceipt of good news; and I have seen some so happy at this experience, of having a God to love and to love them, that, if the thing itself didnot, as it always does, bring peace and inward strength with it, naturecould not have sustained it. "

"Joy unspeakable, " said Mr. B. "And full of glory, " said his wife, waiting a moment for him to finish the quotation. 

"Now, my dear friends, " said I, "that man on horseback, at hisminister's door at midnight, had, at that moment, the first part of whatis meant by the 'Abrahamic covenant. ' How little way do these words gotoward expressing the thing itself, and a man's feelings under it! Therewas a time when God made Abraham far more happy even than he did you onyour way to the post-office that morning. "

Helen came along, just then, with a fruit-basket of apples, and I saidto her, as she was going round with them, "Say again that verse in yourhymn, which has these words in it, 'Thou art mine. '"

So, while Mr. B. Was paring his apple, Helen stood before him, and said:

 "O, might I hear thy heavenly tongue But whisper, 'Thou art mine!' Those gentle words should raise my song To notes almost divine. "

Mr. B. Put his apple and knife down, and took his red bandannahandkerchief from under his plate, and, wiping his eyes, said:

"Hymns always make me feel a good deal, especially Watts's. I've readthat hymn in meeting before the exercises began. "

_Pastor. _ You know, by happy experience, what it is when that heavenlytongue whispers, "Thou art mine. "

_Mr. B. _ I do, sir, if I know anything. 

_Pastor. _ Now, my dear friends, there is something awaiting you, whichyou seem not to have experienced, but which is as good as that. 

"We would like to hear about it, " they both replied. 

"How should you like, Mrs. B. , " said I, "to have your little boy becomea sailor?"

"O dear!" said she, "I should have no peace from this time, if I thoughthe was to be a sailor. "

"But that, " said I, "may be God's chosen occupation for him, --the way inwhich he will employ him to bring him to himself, and then use him to bea preacher to seamen, for example, and so to scatter the truth in manyparts of the earth. We are not our own, Mrs. B. , and this dear boy wasnot given you, as we say, to keep. 'For thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. '"

"I want him brought up at college, " said Mrs. B. , looking at yourmother, who, she probably thought, would understand her motherlyanticipations about her boy so far ahead. 

"Well, " said I, "let us send him to college. I suspect that you wouldfeel a good deal the morning he left you, would you not?"

"O, " said she, "I should so want him to be good first! If he should notbe a good man, I would not have him get learning to do harm with it, andmake himself more miserable hereafter. "

The little gate, with its chain and ball, swung to at this moment, anda woman and girl came up the walk. It was Mrs. Ford, who used to be yourdress-maker, and her daughter Janette, now about thirteen. It was afarewell call from Janette, who was going to the neighborhood ofPhiladelphia, into a coach-lace manufactory. 

"So Janette is going to leave us, to-morrow, Mrs. Ford?" said yourmother. 

"Yes, madam, and I feel sorely about it; so young, and such a way off, and all strangers except the foreman, who spoke to me about her coming!O, sir, " said she, changing her undertone, and turning to me, "whatshould we do without that promise, 'I will be a God to thee and to thyseed after thee'?"

I looked at Mr. And Mrs. B. , and we all smiled, while I said:

"Now we have got the second part of the 'Abrahamic covenant. ' So now wehave the whole of it. Mrs. Ford, when you came in, we were talking aboutbaptizing children, and about the 'Abrahamic covenant. ' What do youunderstand by that covenant?"

"I understand by it, sir, " said she, slowly gathering her words intoproper order; "why, I think I understand by it, that God promises to bea God to a believer's child, as he was in such a wonderful way toAbraham's people. "

_Pastor. _ Well, that is the substance of one part of it, at least. Didyou know, Mrs. Ford, that when you came in we were just entering Mrs. Benson's son at college?

_Mrs. Ford. _ Not this Mrs. Benson, of course. Whom do you mean, sir?

_Pastor. _ This Mrs. Benson;--her little son. 

_Mrs. Ford. _ O, I understand! Well, you will send him to P. , I suppose, it is so near. 

"We had not fixed on the college, " said Mrs. Benson, with a laugh. 

"Janette, " said I, "how do you like the thought of going off so far fromus all?"

Janette pulled the ends of her plain cotton gloves, and her heart wasfull, so that she could not speak for a moment. I was sorry that I hadasked the question, and therefore added:

"You will not go where God cannot take care of you and bless you thesame as at home, will you, dear?"

She lifted her white apron to her eyes, while Mrs. Ford said for her:

"I tell Janette that I gave her up to God in baptism; and when herfather lay sick, he said, 'That child was given to God in his house; Ileave her destitute, and with nothing but her hands, but I leave her toa covenant-keeping God. '"

"Now, " said I, "here is a dear daughter going to a strange place tolearn a trade. She knows not a soul in the place but the foreman who hashired her. A boy is going to college, another to sea, another to adistant city. Here is a daughter, who receives particular attentionsfrom certain young friends, and the probability is that she will beasked in marriage; and here is a son, who with his parents are in doubtwith regard to his future occupation and course of life. God only knowsthe feelings of parents at such times. What prayers are made insecret, --what vows! One wrong step may embitter life. A right step maylead to prosperity and great happiness. I sometimes wish that we couldgather our children together, in some of these emergencies and criticalperiods of their lives, and offer up prayers and vows, as parents andfriends, in their behalf. There would not be many meetings moreinteresting than these, Mr. Benson. How the parents of such childrenwould love everybody that came at such times to pray for their children;and what prayers would go up to God!"

"Can we not have some such meetings?" said Mr. Benson. "Every parentwould like it, I am sure. "

_Pastor. _ Well, we do have some such meetings occasionally, I remember. 

"Our minister loves to use parables, " said Mrs. Benson, looking at yourmother, "so as to make us understand the meaning better, and rememberit. "

"I must ask you to explain, " said Mr. Benson. 

_Pastor. _ As often as we bring a child to the house of God for baptism, Mr. Benson, we have such a meeting, if Christians will but understand itso. We come with the parents, and say, "Lord God, here is this dearchild, with a momentous history pending upon thy favor and blessing. Inall future time, in the critical moments and eventful steps of its life, or in its early death, or in its orphanage, be thou a God to thischild. " If God should to-night, Mrs. Ford, say to you, "I will beJanette's God, " would you not send her away with a light heart?

"He should have her for life, dear child!" said she; "and I do feel thathe is a God to her. "

"He is, " said I, "if you have really made a covenant with him about yourdaughter. "

"I have, sir, " said Mrs. Ford. 

_Pastor. _ Did the covenant have any seal? Some good people, you know, think it enough to covenant with God about their children, without usingany special act to mark and seal it. Now it is only in consecratingchildren to God that they omit the seal from the covenant. We practiseadult baptism, joining the church, confirmation, and we partake of theLord's Supper, feeling the propriety and the use of acts and testimoniesin the form of an ordinance. What seal had your covenanting with Godabout your child?

_Mrs. Ford. _ I see it now clearer than ever. As we stood with this childin our arms, we both said, afterwards, we made a public profession ofreligion anew; and, when the minister said those sacred names over her, I felt more than before that I was having transactions with God aboutthe child. But people used to say to me, "Why not wait and let Janettebe baptized when she is old enough to understand it?" How little theyknew about it! Just as though, I told them, if I had money to put intothe savings-bank for Janette, I would wait and let her put it in herself(it is so pleasant to put it in when you know all about it!), instead oflaying it up for her in the funds, and let it count up while she isgrowing. 

_Pastor. _ Those friends who advised you so, think, perhaps, too much ofthe ceremony itself, and not so much of what it signifies. Now thepleasure of being baptized is nothing compared with having God enterinto a covenant in your behalf when you knew nothing about it. 

_Mrs. Ford. _ They said to me, also, "What right have you to do it, instead of letting her have the choice and privilege of doing it herselfhereafter?" I told them that, if we acted on that principle, in thetreatment of our children, there would be a long list of useful things, which we do for them, to be postponed. 

_Pastor. _ We can benefit another without his consent. The question is, whether it is a benefit to a child for God and its natural guardians tomake a covenant together in its behalf. 

_Mr. Benson. _ It surely is so, if God truly is a party to such acovenant. But where is the proof that he is? That is my trouble. Theytell me that this covenanting with God for a child, and sealing it withan ordinance, ceased with Abraham, who was a Jew; that it was a Jewishcustom, which died out. 

_Pastor. _ Abraham a mere Jew! God's covenant with a believer and hischildren a Jewish covenant! Never was there a greater mistake. Paultells us expressly it was not so. Get me a Bible, Helen, and bring me alamp. I read these words: "And the promise that he should be heir of theworld was not to Abraham and his seed through the law, but through therighteousness of faith. " His relation to the world was independent ofdispensations; it grew out of that faith which he had in common with allbelievers to the end of time. "And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet beinguncircumcised, that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised. " Christ also says: "Moses, therefore, gave unto you circumcision; (not because it is of Moses, but of thefathers. )" Abraham was not a Jew when God covenanted with him, any morethan you, madam, were Mrs. Ford, when, at the age of sixteen, as youhave told me, you entered into covenant with God. That covenant hadchief respect to your immortal soul, and yet it reached in itsinfluences to all the conditions of that soul while here in the flesh. So God covenanted with Abraham as a believer, not as a mere nationalancestor; yet temporal and spiritual blessings came in rich measuresupon his immediate descendants. But we read, "So then as many as be offaith are blessed with faithful, " that is, believing, "Abraham. " "And ifye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to thepromise. " Can anything be plainer than this?

_Mrs. Ford. _ My father was a minister, you know, sir, and he used topreach a great deal on this subject. 

_Pastor. _ Let us hear your understanding of these passages, Mrs. Ford. 

"I am afraid, " said she, "I cannot tell you just what he used to say. But my idea of it is this: Though Abraham was the founder of the Hebrewpeople, he was no more a Jew than a Gentile in his covenant with God, for it was as believer the great believer, that God made a covenantwith him. So that he was not circumcised as a Jew, but, as the Biblesays, to have a seal of the righteousness which he had by faith. Godmade a covenant with him as a believer, to be his God and the God of hischildren, as the children of a believer, not a Jew; so that allbelievers are blessed with believing Abraham, by having the samecovenant extended to them. Then, I take it, God gave him a sign and sealas a pledge, and to remind him of it, and to keep his children inremembrance. " She paused, and I said:

"Please to go on. " You remember, Bertha, how you used to make this Mrs. Ford discuss doctrinal matters when she was sewing for you. 

_Mrs. Ford. _ I remember that father said that God took the rainbow as asign and seal of his promise, to Noah and all future generations, thatthere should never be another universal deluge. So he appointed achildren's ordinance to mark his covenant with believers to the end oftime. Only there was this difference; the way of signing and sealing thecovenant not being coupled with the laws of nature, but conforming tothe kind of symbols successively in use, it was changed, at the timethat the Sabbath was changed, and the whole of the old dispensation; butfather used to say, Is the commonwealth and citizenship broken upbecause the legislature adopts a new state seal? Does that destroy allthe old public documents?

_Pastor. _ Good! So the United States' mint is from time to time changingits dies; lately it has abolished copper, and substituted equivalentcoins of different composition. But money does not perish. A cent is acent still, red or white. So, whether the seal be blood or water, thegreat ordinance which it seals remains the same. 

"And now I will tell you, " said I, "how it seems to me God's covenantingwith parents for their children came to pass. He wished to give Abrahama token and seal of his love to him. So he took his child, the thingwhich he loved best, and would see oftenest, and thought of most, andmade the child, as it were, the tablet on which to write his covenantwith the father. That was one reason. 'Because he loved the fathers, therefore he chose their seed. ' But this is the least of the reasons inthe case. 

"Here is one of vastly greater importance. God wished to perpetuatereligion in the earth. He knew that the family constitution would bethe principal means of doing this, parents teaching and commanding theirchildren, and so transmitting religion. Because he knew that Abrahamwould do this, he gave it as a reason for his love and confidence inhim, in not concealing from him his purpose to destroy Sodom. 'Shall Ihide from Abraham that thing which I do? For I know him that he willcommand his children and his household after him, and they shall keepthe ways of the Lord. ' So, in order to remind Abraham of what wasexpected by the Most High in making his children the presumptive heirsof grace, and to remind the children of it when they came to years ofunderstanding, God gave him and them this mark and seal. "

"Well, then, " said Mr. Benson, "it seems to me Abraham was better offthan we, if he had God in covenant with him for his children, and wehave not. I sometimes wish that I could have God covenant with me aboutmy boy, as Abraham had about Isaac. "

"I should like, " said Mrs. B. , "to hear him say, 'I will be a God tohim, ' and then tell us to do something of his own appointment thatshould be like our signing and sealing a covenant together, as theLord's Supper enables us to do with Christ. "

"If we have no such blessed privilege, " said I, "then, as Abrahamdesired to see our day, I should, in this respect, rejoice to seeAbraham's day. I cannot forego the privilege of having God in covenantwith me for my children as he was with Abraham for his; and I crave somedivine seal affixed to it. 

"You said, Mrs. Benson, that you would like to have God promise to bethe God of your child, and then command you to do something which wouldbe like God and you signing and sealing it together. But do you think, Mrs. B. , that this is necessary? Why is it not enough for God to make apromise, and you make one, and let it be without any sign or seal?"

"People don't do things in that way, " said Mr. Benson, with a decidedmotion, two or three times, with his head. "They call a wedding aceremony, it is true, and some say, 'So long as people are engaged to beman and wife, the ceremony makes little difference. ' But it does makeall the difference in the world, --this mere ceremony, as they call it. They never like to dispense with it themselves, at least; because, yousee, it makes all the difference between unlawful, sinful union, andmarriage. It makes married life; which could not exist, without theceremony, among decent people. It gives a title and ground to a thingwhich could not be without it. So, I begin to see and feel, it is withregard to what some call the ceremony of baptism. But excuse me, wife, Itook the answer out of your mouth. "

"Well, " said Mrs. Benson to me, "I must wait upon you, sir, to answerthe question further. "

"Mr. Benson has the right view of the subject, " I replied. "We make toolittle of signs and seals, from a morbid fear and jealousy of thosewhich are invented by man and added to religion. But God's own seals aresafe and good. We cannot make too much of them. 

"God never did anything with men, from the beginning, without signs andseals. The tree of life was one, and so was the tree of the knowledge ofgood and evil. Adam and Eve knew better, at first, than to say, 'So longas we love and obey God, of what use are these symbols?' By notregarding symbols afterward, they brought death into our world and allour woe. Even before that, God had appointed a symbol of his authority, and a seal of a covenant between him and man forever, in the appointmentof the Sabbath. The mark on Cain's forehead, the rainbow, the lamppassing between the severed parts of Abraham's sacrifice, Jacob'sladder, the burning bush, the passover, and things too numerous tomention, show how God loves signs and seals. 

"There are many good people, at the present day, who say to me, I amwilling to consecrate my child to God in prayer, and bring him up forGod; but I do not see the necessity of an ordinance. Why bring the childto baptism? I can do all which is required and signified, without thesign. "

"What do you say to them?" said Mrs. Ford. 

_Pastor. _ I tell them they are on dangerous ground. Will they be wiserthan God? He knows our natures, and what to prescribe to us in ourintercourse with him. I would as soon meddle with a law of nature, aswith God's ordinances. I might as well neglect a law of nature, andthink to be safe and well, as to neglect one of God's ordinances, andexpect his blessing. 

People, moreover, may as well object to family prayer, and say thatthey try to live in a spirit of prayer all day. Why do they have specialseasons for retirement, if they walk with God? Why do they hardly feelthat they have prayed if company, or a bedfellow, on a journey, keepsthem from using oral prayer? It is a bitter grief, also, when no funeralsolemnities lead the way to the grave with a beloved object; yet, wherein the word of God are they commanded? As Mr. Benson said, "Who iswilling to dispense with the wedding ceremony, except in cases wheresadness and trouble seek concealment?"

People cannot give full evidence that they are Christians unless theymake a public profession of religion. They cannot properly rememberJesus without partaking of his body and blood. Depend upon it, my dearfriends, God sets great value on ordinances, and our observance of them. God has given us two sacraments, and he who dispenses with them becausehe undervalues them, or undertakes to say that they are not necessary tohim, or to any in this age of the world, is in peril. The only dangerfrom forms and ordinances is when they are of human origin. We must takecare and not let our revulsion from Romanism carry us to the extreme ofneglecting or setting aside the ordinances of God's appointment. "Thereare three that bear record on earth, the Spirit, and the water, and theblood; and these three agree in one. " A man may, with equal propriety, dispense with the blood, and its symbol the wine, or with the Spirit, aswith the water, if God has appointed it with the other two as a witnessbetween him and us. You notice that the Spirit is named with the twoinanimate things, the blood and the water. Take care, I say to myfriends, lest, in setting aside the water, you shut out that divineSpirit, who, knowing how to deal with our nature, chooses the blood andthe water to be used by us in connection with our most spiritualreligious exercises of the mind and heart. We have no more right tointerfere with God's ordinances than with the number of the persons inthe Trinity. 

"All this affects me so, " said Mr. Benson, "that I shall not fail tooffer my child to be baptized, if I am allowed to do so. Now, there ismy difficulty. Why do you think, and how do you show, that baptism mustnow be used as God's sign and seal of his covenant with believers fortheir children? When circumcision was dropped, some insist that thecovenant was dropped with it, and, therefore, that there is no warrantin Scripture for baptizing children. "

"Why, " said Mrs. Ford, "if the coming in of Moses' dispensation did notabolish the arrangement with Abraham, why should its going out? I aminclined to think that Abraham and his seed are, to Moses and hisdispensation, something like that vine to the trellis, running over itto the top of the piazza, bending itself in, you see, to accommodateitself, but having a root and a top, the one below, the other above, theshort frame, which only guides it up to the roof. In the eleventh ofRomans does not Paul say that Jews and Gentiles have one and the same'root'? I always supposed that root to be Abraham and his covenant. "

I did not quote Latin to my friends, but I thought of the old law-maxim, _Manente ratione, manet ipsa lex_--which, if your scholarship is not athand to translate it, Percival will tell you, means, "The reason for alaw remaining, the law itself also remains. " It is used in such cases asthe following: When one would insist that a law was intended to berepealed by the operation of another law, not directly or expresslyaimed to repeal it, it is a good reply. If the original reason forenacting the old law can be shown still to exist, it is strongpresumptive evidence that there was no intention to repeal that law. Iexplained this, in as simple language as I could, to my excellentfriends, and told them, "If God's covenant, which circumcision sealed, were Mosaic, and therefore national, Jewish, we should presume that itceased with the Jewish nation; or, if it continued, that it wasrestricted to their posterity. But why should God bestow his inestimableblessing on the father of the faithful, and take it away from thefaithful themselves? We love our children, as Abraham did his. It is asimportant to us that God should be the God of our seed, as it was toAbraham. My heart yearns after that covenanting God in behalf of mychildren. "

"I will give up thinking of Abraham as a Jew, " said Mrs. Benson. 

"What was he, then?" said I, "or what will he be to you, from thistime?"

"He was the head of believers, " said she, "just as Adam was the head ofmen. As Mrs. Ford said, he was the great believer; and I am persuadedthat all who are of faith have his privileges, and more too; butcertainly all that he had. "

"But, my dear, " said your mother, "you have forgotten the question. Supposing that the covenant still remains, why do you take baptism forthe seal of it? The old way of sealing it is given up. What authority doyou show for using baptism in its place?"

"I take the initiating ordinance of religion for the time being, " saidI, "whatever it may be. Is not baptism the initiating ordinance, ascircumcision was? When they built our long bridge, and the ferry-boatsceased running, did the town put up a great sign over the gate, saying, 'It is enacted that this river shall continue to be crossed'? Did theyadd, 'This bridge is hereby appointed as the way of getting over theriver'? Or, did not people take it for granted, when the bridge wasopened and the ferry-boats were withdrawn, that the bridge was designedto be the way by which they were to pass over the river?

"Now, suppose so impossible a thing as this, that hereafter baptismshould, by divine revelation, be changed for anointing with oil, andnothing were said about children. I would anoint the child with oil, instead of baptizing it with water. We are to use the initiatory rite ofthe church for the time being. "

"But, " said Mrs. Benson, "is there any resemblance between circumcisionand baptism?"

"There need be none, " said I. "Resemblance does not give it efficacy, but God's appointment of it. If marking the flesh in some way should beappointed to succeed baptism, we need not look for a likeness between itand baptism before we complied with the divine requirement. "

"I do wish, " said Mrs. Benson, "that the authority to baptize childrenwere more expressly stated in the Bible, to satisfy all who were notbrought up as we have been. "

_Pastor. _ The overwhelming majority of those who now receive the Bibleas the word of God find it there. 

_Mrs. Benson. _ But why did not Paul receive a revelation about it, as hedid about the Lord's Supper?

_Pastor. _ Did that make the thing any more authoritative with us thanthe original appointment? We will not prescribe to God how to teach us. We will not make up our minds how he ought to have made a revelation, but we will take that revelation and try to understand it. 

"I agree to that, " said they all. 

_Pastor. _ It appears to me that God prefers, on certain subjects, thatthe world shall reason by inferences. It is a wise way of educatingchildren and youth, to leave some things to be learned in this way, andnot by setting everything before them, like too many examples in thearithmetic wrought out. 

We have changed the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day in theweek. It gives me a sublime idea of our Sabbath, that by some great, silent alteration, it has come to pass that all the world keep the dayof Christ's resurrection, instead of the day which commemorated the workof creation. I feel toward it as I do with regard to the noiselesschanges of the seasons, and the conformity of our habits and practicesto them. I left New York late in winter for the Azores, and, before Iexpected it, the warm southern airs came one morning into my cabinwindow. So the Christian Sabbath, with its beautiful associations, flowed in upon the world without a formal proclamation. I feel thankfulto God for so regarding our intelligent natures, as to leave somethings, relating to ordinances, modes, and forms, to be inferred, bringing great changes over the moral and spiritual world, and leavingus to adjust ourselves and the administration of the appointedordinances to them. We can add nothing, we take nothing away from anexpress, divine command; but, as the first disciples were left to inferthat a Sabbath was as necessary after Christ brought in the new creationas before, and adjusted it to the celebration of the Saviour's risingfrom the dead, so we infer that God's covenant with believing parentsfor their children is as desirable now as ever; that all the originalreasons for it now exist; and, therefore, we take the initiatingordinance of religion now, as the church in former ages did, and applyit to the children. All church-members did it before Christ; allchurch-members may do it now. God saw fit to make every adult member, atleast, of the Jewish family, a church-member; if he has changed andrestricted the terms of church-membership now, that is a sufficientreason for not making the sealing of children as universal now as it wasbefore. That is to say, in both cases, it is a church-member'sprivilege. 

Without detailing the conversation at this point, let me say, I take itfor granted that Abraham, as my great spiritual ancestor, myrepresentative before God, my commissioner to receive for me andtransmit my privileges and blessings, continues in that relation unlessexpressly set aside. Christ did not set him aside. How wonderfully he isbrought forward under the new dispensation, when it is said to us, "Andif ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according tothe promise. " But, pray, why should Abraham be intruded in connectionwith Christ, if he with his covenant is like a lapsed legacy, or asuperseded act of Congress? Why comes he here, in connection with theSaviour, and tells me that if I am Christ's, then am I his, Abraham's, seed? Hear this: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, that the blessing of Abraham might come onthe Gentiles through Jesus Christ. " Wonderful elevation of Abraham andhis blessing, as the great type of all that Christ was to procure forus! If Abraham and his covenant ceased with the Jewish people, how doesthe blessing of Abraham fully come upon us, the Gentiles? But give mehis covenant for my children; then I see that Christ is executor of thetestament made with Abraham for his children; and I am one of the heirs;as indeed I am, even if I have no children, but if I have, all ofAbraham's privileges and his covenanting God are mine and theirs. 

So that, I said to my friends, I go to the Bible not to say, "Must Ibaptize my children?" but, "Am I forbidden to baptize them?"

All my predecessors in the church of God, before Christ, had theprivilege of bringing their children into the bonds of the covenant withthemselves. If they felt as we do about it (and strict usage, and therich experience which they had had of its benefits, must have made itinestimably precious to them), it is incredible that a sudden and totaldiscontinuance of it, at the beginning of Christianity, should not haveoccasioned great clamor. The formalists, at least, would haveremonstrated at the seeming violation, by this new order of things, ofnatural affection. For, as Doddridge well observes, "What would havebeen done with the infants, or male children, of Christians?"--that is, of converted Jews, as well as others. They could not circumcise them;but their teachers, being spiritually-minded men, knew that circumcisionwas a seal of faith, not merely of nationality, and must not theconverts have required some sign and symbol still for their children?Now they had long been used to the baptism of proselytes and theirchildren; so that baptizing their own children, as a substitute forcircumcising them, could not have been a violent change with those whomPeter's vision of the sheet had taught that the Gentiles should befellow-heirs. And when he, in one of his first sermons, said to thewhole house of Israel, "Ye are the children of the covenant, " and "Thepromise is unto you and to your children, " we can account for theirutter silence as to any revocation by Christianity of the right andprivilege of applying the initiatory ordinance of religion, for the timebeing, to a believer's child. 

"But, " said Mr. Benson, "the Saviour said, 'He that believeth, and isbaptized, shall be saved. ' The apostles said, 'Repent and be baptized, every one of you. ' Show us, now, why this does not prove that repentanceand faith were not thus made essential to baptism. According to thesepassages, none could be baptized who had not repented and believed. This would exclude infants. 'Believe, and be baptized;' how do youdispose of that, sir?"

"Very easily, " said I. 

Mrs. Benson exclaimed, "O, sir, if you can, all my difficulty is at anend!"

"Well, then, " said I, "in the first place, there is no such requirementin the Bible. You see the expression very often, but it is not found inScripture. But tell me exactly what your difficulty is. "

"Why, " said she, "my husband has just stated it. People tell us theBible says, 'He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved. ' Sothey insist that no one should be baptized who is not old enough tobelieve. "

I told her that I could remove her difficulty in very few words. 

"Suppose, " said I, "that Abraham is preaching to full-grown men inCanaan, and is trying to proselyte them from their idolatry to theworship of God. He would say to them, 'Believe and be circumcised, 'would he not? for God ordained that certain proselytes should becircumcised. "

"Yes, sir, " said two or three voices at once. 

"Well, then, " said I, "must it follow that children could not becircumcised because Abraham said to men, 'Believe and be circumcised'?How will that reasoning answer? Is it true? No. Little Isaac refuted it, for he was circumcised even when his father was saying to his paganneighbors, 'Believe and be circumcised. '"

"True enough, all who believed, in Christ's day and the apostles', needed to be baptized, because they were not children, but were grownup, when Christian baptism began. Had an apostle, however, lived to seethe jailer's family, and that of Lydia, and of Stephanas, grown up, andany in those families had remained unconverted, and then he had said tothem, 'Believe and be baptized, ' there would be some force in sayingthat believing and baptism must always go together. "

"One other thing always troubled me, " said Mr. Benson, "and that is, that there was no seal of the covenant for any but male children. Now, if the initiatory rite of Christianity be used for the same purpose asthat given to Abraham, why not confine it, as formerly, to males?"

"How interesting it is, " said I, "and it is full of instruction, to seeGod paying regard to the world's knowledge and progress, in all hismeasures, and doing nothing prematurely. There is a very strikingillustration of this in the account of the fall. 

"God knew the history of the tempter during his agency in Paradise; forangels had sinned and fallen from heaven. But the existence and agencyof fallen spirits had not been disclosed in the Bible, --the time for thedisclosure had not come, --and therefore it is said, with beautifulsimplicity, 'Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the fieldwhich the Lord God had made;' and the narrative has respect only to theexternal appearance of the tempter, the serpent, because it would havebeen premature as yet to bring in the story of fallen angels, or makeallusion to them. 

"So, for reasons belonging to the early ages of the world, woman wasincluded in man, who acted for her. [1]

"But, however the arrangement began, God regarded that organic law ofsociety, and, in giving Abraham a seal of a covenant for his children, he restricted it to the sons, they in all things standing and acting asthe representatives of the house, according to the existing custom. Goddid not go far beyond the world's advancement, in his ordinances, but, with condescension and in wisdom, suited the one to the other. But, asthings were then generally represented by types, so the male child was atype and representative of the more full and complete form, which wasreserved till the fulness of time, and till the world should know thefulness of Him that filleth all in all. For 'in Christ Jesus there isneither Jew nor Greek, male nor female. '"

[Footnote 1: A curious reason for this, in the minds of some, appears tobe that, when man was created, woman was included in him. For, they say, in the first chapter of Genesis, and in the account of the sixth day, before woman was made, the plural word _them_ is used: "male and femalecreated he them. " They say that the blessing was pronounced on the manand woman in Adam. For they think it improbable that Moses wouldanticipate his history so much as to bring in woman, and, withal, herblessing, too, at the sixth day, when the narrative teaches that she wasmade some time afterwards. Hence, they say, it was that woman was forages treated as included in man. There is something pleasing in thisfancy, but it seems like one of Origen's allegories, he being the fatherof allegorical interpretation. It had its origin in an ancientRabbinical sentiment. ]

So I discoursed with my visitors till between ten and eleven o'clock, and when they rose to go, we all stood up together and joined inprayer. We commended Janette to her covenant-keeping God, whose namehad been inscribed upon her. We remembered the little boy who had beenthe occasion of all this pleasant conversation, and prayed that hisconsecration might be accepted, and the sign and seal of it be owned andblessed to him and his parents. As I walked down to the gate with myfriends, I said to them, that, when God was covenanting with Abraham, hebade him look up into the heavens, and count the stars, and told himthat his seed, like them, should be innumerable. So I told themfrequently to look up to those old heavens, and remember that thecovenant-keeping God is there, the same who, in blessing Abraham, included his seed; and that, because Abraham was so good a man, Godcalls his posterity "the seed of Abraham my friend. " And so we saidgood-night. 

In reading over what I have written, there are a few things more which Ifeel disposed to add, because I know that Percival will make good use ofthem in talking with others in your congregation. 

I feel, more than I can express, that the state of mind in parents whichwill make them prize and use the ordinance of baptism for their childrenis the great want of our day. Bringing children to church, andbaptizing them, unless the parents are themselves in covenant with God, is as wrong as it was for those earthly-minded Corinthians, whom Paulrebukes, to eat the Lord's Supper. They made a feast, or a meal, of thesupper; and some use baptism just to give a child a name, --to "christen"it, as they say, --in mere compliance with a custom. But the abuse of athing is no valid argument against it. The last supper is the subject offar more perversion; it gives occasion to a vast amount of superstitionand folly. The procession of the host, the elevation of the host, thelaying of the wafer on the tongue, the solemn injunctions againstspitting for a certain time after receiving it, are no valid argumentsagainst the Lord's Supper, and no Christian is led by them to disregardthe words of the Lord Jesus, "This do in remembrance of me. " Much of thepractical benefit of the Supper comes through the feelings which itawakens, the conduct which it promotes. So with infant baptism. Thechild must be truly consecrated to God, beforehand, and afterwards; andthe ordinance must be used as a sign and seal on our part, as it is onthe part of God, --an act and testimony, a memorial, a vow. Hannah lenther child to the Lord from the beginning, and then brought him to thetemple, with her offerings. We must take the child from baptism asthough God had placed it a second time in our hands, to be trained upfor him. 

But, still, the ordinance is God's, and not man's. He has a work to doin us by means of it, while it also helps our feelings, fixes them, makes them vivid, and imposes solemn obligations upon us by itssignified vow. So it is with the Lord's Supper. In each case it is God'smemorial, and not ours; and its benefit does not consist so much inshowing forth the state of our hearts at the time of administration, asin sealing to us the promises of God. 

True, our feelings are awakened and strengthened, ordinarily, by theordinances; but that neither explains nor limits the meaning of them. Weare wrong if we suppose that the Lord's Supper has done no good unlessour feelings are vivid at the time of partaking. If we were sincere, ouract had the effect to engage and seal blessings from God of which wewere not aware, and may never be able to trace them back to thattransaction. So with regard to baptism. 

Some call this sacerdotalism, and are afraid to allow that thesacraments have any influence or use, except as a testimony from us toGod. Romanism has driven us to the opposite extreme in our ideas ofsacraments. We do not vibrate back again too far toward Romanism, if nowwe conclude that God employs his sacraments, properly received by us, asseals from him of love and promises. Many Christians derive less comfortand help from the Lord's Supper than they may, because they regard it asprofitable only so far as they can offer it to God with vivid feelingson their part; and, when their frames are not as they desire, theyconclude that the ordinance is unprofitable. But let us also considerwho appointed this ordinance. It is the appointment of Christ, not ours;and at his table we are his guests, not he ours. The Saviour is wellrepresented as saying to us, "Thou canst not entertain a king! Unworthy thou of such a guest; But I my own provision bring, To make thy soul a heavenly feast. "

There is a divine side to sacraments, as there is a divine side inconversion. While we are active in regeneration, there is a work of Godwrought in us, distinct from our faith and repentance, yet inseparablefrom it. So, while sacraments are vows on our part to God, they are, primarily, gifts, pledges, seals, on his part to us. Therefore, when onesays, "I can bring up my children, I can be a Christian, without the useof sacraments, " it is a proper reply, "But can God do his part towardyour children, and toward you, without them?" For, not only is prayer"the offering up of our desires to God for things agreeable to hiswill, " but there is the additional truth, which is well expressed inthose lines of a hymn:

 "Prayer is appointed to convey The blessings God designs to give. "

So with sacraments; they convey gifts from God, not primarily gifts fromus to God. 

He, then, who declines to have his children baptized, on the ground thatit is useless, may, in so doing, interrupt the communication of adivinely-appointed medium between God and his child. For he need not betold that the faith of parents brought blessings from the Saviour, whenon earth, to their children, nor be reminded that the benefits ofcircumcision were bestowed on the ground of the parental relation toGod. 

One further illustration occurs to me of the power which resides in thesacraments themselves, in distinction from their being a testimony fromus to God. Let me call to your remembrance notices which you sometimessee, of young people going, in a frolic, before a clergyman or justiceof the peace, to be married, when they intended nothing but sport, andfound, afterward, that they had brought themselves into difficulty, andwere legally held to be married. 

You see by this that covenants do not, by any means, derive all theirefficacy from the feelings of a contracting party. Covenants and theirseals are the most sacred of all human transactions, and cannot belightly regarded, or trifled with. God reveals himself often under thename of the God that keepeth covenant. So that we may not set aside thesacraments, nor undervalue them. This leads me to say, furthermore, thatchildren, who doubt whether their parents sincerely and truly offeredthem to God in baptism, the parents being in an unregenerate state, asit afterward appeared, when they came with their children to theordinance, may be greatly comforted and encouraged by taking this viewof the divine sacrament of baptism as having a force and application intheir behalf, by the goodness of God, irrespective of their parents'character. God will not let his sacraments depend, for their efficacy, on the character either of the administrator or of the parents. For, ifthe character of an administrator affected the baptism, it might sohappen that one could never really be baptized, since every successivehand which applied it might prove, in turn, to be that of an unworthyperson. If a child is baptized on the profession of parents whoafterward show that they were not sincere, the child shall not sufferthereby, if he recognizes the transaction, and makes it his own act. Inthe case of a converted husband or wife, while one companion remained aheathen, the children were, nevertheless, counted "holy, " because theGospel leaned to the side of mercy, and gave the children the benefit ofthe believing parent's faith, instead of attainting them through theheathen parent. So, when a child is baptized in error, he shall notsuffer, nor even lose anything, if he will accept the covenant with itsseal. No one can justly reply to all this, that, therefore, every oneeven though not of the church, may offer his child for baptism. No; forthese are exceptional cases, in which it is true that a covenant, evenif it be not fulfilled, has force, and things may enure under it whichone who does not make the required profession cannot receive. Thecovenant, if but the outward conditions be complied with, places all, who are in any way related to it, under various contingencies, whichsometimes, to some of the parties, may be productive of good. We seeillustrations of this in the great tenderness and love which we feeltoward a child whose parent has brought a stain upon himself and hisfamily. We find an echo, in our hearts, of those kind words of the MostHigh, "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father;" and, if thatson behaves himself worthily, every good man is doubly careful toprotect and help him. In this way the broken, or unfulfilled, covenantoperates, with God and with man, to the good of some related to it. Butshall we, therefore, break our covenant? Shall the unworthy bepromiscuously admitted to its privileges? "Shall we continue in sin thatgrace may abound?"

In speaking of the influence of sacraments, I am aware that we approachenchanted ground. The human heart loves a religion of forms andceremonies, which professes to renew and save without self-denial, breathing around us the quietism of ordinances, and lulling us to drowsyforgetfulness of duty in the luxurious enjoyment of an irresponsiblereligion. While, therefore, we cannot too carefully guard against theabuse of ordinances, we must not forget that God, who made man, body andsoul, chooses to convey some of his gracious operations to us by thehelp of the two simple sacraments, and that they are intended to actupon us, in the hands of his Spirit, in the first instance; not merelyserving as offerings to God. 

It is not that there are fewer children baptized now than formerly (ifsuch indeed be the case), that awakens sorrow and apprehension; but thatparents are deficient in the feelings which make us prize and usebaptism. This is the evil sign, and it is greatly to be deplored. Onemust have intelligent views of the Scriptures as a whole, --of bothTestaments, --most fully to understand and value infant baptism; for itsroots were planted in the Old Testament. I always feel deep respect fora church-member who comprehends this subject in its wide relations, andis not swayed by the popular demand for an express sign at every step, but can reason inferentially as well as when proofs are demonstrativeand palpable; and who has in his mind the whole system of redemption, with its various economies, interdependent, and none made perfectwithout the rest. When all our church-members come to understand andfeel the power of this subject in this manner, what times of enlightenedreligious prosperity, and a high state of religious culture, it willindicate. I pray and wait for the time when all our Pædobaptistchurches, of every name, will conspire to promote spiritual views ofchildren's baptism, holding it forth as the expression of spiritualfeelings, and discountenancing formalism in connection with it. Though Iwas never an Episcopalian in my preferences, and though the appointmentof godfathers and godmothers may, like every good thing, relapse intomere form, I honor it for its excellent and pious design of surroundingthe parents and the children with admonition and help. For there aresponsors, I am happy to know, who are not mere formalists, but who makeit a rule to have an interview with their godchildren on or near theirbirthdays, or the anniversaries of their baptisms, and, in anaffectionate, faithful manner, they endeavor to fulfil the vows whichthey took upon themselves at the baptism. Blessings on such faithfulChristian friends! Happy the children who have them for helpers of theirfaith and piety. Let us all, as church-members, be sponsors, at least byprayers and a kind interest for it, to every child of a Christianbrother or sister, when we witness its baptism. Suppose a church-member, after witnessing the baptism of an infant, its parents, perhaps, entirestrangers, goes to his place of private prayer, and, moved withdisinterested love toward those parents and the child, supplicates theblessing of God upon them. Could Christian love be more pure than this, or prayer more pleasing to God? In the revelations of eternity suchprayers will not only be rewarded openly by Him who saw those doors shutwith that secret love and piety, but blessings upon parents and childwithout measure may be traced to such petitions as their procuringcause. How good it is to perform such acts, knowing that they can nevercome abroad in this world! Should every Christian who witnesses thebaptism of a child, afterward pray for that immortal soul in secret, with special petitions, what an increased privilege and blessing itwould be esteemed to offer a child in baptism, and in God's house, before a witnessing church, rather than at home! I hope, my deardaughter, that you and Percival, as private Christians, will do good toyour own souls, and to the souls of baptized children, and to theirparents, by making it one of your private rules to pray in secret, onthe Sabbath, for every child whose baptism you witness. 

The effort to promote and enforce infant baptism, by ecclesiasticalenactments merely, is absurd. We must fertilize the soil, not spreadglass sashes over the plants. Give Christians right views and feelingsabout their covenant privileges and duties; disabuse them of theirmistakes about the severance of the Old Testament from the New; teachthem to look at Abraham, not as a decayed peer, or an old Jew, but asthe founder of the church of all ages, to whom Almighty God virtuallysaid, 'On this rock I will build my church, '--Abraham being the firstfoundation stone, waiting for apostles to be added with him, and, as ourgreat representative, bearing in his hand the covenant made with him forus, as well, as for the other great branch of the family of God; showthem that baptism is now the initiating ordinance, and that the oldcovenant was never repealed, though the seal be changed; let them seewhat it is to have God in covenant with them to be the God of theirseed; and, withal, let us correct, or modify, the intense anti-papaljealousy of the Christian rites, which makes us all, unconsciously, verge to the opposite extreme, thus missing the divinely-appointedintention and use which there is in our two simple ordinances; and then, with the revival of such spiritual views and feelings, and, as aconsequence, with greater reference in the prayers of Christians, publicand private, to the subject, the practice of children's baptism willincrease, as surely as accessions to the Lord's table increase whenpeople come to have Christ in them the hope of glory. 

We, ministers, can do very much to promote a love for the ordinance inmany ways. We ought to make it convenient and pleasant by all theexpedients within our power. I like the practice which you speak of, inyour church, of the mother remaining with the child in the anteroom tillthe introductory services and the loud organ-playing are over. Doesyour pastor pour water into the child's face and eyes, and then beginthe words of baptism? I presume not; but I have seen it done. We shouldnot touch the child's head till near the close of the baptismal formula;and then so that the child will not see the arm move toward it. 

Much can be done by these simple expedients to promote a quiet andpleasant attendance upon the delightful rite. I like the practice, inyour church, of chanting low some appropriate words of Scripture beforeand after the baptism. 

I am constrained to say, though with diffidence, that I fear some of mygood brethren give erroneous impressions by what they say of thechurch-membership of children. They push it to extremes. They discussthe question, What shall be done with baptized children, who, onarriving at years of understanding, refuse to enter into covenant withGod? Church censures are asserted by some to be proper in such cases, even to excommunication, or interference in some judicial way by thechurch. So long as I believe in regeneration by the Holy Spirit, Icannot feel that baptized children, as such, are, in any sensewhatever, in which the term is generally received among men, _members_of the church of Christ; while, in another and most important sense, they do belong to the church, hold a relation to it, and are a part ofit. Strictly speaking, and in the highest spiritual sense, they are noteven "the lambs of Christ's flock;" for lambs have the nature of sheep;but the children of believers are, by nature, children of wrath, even asothers. And yet, in another sense, they hold a most important relationto the flock of Christ, as no other children do. In its most importantsense, they are not to the church even what they are to the state; theyhave no place whatever in the invisible church, --the church which issaved, --till they are born again. If children are regenerated by the actof baptism, of course it is otherwise; but, not believing this, I amclear that the baptized child of a believer differs from any otherunregenerate child, who is not baptized, only in this: that God looksupon it with peculiar interest and love, and that it is surrounded withspecial and peculiar privileges, opportunities, promises, and hopes, with regard to its being brought to repentance and saving faith inChrist; and by baptism it is initiated into special relationship to thepeople of God. The church also has special duties with regard to it. Some of my brethren give great occasion to those who resist children'sbaptism, to argue against it as Romish in its nature and effect, by notdiscriminating clearly in using the words members and membership inconnection with children. Read almost any modern book against infantbaptism, and you will find that its main force is directed against thepractice as a "church and state" institution, and as making personsmembers of the church by means of sacraments. Let us who are really freefrom such imputation, assert the truly spiritual nature and object ofthis ordinance. I wish to see it divested of all that does not belong toit, made eminently spiritual, expressed in terms which cannot easily bemisunderstood, and appealing to the natural affections, theunderstandings, the consciences, of spiritual men and women, as, in itssober and legitimate use, God's great appointment, from the call ofAbraham to the millennium, for the increase and perpetuity of hischurch. [2]

[Footnote 2: This subject is discussed by itself, and more at large, inanother part of this book. ]

You are aware that the great question, which has made most of thetrouble in the Christian church from the beginning, relates to themeaning and use of sacraments and ordinances, or what we call Symbolism. The tendency of the human mind, even in Paul's day, as indicated by him, with other things belonging to it, under the name of "the mystery ofiniquity, which doth even now work, " was, to increase the number ofsacraments and ordinances, and make them bear an essential part in thework of regeneration. The right to multiply or extend them, and theclaim that they possess a saving efficacy, characterizes one greatdivision of the professed Christian church, while those who are calledProtestants and the Reformed, regard them chiefly as signs; though ofthese, some seem to have much of that appetency after undue reliance onforms which Paul seeks to correct in the Epistle to the Galatians, whileothers go to an opposite extreme, and undervalue the twodivinely-appointed sacraments, which they think have no efficiency asused by the Spirit of God, but only as signs used by us to representsomething. 

Between these divisions of the Christian church lies the battle-groundof great ecclesiastical controversies from the beginning, as theNetherlands were, for a long time, the battle-field of Europe. Archbishop Leighton seems to strike the balance between formalism andsacramental grace in ordinances, as well as any writer, in commenting onthese words of Peter, "The like figure whereunto, even baptism, dothalso now save us. " He says:

"Thus, then, we have a true account of the power of this, and so ofother, sacraments, and a discovery of the error of two extremes. (1. ) Ofthose who ascribe too much to them, as if they wrought by a natural, inherent virtue, and carried grace in them inseparably. (2. ) Of thosewho ascribe too little to them, making them only signs and badges of ourprofession. Signs they are, but more than signs merely representing;they are means exhibiting, and seals confirming, grace to the faithful. But the working of faith and the conveying Christ into the soul, to bereceived by faith, is not a thing put into them to do of themselves, butstill in the supreme hand that appointed them; and he indeed both causesthe souls of his own to receive these his seals with faith, and makesthem effectual to confirm that faith which receives them so. They arethen, in a word, neither empty signs to them who believe, nor effectualcauses of grace to them that believe not. "

Let me make the distinction very clear to your mind, for it is of greatpractical importance. The "mystery of iniquity" in Paul's time, andsince his day, did not, and does not, consist in making too much ofGod's ordinances in their purity and proper use. That cannot be done, any more than you can intelligently love the Bible too much, or theSabbath. But, to pervert them, or to make additions to them, or to relyupon them wholly, is Romanism. But can men make too much of having aseal on a deed? Is the deed good for anything without the seal? Can theymake too much of having three witnesses to their wills? Those threewitnesses, instead of two, make an otherwise worthless writing, a man'slast will and testament. Thus, a true sign, ordinance, or seal, amongmen, has inherent efficacy of some sort. Shall we deny it to theordinances and seals of Heaven? He who lays claim to the covenant, butrejects the seal, deceives himself. They must go together. 

But will you not think me older even than I claim to be, because I am sogarrulous? I have many things to say, but will not say them with pen andink, hoping to see you shortly. Farewell, my dear daughter, to you andyour beloved husband, with abundant kisses for your little namesake, who, I pray, may be spared to you, if God has any work for her to do onearth. Dedicate her sincerely and entirely, beforehand, to God, and thenin his house, with baptism, before the assembled brethren in Christ; andlet your subsequent treatment of her be a repetition of the whole. Baptizing a child, with right views and feelings, leads to much prayerfor it. Renew the consecration of your child daily, in little, suddenacts of prayer, as well as in more deliberate offices of devotion. Thussurround it with an atmosphere of faith and consecration, not forgettingthe public transaction in which you covenanted with God, before manywitnesses, for the child, and He, my dear daughter, with you, in itsbehalf. For, a covenant implies two parties; and God is one, and you arethe other; and Jesus is the mediator, who said of children, "Of such isthe kingdom of God. " "He that came down from heaven, " had seen, inheaven, how largely that world is peopled with them. "Of such is thekingdom of heaven. " Peace be with you. All send love. 

 Your affectionate Father. 

Chapter Third. 

BERTHA'S BAPTISM. --CHANTING AT BAPTISMS. --PUBLIC AND PRIVATEBAPTISMS. --WEEK-DAY BAPTISMS. --A DAUGHTER'S LOVE. --BAPTISM OF ADEAF-MUTE INFANT. --FIDELITY OF A BAPTIZED CHILD. --SUBJECTS OFBAPTISM. --THE MODE. --IMPROBABILITY OF IMMERSION, IN THE NEWTESTAMENT. --ON BEING BURIED IN BAPTISM. --NEW VERSION OF THESCRIPTURES. --OUR DIVISION INTO SECTS. --A MOTHER'S PLEA FOR INFANTBAPTISM. 

 Where is it mothers learn their love? In every church a fountain springs, O'er which th' eternal Dove Hovers on softest wings. 

 O, happy arms, where cradled lies, And ready for the Lord's embrace, That precious sacrifice, The darling of his grace!

 KEBLE. 

We took Bertha to church when she was two months old. The minister, being fond of music, had, for some time, requested the choir to chantselect passages of Scripture at baptisms. 

So, as we came up the aisle with the child, the choir breathed out thosewords, "And I will establish my covenant between thee and me, and thyseed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant; tobe a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. " "Suffer the littlechildren to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is thekingdom of God. " "And he took them up in his arms, put his hands uponthem, and blessed them. " And, as we turned away from the font, theyadded, "So shall he sprinkle many nations. " "The Lord shall increase youmore and more, you and your children. " "But the mercy of the Lord isfrom everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and hisrighteousness unto children's children; to such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments, to do them. "

How I loved that choir, and the congregation! for, many a face did I seebathed in tears, and others beaming with smiles and love, as, withrespectful, half-turned looks, they seemed to give us their blessing. 

"Do you not think, more than ever, " I said, to the beloved grandmotherof my child, after church, as we watched the little sleeper in hercradle, "that people lose very much in having their children baptized athome?"

"It makes a different thing of it, " she replied. "I felt that all thecongregation loved Bertha and you. How many prayers you obtained for herand for yourselves, which you would have missed by a private baptism!"

"Besides, " I remarked, "'God loveth the gates of Zion more than all thedwellings of Jacob. ' I think that for that reason, and on the sameprinciple, namely, that he is more honored, he regards our publicdedication of children with more favor than a private baptism, except, of course, where sickness makes the public service impossible. But it issome trouble to mothers, and no doubt many shrink from it. "

"The trouble is more in anticipation than reality, " she replied. "Thatpastor's room, where they stay till the introductory services are over, makes it more convenient and agreeable. But all the trouble, even if itwere far greater, is nothing compared with the satisfaction of havingtaken your offering and come into His courts. You have paid your vowsunto the Lord, in the presence of all his people. You will rememberthose prayers, those words of Scripture which were chanted, and yourfeelings as you took the child into your arms to be presented to God, and as you heard those adorable names pronounced upon her and thenreceived her back into your arms, as it were, from the hands of God. "

"What do you think, " said I, "of the practice of having childrenbaptized in the church on a week-day? It enables the parents to attendmeeting on the Sabbath with more composure than when they bring theirchildren on the Sabbath. "

"But O, " said she, "what is that, compared with the privilege ofbringing the child before the whole church of God, in his house, on theLord's day, and so identifying its baptism with the most solemn acts ofpublic worship? I do not like those week-day baptisms. Where they havethe communion lecture in the afternoon of a week-day, there may bereasons of convenience for bringing the children for baptism then, rather than on the Sabbath; but there is a great loss of enjoyment, andalso of impressiveness, in the ordinance, in doing so, I think. I was ata place, several years ago, when fourteen children were baptized on aWednesday afternoon, in the church. I went to see it, but it was notsolemn at all. I could not help thinking what an impressive and usefulsight that would have been on the Sabbath, before all the people, andhow much more good, probably, it would have done the parents, even ifthey had given up half the Sabbath in going and returning with thechildren. "

"If people, " said I, "thought more of the spiritual meaning andprivileges of baptism, and viewed it as they do in times of sickness anddeath, they would think less of inconveniences and discomforts, and seethat the ordinance is something more than giving a child a name. "

 * * * * *

Some time after this, I called upon a cousin of ours, a young marriedlady of our congregation, who, within a year, had come to us fromanother place, she having been married to an educated, intelligentmember of another congregation, and who, from his great love for her, had come with her to our place of worship from another denomination, this having been made a condition of their marriage. For she felt thatshe could not be debarred the privilege of sitting at the Lord's tablewith her mother, three sisters, and brother, as she would be if sheunited herself with her friend's church. The idea of going to any tableof Christ on earth where they could not come, thus seeming todisfranchise her whole family whom Christ had gathered into his fold, and some of them into heaven, did violence to her feelings. At one time, it seemed likely that the engagement of marriage would be terminated, onthis ground alone. Some one of the gentleman's persuasion, who thoughtthat she "ought to follow Christ in ordinances, " and "take up her cross"in this instance, whispered to her that she was, perhaps, in danger ofdenying Christ, from love to her kindred, and he said to her, "He thatloveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me. " This had theopposite effect from that which was intended, for it showed her, in thestrongest light, the error of supposing that love to Christ could everrequire her to separate from herself, at the table of Christ, suchfriends of Jesus as the members of her dear Christian home, --a homewhich had been like that of Bethany to many of the Saviour's friends. She felt more sure of being actuated by right motives in giving up hermarriage, and not withdrawing fellowship from her mother and the family, than she would be in sacrificing that fellowship to gratify a newaffection. Her next younger sister was baptized after the father'sdeath. She was a deaf-mute. The mother was a very beautiful woman. Shehad borne severe trials for her religion with a spirit of patience andChristian propriety which won the love and esteem of the community. Shewent to the altar of God, a widow, with the little deaf and dumb child, and presented it for baptism. It was as though the impending calamity ofits father's death had shut up some of the senses of the child, and Godhad placed it in the mother's hand as a silent memorial to her, forlife, of his chastising love. She left her fatherless flock in thefamily pew, and went with her nursling, not merely to give it to God, but to receive for it the seal of his covenant, bowing submissively tohis inscrutable appointment, and imploring the God of Abraham to bestill her God, and the God of this her seed. That scene had not failedto make deep impressions upon the other children; and now it wasproposed to one of them that she should, by connecting herself inmarriage, disavow her mother's right to cling, in those hours ofanguish, to that asylum of the fatherless, infant baptism, --that verypresent help in trouble, the covenant of God with believers and theiroffspring. The little child, moreover, had become a Christian, and hadsat with her sister, side by side, at the communion-table, for severalyears. "Forbid it, " she prayed with herself, "that I should go where Icannot be allowed to follow Christ till I have separated this dear onefrom my side. "

She once wrote a letter on the subject to the gentleman, which heshowed, after their marriage, to some of his friends. There will be noimpropriety in its appearing here. It ran thus:

 "MY DEAR MR. E. : Though I am not willing to deny that Roger Williams was, as you say, raised up to illustrate some important principles, and to help on the general cause of truth, I must say that he strikes me as a very unreasonable man in much of his behavior. Our puritan fathers did not come to this wilderness with French, atheistic, idolatrous love for a goddess of liberty. They came here, it is true, for liberty of conscience and freedom to worship God. With a great sum they purchased this freedom. But infidels could as well claim to be absolved by the laws from all recognition of God, under the plea of liberty, as Mr. Williams and his friends could make his demands for toleration. To insist that our fathers, in their circumstances, should have opened their doors wide to every doctrine, and to the denial of everything professed by them, is unreasonable. They came here with an intense love for certain truths and practices, which persecution had only served to make exceedingly precious to them. To have proclaimed at once universal toleration of every wind of doctrine, would have proved them libertines in religion. Because they did not so, reproach is cast upon them by some, who seem to me to be free-thinkers on the subject of religious liberty. If other men wished to found a community with doctrines and practices adverse to those of the New England fathers, the land was wide, and it would have been the part of good manners in Mr. Williams to have gone into the wilderness at once, to subdue it and to fight the savages, all for love and zeal for his own tenets, instead of poaching upon the hard-earned soil of those who had laid down their all for what they deemed to be the truth. It seems to me unphilosophical in some of our historians to reflect, as they do, upon our forefathers for not being so totally indifferent to what they deemed error, as to allow it free course. Their strict, and, if you please, rigid ways, were the necessary defences of their principles, which were just taking root here. They did right in passing stringent laws to protect them; and religious liberty was no more violated in doing so than is the liberty of our town's people here, who, by the law of the State protecting game, cannot take fish, or kill birds, during certain seasons. 

 "Besides, I never saw any proof that Mr. Williams was himself the great apostle of toleration. I remember reading to father, during his sickness, some remarks of the late John Quincy Adams, in which he vindicates the New England fathers for banishing Roger Williams as a 'nuisance. '[3] Mr. Adams surely cannot be accused of bigotry, nor of being an enemy to the cause of freedom; and his remarks seemed to me more just than the eulogies, by historians and orators, of Mr. Williams. Father once showed me an old book of Mr. Williams's, which we have now, called 'George Fox digg'd out of his Burrowes, ' in which Mr. W. Inveighs against the Quakers for their want of 'civil respect, ' and for using 'thee' and 'thou, ' in addressing magistrates and others. He says, on the two hundredth page, 'I have therefore publickly declared myself, that a due and moderate restraint and punishing of these incivilities (though pretending conscience) is as far from persecution, properly so called, as that it is a duty and command of God unto all mankinde, first in families, and thence unto all mankinde societies. '--It is also a matter of history that the colony settled by Mr. Williams refused their franchise to Roman Catholics, though even then the Roman Catholics of Maryland were tolerating people of his own faith, and Quakers also. Mr. Williams always seemed to me like one of our pious, zealous 'come-outers. ' He even forsook his own denomination in three months after he had been baptized, and for forty years denied the validity of their sacraments, and the scripturalness of their churches and ministry. Such a man would even at this day be excommunicated by every society, unless it were some association for the encouragement of radical notions of liberty. I no more see in him the impersonation of religious freedom, than in some other good people who go or stay where they are not wanted. I am not disposed to deny that you and your friends, with their principles, of which you, erroneously, I think, claim Mr. Williams as the great exponent, 'have a mission, ' as you say, to perform; but I do not feel called upon to join in it. Some of your writers seem to me--shall I say it?--a little too sure of having just the right pattern and patent-right in ordinances, and somewhat too complacent in not being liked by other denominations, and perhaps a little disposed to look for persecution. Now I was pleased with a remark of Matthew Henry's, on Mark 10:28, that 'It is not the suffering, but the cause, that makes the martyr. ' But we were brought up under different associations, and cannot see just alike in all things. I cannot, however, contradict, by any step which my feelings would incline me to take, the Christian citizenship of those who are dear to Christ, and are so precious to me. As much as I love you, I think you should feel perfectly free to leave me in my happy home, if you cannot allow me to retain my fidelity to my own conscientious convictions of truth, and to the sacred rights of those whom nature and grace have conspired to make inseparable from my own Christian hopes and joys. "

[Footnote 3: "Can we blame the founders of the Massachusetts Colony forbanishing him from their jurisdiction? In the annals of religiouspersecution is there to be found a martyr more gently dealt with bythose against whom he began the war of intolerance; whose authority hepersisted, even after professions of penitence and submission, indefying, till deserted even by the wife of his bosom; and whose utmostseverity of punishment upon him was only an order for his removal as anuisance from among them?"--_Discourse before Mass. Hist. Soc. _, 1843, pp. 25-30. --[ED. ]]

The gentleman agreed to allow her the largest liberty, and they weremarried. He knew that she had a mind and heart that were more preciousthan rubies, and that the heart of a husband could safely trust in her. The sequel will show, however, how good it is to be matched as well asmated, and, in the conjugal relation, to be "perfectly joined togetherin the same judgment. "

The object of my call, that evening, was to rejoice with her, and to bethe bearer of some congratulations at the recovery of their infant, whose death had been expected for some time. The child was now perfectlyrestored. 

As I stood in the entry, not having rung the door-bell, and was hangingup my hat and coat, some one in the parlor said:

"What good can it do the child or us to sprinkle a little water on itshead?"

"Good-evening, Mr. M. , " said the husband, as I went in. I wasinterrupted in my expression of a fear that I had intruded upon theirconversation, by their assurances to the contrary. "I am glad you camein, " said Mr. Kelly, "for perhaps you can help us. You heard, I suppose, what I was saying as you came in. If I am not mistaken, Mr. M. , youyourself are not very strenuous about infant baptism, for I have heardof your making inquiries on the subject. "

"Not only have all my doubts been removed, " said I, "but the baptism ofmy child has been the source of the richest instruction and comfort. "

"I am glad to hear you say so, " said Mrs. K. 

"But, " said Mr. K. , "you do not, of course, derive your warrant for itfrom the word of God. That is our only guide, you know. There is no moreauthority in the Bible for baptizing children than there is for prayingto saints. You are probably aware that the practice originated in thethird century of the Christian era. "

_Mr. M. _ It originated with a man by the name of Abraham, I believe, sir, two or three thousand years before Christ. 

_Mr. K. _ O, then, you go to Judaism for it!

_Mr. M. _ Judaism comes to me with it, and hands it over to me. There wassomething good in Judaism, we all think. Judaism was not a Mormonism, ascertain ways of speaking of it not unfrequently would make us think itto have been; it was not an exploded folly, but the form which thechurch of God bore for two thousand years. But it began before Judaism;it is older than Moses. Judaism received it from Abraham. It is like agreat river rising in a desert place, and seeming to lose itself in alake, but flowing out again into another lake, and thence to the sea. SoJudaism was only a great lake, which took and seemingly held this riverof baptism for a time, but its current went on and flowed into anotherlake, the Christian dispensation. But you cannot say that a river whichmakes a chain of lakes, rises, for that reason, in the first lake. No, its head spring, in this case, was antecedent to the lake. 

_Mr. K. _ Did Abraham or the Jews baptize children, Mr. M. ?

I answered, "Every male child of Abraham's descendants, who should notreceive the sign of consecration to God, was to be cut off from amongthe people. Proselytes of the covenant and their children were baptized, very early. "

_Mr. K. _ But where is the command to apply baptism to children?

_Mr. M. _ Where, my dear sir, is the command to discontinue that whichwas enjoined upon the founder of the race of believers for all time? Ibelieve in the perpetuity of Abraham's relation to us as the father ofthe faithful, as I believe in Adam's relation to us as therepresentative of the race, and in the Saviour's relation to us as ourrepresentative. God seems to love these federal headships, as we callthem. Abraham did not receive circumcision being a Jew, but, as theapostle says, "as a seal of the righteousness which is by faith, whichhe had while he was yet uncircumcised. " We have Scripture for that, Mr. Kelly. And "the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, " didnot disannul that covenant "that was confirmed before of God in Christ. "How can you call circumcision a Jewish ordinance, when the Bible soexplicitly denies it to be of Jewish origin?

_Mr. K. _ O, I do not understand this Abrahamic covenant. I take the NewTestament for my guide. 

_Mr. M. _ You think well of the book of Psalms, I presume, as a help toprayer and pious feelings?

_Mr. K. _ Yes; but in all matters of faith and practice, the NewTestament, like the doings of the latest session of the legislature, isthe rule for New Testament believers. You might as well have tried togovern the ancient Jews with the New Testament, as enforce the laws ofthe Old Testament on us. 

_Mr. M. _ Is the privilege of having God stand in a special relation tomy child an Old Testament ordinance, in the same sense with ceremonialobservances?

_Mr. K. _ Not exactly that, but it is a superstition to baptize children, now that circumcision is done away, and believers' baptism is enjoined. 

_Mr. M. _ Believers' baptism is enjoined, but children's baptism is nottherefore prohibited. 

_Mr. K. _ But where is it enacted?

_Mr. M. _ If the original form of dedicating children is essential, whyis not the original form of the Sabbath essential, the very day whichwas first appointed? How dare we change a day which God himself ordainedfrom the beginning, until he makes the change as peremptory as theinstitution itself? Have we any right to infer, in such an importantmatter? Where is the express, divine command, --not precedent, example, usage, but where is the enactment, --making the first day of the week theChristian Sabbath?

_Mr. K. _ So long as we may keep the thing, observing one day in seven, it makes no difference which day we keep, if we can all agree on one andthe same day. We do not all agree to retain circumcision in any way. 

_Mr. M. _ So long as we may retain the thing signified by circumcision, it makes but little difference what form is used to express it. 

_Mr. K. _ The apostles, who changed the Sabbath from the seventh to thefirst day, knew the mind of Christ. 

_Mr. M. _ And so the men, who first practised infant baptism, knew theminds of the inspired apostles, and they knew the mind of Christ. But togo a step further back, the only ground for inferring that the Sabbathis rightly changed from the seventh to the first day of the week, is theincidental mention of Christ's meeting his assembled disciples a fewtimes after his resurrection on the first day. On that slight ground weare all content to rest our present observance of the Sabbath. Now, Isay that the mention of the baptism of households eight times, in oneform and another, is as good a warrant for infant baptism, as those twoor three Sabbath-evening meetings were for the institution of theLord's-day Sabbath. 

_Mr. K. _ I cannot agree with you, Mr. M. , in putting circumcision on thesame level with the Sabbath. 

_Mr. M. _ I myself see a resemblance in the changes made in the twocases. I have no wish to proselyte you to my views. I have only answeredyour polite inquiries. 

_Mr. K. _ O, I know that; we shall be good friends still; but I see nogrounds for baptizing children on the faith of their parents. 

_Mr. M. _ We look at the thing from different points of view. I see it asclearly as I see that the church of God is essentially the same in allages, with its variety of forms. This matter of children's baptism iswith me a spiritual thing, and is independent of dispensations. You knowthat a river may have, in one district of the earth through which itflows, one name, and in another district another name, while it is thesame river. Now, the divine recognition of believers' children, asstanding in a special covenanted relation with God, is the headspring ofinfant dedication by the use of a rite. The object of this recognitionis, that He may have a godly seed. God does not perpetuate religiondirectly by natural descent, it is true, but he seeks to promote it bydescent from a pious parentage, and he therefore endows that parentagewith special privileges and promises. The inclusion of children withtheir believing parents has been the great means of perpetuatingreligion in the earth. It is a stream which washed the shores of Judaismunder the name of circumcision; now it washes the shores of the Gentilesunder the name of baptism. For the Saviour or the apostles to havereäppointed infant dedication, with the use of the cotemporaryinitiating ordinance, would, to my mind, be as superfluous as for theallied powers to have agreed that the Danube should still run throughAustria. 

_Mr. K. _ Your principle of interpretation, Mr. M. , has brought in allthe darkness which has covered the earth in the Romish apostacy. Therewill be no end to human inventions in religion, if this principleprevails. 

_Mr. M. _ But, my dear sir, there certainly has been an end at the verybeginning; for what inventions in Protestant worship have non-prelaticalPædobaptists made? Surely that practice has not been prolific ofsuperstitions. I often hear this alleged, Mr. K. , and we are calledRomish and Popish because we baptize infants. But will it not be bestfor Christian sects to allow each other entire liberty of conscience, and not accuse each other of tendencies to Romanism, when all arezealously Protestant? Here is a piece, which I cut from a newspaperlately, which describes the baptism by immersion of some females andothers, one Sabbath in January, the thermometer below zero, a placebeing cut through the ice for the purpose, and a boy watching with apole to keep the floating ice from the opening. Shall I call thisRomish, superstitious, fanatical? Shall I say, How can we, consistentlywith such practices among Protestants, say anything about the doctrineof penances? No. I prefer to think that those who do these things are asgood Protestants as myself, and I will not impeach their rigid adherenceto their belief, by imputing Romish tendencies to their modes ofworship and their ordinances; for no people are further from Romanism intheir principles than they (unless it be some of us Pædobaptists, Mrs. Kelly). 

_Mr. K. _ Well, there is no quarrelling with you; but let me say thatwhen another sect sees you employing an ordinance which has no warrantin the Bible, --sprinkling water upon people, on proper subjects andimproper subjects for baptism, when we know that the word _baptize_means to _immerse_, and that believers only are properly baptized, --howcan we be silent? Would you be silent if Episcopalians should set upLatin prayers, or the confessional; or the Methodists turn theirlove-feasts into the old Passover?

_Mr. M. _ We must tolerate the mistakes and errors of those who, in themain, are confessedly good, and are conscientious in what we deem theirerrors. When the noble array of great and good men in the Episcopal LowChurch, and among the Methodists, fall into such mistakes as you havespecified, there will be opportunity for other Christians to expressthemselves. But you are rather rhetorical in your reasoning, to comparethe practice of infant baptism by Owen, and Watts, and Doddridge, andLeighton, and Baxter, and all like them, with Latin prayers and a returnto the Passover. 

_Mr. K. _ There is not a case of sprinkling in the New Testament. You aretoo well-informed to deny this. 

_Mr. M. _ Mr. K. , there is not one instance of baptism, in the NewTestament, where there does not appear to me to be an improbability ofits having been administered by immersion. 

By this time Mrs. K. , who had been called away to attend to her child, returned, and hearing my last remark, said, with a significant look ather husband:

"We shall require you to prove that, Mr. M. "

"Most willingly, " said I. "Do you think, cousin Eunice, that themultitudes who came to John and the apostles to be baptized, broughtchanges of raiment with them?"

"No, " said she; "and there were no conveniences for making a change ofdress in those places, I presume. "

_Mr. M. _ Were they immersed in the clothes which they had on?

_Mrs. K. _ That does not seem probable. Some of them, at least, hadvaluable garments, we may suppose, and few, if any, would wish to havetheir apparel wet through, or to keep it on them, if wet. 

_Mr. M. _ They were not immersed without clothing, of course, promiscuously, and, therefore, I believe that they were all baptized bysprinkling or pouring, their loose upper garments allowing them to stepinto the water, or very near it; and John, standing there (and theapostles, also, when they administered baptism), and laying on the waterwith his hand, or, which is not impossible, with the long-accustomedbunches of hyssop. The Episcopal mode of administering the Lord'sSupper, enables me to conceive how baptism by sprinkling could beadministered rapidly. As six or more people are kneeling, the Episcopalminister gives each his portion of the bread, and repeats the formula, not to each one, but once only while his hand is passing over the six. So, I imagine, John repeated whatever form he had (and the apostlestheirs) to companies, while, in rapid succession, he applied the waterto them. It is impossible to account for the performance of suchincredible labor as John must have undergone, unless we adopt some suchsupposition as this, or confess that John's baptism was, throughout, amiracle. But "the people said, John did no miracle. " If the apostlessprinkled three thousand in this way, by companies, in one day, as theycould easily have done, we can see how the same day there could be"added unto them about three thousand souls, " even if "added" meantbeing baptized. That the apostles had assistance in administeringbaptism at this early period, is not probable. They had not yet proposedto have helpers in taking care of the poor, much less to share with themthe first administration of Christian baptism. If any church were torequire me to believe, before admitting me to the Lord's table, that theapostles immersed three thousand people at the day of Pentecost, afternine o'clock in the morning, in the midst of necessary labors, and atthat driest season of the year, or in tanks, I could no more believe itthan I could confess that the earth is flat. 

_Mrs. K. _ But "John was baptizing in Enon, near to Salim, because therewas much water there. "

_Mr. M. _ "Much water, " in those countries, was on a smaller scale thanin North America. They would have needed all the lake-shore or riverbanks that could be found, to witness the baptisms, and to pass in andout of, or to and from, the water, conveniently, while John stood toreceive them in or near the water. A fountain or small body of waterwould not have accommodated those multitudes; not because the waterwould not suffice, for a small running stream would be enough, and wouldhave afforded "much water;" but think what inconvenience there wouldhave been in baptizing a crowd around a small stream. Baptism byimmersion, among us, though a few gallons of water only are needed, ismore conveniently done where there is "much water;" because thespectators can spread themselves along the banks, and then there is noconfusion. The most convenient and rapid way of baptizing multitudes bysprinkling would be, for the administrator to stand in the water, andlet the people pass by him. Besides, those multitudes who came to John'sbaptism needed "much water" for themselves and their beasts. 

_Mrs. K. _ But the Saviour went down into the water, and came up out ofthe water. 

_Mr. M. _ So did John, in the same sense; and so did "both Philip and theEunuch;" but John and Philip did not, therefore, go under the water. ButMr. Kelly will tell you that _down in_ to, and _up out_ of, might aswell have been translated to and from, in the case of the Eunuch. If youinsist that going down into the water involves immersion, it followsthat Philip went under the water with the Eunuch, and there baptizedhim. 

_Mr. K. _ We shall set those matters right in that new version of theBible which you were complaining of the last time I saw you. Down into, and up out of, are required by the word baptize, which means immerse. 

_Mr. M. _ No, my dear sir, not always, even in the New Testament. Theword had come, even in the Saviour's time, to signify purification, orconsecration, irrespective of the mode. The Pharisees, in coming fromthe market-places, except they wash, eat not. The word is baptize. Butthey did not bathe at such times; they "baptized" themselves by washingtheir bodies. We read of the baptism of beds, which was merely washingthem. The Israelites were baptized unto Moses. There the word means, simply, inaugurated, or set apart, with no reference to the mode; for, they were not immersed, but bedewed, if wet at all; they were not buriedin that cloud, for the other cloud that led them was in sight; they werenot buried in the sea, which was a wall to them on either hand. 

There is a good illustration, it seems to me, of the change in wordsfrom their literal meaning, in the passage where Christ is called the"first-born of every creature. " He was not _born first_, before all men, but he has the "preëminence" over all creatures, as the first-born hadamong the children. Here is an illustration, from the New Testament, ofthe way in which _baptism_ may cease to denote any mode, and refer onlyto an act of consecration. 

As to that new version of the Bible, Coleridge says, that the stateought to be, to all religious denominations, like a good portrait, whichlooks benignantly on all in the room. So the Bible now seems to lookkindly upon all Christian sects; and, for one, I love to have it so. But, some of you, good brethren, who are in favor of this new version tosuit your particular views, are trying to alter the eyes of the portraitso that they shall look only on you, and to your part of the room. Wethink that you ought to be satisfied with the present kind look whichyou get from them. There is one comfort--you will make a new picture toplease yourselves, and we shall keep the old portrait. 

"Please do not be too severe on my husband for that mistake of his, "said Mrs. K. ; "I think that he is getting better of it, in a measure. "

_Mr. K. _ I will make you a present of the book when it arrives, and, perhaps, you will agree with me. But I am surprised to hear you say thatyou do not believe the Saviour to have been immersed by John. 

_Mr. M. _ It was not Christian baptism, at any rate, if he were; for thenames of the Trinity are essential to Christian baptism, and those nameshad not been thus applied. 

Besides, John could not have plunged and lifted those thousands withoutsuperhuman strength and endurance, which we know he did not possess. Thesame reasoning applies, in the baptism of the three thousand at the dayof Pentecost, both as respects what I have said of raiment, and the timeand strength of the apostles. 

The baptism of the Eunuch was, to my mind, most probably by sprinkling, making no change of raiment necessary. "See, here is water, "--a spring, or stream, by the road-side, quite as likely (and, travellers now say, more probably) as a pond. Yes, sir, Philip went down into the water justas much as the Eunuch did, if we follow the Greek literally. I thinkthat _down_ refers to the chariot, the act of leaving it to go to thewater. But the English version, as it now stands, makes strongly foryour view of the case in the mind of the common reader. 

Saul of Tarsus was baptized after having been struck blind, and while hewas in a state of extreme exhaustion from excitement, without food; for, during three days, "he did neither eat nor drink. " He was baptizedbefore he ate; for, we read, "And he arose and was baptized; and, whenhe had received meat, he was strengthened. " It does not seem to meprobable that they would have put him into a river, or tank, beforegiving him food. But it seems to me natural and suitable for Ananias todraw nigh, and impress the trembling man with the mild and gentle signof Christianity, the rite giving a soothing and cheering efficacy to thewords of adoption, and in no way disturbing him in body or mind. I havealways regarded the baptism of Saul as a strong presumptive proof withregard to baptism by affusion. 

So with the midnight scene of baptism in the prison at Philippi. Thepreparation of one or more large vessels, to immerse the household, isnot congruous with the circumstances narrated, as I read them. But thequiet and convenient act of baptism by sprinkling, falls in harmoniouslywith the other parts of the transaction. For my part, I have alwayswondered how any one can fail to see that there are so manyimprobabilities of immersion in every case of baptism, in the NewTestament, as to counteract any weight which the word baptize carrieswith it, more especially since the word and its derivatives areemployed, in the New Testament, in cases where the mode of using thewater is evidently not intended. 

_Mr. K. _ "Buried with him in baptism. " Mr. M. , you will confess thatthis is an impregnable proof-text. You have never been "buried with himin baptism. "

_Mr. M. _ But I am "risen with him, " Mr. K. With all humility and tears, I must say to you, "If any man trusteth to himself that he is Christ's, let him also think this with himself, that as he is Christ's even soalso we are Christ's. " Your application of the passage, just quoted byyou, disproves your interpretation of it. If we must be buried in water, when we are baptized, then no one is risen with Christ who has not beenimmersed. You thus disfranchise four fifths, to say the least, of God'select. No, my dear sir, being buried with Christ in baptism does notmean immersion. People in the frozen ocean, the sick and dying, who aresprinkled with water in the name of the Christian's God, are "buriedwith Christ in baptism into death;" that is, profess to be dead andburied to sin, as Christ was dead and buried for it. Besides, follow outthe passage, and there is no allusion to the form of baptism, as I canperceive, but to something else. "Buried with him by baptism into death;that like as Christ was raised, "--from the water?--yes, if water baptismbe now in the writer's mind; but no, --"like as Christ was raised fromthe dead, by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk innewness of life. " The word buried, therefore, in this passage, refers tothe completeness of the Saviour's death for sin (as we say intensivelyof a deceased person, he is dead and buried), and of the completenessof our renunciation of it. We are dead and buried to sin, as Christ wasfor it; and we rise to newness of life, when we profess to beChristians, as Christ rose from the dead, not from the water. 

_Mr. K. _ How is it with infants? Are they dead and buried to sin whenthey are baptized? If being buried, in this passage, means being deadand buried to sin, then infants are regenerated by baptism. 

Mr. K. Gave his wife a pleased look, as though he had placed me in adilemma. 

"Mrs. Kelly, " said I, "how do you suppose that nursing children ate thefirst passover?"

"I suppose that they ate it through the faith of their parents, " saidMrs. K. , looking narrowly into the stitches of her crochet-work, tocontrol a smile. 

"That passover, however, " said I, "was the means of saving thosechildren, who, many of them, were the first-born in their respectivefamilies. Yet they were saved by the passover through the faith of theirparents. Do not understand me as urging the comparison to an extreme; Ionly say that there we have an example of parents acting for the childin a matter of faith. The infant child was incapable of believing, andeven where the first-born was grown up, the parent acted for him in theordinance, by sprinkling the door with blood. I do not prove infantbaptism by this, but I use it to show that parents may use an ordinancefor their infants. Mr. K. Asks if baptized infants are buried withChrist in baptism into death, --that is, die unto sin and rise to newnessof life. The parents profess by the baptism that they will use means toeffect this in their children, through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Ishould like to ask Mr. Kelly if he believes that every person who isimmersed, is buried into death, spiritually, with Christ, or is actuallydead to sin forever; or, whether it is only a profession of one's hopeand intention. For we have all known some, who had been buried in water, that did not prove to have died unto sin. "

_Mr. K. _ Of course it is a symbol; and all we insist on is, that Paulmust have had immersion in mind, as the form of baptism, when he spokeof being buried by baptism. 

_Mr. M. _ When Paul says, "I am crucified with Christ, " do you supposethat the idea of a cross was in his mind? Did he intimate thatsanctification is effected by a piece of wood, with a transverse beam, used as a gibbet? Or did he simply mean, I am dead to the world, and theworld is dead to me, yea, and put to death (not merely dying in anatural way), through the power of the Saviour's sufferings and death onmy behalf? The burial of Christ, following his death for sin, and socompleting the idea of dying, is enough to have suggested the figure, Ithink, of our being not only dead with Christ, but buried with him, by aChristian profession; that is, we utterly cease from the world and sin, professedly, as Christ not only died, but went into the tomb. But whatdoes "risen" refer to in that passage, --the water or death?--"fromwhence also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation ofGod. "

_Mr. M. _ Why, how do you understand it?

_Mr. K. _ I prefer, if you please, that you should answer. Manyunderstand it thus: "You are buried in water, to denote death to sin;you are lifted up out of the water (as Christ was lifted up by theBaptist), to live a new life. " If this be so, what is "the operation ofGod, " which is spoken of there? Does it need any such "operation" foran immersed person to rise out of the water? No, my dear sir, ourinterpretation makes plain and thorough work of the whole passage. Ouridea of that controverted passage (your great proof-text) is this: You, Christian professors, were, all of you, baptized, on profession of yourfaith;--when you made a Christian profession, you signified by it yourdying unto sin, as Christ died for it, so that, I may say, you were deadand buried to sin. But, as Christ came to life again, so you rose withhim, not to sin, but to live a new life. Hear Dr. Watts on the passage:

 "Do we not know that solemn word, That we are buried with the Lord, Baptized into his death, and then Put off the body of our sin?

 "Our souls receive diviner breath, Raised from corruption, guilt and death; So from the grave did Christ arise, And lives to God above the skies. "

I do not believe that the mode of baptism is alluded to at all in thistext. 

_Mr. K. _ I cannot agree with you, sir. The contrary is perfectly clearto my own mind. 

"Mr. M. , " said Mrs. Kelly, "do you think that you and Mr. K. Would everthink alike on this subject?"

"Never, " said I. "People almost always end where they began, when theydiscuss this topic; only they do not always leave off in suchgood-nature as Mr. K. And I intend to do. I never knew a person tochange his views to either side, unless he began as an inquirer, and notas an advocate. "

"What is the reason, " said Mrs. K. , "that good people are left to differso about unessential things in religion, when they all hold to the sameway of being saved?"

"I suppose, " said I, "that, as poor human nature is, for the present, more is effected, on the whole, by letting us divide into sects, andgiving us each some external or speculative discrepancies to excite ourzeal. It is a sad reflection upon us, if this be so, and our sectarianbehavior illustrates that hardness of our hearts, in view of which, perhaps, God suffers us to divide as we do. But, still, you see howwisely God has ordained that good people shall not differ aboutessential things--that might be fatal to the success of his truth; butthey are left to divide about forms, and ordinances, and some doctrinalmatters which do not involve the question of the way to be saved. Inthat they all agree. "

_Mrs. K. _ How pleasant it would be if they would all think alike!

_Mr. M. _ Perhaps it might not be best at present. They should tolerateeach other's views, meet and act together where they may; but I do liketo see a man heartily attached to his own denomination, without bigotry. I have not much partiality for those schemes of union which require andexpect each sect to give up its peculiarities, and which seek toamalgamate us. It is unnatural. Let each be thoroughly persuaded of hisown faith;--different temperaments and habits of thought are suited bydifferent modes and forms;--but let us treat each other as Christians, and with urbanity and kindness. That is the most sublime spectacle ofunion. It comes nearer to fulfilling the prayer of Christ, "that theyall may be one, " when we differ strongly, and yet keep the unity of thespirit. I am doubtful whether, even in heaven, there will not be suchinnocent diversity of views about things successively beyond ourknowledge or comprehension, as to stimulate inquiry and discussion; butthat we shall ever be capable, as we are here, of alienation, inconsequence of these varying opinions, is impossible. 

_Mr. K. _ Do you not think, Mr. M. , that we shall all think alike aboutbaptism in the millennium?

_Mr. M. _ I suppose that you expect that we shall all give up infantbaptism. But my expectation is that, as we approach that day, the lastprophecy of the Old Testament will be as truly fulfilled as it was atthe coming of Christ, and that the hearts of the fathers will be turnedto the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers. Parentalpiety and discipline will be greatly promoted, and an attendant of itwill be, I suppose, a greater use of the ordinance of infant baptism, demanded by the pious feelings of parents, as pious feeling in theregenerate craves the ordinance which commemorates the love andsufferings of the Redeemer. The feelings of pious parents will requirethe ordinance of infant baptism, as an expression of their earnestdesire to have fellowship with God as the God of the believer and hisoffspring, the covenant-keeping God. It is to the increase andprevalence of this feeling that I look now for an increasing observanceof infant baptism; for, without such feeling, the ordinance is an emptyname. Where that feeling exists, it soon modifies the speculative viewsof a parent. As our conscious need of an atoning Saviour soon dispelsthe former difficulties about the doctrine of the Trinity, so a longingdesire to have special covenanting with God for a dear child, makes thesubject of God's everlasting covenant with Abraham, as the greatbeliever, and the father of believers, plain. 

Now, before I forget it, please let me tell you of an objection toinfant baptism, which I lately met with, drawn from the effect of theprevalent practice of it in a community. 

The objection is, it prevents us, in a measure, from fulfilling Christ'scommand, "Go, teach all nations, baptizing them. " For, going into theRoman Catholic or Greek churches, or an Armenian country, and makingconverts, the missionaries cannot baptize them, for, alas! they werebaptized in infancy, and to re-baptize is against the law of thecountries. 

Now, this seems to me no great calamity; for if the converts themselvesrecognize their baptism, and adopt it as profession of their faith, itis like a man's acknowledging the hand and seal on an instrument, madeirregularly at first, but now, under competent circumstances, declaredto be equivalent to his own act and deed at the date of thisdeclaration. He would not need to re-write the document, nor to use waxor wafers again, except in witness of his acknowledging the originalact. "Though it be but a man's covenant, yet, if it be confirmed, no mandisannulleth or addeth thereto. "

But, however it may be in such countries and communions as I have named, certainly it cannot be a calamity if the practice of infant baptismbecomes such a spiritual and practical thing, that young persons aregenerally converted, so that adult baptisms disappear. I love to notice, when several persons join our church, how few of them receive baptism, showing that their baptism in childhood has been followed by conversion. The fewness of adult baptisms, with us, compared with cases of infantbaptism, is a good sign. They will be fewer and fewer, in proportion asour parents make and keep covenant with God for their children. 

Mr. Kelly was at this moment called out, but requested me to remain andfinish the conversation with Mrs. K. She resumed it, saying:

"Had I better read any more on the subject? My feelings lead mestrongly to take our little one to church. I feel that I should bestrengthened by the solemn act of doing what the covenant of your churchsays, 'avouching the Lord Jehovah to be your God and the God of yourchildren forever. ' I do wish to feel that I have done something likebearing testimony before God, in a special way, that I give my child tohim, and engage God to be his God. "

_Mr. M. _ I should candidly examine whatever Mr. K. Wishes you to read orhear on the subject, and not be afraid of the truth, let it lead whereit may. But what first made you think of baptizing your little boy?

_Mrs. K. _ I always loved the ordinance. But, when I thought that Henrywas going to die, I was watching him all night, and, as I was praying, it occurred to me that I wished I could see the church praying for him;and that led me to think of the church praying for a child when it isbrought into the house of God. I felt that night that, if I could speakto the pastor, I would ask him to request the prayers of the church forhim as for one who, if he got well, should be brought into the house ofGod, and be publicly consecrated, and I with him, again, as his mother, to the Lord. I had given him and myself to God; but I felt the need ofsome more special act, on which I could fall back in my thoughts, and ofwhich God would graciously say to me, "I am the God of Bethel, wherethou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me. "

_Mr. M. _ How kind it was in God to remind Jacob of that pile of stones, and to call himself the God of Bethel! O, how he loves marked exercisesof consecration and love!

_Mrs. K. _ My husband always said, "Let him offer himself for baptismwhen he grows up, and understands the meaning of it. " I told him thatwhen I was admitted to the church I was not baptized, but I had thispleasant feeling, that I had a baptism in infancy by my dear good motherto think of now, and to seal by my own acknowledgment. If Henry had diedwithout being baptized, or should now be hindered from it, I shouldnever cease to grieve. 

_Mr. M. _ You think, however, that he would be saved, nevertheless. 

_Mrs. K. _ O, saved! that is not all. I do not think merely of hisgetting into heaven. Though we are saved wholly by grace, is there notsomething implied in "washing our robes, and making them white, in theblood of the Lamb?" I do not believe in justification by works nor bysacraments, yet I do believe in their wonderful effect, through gracealone, upon our character and future condition. I do believe, Mr. M. , that there is a difference between children whose parents, impelled bylove to God, make public offering of their children to him, with solemnvows, and daily perform their vows, treating their children as baptizedin the name of the Trinity, and children whose parents either carelesslybaptize them, or feel no such spiritual desires for them as to seek theuse of any public ordinance, nor any special private consecration. Ibelieve that God regards them differently. He has placed his mark on thebaptized. I must go with my son to God's house, as Hannah did, and withher feelings. How strange! She prayed for that son, and then, as soon ashe was weaned, she gave him away to God; for it is beautifully said, youknow, "And the child was young. " Well, I think I understand that. Icould leave Henry in the temple, if the service of God's house requiredhim; for, when he was sick, I gave him up to God, and as long as heliveth he shall be the Lord's. How did cousin Bertha feel about thebaptism after your little boy died?

_Mr. M. _ It was often the chief topic of her conversation. Her fatherwrote a full statement of his views, which helped her greatly. We haveread it over since we lost our child. I will send it to you, if youwish. You can read it, with Mr. K. 's books, and I wish you to show it tohim if he cares to see it. 

All this was done. Kind feelings prevailed; there was not muchdiscussion, and, one Sabbath morning, little Henry Kelly was brought tochurch. But the mother was without the father. He was called to adistant place on business; but he allowed his wife to act her pleasurein the case during his long absence. More of this in its place. 

Chapter Fourth. 

IS THERE ONLY ONE MODE OF BAPTISM?

 Were love, in these the world's last doting years, As frequent as the want of it appears, The churches warmed, they would no longer hold Such frozen figures, stiff as they are cold; Relenting forms would lose their power, or cease, And e'en the dipped and sprinkled live in peace; Each heart would quit its prison in the breast, And flow in free communion with the rest. 

 COWPER. 

Opening my entry door, on my return, several faces looked out to welcomeme, all in the house having waited till a late hour, with surmises as tothe cause of my long absence, and then all dispersed, except thevenerable, and not yet aged, grandmother of little Bertha. With her itwas always pleasant to talk. 

_Mr. M. _ Have you had no company this evening? I was in hopes that theMoores would come in, as they promised to do. 

_Mother. _ They have been gone nearly an hour. Mr. Moore wished to readhusband's letter, so Bertha lent it to him. 

_Mr. M. _ Father will be glad to know how much good his letter is doing. Cousin Eunice would be glad to see it, and I wish to read it again, forI find that I am likely to need more instruction, if I am to discuss thesubject as I did this evening with Mr. Kelly. 

_Mother. _ Was he at home? I hope you did not get into a controversyabout baptism; for, of all things, nothing dries up religious feelingslike that. 

_Mr. M. _ The subject has taken too practical a hold upon my feelings tohave that effect. I find myself more and more led to believe that Godgave his church an appointed form of baptism, and that that form wassprinkling; for I search the New Testament in vain for a single casewhere immersion seems to have been practised. I believe that, under theoperation of early tendencies, of which Paul writes to theThessalonians, the church began to prefer immersion as more sensuous, making a stronger appeal to the passions. But I believe, with the NewTestament for my guide, that immersion was not practised by the apostlesthemselves. The word baptize had, even in the Saviour's time, to go nofurther back, come to mean a thing done irrespective of the mode. Howwould it sound, "I have an immersion to be immersed with, and how am Istraitened?" &c. "Are ye able to be immersed with the immersion that Iam immersed with?" I believe that sprinkling was the original mode ofChristian baptism. And it seems to me unlikely that God would appoint anordinance, and not appoint, by precept or example, the mode of it. Ibelieve that the mode of baptism was appointed, as well as the riteitself, and I see no instance of baptism in the New Testament byimmersion. Pouring, whether more or less copiously, has this probabilityin its favor, in addition to the impression which the narratives make, viz. , The Lord's Supper typifies the death of Christ. Burying inbaptism, then, would be superfluous; it is more likely that the form ofthis other sacrament would represent something else, and that is, theHoly Spirit's cleansing influence, because Christ speaks of being "bornof water and of the Spirit, " thus associating water with the Spirit. Wemoreover read of "the water and the blood, " water thus beingdistinguished from blood. Now, the Holy Spirit is always named inconnection with being poured out. We are baptized with, not in, the HolyGhost. It would do violence to our feelings to hear one speak of ourbeing immersed in the Holy Spirit. So that I fully believe in sprinklingas the original New Testament mode of baptism. And, still, I am inclinedto agree with your friend, the professor, who spent New-year's eveningwith us, and has just published a book on baptism. 

_Mother. _ What ground does he take?

_Mr. M. _ He writes somewhat in this way: As to the mode, I believe it tobe unessential; for it seems to me contrary to the genius ofChristianity to make a particular form of doing a thing essential to thething. What else is there in Christianity, if we are to except baptism, in which modes are regarded or made essential? It is not so, he says, with the Lord's Supper, surely; the upper room, night, sitting orreclining, unleavened bread, a particular kind of wine, and all suchthings, are not regarded by any as necessary to the ordinance. It isvery interesting, he says, to notice, that, whereas the old dispensationprescribed the mode of every religious act, minutely, and a departurefrom it vitiated the act itself, Christianity threw off everything likeprescriptive modes altogether. Considering the attachment of the humanmind to forms and ceremonies, he knows of nothing in which Christianityshows its divine origin and supernatural power more, than in its sublimetriumph, so immediately, in the minds of great numbers, over forms andceremonies. We can hardly conceive, he says, what a revolution a Jewmust have experienced in giving up Aaron, and altars, and times, andseasons, and all the minute regard for his religious ceremonies, atonce. Even if it were the original practice to baptize only byimmersion, he cannot think that Christianity could have enjoined it asthe only proper mode of applying water, in signifying religiousconsecration. Bread and wine, eaten and drunk decently and in order, inany way whatever, constitutes the Lord's Supper; water, applied to theperson, by a proper administrator, in the name of the Trinity, constitutes Christian baptism; but, had the New Testament required us torecline, and lean on one arm, and take the Lord's Supper with the otherarm, insisting that this posture is essential to that sacrament, or hadit specified the quantity of bread and wine, he thinks it would havebeen parallel to the uninspired requirement of a particular mode inapplying the water in baptism. 

"Baptize, " he further remarks, it is said, means immerse. Suppose thatit does. Supper means a meal; therefore, one does not "eat the Lord'sSupper, " unless he eats a full meal; for, if baptize refers to thequantity of water, supper refers to the quantity of food and drink inthe other sacrament. He then seems to exult, and says, "I am glad that Iam not in conscientious subjection to any mode of doing anything inreligion, as being essential to the thing itself. "

_Mother. _ What answer can be made to this?

_Mr. M. _ It is a very common ground, and a convenient one, to answer theargument from _baptizo_, and the early practice of immersion in theChristian church after the apostles. No doubt the early Christianssatisfied themselves with this reasoning, in departing from theapostolic practice of sprinkling. But I prefer to adhere strictly to theNew Testament model. There is no immersion there. Now, is it allowableto depart from the original mode? This could not be done in the firstinitiating ordinance of the church, --circumcision. A departure from theprescribed rule would have vitiated the ordinance. But, does notChristianity differ essentially from the former dispensation in thisvery particular, that it does not make the mode of doing a thing, essential? Yet, it may be said, Human ordinances are all strictlybinding in the very forms prescribed. For example: "Hold up your righthand, " says the clerk, or judge, to a witness; "you solemnly swear--. "Let the witness, instead of holding up his right hand, if he has one, and can move it, capriciously say, "I prefer to hold up the left, or tohold up both. I wish to show that modes and forms are unimportant. " Hewould be in danger of contempt of court. If so small a departure fromthe mode of swearing would not be allowed, much less would he bepermitted to kneel, or to lie on his face, unless he were some devotee. No; there is a prescribed form, and he must yield to it. It is alsosaid, that, if there were cases in the New Testament in which it weredoubtful, at least, whether immersion were not practised, we might arguein favor of mixed modes. But immersion is baptism, in my view, because aperson who is immersed is sure to get affused; and, affusion with wateris all of the baptism which seems to me essential. Leaving those whofirst departed from the apostolic mode of baptism by sprinkling, toanswer for themselves, no one, of course, will deny that those whoconscientiously think that they ought to be baptized by immersion, areacceptable with God, as well as others who are of a contrary persuasion. Paul speaks of "divers baptisms. " There began to be such in his day. Hespeaks also of the "doctrine of baptisms" (plural), showing the samething. 

But I came near forgetting one thing, which I wished to say, which is, that, in reading the Bible last evening, I found a new encouragement intaking infants to the house of God. 

_Mother. _ I should like to hear anything new on that point. I thoughtthat everything had been exhausted which referred to that subject. 

_Mr. M. _ I mean that it was new to me. Luke says that the parents ofJesus brought him to Jerusalem "to present him to the Lord, " and that, arriving there, they brought him into the temple to do for him after thecustom of the law. Now, I always carelessly thought that this meantcircumcision. 

_Mother. _ Of course it does; I always thought so. 

_Mr. M. _ No; for he had already been circumcised, when he was eight daysold. "And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of thechild, they called his name Jesus. " Then the next verse speaks of asubsequent act: "When the days of her purification were accomplishedthey brought him to Jerusalem. " Mary could not have come to Jerusalem onthe eighth day; but, on the second occasion, she was present; for Simeonaddressed her. So that we have the example of the infant Saviour, inbringing our infants into the temple; and, if we are scrupulous as tofollowing the Saviour in ordinances, we may as well begin by followinghim into the temple, with our infants. 

_Mother. _ It is beautiful to think of Jesus, even in his infancy, as anexample, and that he was forerunner to the infants of his people, whileyet in his mother's arms. 

Chapter Fifth. 

SCENES OF BAPTISM--HENRY KELLY. --THE YOUNG PARENTS AND THEIR BABE. --THELOST MARINER'S FAMILY. --THE FEEBLE-MINDED YOUTH. --THE REASONABLENESS, POWER, AND BEAUTY, OF CHILDREN'S BAPTISMS. --HUSBANDS SHOULD COME WITHTHEIR WIVES AND CHILDREN. --MOSES IN THE INN. 

 Since, Lord, to thee A narrow way and little gate Is all the passage; on my infancy Thou didst lay hold, and antedate My faith in me. 

 GEORGE HERBERT. 

 The parent pair their secret homage pay, And proffer up to Heaven the warm request, That He, who stills the raven's clamorous nest, And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best, For them and for their little ones provide, But chiefly in their hearts, with grace divine, preside. 

 BURNS. 

 In all men sinful is it to be slow To hope: in parents, sinful above all. 

 WORDSWORTH. 

In a few Sabbaths from this time we had a most interesting scene at ourchurch. 

Little Henry Ferguson Kelly was brought, and offered up in baptism byhis mother. We all felt deep respect for her as a woman of decidedcharacter, and a devoted Christian. We saw that she wept much during theservice. The father was not there. She held the little boy upright onher arm, and he turned his face over her shoulder, looking all about thechurch, above and below. He then undertook to apply his little palm tohis mother's cheek, with several decided strokes, to rouse her usualattention, which he seemed to miss. She took his hand in hers, and heldit, and he then rested his cheek, and his chin, alternately, upon hershoulder. 

A sweet little girl, two months old, was also brought by a young coupleto be baptized. Few things are more interesting than the sight of ayoung couple, with their first-born child, standing before God. A worldof thought and feeling passes through their minds in those hallowedmoments. Not much more than a year had gone since they stood before Godto take the vows of marriage from those same lips, perhaps, which nowlead their devotions, and bless them out of the house of the Lord. Thelittle child is an offering which gathers about itself more of rich joyand gratitude, recollection, present bliss, and anticipation, than anygift of God; it is itself an ordinance, a little rite, a sign and sealof covenants and love to which earth has no parallel. The light ofnature almost teaches us the propriety of infant dedication, in the useof the prevailing religious rite. The only wise God manifested hisgoodness and wisdom, in establishing his covenant with the children ofthose who love him, as really as in creating a companion for Adam. 

There were other sights, on this baptismal occasion, besides HenryFerguson and his mother, and the young couple with their child. 

A woman, in the habiliments of the deepest mourning, went up the aisle, leading with her finger a little boy between two and three years old, followed by a noble son of fifteen, and his sister of twelve. Ourpastor's rule, as to the limit of age within which children may beadmitted to baptism, is this: So long as a parent, or guardian, or nextfriend, has the immediate tutelage of a child, so as to direct itsinstruction and government, and thus continues to exercise parentalauthority, he may properly offer the child for baptism; and therefore, as children differ as to degrees of maturity within the same ages, noexpress boundary of time can be prescribed to limit those baptisms whichare by the faith of another. 

The father of these three children had been lost at sea on a whalingvoyage. The seaman's chest had come home, and so the last star of hopeas to his return had set. The mother had become a Christian; she feltthe need of a covenant-keeping God for her children. There she stood, asorrow-stricken woman, and her household with her, to receive for themthe sign of the covenant from the God of Abraham. 

There was another sight in that group: A man and woman, honest, goodpeople, in humble circumstances, had had bequeathed to them, by awidowed sister of his, who was not a professor of religion, afeeble-minded youth of about ten years; and this uncle and aunt hadadopted him as their child. They also came, the husband leading the boyalong, with his arm over the boy's shoulder to encourage his hesitatingsteps, and the wife behind them. He was a member of a Sabbath-schoolclass; by no means an idiot, yet deficient in some respects. He wasentrusted with affairs about a farm which did not require muchresponsibility. 

Little Henry Ferguson began to coo and crow, as they came successivelyand stood, in a half-circle, round the table with the silver basin uponit. The feeble-minded youth was mostly occupied with the actions ofHenry, who, on seeing his face covered with uncontrollable expressionsof interest in him, began to reach after him, and respond to his pleasedlooks; nor did he cease his efforts to go to him, till he felt theminister's hand upon his forehead from behind, when he turned his large, beautiful eyes into the face of the minister, with silent wonder atbeing apparently spoken to with so unusual a manner and tone. A hushwent through the congregation. 

The young couple next presented their little Alice, and gave place tothe widow's household. Was there a dry eye in the house? Signs ofweeping came from all sides. Mortimer was led by his arm in his mother'shand, and was baptized. Sarah loosened her straw bonnet, and let it fallback from her head, to receive the simple rite; when the widow liftedthe little boy, who had never known a father's love, and the pastor, after waiting a moment to control his emotions sealed him in the name ofour redeeming God. 

After an involuntary pause for a few moments, owing to the deep emotionin the congregation, poor Josey was led forward. Minister andcongregation seemed to make but slight impression upon him; HenryFerguson was the charm throughout; he even turned his head, while theminister's hand was on it, to smile at the child. The promise was notonly to those believing parents, all of them, and to their own children, but to him that was afar off; his new parents having availed themselvesof the large covenant of grace, to invoke its promised blessings uponhim, on the ground of their faith. "May these parents, " said the pastorin his prayer, "remember, in all times of solicitude and trouble withthis dear dependent child, that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, in whosename he is baptized, can have access to his mind, 'making wise thesimple;' and may that blessed Spirit make him his care. "

Part of the time, while the hymn following the baptism was read andsung, I found myself pursuing some thoughts which the interesting scenejust witnessed had suggested. 

Why, I asked myself, could not these parents have been satisfied withdedicating these children at home, without this public and special actof consecration?

I was at no loss for an answer. The same reason applies as when oneseeks admission to the church of Christ, by a public profession ofreligion, either by appearing before a congregation and assenting to acovenant, or to be confirmed, or to be immersed in water. Offering achild in baptism is making a public profession of religion with regardto it. Some say to us, What need is there of joining a church? Why may Inot be a Christian by myself? We know what we say, in reply to suchquestions. We are aware how much the public act helps the privatefeelings and conduct, besides being required by our feelings when theyare deep and strong. I thought of this illustration: In the wakefulmoments of the night, upon a lonely bed, one feels a special nearness toGod. He can think of God, as he lies upon his pillow, both with prayerand meditation; but suppose that he rises from his bed and kneels at thebedside, and, with oral prayer, prevents the night-watches, and cries?His voice at that midnight hour affects his mind; the darkness andstillness impress him with a sense of the presence of God, and thoughhis ejaculations on his pillow were acceptable, has he not probably donethat which, through Christ, is peculiarly acceptable to God, and isprofitable to himself as his child? He who was always in communion withthe Father, the man Christ Jesus, nevertheless, sometimes withdrew intoa mountain, and continued all night in prayer, and, rising up a greatwhile before day, he went into a solitary place, and there prayed. Thesespecial acts of worship, no true Christian needs to be told, are goodand acceptable to God, and profitable for men. We do not refrain fromthem, pleading that they are nowhere commanded in the New Testament, or, that, so long as we pray at stated times, or strive to live in a prayingframe, these special devotions are superfluous. So, while it is our dutyand privilege to dedicate our children to God in private, it isacceptable to him, and profitable to us, if we take them, and bring anoffering, and come into his courts. 

The baptism of the feeble-minded youth furnished me with an illustrationof the suitableness of parents and guardians doing for children, inreligion, that which they are constantly doing for them in commonthings, that is, conferring privileges and blessings upon them withouttheir consent. There seemed to be such an illustration of the riches offree grace, in the baptism of this poor child, such a comment on thatpassage, "I am found of them that sought me not, " it corresponded somuch with the kindness and love of God our Saviour towards man, that weall felt instructed and softened by it, and, at the same time, we allhad feelings toward that helpless boy, such as we, perhaps, never couldhave had but for his baptism. Never will a member of that witnessingcongregation see him, without a feeling of tenderness and somethingbordering on respect; he will not be merely "Silly Joe" to them; thatelement of truth in the heathen superstition, which leads heathens andpagans to regard an idiot as something sacred, will have itsverification with regard to him; the children of that assembly will berestrained from rudeness and cruelty, in their sports with him, by thattransaction, while the prayers offered for him at the time, and the manyejaculations which the sight of him will occasion in the hearts of goodpeople, will make his baptism one of his richest blessings. O, what aloss it is to have a child baptized at home, or anywhere and at anytime except among the public services of the Sabbath in the sanctuary ofGod! Necessity, indeed, controls our choice, many times, in this thing;and we are accepted of God irrespective of time and place, in yieldingto his providence. 

Since my mind has been deeply interested in this subject, leading me toconverse with parents and with ministers, and to make observation withregard to it, I have seen and heard many things relating to theprovidences of God, in connection with the baptism of children, which, while we ought to be slow in confidently interpreting providences, makeus do as Mary is said to have done, in regard to things relating to herchild, --she "kept these things and pondered them in her heart. " Wecannot say, for example, that the death of that little girl, whosefather refused to let his wife enjoy the privilege of going, alone, withthe child, to the house of God for baptism, or to invite the pastor tohis house for the purpose, was a judicial consequence of his conduct;but we know that his own thoughts trouble him, and that he has a sorrowbound upon his heart, which he will carry with him to his grave. 

Neither is it certain that the little one, who was raised to life froma sickness which baffled the physicians, was spared to her pious motherfor her Christian behavior, in taking it, a few months before, to thehouse of God, and offering it in baptism, with no help from her husband, but with many sad thoughts that the father of the child--he on whose armshe and the child needed to rest--refused her gentle and affectionatepleadings with him, to support and cherish her at an hour so precious toher heart. Nor will we say that the kind and obliging husband, not aprofessor of religion, who served his wife so manfully, and with such acheerful spirit, on such an occasion, would not have acquired, in otherways, the respect and love of the people, or that he could trace to it, absolutely, great prosperity in business, through the assistance ofprominent members in that church. Sure we are that no such motiveinfluenced him; but it is equally true that we cannot link ourselves toGod's service, nor to his friends, in any way, without receiving hisblessing. "Come thou with us, and we will do thee good. " "Blessed is hethat blesseth thee. " In the eyes of estimable people, and of all whosegood opinion and best wishes are most desirable, the man who overcomesany little pride, or sensitiveness, or fear of man, and goes with hispious wife and child to the house of God, and offers the child, for her, to be baptized, is more of a man than before, gains reputation for somedesirable qualities, excites respect for self-reliance, the quietperformance of a duty from which certain feelings might lead him toshrink, and in the increased love and esteem of others, to say no more, he has his reward. 

God was angry with Moses for delaying, if not neglecting, to circumcisehis child. His wife was a Midianite; her associations with the ordinancewere not like those of Moses, and perhaps he had yielded too much to herknown feelings. At least, the child had not been circumcised, and we aretold, "The Lord met him in the inn, and sought to slay him. " Someaccident there, or a sudden and alarming illness, made him feel that Godhad a controversy with him. Zipporah was not slow to interpret theprovidence. If Moses had said with himself, So long as I consecrate mychild to God by prayer, the seal of the covenant cannot be essential, God taught him his mistake. As soon as the rite had been performed, weread, "So he let him go. " It may be noticed, here, that the unworthymanner in which Zipporah performed the rite, did not make it invalid. They who fear that their baptism was not solemnized, in all respects, asit should have been, may draw instruction and comfort from thisnarrative. 

There have been instances, within my knowledge, in which one or both ofthe parents of a child have yielded to some untoward influences, andhave withheld the child from being baptized. While I cannot, and wouldnot, interpret certain events connected with this omission, on the partof some from whom better things might have been expected, nothing hasever impressed me more than the dealings of God with such parents. Ihave been made to think by such coincidences, more than once or twice, of Moses in the inn. It will not be amiss to say, that those who areneglecting to bring their children for baptism, within a suitable time, unless providentially hindered, will do well to examine their feelingsand motives, with that quickened conscience, which the solemnprovidences of God toward them may be intended to excite. He is "ajealous God;" and he keepeth covenant "to a thousand generations. "

Chapter Sixth. 

TESTIMONY OF THE CHRISTIAN FATHERS

HOUSEHOLD BAPTISMS. --"PÆDOBAPTIST CONCESSIONS. "--THOMAS SHEPARD'S VIEWS. BAPTISM OF HIS CHILD. THE FATHER'S RECORD. --GREAT INFLUENCE OF THEFAMILY RELATION IN HEATHENISM AND PAGANISM. --THE YOUNG PEOPLE OFAMERICA. --DISSUASIVE FROM ALTERCATION. --QUESTIONS TO A MINISTER ON HISPRACTICE IN BAPTISMS. --LIBERALITY. --PAUL AN EXAMPLE. 

 Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. --Ps. 90. 

 The Lamb hath but one bride, the one church of all times. --ANON. 

 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. --THE APOSTLE PAUL. 

 Schoolmen must war with schoolmen, text with text. The first's the Chaldee paraphrase; the next The Septuagint; opinion thwarts opinion; The Papist holds the first, the last the Arminian; And then the Councils must be called to advise, What this of Lateran says, and that of Nice; The slightly-studied fathers must be prayed, Although in small acquaintance, into aid; When, daring venture, oft, too far into 't, They, Pharaoh like, are drowned, both horse and foot. 

 FRANCIS QUARLES. 

Being determined to possess myself of suitable information on thesubject of baptism as practised by the early Christian fathers, Icalled the next evening to see my pastor, when the followingconversation took place:

_Mr. M. _ I wish, sir, to know the plain and simple truth about theevidence from ecclesiastical history with regard to infant baptism. Theinternal evidence, confirming the scriptural argument, fully satisfiesme, yet, as a matter of interesting information, I should like to knowhow it was regarded in the age next to that of the apostles. You know weoften read, and hear it said, that infant baptism is an error whichcrept into the Christian church about the third century. Now, did itcreep in; or did the apostles practise it?

_Dr. D. _ If infant baptism crept into the church, and if it be anunauthorized innovation, one thing seems very strange, that, in thisProtestant age, when we are all so jealous of Romish and all humaninventions in matters of religion, the ablest and soundest men of allChristian denominations but one, are firmly persuaded of its scripturalauthority, and are increasingly attached to it. In the greatreformations which have arisen from time to time, this practice wouldhave been swept away, had it been an error. It is more than we canbelieve that Protestant denominations should all, with one exception, adhere to an unscriptural practice, at the present day especially. 

_Mr. M. _ Well, sir, leaving the scripturalness of the ordinance out ofquestion, what support does the practice get from church history? Howfar back to the times of the apostles can we trace it? Did any practiseit who could have received it from the apostles, or have known those whodid?

_Dr. D. _ You must come with me into my study, and we will examine theauthorities. 

I will not burden your attention and memory with many citations. Two orthree indisputable witnesses are better than a host. I rely chiefly onthe testimony of ORIGEN for proof that the practice of infant baptismwas derived from the apostles, though I will show you that his testimonyis confirmed by other witnesses. 

ORIGEN was born in Alexandria, Egypt, A. D. 185, that is, abouteighty-five years after the death of the apostle John. To make hisnearness to the apostles clear to your mind, consider, that RogerWilliams, for example, established himself at Providence in 1636, saytwo hundred and twenty years ago; yet how perfectly informed we are ofhis opinions and history. But Origen, born eighty-five years only afterthe death of John, knew, of course, the established practices of theapostles, which had come down through so short a space of time. "Hisgrandfather, if not his father, must have lived in the apostles' day. Itwas not, therefore, necessary for him to go out of his own family, tolearn what was the practice of the apostles. He knew whether he hadhimself been baptized, if we may judge from his writings, and he musthave known the views of his father and grandfather on the subject. Hehad the reputation of great learning, had travelled extensively, hadlived in Greece, Rome, Cappadocia, and Arabia, though he spent theprincipal part of his life in Syria and Palestine. "

I would place implicit reliance on the testimony of such a man, undersuch circumstances, to any question of history with which he professedto be familiar, even if I differed from him in matters of opinion. Butsuch a man would not state, for veritable history, that which the worldknew to be false. 

Now, what is Origen's testimony as to the fact, simply, of theapostolic usage with regard to infant baptism?

In his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Book v. , he says:

"For this cause it was that the church received an order from theapostles to give baptism even to infants. "

In his homily on Lev. 12, he says:

"According to the usage of the church, baptism is given even to infants, when, if there were nothing in infants that needed forgiveness andmercy, the grace of baptism would seem to be superfluous. "

In his homily on Luke 14, he says:

"Infants are baptized for the forgiveness of sins. "

It was the practice, then, in Origen's day, to baptize infants. He tellsthe people of his day, to whom he preaches and writes, why it was thatthe church had received a command from the apostles to baptize them, notproving to them the fact of history, but, taking that as well known, explaining the theological reason for it, as he understood it. 

It is now 1857. Eighty-five years ago, the length of time after theapostles to the birth of this man, brings us back to 1772. There is goodDr. Sales, who was born in 1770. Suppose that he should say thatsteamboats came from England at the time that the Hudson river wasdiscovered, and that they had plied there ever since?

No man in his right mind (not to say a scholar like Origen), howeversingular his opinions, would assert, for veritable history, that whichwas as palpably false as such a fiction respecting steamboat navigationupon the Hudson would be. Yet Origen asserts that the practice of infantbaptism was received directly from the apostles. Everybody couldcontradict him if he were in error. 

_Mr. M. _ But we know that he was in error in saying that forgiveness ofsins was a consequence of baptism. 

_Dr. D. _ Very well. The erroneous opinions, or practices, of men, withregard to the shape of the earth, did not prove that there was no earthin their day. On the contrary, their theories and speculations areproof, if any were needed, that the earth then existed, surely. A manwho boldly advocates a theory, fears to assert for fact that which allthe world knows to be false. 

_Mr. M. _ If infant baptism were then practised, and had been receivedfrom the apostles, why should Origen assert it in his books, and inpreaching, since everybody must have known it sufficiently. Does notthis prove that it was not generally believed?

_Dr. D. _ Why, my dear sir, am I not every Sabbath telling how thatChrist died for our sins according to the Scriptures? People do not needto be informed of it as a truth of history, but they need to be remindedof it, and to be exhorted in view of it. So of every doctrine, andeverything connected with religion. We tell the plainest, the mostfamiliar, truths to our church-members, continually; and the commonrepetition of those truths is, rather, a proof of their generalacceptation than otherwise. 

_Mr. M. _ In a court of justice, such testimony as that of Origen wouldcertainly be conclusive, in the case of a patent-right, or maritimediscovery. But you said that there were other testimonies of equalweight. 

_Dr. D. _ TERTULLIAN was born at Carthage, not far from A. D. 150, thatis, about fifty years after the apostles. He wrote, therefore, within ahundred years of the apostle John. But he was a man of peculiar views, extravagant in his opinions, an enthusiast in everything. He proves thatthe practice of infant baptism was established, by arguing against theexpediency of baptizing children, and unmarried persons, lest theyshould sin after baptism. His argument, with respect to both theseclasses of persons, is the same. His language is, "If any understand theweight of baptismal obligations, they will be more fearful about takingthem than of delay. " He argued that baptism should be deferred tillpeople were in a condition to resist temptation. These are his words:

"Therefore, according to every person's condition, and disposition, andage, also, the delay of baptism is more profitable, especially as tolittle children. For why is it necessary that the sponsors should incurdanger? For they may either fail of their promises by death, or may bedisappointed by a child's proving to be of a wicked disposition. OurLord says, indeed, 'Forbid them not to come to me. ' Let them come, then, when they are grown up; let them come when they understand; let themcome when they are taught whither they come; let them become Christianswhen they are able to know Christ. Why should their innocent age makehaste to the forgiveness of sins? Men act more cautiously in temporalconcerns. Worldly substance is not committed to those to whom divinethings are entrusted. Let them know how to ask for salvation, that youmay seem to give to him that asketh. 

"It is for a reason no less important that unmarried persons, both thosewho were never married, and those who have been deprived of theirpartners, should, on account of their exposure to temptation, be keptwaiting, " &c. 

As these extracts prove that the institution of marriage existed inTertullian's day, so they prove the existence then of infant baptism. Nothing can be more conclusive. How pertinent and useful to his objectwould it have been, could he have assailed the practice of infantbaptism as a human invention! He would not have failed to use that lineof attack, had it been possible. Now, as certain articles in thenewspapers, in a distant part of the country, remonstrating against thestreet-railroads, for example, prove that street-railroads exist there, so does Tertullian's argument against infant baptism prove that it waspractised within one hundred years after the apostles. 

_Mr. M. _ Is not this stronger, if anything, than Origen's testimony, being so much nearer the apostolic age?

_Dr. D. _ For that reason it may have more weight; but Origen'stestimony, being direct and positive, is most easily quoted. He was nearenough to the apostolic age for all the purposes of credible testimony. 

There is another historical testimony, if you wish to hear of more, which has great weight. 

THE COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE, one hundred and fifty years after the apostles, and composed of sixty-six pastors, has given us full testimony on thesubject. A country presbyter, by the name of Fidus, had sent two casesfor their adjudication. One was, "Whether an infant might be baptizedbefore it was eight days old?" Here is the answer:

CYPRIAN, and the rest of the presbyters who were present in the council, sixty-six in number, to Fidus our brother, Greeting:

"---- As to the case of Infants: whereas you judge that they must not bebaptized within two or three days after they were born, and that therule of circumcision is to be observed, --we are all in the Council of avery different opinion. " "This, therefore, was our opinion in theCouncil, that we ought not to hinder any person from baptism, and thegrace of God. And this rule, as it holds for all, is, we think, moreespecially to be observed in reference to infants, even to those who arenewly born. "

This was written, within a hundred and fifty years from the time of theapostles, by sixty-six ministers of Christ, some of whom, we maysuppose, must have had grace enough to show a martyr-spirit in resistingso gross an invention as the baptizing of infants would have been, ifapostolic example had restricted baptism to those who were capable offaith. Did Paul reprove an abuse of the Lord's Supper, among theCorinthians, and would he not have given an injunction against so Jewisha superstition as the baptizing of children in place of the antiquatedcircumcision would have been, if it were not commanded, had the churchesin his day seemed inclined to practise it?

_Mr. M. _ All these things amount to a demonstration, in my view. 

_Dr. D. _ You would like to hear something from AUGUSTINE, whose"Confessions" you have read with so much interest. 

In his writings, on Genesis, Augustine says, about two hundred andeighty-eight years after the apostles, "The custom of our mother, thechurch, in baptizing infants, must not be disregarded nor accounteduseless, and it must by all means be believed to be (apostolicatraditio) a thing handed down to us by the apostles. " "It is most justlybelieved to be no other than a thing delivered by apostolic authority;that it came not by a general council, or by any authority later or lessthan that of the apostles. " He also speaks of baptizing infants by theauthority of the whole church, which, he says, was undoubtedly deliveredto it by our Lord and his apostles. 

Augustine was a man of distinguished piety and learning, whose testimonyis every way worthy of implicit confidence. But, connected with hishistory, we have another substantial evidence with regard to thesubject. He conducted a famous controversy against the Pelagians, whodenied original sin. They were confronted with the argument from infantbaptism. "Why, " it was said, "are infants baptized, if they need nochange of nature?" It would have been a triumphant answer could theyhave shown that it was an unscriptural practice, not countenanced byChrist or the apostles. But Pelagius said, "Men slander me as though Idenied baptism to infants, whereas I never heard of any one, Catholic orheretic, who denied baptism to infants. " Pelagius and his friendCelestius, who was with him in the controversy, were born, the one inBritain, the other in Ireland. They lived for some years in Rome, wherethey knew people from all parts of the world. They had also lived inCarthage, Africa. One finally settled in Jerusalem, and the othertravelled among all the churches in the principal places of Europe andAsia. But they had never heard of the man, not even a heretic, who haddenied infant baptism. 

Here is another interesting proof. Irenæus, Philastrius, Augustine, Epiphanius, Theodoret, wrote catalogues of all the sects of Christianswhich they had ever heard of; but, while they make mention of some whodenied baptism altogether, and with it, according to Augustine, a greatpart of scripture, they mention no denial of infant baptism by any sectwhatever. 

_Mr. M. _ I suppose, then, that the only way of disposing of thisargument is by rejecting all testimony except that of the New Testament. Some say they can prove anything from the fathers; so they insist thatthe Bible alone must be our guide. 

_Dr. D. _ They are right in making that the only and sufficient rule offaith and practice. But how do these good people and the rest of us knowthat the books of the Old Testament, as we have them, were the verybooks to which Christ and the apostles referred as the word of God? Ifinfidels refuse to receive the Bible, saying, 'There is no proof thatthese are the identical books known to Christ, and quoted by him and theapostles, ' What shall we say? The Bible itself gives us no specificdirection how to prove its genuineness. It is interesting to observethat we go to uninspired men to prove that we really have the Bible asChrist and the apostles sanctioned it. We go to Josephus, neitherinspired nor even a Christian; to the Talmud, to Jerome, Origen, Aquila, and other uninspired men, to find a list of the books which we are toreceive as given by the inspiration of God. And, as to the NewTestament, we go to Eusebius and other uninspired writers, and find thatthe Christians of their days regarded these books as of divineauthority. It is on such evidence as this that we rely for the authorityof those sacred writings, which tell us what are the doctrines, precepts, and rites, of religion. Now, we see from this that uninspiredtestimony to divine things has its use. It is neither wise, nor anyproof of intelligence, to refuse a proper place to such testimony. We donot ask Josephus nor Eusebius how to interpret these books for us, nordoes their erroneous opinion with regard to matters of faith disparagetheir testimony as to the existence and authenticity of the sacredcanon. Neither can we properly say, "The early Christian fathers hadwrong notions, some of them, about infant baptism; therefore they cannotbe allowed to testify whether infant baptism was practised. " Howeverheretical they may have been, they could not alter the well-known factsof history, in the face of enemies and friends. 

_Mr. M. _ Are you not accustomed to rely much, in your scripturalargument for infant baptism, on the baptisms of households by theapostles?

_Dr. D. _ I am; and that reminds me of an interesting passage, which Iwill read to you from this book:[4]

[Footnote 4: Taylor on Baptism. ]

"Have we eight instances of the administration of the Lord's Supper? Nothalf the number. Have we eight cases of the change of the ChristianSabbath from the Jewish? Not, perhaps, one fourth of the number. Yetthose services are vindicated by the practice of the apostles, asrecorded in the New Testament. How, then, can we deny their practice onthe subject of infant baptism, when it is established by a series ofmore numerous instances than can possibly be found in support of anydoctrine, principle, or practice, derived from the practice of theapostles?"

But you will ask him (said Dr. D. ), how he proves that there wereinfants or young children in the households baptized by the apostles. 

This is his answer:

"Is there any other case besides that of baptism, where we would takefamilies at hazard, and deny the existence of young children in them?

"Take eight families in a street, or eight pews containing families ina place of worship; they will afford more than one young child. "

_Mr. M. _ How does he make out eight cases of household baptism by theapostles?

_Dr. D. _ Let us examine his list:

1. Cornelius. 

2. Lydia. 

3. The jailer at Philippi. "Thus the church at Philippi, just organizedby the apostles, and consisting of but few members, offers two instancesof household baptism. "

4. Crispus. "Compare Acts 18: 8, and 1 Cor. 1:14--16, by which itappears that this Crispus was baptized by Paul separately from hisfamily, which was not baptized by Paul. Yet Crispus 'believed on theLord with all his house. ' If his house believed, it was baptized. Itwas, then, a baptized household. But if we believe that the family ofCrispus was baptized because we find it registered as believing, then wemust admit the same of all other families which we find marked asChristians, though they be not expressly marked as baptized. " He is notproving, here, you notice, that there were children in any of thesehouseholds; he thinks he proves that elsewhere, by the doctrine ofchances. He is now showing the grounds for supposing that certain"households" were baptized. He applies his argument respecting Crispusto

5. Aristobulus's household. 

6. Onesiphorus's household. 

7. Narcissus's household. 

8. Stephanas's household. This household was baptized by Paul separatelyfrom its head, who was not baptized by Paul; this case being just thereverse of that of Crispus. 

"Eight Christian families, and therefore baptized. " Now comes thequestion of probability as to there being children in those householdsnot capable of faith. 

Begin anywhere, in any congregation, on the Sabbath, and count eightpews, the proprietors and occupants of which are the heads of families;and the chance of there being no minor children in them is almost toosmall to be appreciated. Should we read, in a secular paper, that aforeign missionary had baptized eight households in a pagan village, thegeneral belief would be that it was a missionary of some Pædobaptistdenomination, and that children were baptized in those families. 

I must read to you (said Dr. D. ) something on the other side of thisargument. I found the following, not long since, in a deservedly popularand useful Dictionary and Repository, written and signed by a gentlemanof excellent character and standing. He says:

"Infant baptism was probably introduced about the commencement of thethird century, in connection with other corruptions, which even thenbegan to prepare the way for Popery. A superstitious idea, respectingthe necessity of baptism to salvation, led to the baptism of sickpersons, and, finally, to the baptism of infants. Sponsors, holy water, anointing with oil, the sign of the cross, and a multitude of similarceremonies, equally unauthorized by the Scriptures, were soonintroduced. The church lost her simplicity and purity, her ministersbecame ambitious, and the darkness gradually deepened to the long anddismal night of papal despotism. "

"Probably introduced about the commencement of the third century, inconnection with other corruptions. " Recall what I read to you fromOrigen, born A. D. 185; from Tertullian, who flourished within onehundred years after the apostles; from Cyprian and the Council ofCarthage; from Augustine and his antagonist, Pelagius, who expresslysaid that he had never heard of any one, not even the most impiousheretic, denying baptism to infants. 

In contrast with such a passage as the one just read to you, I amreminded of the host of writers, on our side of the question, who, almost all of them, make such candid and full concessions, that theyfurnish their brethren of the opposite side with many of their argumentsagainst us. I remember reading a book of "Pædobaptist Concessions, "containing a formidable array of points yielded by our writers, so thata common reader might ask, What have you left as the ground of yourbelief and practice? But the thought which arose in my mind was, Notwithstanding all these concessions, they who make them are among thefirmest believers in baptism by sprinkling, and in infant baptism. Thatcause must be affluent in proofs, and deeply rooted in the scripturalconvictions of men, which can afford to make such concessions to itsantagonists. These refuse facts, which we afford to others for so largea part of their foundation, show how broad and sufficient ours must be. 

The quotation which I read to you, speaks of Popish tendencies as havingalready begun. This is true; and more may be added. In the secondepistle to the Thessalonians, Paul tells us that the mystery of iniquitywas already at work. On the subject of religious days and festivals, thefirst Christians very soon began to be superstitious, incorporatingheathen festival days into Christian observances, under the plea ofredeeming and sanctifying them, with some such feelings and reasoning asthat with which people, now, would transfer secular music tosanctuaries, saying that the enemy ought not to have all the best music. It is true that this sensuous, and, afterward called, Romish, tendency, corrupted everything. The pure stream of apostolic doctrine and practicewas like the Moselle, which you saw from the fortress ofEhrenbreitstein, pursuing its unmingled course distinctly for somedistance in the turbid Rhine, till at last it yields to the generalcurrent. Infant baptism, as we learn from ecclesiastical authoritieswith one consent, proceeded from the apostles; yet soon it began to bepractised with many superstitious absurdities; and, moreover, immersion, making such powerful appeals to the senses, suited the tasteof the age far better than sprinkling, so that not only did it becomethe common mode, but the subjects were completely undressed, without anydistinction, to denote the putting off the old man and the putting on ofthe new, and the putting away of the filth of the flesh. [5] Publicsentiment finally abolished this practice. After a considerable timeaffusion, or sprinkling, returned, and became the prevailing mode, without any special enactment, or any formal renunciation of the latemode. The Eastern church, however, retained immersion, while the Greekand Armenian branches use both immersion and sprinkling for the adultand child. But the sick and dying were always baptized by sprinkling, which is sufficient to prove that sprinkling was regarded as equallyvalid with immersion. It is natural to say that it was superstitious tobaptize the sick and dying, by sprinkling, if we hold that onlyimmersion is valid baptism. The sick and dying cannot be immersed; now, is it superstition for a sick person, giving credible evidence of piety, to be admitted into the Christian church, and receive the Lord's Supper?In order to do this properly, the subject must be baptized; hence, wederive one powerful argument that sprinkling is valid baptism. Our Lordwould never have made the modes of his sacraments so austerely rigid, that the thousands of sick and feeble persons, ministers in poor health, climate, seasons of the year, times of persecution and imprisonment, andall the stress of circumstances to which Christians may be subjected, should be utterly disregarded, and one inconvenient, and sometimesdangerous, form, of applying water, be insisted on, inflexibly, asessential to the introductory Christian rite. If the early Christiansbaptized the sick by sprinkling, they of course supposed that it wasvalid baptism. If it was valid at all, and in any case, of course it wasChristian baptism, even if other modes were most commonly used. 

[Footnote 5: See "Coleman's Ancient Christianity, " chap, xix. , sec. 12. He refers to Ambrose, Ser. 20. Chrysostom, Hom. 6. Epistle to Col. , &c. , &c. ]

_Mr. M. _ I suppose, then, that you would not object to administerbaptism in any other mode of applying water than sprinkling, or pouring. 

_Dr. D. _ One mode was, I believe, practised at first; and the NewTestament teaches me that this was affusion. The application of water inany way, by an authorized administrator, to a proper subject, in thename of the Trinity, may be valid baptism; but I prefer the NewTestament mode, as I understand it, and am happy to allow others thesame liberty of judgment which I enjoy. It would be an extreme casewhich would lead me to administer the ordinance in any other way than byaffusion. 

But, said Mr. D. , you began by inquiring respecting the practice ofinfant baptism in the early ages. I presume that your mind is settledwith regard to the connection of the practice with God's everlastingcovenant with believers and their offspring. I lately read a statementof this point, which pleased me much, in the writings of the famous Rev. Thomas Shepard, the early pastor of the church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He says:

"There is the same inward cause moving God to take in the children ofbelieving parents into the church and covenant, now, to be of the numberof his people, as there was for taking the Jews and their children. Forthe only reason why the Lord took in the children of the Jews withthemselves evidently was his love to the parents. 'Because he loved thyfathers, therefore he chose their seed. ' So that I do from hencebelieve, that either God's love is, in these days of his Gospel, lessunto his people and servants than in the days of the Old Testament, --or, if it be as great, that then the same love respects the seed of hispeople now as then it did. And, therefore, if then because he loved themhe chose their seed to be of his church, so in these days because heloveth us he chooseth our seed to be of his church also. "

Though the title of the treatise from which I read is called theChurch-Membership of Children, to which expression I have very greatobjections, and feel that it has done harm, yet this good man held thedoctrine of infant church-membership in a sense which is free from allreproach of making people members of the church otherwise than byregeneration. His belief on this point comes out under the followingillustration:

"These children may not be the sons of God and his people really andsavingly, but God will honor them outwardly with his name andprivileges, just as one that adopts a youngster tells the father thatif the child carry himself well toward him, when he is grown up to yearshe shall possess the inheritance itself; but yet in the meanwhile heshall have this favor, to be called his son, and be of the family andhousehold, and so be reckoned among the number of his sons. "

One of the chief reasons which brought this excellent man to NewEngland, was that he could not in Old England enjoy the ordinance ofinfant baptism in its purity. Let me read the following, addressed byhim to his little son, who afterward became pastor of the church inLynn, Massachusetts, and was a burning and shining light. His words willshow you that he had no superstitious notion about the church-membershipof children, though he represented the common belief at that day, andthat he did not count baptism in infancy a saving ordinance; yet youwill see how he uses it to plead with his son to be reconciled to God. He writes:

"And thus, after about eleven weekes sayle from Old England, we came toNew England shore, where the mother fell sick of consumption, and you mychild was put to nurse to one goodwife Hopkins, who was very tender ofthee; and after we had been here diverse weekes, on the seventh ofFebruary, or thereabout, God gave thee the ordinance of baptism, wherebyGod is become thy God, and is beforehand with thee, that whenever youshall return to God he will undoubtedly receive thee; and this is a mosthigh and happy privilege; and therefore blesse God for it. And now, after this had been done, thy deare mother dyed in the Lord, departingout of this world into another, who did lose her life by being carefulto preserve thine; for in the ship thou wert so feeble and froward, bothin the day and night, that hereby shee lost her strength, and at lasther life. Shee hath made also many a prayer and shed many a tear insecret for thee; and this hath bin oft her request, that if the Lord didnot intend to glorify himselfe by thee, that he would cut thee off bydeath rather than to live to dishonor him by sin; and therefore know itthat if you shalt turn rebell agaynst God, and forsake God and care notfor the knowledge of him, nor to beleeve in his Son, the Lord will makeall these mercys woes, and all thy mother's prayers, teares, and death, to be a swift witness agaynst thee at the great day. "

The practice of infant baptism, and a belief in what is called thechurch-membership of children, surely had no injurious effect upon aparent who could speak thus to his child. Yet Shepard took as highground as any with regard to this subject. He derived appeals frombaptism to his child, which were both encouraging and admonitory in thehighest degree. 

O, said Dr. D. , what a people the descendants of Abraham might have beenforever, had they kept that covenant of which circumcision was the seal. Had they remembered only this, and had they adhered to it, "I will be aGod to thee and to thy seed after thee, " and had they been acovenant-keeping people, their peace, as God says to them, would havebeen as a river; an endless, inexhaustible tide of prosperity andblessedness. 

And now, if Christian parents will but lay hold on that covenant as theymay, that Abrahamic covenant, still in force for them who are Christ's, and so Abraham's, seed, and heirs according to the promise, we shouldsoon see, in family religion, in the early conversion of children, andin their large Christian culture, those promises of God fulfilled whichhave respect to the great increase, chiefly by this means, of hischurch in the latter days. This is one thing which makes me love andprize infant baptism so much; its being an expression and exponent ofparental love, faithfulness, and zeal, in those with whom it is precededand followed by the entire consecration of their children to God, theirfeelings and conduct toward them agreeing with the covenant made forthem with God. 

But, in saying this, let me guard you against the erroneous notion thatinfant baptism is primarily a parent's covenant, an expression of hisfeelings toward God. No, it is God's covenant, an expression of hisfeelings toward the children of believers. That is the chief thing whichgives it value. For, it is not because parents love their children, thatGod commands that they be offered in baptism; but because God lovesthem, and has promised to be a God to them, as he is to their parents. People, however, sometimes treat the ordinance as though it were theiract toward God, and not primarily his act toward them. They, therefore, are liable to use it with far less effect than if they were receiving init, and by it, God's own transaction with them and the little child. 

_Mr. M. _ In thinking of Pagan and Mohammedan nations, lately, at theConcert of Prayer for Foreign Missions, I was struck with this thought, how error has been transmitted from father to child, and what an awfulpower for evil lies in transmitted family influence, when it iscorrupted. This led me to think whether God did not have this in mindwhen, in establishing his church in Abraham, he connected children withparents in his covenant, and gave a sign and seal to be affixed to theirchildren as a constant admonition to parental faithfulness. All hisformer dealings with the world seem to have failed, because of its greatwickedness, --fire, plagues, good examples, great riches, and powerconferred upon the good; and then he added, as a special means, thefamily constitution, and by it he secured a seed to serve him to anextent sufficient to keep the world from extinction, and to be therepository and source of divine knowledge. I began to think that, if wewould keep religion from dying out, we must fall in with God's greatplan; for Satan makes use of it, and holds generation after generationin bondage by means of the family constitution. So I set myself at workto find out ways by which we might promote family religion; and I couldfind no better plan than the old one, of promoting scriptural andspiritual views of the dedication of children. Then I thought how muchdiscredit has been cast upon that ordinance, which is intended to be thegreat sign and declaration of parental piety and faithfulness; and thatfamily religion had, proportionably, declined, with the indifference ofChristians to this powerful means of promoting the eminent zeal andefforts of parents in behalf of their children's spiritual good. Youthsof fifteen to twenty-one years of age are, in a large proportion, thecauses of prevailing wickedness, --Sabbath-breaking, profaneness, andother things. They need just what the ordinance of baptism, properlyobserved and fully carried out by covenanting parents, would do forthem. But, in being present at the formation of new churches, I havemourned to see that, instead of declaring infant baptism to be the dutyof believers, as was formerly done in our older churches, a compromisewith modern lax views is made, by merely permitting infant baptism, saying, in the confession of faith, that, "Baptism is the privilege onlyof believers and their children. "

But the idea of getting up a zeal in favor of infant baptism, or apublic sentiment in the churches which should enforce it as a duty, seemed to me unprofitable; but it occurred to me, whether somethingcould not be done to interest Christian parents in the subject, byshowing them the infinite privilege of having God for their God, and theGod of their seed, and then the naturalness and propriety of using anordinance to express and to assist it. People need instruction on thesubject; instruction which will commend itself to their Christianfeelings. We cannot legislate them into a spiritual observance of theLord's Supper, much less of baptism. 

_Dr. D. _ No; and I trust that our denominations who practise infantbaptism, will never urge it otherwise than in connection with parentalpiety, and as a helper of parental obligations. 

_Mr. M. _ But ought we not to stir ourselves up with regard to parentalduties? and, if so, must we not necessarily insist on the dedication ofchildren to God, and upon baptism as the acceptable way of signifyingit, and the powerful means of helping us to perform our duties?

_Dr. D. _ Surely we ought; and in doing it we have the satisfaction toknow that we are laboring for something more than to establish a modeof applying an ordinance. In urging the baptism of children, if we do itnot for the sake of the ordinance, but for the things which it signifiesand promotes, we advance the cause of piety in the parents. 

_Mr. M. _ Would that some one would blow a trumpet in the churches onthis subject. I do feel that if parents would appreciate the influenceof such a state of heart as would lead them to offer their children toGod in baptism, as an expression of their previous and subsequent viewsand feelings toward their children, we should see a new state of thingsin the rising generation. How striking it is that the Old Testamentcloses with such a passage as that last verse of Malachi. It is thepromontory of the Old Testament, looking across the coming ages, yearning toward the new dispensation, and, as it were, making signals, concerning the forerunner of that new era, with those words: "And heshall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart ofthe children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with acurse. " May we not conclude that this is God's most acceptable way ofeffecting the revival of religion from one period to another?

_Dr. D. _ I have no doubt of it. 

_Mr. M. _ I spoke to our good Deacon Goodenow about it, lately; but hesaid he had a great horror of a controversy about baptism, and he wasafraid that, to say much upon this subject, would involve us in one. Itold him that I would not be for reflecting upon other denominations;that my motto, with regard to them and us, is, "Live, and let live. " Iwould only appeal to our own people, and encourage them to take up thesubject afresh, in a spiritual manner; that is, to dwell upon theprivilege and duty of being in covenant relations, with our children, toGod, baptism being the ordinance of ratification, and its memorial. 

_Dr. D. _ Your reference to controversy about baptism makes me think ofone which I listened to in a rail-road station, last winter, whilewaiting in a snow-storm, several hours, for the cars. Two students ofdivinity, as I took them to be, were discussing their respective tenetswith regard to baptism. I was reading a book, but could not help hearingwhat they said. One was decrying infant baptism as a "rag of Popery, ""the last relic of Rome in Protestantism, " "a device of Satan to fillup the church with unconverted members, " and much more to that effect. 

His friend, in reply, undertook to give his impressions of immersion. Hespoke of India-rubber bathing-dresses;--a tank in which he saw two orthree men and as many women, one of them a young lady, immersed, to hisapparent disgust;--of Elder some one breaking the ice at some cape onNew Year's Sabbath, and immersing several carriages full of females, whowent back dripping wet, to the carriages, and rode an eighth of a mileto the vestry;--of several females immersed, in a southern State, goinginto a creek with white garments, and with white fillets about theirheads, and coming out yellow; and he asked his fellow whether infantbaptism could be any worse than such things. 

_Mr. M. _ What did his friend say?

_Dr. D. _ O, it was the common talk on both sides, painful and revolting. I could not help saying to them, as the cars were coming up, and we wereparting, "But, if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye benot consumed one of another. "

_Mr. M. _ They probably left each other as little convinced of theopposite opinions, respectively, as when they began. 

_Dr. D. _ More confirmed and set against each other's views, I have noquestion. There has been far too much of this. Ridicule and sarcasm areSatan's favorite weapons. Good people ought not to use them against eachother, whatever be the temptation. Perhaps, as human nature choosesvariety, and we are differently affected by different presentations oftruth, men must be divided into sects; but intolerance, bigotry, exclusiveness, in us or in others, cannot stand before the spirit of theage. We may work better, divided into denominations, forbearing with oneanother, and loving one another in Christ, and for his sake. 

_Mr. M. _ Are you often called upon by persons who are troubled on thesubject of baptism?

_Dr. D. _ I do not spend much time in discussing the mode. When a youngperson is troubled on the subject, I am always careful, first of all, tofind out whether there is any secret bias, for any reason, towardanother denomination; in which case, I pause at once; for you mightargue forever in vain. There is iron on board the ship, which controlsthe needle in the compass. I always make it easy and pleasant for suchto follow their evident inclination and wishes. 

_Mr. M. _ Are they generally ready to go?

_Dr. D. _ No, they say they do not like strict communion; but I cannothelp them. I will not be a sectarian, even for infant baptism. 

_Mr. M. _ Are you in favor of admitting people to our church who do notbelieve in infant baptism?

_Dr. D. _ Young people, who say that their minds are not made up on thesubject, or those who have not had their attention directed to it, cannot be required to signify their cordial assent to it; but it isenough if they are not opposed. In the case of parents who steadfastlydecline to practise infant baptism, after waiting a proper time toinstruct them, I advise them to join another denomination more inaccordance with their views. We do better to be apart, and it is noreflection upon either side to say this. A Pædobaptist church ought tomaintain its principles by requiring assent to its standard of faith;yet, where there is no church of a different denomination, withinconvenient distance, I surely would not exclude a child of God from theLord's Supper for differences of opinion and practice about baptism. Iwould admit, by special vote, to occasional, or even to statedcommunion, in such a case. 

_Mr. M. _ Do you ever re-baptize?

_Dr. D. _ Where a person was baptized with water, in the name of theTrinity, by an authorized person, of any denomination, I would notre-baptize. The alleged heterodox or immoral character of theadministrator, at the time of baptism, does not invalidate it;otherwise, one might be baptized many times, and, the administratorsproving unworthy, the subject could never get baptized. Christ wouldnever let his ordinances depend thus upon uncertainties. Let a personbut recognize his baptism, if performed in infancy, by entering publiclyinto covenant with God, and that will be sufficient. I endeavor to showpeople how wrong it is to lay undue stress on the ordinance, forgettingwhether they have that which is signified by it, and which alone givesit value. 

_Mr. M. _ True, sir, but it has its importance, and stress is to be laidupon the due observance of it. 

_Dr. D. _ I mean that where I find the conditions of valid baptismcomplied with, I try to turn away the thoughts from any superstitious orceremonial dependence upon the sacramental act. You remember the answerin the catechism to the question, "How do the sacraments becomeeffectual means of salvation?"

_Mr. M. _ How I used to say that, at my mother's knee, with my handsfolded behind me, to keep them still: "The sacraments become effectualmeans of salvation, not from any virtue in them, or in him that dothadminister them, but only by the blessing of Christ, and the working ofhis spirit in them that by faith receive them. "

_Dr. D. _ I was thinking, the other day, and not for the first time, byany means, what a noble man was Paul. He was unwilling that peopleshould call themselves after him, as their leader, and therefore he wasglad to leave the act of baptizing to his associates. Some, however, infer from this that he disparages baptism. "Christ sent me not tobaptize, but to preach the gospel. " Baptism, in its place, has itsimportance, and so has preaching; but whether he should be the baptizer, or delegate the administration to Silas, or Mark, was not of so muchconsequence as that he should preach. How he put things in their rightplaces, according to their proportions, exalting the great, vitalthings, sinking others to their subordinate, though useful, spheres, andbecoming all things to all men to save them. With his contempt offormalism, I hardly know of a greater trial of patience than he musthave had in consenting to circumcise Timothy. He there shut thewindow-shutters, and lighted an exhausted lamp, for a time, though heknew the sun was up, to gratify some who had not opened their eyes tothe morning. How far from a contentious, ambitious spirit, was he, evenwith his intense convictions. There are many good people, in allcommunions, who are longing for the time when all the old walls ofseparation between true Christians will have as many gates in them, atleast, as heaven has, --on the east three gates, on the north threegates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. But Irejoice even in our liberty, if we choose to exercise it, of separation, without molestation, though we lose much good to ourselves, and muchinfluence, and, in times of general religious interest, it leads toearly discussions about modes and forms. How many times have I seen agrowing attention to religion in a community checked by debates anddiscussions as to ordinances. 

_Mr. M. _ If more pains were taken to instruct our own people as to theoneness of the ancient and the Christian church, and to show them howthe consecration of children is a part of religion, as reëstablished bythe Most High, it seems to me great good would follow. 

_Dr. D. _ If you will draw out your thoughts on the subject, and let mesee them, we may prepare something which may be useful. You view thesubject on the popular, practical side. Let us see what the results areto which you have come. 

Having agreed to make the effort at my leisure, I may report hereafteras to my success. And now I will ask my reader's attention to aninteresting letter, which, on my return home, I found awaiting me. 

Chapter Seventh. 

TERMS OF COMMUNION. 

 Him first to love, great right and reason is, Who first to us our life and being gave; And after, when we fared had amisse, Us wretches from the second death did save; And last, the food of life, which now we have, Even He himselfe, in his dear sacrament, To feede our hungry soules, unto us lent. 

 Then next to love our brethren, that were made Of that selfe mould, and that self maker's hand, That we;[6] and to the same againe shall fade Where they shall have like heritage of land, [7] However here on higher steps we stand; Which also were with selfe-same price redeemed That we;--however of us light esteemed. 

 SPENSER. --"_An Hymne of Heavenly Love. _"

 ----PRAIRIE, ----, 185-. 

MY DEAR BROTHER: Here we are, at our journey's end. We have had a mostromantic journey, arriving in health, though wayworn, much of our ridehaving been in wagons. My wife says, Give my love to brother, and tellhim of the scene at "the hill Mizar. " Your letter, which we foundawaiting us, made her think that you would be deeply interested in thestory. This, by and by. 

[Footnote 6: As we. ]

[Footnote 7: The grave. ]

As we were leaving C. , one morning, in the great mail-wagon, a man andhis wife, with an infant in her arms, took seats with us, bound farbeyond our own home. The parents had been delayed by the birth of thechild during the journey from New York. They proved to be trulyexcellent people, and they made our journey with them very agreeable. 

The father, Mr. Blair, had been greatly tried during his stay at thehotel where his wife was sick. There was only one church in the village. The administration of the Lord's Supper occurring while he was there, hewent to avail himself of a stranger's privilege at the table of Christ. He found, however, that the ordinance was not to be administered tillthe afternoon, and, moreover, the hymn-book, and some things in thesermon, disclosed to him that the church was one which closed its doorsagainst communicants who had not been baptized by immersion, onprofession of their faith. 

He was strongly inclined to partake of the ordinance, without sayinganything respecting his baptism. But, on the whole, he concluded that itwould be respectful to intimate his situation to one of the church, peradventure they had a rule favorable to such a case as his, or, atleast, had agreed to shut their eyes, and ask no questions, in suchcircumstances. 

He, therefore, introduced himself to a venerable man, who, he inferred, was a deacon. He frankly told him who he was, and that he wished topartake of the Lord's Supper. 

The good man said to him, "I am sorry that you said anything about it;but, so long as you have, I don't see how I can consistently encourageyour partaking of the ordinance. "

_Stranger. _ On what ground, sir?

_Deacon. _ Why, we do not hold you to have been baptized. 

_Stranger. _ I was baptized in infancy, by believing parents, and havebeen a professing Christian fifteen years. 

_Deacon. _ That is not believers' baptism, as we view it. The Lord'sSupper, in our communion, is for baptized persons only. We hold to nobaptism but by immersion. 

_Stranger. _ I certainly would not intrude, and I will not ask you to actinconsistently with your principles. But I am a wayfaring man. I havenot had the opportunity to partake of the Lord's Supper for severalmonths. The life and health of my wife have been remarkably preserved inthis village. Here is the birthplace of my first-born, a place never tobe forgotten by us. I wish to make a Bethel of it. I wish to come to mySaviour's table with my thanksgivings, and pay him my vows, which mylips have uttered, and my mouth hath spoken, when I was in trouble. Irejoiced when I heard that this was your sacramental Sabbath. 

_Deacon. _ Your church would not admit an unbaptized person to the Lord'stable, however much he might plead for admission. 

_Stranger. _ O, my dear sir, how unfair that reasoning is. This isplacing me on a level with one who rejects baptism. I profess to havebeen baptized to the best of my knowledge, and to have fulfilled therequirements of Christ. Should a man come to our church, and say, I havereason to believe that I have been baptized, though I cannot bringevidence to satisfy you, except so far as you have confidence in me, hiscase would be parallel with mine. Such a man we would not exclude. 

_Deacon. _ Perhaps we shall not agree, if we continue to discuss thepoint. I am sorry that our rules operate to your inconvenience. We wishto see everybody on New Testament ground, and we think that the surestway to bring them there is to stand there ourselves. By departing fromthe literal command to immerse, and by baptizing infants, the church ofChrist became corrupted with traditions and human inventions. We are atthe antipodes to all this; we refuse everything which is not in blackand white on the surface of the Bible, and so we are the more consistentProtestants. 

"Considering the day and the occasion, " said my friend to us, "I forboreto argue, or to press the good man by asking him if the 'seventh-daySabbath' people had not the advantage of him as to greater consistencyin their Protestantism; or, whether the church-membership of females wasanywhere in black and white on the surface of the Bible. As to hisgoing to the antipodes, to get clear of Romish principles and practices, I was strongly tempted to say that, to avoid being one of the acids, itsurely was not necessary, nor best, to become an alkali. But havingoften reflected how God uses one and another sect, and its set ofprinciples and practices, to correct evils, by their sharp antagonism, and to restore a balance to ecclesiastical disorders by allowing some togo, for a while, to an opposite extreme, I did not find it in my heartto inveigh, nor to upbraid. It also seemed good to be in a land ofliberty, where even Christians could, from a sense of duty to Christ, ifthey chose, fence out their acknowledged brethren and sisters from theirtable. There are great inconveniences, and, now and then, hardships, resulting from it; but our friends, of course, suppose that greatergood, on the whole, than evil, is the consequence, apart fromconsiderations of duty. But I know of a congregation, in a small place, who have had public worship for several years, but have not had theLord's Supper administered, because they cannot agree as to terms ofcommunion. "

"Well, " said I, "tell us what you did in the afternoon. "

"In the afternoon, " he continued, "I went to meeting, and, when theordinance was to be administered, I took a seat in a pew alone. Iwatched to see which aisle the good deacon would serve, and concluded tosit there, so as not to seem clandestinely seeking from another deacon, who would not know me, my inhibited bread; for I wished to be honorablein the transaction, and, besides, I desired that my friend should seeme, and, if he had changed his mind, give me the symbols. So I sat wherehe would pass, in a pew by myself, but he did not look at me. "

"How did it make you feel?" said I. 

"In some respects, " said he, "I never enjoyed my thoughts more at theadministration of the Supper. I had no feeling of resentment orill-will. The exclusion of four fifths of the Christian family from theLord's table by one portion of it, for such a reason, seemed to leave mein such good company, that I said to myself, 'They that be with us aremore than they that be with them. ' I rejoiced in Robert Hall, JohnBunyan, and others like them. I thought of that interesting piece inBunyan's works, 'Water Baptism no Bar to Communion. ' I questionedwhether this church and its sister churches would not hear a mildreproof from the lips of Christ, --'I was a stranger, and ye took me notin. ' Certainly they could not say with Job, 'If I have eaten my morselalone. ' Using the table of Christ for a wall or bars againstacknowledged Christians, --that table, that Supper, which, of all placesand scenes, is most suggestive of communion and fellowship, --seemed tome so great a mistake, that I could not in charity regard it as a sin, because, as such, it would be so criminal. I always believed, before, that the mode of baptism was not essential to Christian fellowship; butthat afternoon I saw it, I felt it; I worked out the sum myself, and sawthe demonstration, I felt very happy in belonging to the great host ofGod's people who can commune together, however much they differ. "

"While I was sitting there alone, put aside, one might say, by mybrothers and sisters, whom I had, as it were, run in so cordially tomeet, one thought came over me, as they were feasting with Christ, whichmade me weep. I thought of the possibility of being set aside in thegreat day. I said, to myself:

 'I love to meet thy people now, Before thy face with them to bow, Though vilest of them all; But, can I bear the dreadful thought, What if my name should be left out When thou for them dost call?'"

"This did me good. Yet, while I was sitting there, I seemed to see theSaviour approach me, with a smile. His look seemed very significant, asthough he would say, 'I understand it. ' Those words came to my mind:'Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and, when he had found him, hesaid unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered andsaid, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said untohim, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. Andhe said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. ' I surely said and didthis. "

"Never before, " said he, "had I such views of the condescension andgentleness of Christ toward us, erring creatures. Here was a churcherring, it seemed to me, in a point which must peculiarly wound theheart of the Redeemer, whose last discourse with his disciples had thisfor its burden, that ye love one another. And yet there were, in thatchurch, many with whom Christ was communing with a love that seemed tothem unqualified. So he treats us all. I never had a greater flow ofcharity toward all my fellow-Christians than on that occasion. Iresolved that I never would be a sectarian in anything, while I alsofelt more strongly than ever attached to my own views, and confident oftheir truthfulness, and in love with their beauty. "

When he had finished his narration, his wife asked me what I thoughtwith regard to her husband's proceedings. I asked her to stateparticularly what she had in mind. She then expressed a doubt whether itwere proper for us to intrude upon fellow-Christians, when we know thattheir principles forbid their communing with us. She said that sheremonstrated with her husband, as soon as he told her that the ordinancewas not free to all evangelical Christians, and that she tried todissuade him from appearing to obtrude himself. She did not view it asuncharitableness, but only as a denominational rule. 

I asked her what her husband said in self-defence;--for we loved to hearher conversation. 

She said that he turned it off by saying, "Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry. "

She said that soon they experienced the utmost kindness from the membersof that church, who, learning the occasion of their sojourn in thevillage, poured upon them their hospitality. Several wished to removeher to their dwellings. They had a "Busy Bee, " and made up everything inan infant's wardrobe for her. She opened her travelling-bag, and tookout a white enamelled paper semi-circular box, containing a pin-cushion, made of straw-colored satin, in the shape of a young moon, with thesewords tastefully printed in pins: "Welcome, little stranger!" She heldit up to us in one hand, while with the other she wiped her eyes. Never, she said, had kindness affected her so much;--she believed that ithindered her in gaining strength, her feelings were so continuallywrought upon by ingenious devices of loving-kindness. It became knownthat the husband had proposed to commune, and what the issue had been. This only served to make them all the more generous. They felt itdeeply, and bore it as a necessity which they evidently regretted; but, with much self-respect, they refrained to make any apology, orexplanation; "and, for this, " said the wife, "I respected them. " Therewas one elderly maiden-lady, however, who once was so far excited whenthe subject was alluded to, while several of them were sewing in thewife's room, that, after moving about in her chair, evidently strugglingwith her emotions, she ventured at last to say, "O, if I could get holdof that old fence, how I should love to shake it!" They all smiled; andone sensible and well-educated woman immediately gave a pleasant turn tothe conversation. 

I fully agreed with the wife in her very dignified and proper view ofthe whole subject. Is there not something extremely charming in thehighly lady-like sentiments and expressions of a Christian woman, ascontradistinguished from those of a gentleman? He, with all hisurbanity, is apt to show the smallest possible vein of testiness, or, atleast, the clouded look of high-bred sense of honor. It seems to methere is no power which woman exerts over us, in softening andhumanizing our feelings, more beautiful and effectual, than in herdelicate forbearance and charity in taking the kind view of anirritating subject, without compromise of principle, but just the viewwhich reflection, and gentler moods, and the softening hand of time, invariably present. She arrives at it at once, by intuition; our slowand phlegmatic sense goes through a process of mistake andrectification, to reach it. 

It occurred to me to test this good lady's feelings a little further, byreading to her an item from a newspaper, which I had met with in thecars a few days before, and which I had transferred to my pocket. It haddisturbed my equanimity a little. It was an extract from the annualcircular letter of a conference of ministers to their churches, in oneof the New England States, in 1855, in which mention was made of "themonstrous and soul-damning heresy of infant baptism. "

I asked the lady how we ought to feel at such a demonstration. She said, "I presume I know how you gentlemen would be likely to feel and actunder the impulse of the moment; but the true way to regard and treatit, as it seems to me, is, with pertinacious forgetfulness. " She wouldnot let it disturb her feelings; and she quoted George Herbert:

 "Why should I feel another man's mistakes More than his sicknesses, or poverty? In love I should; but, " &c. 

Susan said that she was reminded of visits made to her mother's house, by some who would persuade her mother that she belonged to an"unbaptized church;" thus seeking to put in fear the children who wereabout to make a profession of religion. Her mother replied to thesevisitors, that there was far more apprehension in her own mind whetherthey themselves were properly baptized, if but one mode is valid. --As toMr. Blair's effort to commune at that table, she said that she wouldnever seek nor receive as a boon from men, that which her Saviour hadpurchased for her, and for them, with his own blood. 

Our conversation was here interrupted by the exclamation of my wife, "Dolook at that beautiful sight, that cascade, on the hill. "

Chapter Eighth. 

THE ROAD-SIDE BAPTISM. 

 How beautiful the water is! To me 'tis wondrous fair; No spot can ever lonely be, If water sparkle there. It hath a thousand tongues of mirth, Of grandeur, or delight, And every heart is gladder made When water greets the sight. 

 MRS. E. O. SMITH. 

 Sweet one! make haste, and know Him too; Thine own adopting Father love; That, like thine earliest dew, Thy dying sweets may prove. 

 KEBLE. 

We were about to turn a corner in a defile of the mountains, and a largeperpendicular buttress of the ridge stood out, so as nearly to close upthe road. It presented a surface of about twenty feet directly in front, as we drove up, and, from the top, which was nearly a hundred and twentyfeet from the ground, a cascade fell into the air for about forty feet, and, without touching anything, became dishevelled, and disappeared inmist. 

It was one of the most beautiful objects which I ever saw. It was purewhite, relieved against the wet and very black rock. It waved to and froin the air like a streamer; it had a slow pulse, lifting it and lettingit drop, like the appearance of a waterfall seen from the window of acar in motion, only this was irregular and quite slow; it was soft andfleecy; it made no audible noise; it looked dangerous to see it fallfrom so great a height; but it was caught in the air, to your relief, asone who falls in his dream lights upon his soft bed. The lines of Gray, in his Bard, were suggested by the sight of this mountain, though not byany close resemblance:

 "Loose his beard; his hoary hair Streamed like a meteor to the troubled air. "

The ladies had other images suggested by it. One said, "It is abeautiful hand, waving Godspeed to us on our journey. " That broughttears into the eyes of some of us, reminding us so of meetings andpartings at home, and chording well with our pilgrim condition. Weconcluded to make response; and we tarried there. 

The rock seemed to be full of water, oozing out from the seams, drippingover rich mosses, with jets, here and there, leaping into the light witha bound of a few inches, and quietly expiring among the thickweather-stains and lichens, as if satisfied with their brief existence. The little things made me think of the sweet souls of infants passinginto time, and then immediately out of it. As we listened, we heard whatAddison describes in his version of the twenty-third Psalm:

 "And streams shall murmur all around. "

The ladies took off their bonnets, and we our hats, and we stood underthe cascade, looking up, and feeling, or fancying that we felt, the coolspray on our heads and faces. We drank of the rock, and we thought ofthat Rock which followed Israel. It seemed good to have such an image ofJesus as such a rock, with the strength of the hills in it, and with itsinexhaustible springs, its beautiful entablature, its cool shadow, following a company through a desert. What thoughts and feelings did itgive us respecting our adorable Immanuel, God with us. Dear Susan, looking up, said, "Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I. "

After invoking the blessing of God, and refreshing ourselves from ourlittle store, our friends wandered away by themselves, and left us toenjoy the opportunity for prayer, which we supposed they also sought inwithdrawing from us. 

As they returned, the father had the little boy on his two hands, and, approaching me, he looked up to the cascade, and said, "'See, here iswater; what doth hinder me to be baptized?'"

I was at no loss to understand the quotation and the request. 

"Would you like to have the little one baptized here?" said I. 

"We should, " they both exclaimed. "We are going into a destitute placeat the West, and there is no church, you tell us, within several milesof where we expect to live. It is very uncertain about our being able toprocure baptism for the child there; and where could we enjoy theordinance more, or make it more impressive upon our hearts, than here, so long as we have no house of God, which we remember, however, from'the hill Mizar'?"

I told them that the experience of Philip and the eunuch, in the desert, was, just as likely as not, the same as ours. "See, here is water. " Theprobability of its being a road-side spring, in a rock, or out of theearth, was greater than of its being a pool in the desert, large enoughto immerse a man in it, leaving out of view the inconveniences of beingbathed along the way. We have both gone "down out of the chariot, " saidI--(you would have smiled to see our great, strong, muddied wain)--andwe have done what the literal Greek says they did, "went down _to_ thewater;" and when we start, we shall "come up _from_ the water. " But letus read 'the place of the Scripture' which the eunuch was reading whenPhilip joined him. 

Susan took from her bag the blue velvet-covered Bible, which you gaveher, unclasped it, and turned to the fifty-second chapter of Isaiah, atmy request, and began to read. O, how soft and sweet was the sound of afemale voice, repeating words of inspiration in that beautiful, solitaryspot! The Scriptures had not been divided into chapters and verses forthe eunuch, as for us, but we noticed that the last verse of the chapterpreceding "the place of the Scripture which he read, " not divided fromit in his copy of Isaiah, was, "So shall he sprinkle many nations;"which, we thought, proved that the eunuch had had the idea of baptismsuggested to him by those words; and quite as conclusively proving it, as "buried with him in baptism" proves immersion. 

However, being agreed on all these points, we made no long discourseabout them, but dwelt upon the Son of God as the Redeemer of Abraham'sseed, and in whom all the promises of God, including those made toAbraham, are yea, and in him amen. 

I said to my friends, "The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are about towrite their several and joint names on this child's forehead. 

"As a lamb has the owner's mark upon his side, this child is to beclaimed by them, to be brought up for the service and glory of itsredeeming God. 

"You are to give him away, to be disposed of by the Most High. You areto be, for Him, what the mother of Moses was for Pharaoh'sdaughter--nurses to your own child. This dear child lay helpless andexposed, with all of us, to destruction; the Redeemer passed that way;he heard its cries: he had compassion upon it; he saved it from thecondemning sentence of divine justice; and now he calls you, and says, 'Take this child, and bring it up for me, and I will give thee thywages. ' He does not commit the child to church, nor pastor, norSabbath-school, but to its own father and mother, who may and will availthemselves of all the appointed and the useful helps for its nurture andadmonition in the Lord; but he looks to you, as having the chief andprincipal responsibility, to bring up this child for God. 

"You covenant to lay your plans for this child, so that he may, by thesurest means, live for God. To this end you will pray with him and forhim; teach him what was done for him in baptism, and before, andafterwards; how God was beforehand with him, and was found of him whosought him not. He is to be trained up as a Christian child, with a viewto his early conversion, and your great concern is not to be, how he maypromote his private happiness, or yours, but how he may best serve God. 

"To this end, you will, from the first, watch over all his moralfaculties, and instil into him the principles of truth and uprightness;not letting him run loose among the vanities of the world, and feedupon its miserable, corrupted sentiments, and choose worldly and godlesspersons for his intimate associates, his manners and his habits beinglike a garden which runs to weeds, and his whole nature left to theperils of sin, trusting to some sudden act of conversion to bring himright; but you will rather be diligent to 'fill the water-pots withwater, ' and wait for Christ to turn it into wine. You intend, and youpromise, that you will educate this child from the beginning with allthat strictness of Christian principle which you would expect of himwere he, in his infancy, to be a professing Christian, his duty beingthe same, and, consequently, yours toward him, whether he is regenerateor not, --one and the same law of God being our rule, irrespective ofconditions. 

"In all times of sickness and peril, you are to feel that this child isthe Lord's, to be disposed of by him, without consulting you. If calledto die and leave him, you will remember that you received him from God, that he belonged to God at first, and when he was placed in your care;and that God, who thus has the most perfect claim to him, will perfectthat which concerns him, even if his parents are in the grave. 

"And while you thus covenant with God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, covenant with you, and with the child through you, to be the God of yourseed, affording you special help in training the child, bestowingspecial blessings upon it tending to its spiritual good, having aparticular regard for it as something lent to him, and belonging to you;while, in another sense, it is lent to you, and belongs to him; and heand you are to regard the child agreeably to this beautifultransmutation of ownership and loan. The baptism itself cannot save thechild, any more than the Lord's Supper can save you; but it is among thefirst of means to promote the salvation of the child, not merely throughits effect on you, or its remembered grace and goodness when the childcan be made to appreciate it; but above all, and through all, and inall, it seals that covenant of a covenant-keeping God, assisting yourefforts and those of the child, --that promise, I say, 'I will be hisGod, and he shall be my son. '"

We named the little boy, PHILIP, as a memorial of the road-side baptism. We stood under the shadow of that great rock, and worshipped Abraham'sGod. "Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not. " The voice of prayer was joined by chimesand symphonies from trickling rills, and the freshening breeze in asilver-leaved maple, leaning at an angle of thirty-five degrees, justabove us in the rock, all as quiet as the dear infant's breathing;while, now and then, the sudden flapping and rushing of birds' wingsmade the monotone around us more soothing. 

From a little jet of water, that formed an arc of about an inch, as itburst into life and then disappeared in a great moss-bed, I caught mypalm full, and laid it upon the unconscious head. 

The little hands were suddenly lifted and dropped, as though a slightshock had been experienced, then a smile played round the mouth, and thesleep seemed deeper. 

And will God in very deed dwell on earth? Will the adorable Trinity bepresent at such a scene as this? Present! "All power is given unto me inheaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizingthem in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. "He will not appoint this ordinance, and fail to be present; the God ofredemption is a party to that transaction by which an immortal soul, with an existence commensurate with his own, is consecrated to him byits natural guardians, acting in the place of God, and for the child, and joining them in covenant. 

"Shall we ever forget this?" said the husband to his wife, as we wereriding along that beautiful afternoon. 

"Never, " said she; but she added, sensible woman as she was, "the beautyand sentiment of the place seemed to me nothing, compared with theprivilege of covenanting with God, and having him covenant with us forthe child. After all, " said she, "I would have been glad to have had thebaptism in our little church at home, and to have secured good Mrs. Maberry's prayers, and those of our church, for the child, at itsbaptism. I must write to her, and get her to tell the MaternalAssociation about it, and ask them not to forget little Philip. "

"What would you have named it, " said my wife, "had it been a girl?"

"O, " said she, smiling, "I was thinking on the hill, that, if it hadbeen a girl, I should have called it Candace, for the Ethiopian queen. "

"And Canda, for shortness and sweetness, I suppose, " said her husband, his eyes twinkling and sparkling with love, as he looked at her, andfrom her upon us. 

"He's a sweet little thing, you know he is, " said the mother, buryingher face in the child's bosom, and giving it something between a goodlong smell and a good long kiss, or both; a thing which mothers aloneknow exactly how to do. 

"Suppose, " said I, "that, instead of little Philip, it had been you, sir, and Mrs. Blair, who had needed to be baptized. 

"Here you are, on a journey. You do not know that you will be able toavail yourselves of religious ordinances, in your new home, for a longtime to come; and, besides, regarding baptism not merely as a professionof religion, but as an act of Almighty God, sealing you with hisappointed sign of the covenant, you have strong desires to receive it, here in this 'way unto Gaza, which is desert, ' from my hands. 

"'See, here is water, ' in rich abundance. But, alas! there is no pond, nor pool, no lake, nor river!"

"Even if there were, " said my wife to Mrs. Blair, "I should shudder tohave you venture into untried waters, in this lonely place. Fear, atleast, would prevent any peace of mind, or satisfying enjoyment. "

"'What doth hinder me to be baptized?' you would properly say to me, " Icontinued. "'O, ' my reply could be, 'the water is not in an availableshape. Had we time to scoop out a tank in the earth, or make a stonebaptistery in the rock, then you might be 'buried with him by baptisminto death. ' But it is impossible. This living fountain of waters in themountain, full and overflowing though it be, does not allow of Christianbaptism. Besides, as to suitable apparel, and all the necessaryarrangements for comfort, not to say propriety, --you see that baptism, here is out of the question. '"

"Do you think, " said Mrs. Blair, "that the Head of the church hasappointed any such invariable mode of administering baptism, --one thatcannot be applied in numerous cases?"

I said to her, "I cannot believe it. The genius of Christianity seemsopposed to it. Let all who will, use immersion; we love them still, andrejoice in their liberty, but I cannot agree that it was the NewTestament method. Even had it been, I should expect that the rule wouldbe flexible enough to meet cases of necessity. "

"I was thinking, " said Mr. Blair, "that, at least, four fifths of allthe people of God have gone to heaven unbaptized, if immersion is theonly valid mode of baptism. This is rather a serious thing, if thesolemn words, 'He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved, ' lookonly to baptism by immersion. It seems to me, " he added, "that theprovidence of God would have brought in some great reformation from socalamitous an error in the church, if it were an error. Some Luther, orCalvin, or Knox, or some John Baptist, would have been raised up, as inother emergencies, to bring the church back to her duty. "

"How clearly, " said I, "does that seem to prove that all the people ofGod have, as Paul says, 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism, ' howevervariant their modes of worship and administration may be. "

"How many baptized children, from Christian families, " said my wife, "are gathered together in heaven! I cannot think of them as theunfortunate subjects of a superstitious or corrupt observance, at thehands of the ministers of Jesus, in all ages of the world. There mustseem to them, as they increase in knowledge, a beautiful fitness intheir having had those adorable names inscribed upon them, with God'sown initiatory seal of his covenant. What loving-kindness it must appearto them, that God gave them the ordinance of baptism, and became theirGod! How it will stand out before their minds as a principalillustration of being saved by grace!"

"And then, again, " said Mr. Blair, "think of the millions of children inheaven who were not baptized, --saved, the most of them, from heathen andpagan lands. How 'the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. ' Baptism is not an austere law. There isnothing austere or rigid, in any sense, connected with it; but it makesme think of the water itself, scattered in so many beautiful and pliableforms all over the earth, in fountains, water-falls, dew, rain-drops;and, when it cannot 'stand before His cold, ' it comes down softly uponus, in crystal asteroids and all the geometrical forms of snow. I loveto think that God has associated that beautiful element, the water, withreligion. And now it does not seem accordant with the works and ways ofHim, of whom we say, 'How great is his goodness, how great is hisbeauty, ' to make one obdurate mode of bringing the water in connectionwith us essential to an ordinance, whose element seems everywhere toshun preciseness. "

"Water is certainly a beautiful emblem of open communion, " said one ofthe ladies. "It must be conscious, one would think, of violence done toits ubiquitous nature, to be made the occasion of separating belovedfriends, at the Table whose symbolized Blood has made them one inChrist. "

But we had to part. I told them that my wife and I would certainly besponsors for little Philip, in the best sense; we would make a record ofits history, thus far, among our family memorials; tell our childrenabout him, and charge them in after life to inquire for him, and lose noopportunity of doing him good. Though, as to that, I could not helpsaying, no one knows in this world who will be benefactor orbeneficiary. 

"Our children will always be interested in each other, " said his wife, "for their parents' sake. "

"Can we not sing a hymn?" said the husband. 

We found that our voices made a quartet. Susan was ready with herbeautiful contralto, Mrs. Blair sung the soprano, Mr. Blair the tenor, and I the base. 

THE BAPTISMAL HYMN. 

 "Lord, what our ears have heard, Our eyes delighted trace-- Thy love, in long succession shown, To Zion's chosen race. 

 "Our children thou dost claim, And mark them out for thine; Ten thousand blessings to thy name For goodness so divine. 

 "Thee, let the fathers own, And thee, the sons adore, Joined to the Lord in solemn vows, To be forgot no more. 

 "Thy covenant may they keep, And bless the happy bands Which closer still engage their hearts, To honor thy commands. 

 "How great thy mercies, Lord! How plenteous is thy grace! Which, in the promise of thy love, Includes our rising race. 

 "Our offspring, still thy care, Shall own their fathers' God; To latest times thy blessings share, And sound thy praise abroad. "

We saw them and their baggage on board the wagon that was to take themover to the river; we waved our farewell, and sent our kisses; and, justas they were turning a corner which hid them from our view, the fatherstood up in the wagon, and held little Philip as high as he could (themother, of course, reaching up her arms to hold them both fast), asthough to catch the last benediction. The long, flowing white dress ofthe child gave the picture a waving, vanishing effect, reminding us ofour first sight of the cascade, which, with the whole transaction towhich it gave occasion, has taken a permanent place in our sleeping andwaking dreams. 

Chapter Ninth. 

THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH. 

 Go, now, ye that are men, and serve the Lord. --PHARAOH. 

 We will go with our young, and with our old, with our sons, and with our daughters. --MOSES. 

 Hosanna to the Son of David. --THE CHILDREN IN THE TEMPLE. 

 The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee. --PSALM 102:28. 

The reader will now be introduced, in imagination, to a seat in thewindow of a country parsonage, with honeysuckle-vines trained over anarched lattice-work that spans the window. There are several largemaples in the yard, which is a grass-plot, where six gentlemen areenjoying pleasant conversation, and are seated at their ease, some inchairs, and the rest on a sofa, which, at the suggestion of a kind lady, they had lifted from its place in the parlor to the yard. 

They are all of them pastors of churches, met, for social intercourseand friendly counsel, at the house of one of their number, with theirwives, who are also together by themselves, in a pleasant room on thenorth side of the house, and into whose sayings and doings thesehusbands will, no doubt, be disposed to make, in due time, suitableinquiry. 

Those wonderful little elves, the humming-birds, are frequent visitorsto those honeysuckles, under which I have placed my reader to be alistener. How many vibrations those little wings make in a minute, howso long a bill can have subtractive force sufficient to get anythingfrom the flower, how, when obtained, that product is conveyed to thethroat, and where these creatures build their nests, and whither theymigrate, are questions which will, perhaps, divert attention fromeverything else for a time, especially if the reader has escaped for aseason from a large city, and is one of those who there "dwell incourts. " Perhaps, therefore, he will choose to refresh himself, insilent contemplation, in this arbor; and I will make true report of allthat transpires in the yard. 

One of these pastors, Mr. A. , has been reading to his brethren, fortheir judgment as to the soundness of his views, a sermon, not yetpreached, on the relation of baptized children to the church. We willcall him, and two of the ministers who agreed with his views, by theirinitials, respectively, which consisted of the first three letters ofthe alphabet; while the three who dissented from them had, as initialsto their names, letters remote from these. Neither Messrs. A. , B. , andC. , nor Messrs. R. , S. , and T. , had had any previous concert orcomparison of views on this interesting subject; but they foundthemselves thus arrayed on different sides of the question. 

Omitting the sermon that gave occasion to the discussion which follows, a few lines only will put us in possession of the whole subject. I givethe opening paragraph:

"It is held by all who practise infant baptism, that the children ofbelievers have a peculiar relation to the church. That relation is verygenerally expressed by the word membership. We have treatises, by themost orthodox divines, on the church-membership of the children ofbelievers; which children they freely call members of the Christianchurch; and, in catechisms and confessions of faith, the church ofChrist is declared to consist of such as are in covenant relations withGod, and their offspring. "

The sermon being finished, Mr. R. Was first called upon by the chairman, Mr. C. , for his remarks. The question, as stated by the chairman, was, Are the children of believers, in any sense, members of the church? Ifso, what is it? and, if not, what relation to the church do theysustain?

_Mr. R. _ I presume that brother A. Does not wish us to take up time withcriticisms upon his style. He seeks to know our views with regard to thesubject of the sermon. I am compelled to say, at once, that I differfrom the views expressed by the reader, if he means by the terms, _members_ and _membership_, which he employs, all which they wouldconvey to the majority of hearers. But I noticed that when he, and thoseexcellent men whom he quotes, come to define what they mean by members, and membership, in this connection, they make explanations, andqualifications, and also protestations, showing that no one can be, intheir view, a member of the spiritual, or, what is called the invisible, church of Christ, without repentance and faith. Rightly understood, therefore, they are free from any just imputation of making unscripturalterms of membership in the kingdom of Christ. And, perhaps, when thoseof us who dissent from some of their propositions, fully understand thelimitations which the writers themselves affix to their use of terms, nogreat discrepancy will be found to exist. 

It admits of a question, therefore, in my view, whether the terms_members_ and _membership_, as applied to children, really mean thatwhich these writers themselves intend to convey by them; for certainlythey do not mean all which their readers at first suppose. The terms inquestion require a great deal of explanation, which a term, if possible, ought never to need. And, after all has been said, a wrong impression isconveyed to the minds of many, while opponents gain undue advantage inarguing against that which, for substance, all the friends of infantbaptism cordially maintain. 

If Br. A. Is asked, "In what sense are children members of the church, "he resorts, for illustration, to citizenship, and to the sisterhood inthe church itself, to show how children and females may be members ofthe community, and, in the case of females, may belong to the church, while yet their privileges and functions are limited. So, he says, thechildren of believers are a component part of God's church, not entitledto the use of all its privileges till they are renewed by the Spirit ofGod, yet so related by the sovereign appointment of God to those who aremembers, as to be, in a subordinate sense, a part of the church. 

Could the friends of infant baptism agree on some term, which wouldexpress their common belief with regard to the relation of believers'children to the church, better than _member_, I think it must have ahappy effect in promoting harmony of views and feelings, and take awayfrom others the grounds of several present objections. 

It was here agreed that, instead of the question going round to each inturn, the conversation should be free, subject to the rule of thechairman. 

Mr. A. , the reader, then said that he should be glad to learn from hisBr. R. Precisely what his views were of the relation of baptizedchildren to the church. "Let us see, " he said, "how far we are agreed asto the actual nature of this relation. "

"Well, then, " said Mr. R. , "I will begin with this:

"_They are the children of God's friends_. We all know how God remindsIsrael of their relation to Abraham, his friend, tells them they arebeloved for the fathers' sakes, and he remembers his covenant with thosefriends of his, their fathers, when provoked by the children's sins. Toward the child of one who loves God (not merely a church-member, but afriend of God), I suppose there are affections on the part of God, ofwhich our own feelings toward the child of a dear Christian friend are arepresentation. This love to the child of his friend, I always thought, is the great element in that arrangement of the Most High which we callthe Abrahamic covenant; for he who made us, knew how much a love for ourchildren, on the part of others, draws us together, and what bonds areconstituted and strengthened between men through their children; andthat one great means of promoting love to Him would be, his manifestingspecial love and care for the offspring of those who love him. God has apeople, friends; and the children of such are the children of hisdearly-beloved friends. In this we are all agreed. "

"Certainly, " said Mr. A. , "but you will go further than this, Ipresume. "

_Mr. R. _ Yes, Mr. Chairman. One thing more is true of them:

_They are the principal source of the church's increase_. The selectionof Abraham, with a view to make of his lineage, the banks, within whosedefensive influences grace should find helps in making its way in thisungodly world, had reference, I believe, to that power of hereditaryfamily influence, which has not ceased, and will not cease, to the endof time. It is beautiful and affecting to see that recognition of ourfree agency, and that unwillingness ever to interfere with it, whichleads the Most High to fall in with the principles of our natureestablished by himself, in placing his chief reliance on the naturallove of parents for their offspring to contribute, by far, the largerpart of those who shall be converted. In this arrangement andexpectation do we not find the deep roots of infant baptism? which thusappears to be neither Jewish nor Gentile, but grows out of our natureitself, which also requires, which demands, some rite, a symbolic signand seal. God made the children of Adam partakers with him of his curse;so that the parental and filial relation was, from the beginning made astream to bear along the consequences of the first transgression. Nonew thing, therefore, was instituted when God, in calling Abraham, appointed the parental and filial relation to bear, on its deep andmighty stream, the most powerful means of godliness in all cominggenerations. How little do we think of this, Mr. Chairman, and brethren;how apt we are to neglect this great arrangement of divine providenceand grace, --the perpetuation of the church, chiefly by means of theparental and filial relation. But, if such be the divine appointment, and the children of believers are therefore the most hopeful sources ofthe church's increase, of course they may be said to belong to thechurch, in a peculiar sense, but without being "_members_. "

_Mr. A. _ I think you are coming on very well toward my ground. Icertainly agree with you thus far. 

_Mr. R. _ If I am not taking up too much time, Mr. Chairman, I shouldlike to proceed a little further, in order to do full justice to myviews. If I am found to agree with Br. A. , it will be just as pleasantas though he agreed with me. 

_Chairman. _ Please to proceed. Two things which are equal to the samething, are equal to each other. 

_Mr. R. _ I will, then, say, once more:

_The children of believers are the subjects of preeminent privileges andblessings. _ Special promises are made to them from love to theirparents; great advantages are theirs, directly and indirectly, fromtheir relation to those who are the true worshippers of God;forbearance, long suffering, the remembrance of consecrations and vows, prevail with God, oftentimes, in their behalf when they have brokentheir father's commandment and forsaken the law of their mother. Nowords of tenderness, in any relation of life, --said Mr. R. , turning tothe Psalms, --surpass those, in which are described the feelings of Godtoward the rebellious sons of Abraham: "But he, being full ofcompassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not; yea, many atime turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath. " "Forhe remembered his holy promise, and Abraham his servant. " God stillremembers Abraham, his servant, in the person of every father and motherwho loves him, and is steadfast in his covenant; and "the generation ofthe upright shall be blessed. " Mistakes in family government, growingout of wrong principles, too great reliance upon future conversion, andthe neglect of that moral training which is essential to the bestdevelopment of religious character, and, indeed, without which religiouscharacter is often a melancholy distortion, or sadly defective, may befollowed by their natural consequences; and we cannot complain, --for Godworks no miracle, nor turns aside any great law, in favor of ourmisconduct; yet it remains true that all who love and serve him, andcommand their children and households to fear the Lord, enforcing it inall the proper ways of government, discipline, example, and the rightobservance of religious ordinances, public and private, may expectpeculiar blessings upon their offspring. 

One of the youngest of the company, the father of one young child, hereinquired, if the speaker would have us infer that the conversion of suchchildren is to be looked for as a matter of course. 

_Mr. R. _ Ordinarily, they will grow up in the nurture and admonition ofthe Lord, to be followers of Christ; the proportion of persons baptizedon admission to the church, will become small; a healthful tone ofreligious feeling will pervade our churches; less and less reliance willbe placed on startling measures, on splendid talents, on novelties, topromote the cause of religion; but Christian families will extend likethe cultivated fields of different proprietors, whose green andflowering hedges, instead of stone walls, mingle all into one landscape. "And the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect ofrighteousness, quietness and assurance forever. " "And my people shalldwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quietresting-places. " "And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, andgreat shall be the peace of thy children. " Such, I believe, is sure tobe the manner of the church's prosperity, and therefore the children whoare to be the subjects of these inestimable blessings must be said, insome sense, to _belong_ to the church, they being the objects of specialregard with the church and with God. Br. A. Agrees with me in all this, I presume. 

_Mr. A. _ Entirely; or, rather, you agree with me. 

"Now, Br. A. , " said an earnest man of the company, --who, however, immediately checked himself, and bowed to Mr. R. , and said, "I dare say, Mr. Chairman, that Br. R. Was going to put the very question which Iintended to ask. "

_Mr. R. _ Proceed, Br. S. I owe an apology for speaking so much. 

_Mr. S. _ Will Br. A. , Mr. Chairman, please to tell us why he feelsobliged to call these children "_members_ of the church?"

For, we all know, that, notwithstanding all these glorious things, whichare spoken of them, to which Br. A. Has also referred, not one baptizedchild of a true believer can be, really, a member of the church, inregular standing, till he, like the unbaptized heathen convert, hasrepented of his sins and believed on the Lord Jesus. All the promisesand privileges appertaining to his relationship as a child of abeliever, promote, and make more certain, his repentance and faith; andtherefore, if asked, "What profit, then, hath circumcision, and itssubstitute, infant baptism?" we can reply, "Much every way;" but itnever stood, and never can stand, in the place of justification by freegrace through the personal exercise of faith in the Redeemer. 

_Mr. C. _ But I wish to ask, in the name of Br. A. , and for my own sake, what objection there is to retaining the name, _member_, in thisconnection?

_Mr S. _ My answer is, it is the occasion of great stumbling to those whoreject infant baptism, and are confirmed in rejecting it, bymisapprehending the views and feelings of many who use the term in anobjectionable sense. 

The discussion now became animated. Mr. S. Said that he had a furtherobjection. It leads many, who use it erroneously, into perplexing andfruitless positions. Assuming that the children are members of thechurch, they discuss the question, as the sermon has stated, Of whatchurch are they members? Some reply, Of the church to which theirparents belong. Others say nay, but of the church universal. Then theyfeel it incumbent upon them to provide some means of discipline forthese so-called members. In case they grow up, and neglect to come withtheir parents to the Lord's Supper, must they not be disciplined? Someinsist that discipline, in some of its forms, must be administered, and, in certain cases, excommunication must take place. 

_Mr. T. _ I know it, and I wonder at it. I should like to ask, who hasdeputed to any church the power to say when the divine forbearance witha child of the covenant has come to an end? Does it terminate at the ageof twenty-one in the case of male children, and at eighteen in the caseof females? David, when a full-grown man, plead the covenant of God withhis mother: "O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and theson of thine handmaid. " Or, does it cease on the child's leaving theparental roof for another place of residence? Or, on entering upon themarried state? Or, upon the commission of some great act of outwardtransgression, shall we pronounce the covenant to be dissolved? Do wenot see that we are meddling with a divine prerogative, if we assume toact in such cases? Expostulations, warnings, entreaties, from parents, pastor, brethren of the church, may always be in place; but further thanthese we cannot proceed. 

"Perhaps, too, " said Mr. R. , "if discipline were to fall anywhere, itmight more justly descend on the parents of such a child. "

_Mr. T. _ The seeming mockery of a church punishing a youth for theneglect of that which he himself never promised to do, would mostlikely have the effect to drive him to a returnless distance from thechurch, extinguishing the last ray of hope as to his conversion. A fitparallel to such proposed church-discipline of children, is found in thepractice, which was not uncommon, twenty-five years ago, in a region ofour country where great religious excitements prevailed for some time, when it was publicly recommended, in preaching and from the press, thatparents who had labored in vain for the conversion of children, should, in certain cases, punish them, to make them submit to God. 

_Mr. D. _ Is it possible?

_Mr. T. _ Yes, sir; and the records of those times furnish instances inwhich this was done. Of such means of grace, I am happy to say, we haveno such custom, neither the churches of God. 

_Mr. S. _ Nor shall we probably ever see young people disciplined by thechurches, for not repenting and believing the Gospel. It is insisted onas theoretically proper, but they have never ventured to carry it out inpractice. 

Mr. C. , the chairman, said, "Brethren, there is strong authority infavor of the sermon. Since you have been talking, I have been lookingover Dr. Hopkins's works, to find this passage, which, if you please, Iwill read. Dr. Hopkins says:

"Though under the milder dispensation of the Gospel, no one is to be putto death for rejecting Christ and the Gospel, even though he were beforethis a member of the visible church, yet he is to be cut off, and castout of the visible kingdom of Christ. And every child in the church, whogrows up in disobedience to Christ, and, in this most important concern, will not obey his parents, is thus to be rejected and cut off, after allproper means are used by his parents, and the church, to reclaim him, and bring him to his duty. Such an event will be viewed by Christianparents as worse than death, and is suited to be a constant, strongmotive to concern, prayer, and fidelity, respecting their children, andtheir education; and it tends to have an equally desirable effect uponchildren, and must greatly impress the hearts of those who are in anydegree considerate and serious. "

Again: "When the children arrive at an age in which they are capable ofacting for themselves in matters of religion, and making a profession oftheir adherence to the Christian faith, and practice, and coming to theLord's Supper, if they neglect and refuse to do this, and act contraryto the commands of Christ in any other respect, all proper means are tobe used, and methods taken, to bring them to repentance, and to do theirduty as Christians, and, if they cannot be reclaimed, but continueimpenitent and unreformed, they are to be rejected and cast out of thechurch, as other adult members are who persist in disobedience toChrist. "[8]

[Footnote 8: Hopkins's Works (1852), vol. Ii. , pp. 158, 176. ]

"Such words, from such a source, " said Mr. C. , "are entitled to greatconsideration. "

"But, " said Mr. S. , "here is a passage from his own theologicalinstructor, President Edwards:

"It is asked, ' he says, 'why these children, that were born in thecovenant, are not cast out when, in adult age, they make no profession. 'He replies, 'They are not cast out, because it is a matter held insuspense whether they do cordially consent to the covenant or not; orwhether their making no profession does not arise from some other cause;and none are to be excommunicated without some positive evidence againstthem. '"

"My dear sir, " said Mr. A. , "Mr. Edwards is there speaking of those whomerely refuse to own the covenant, without being guilty of scandaloussin. "

_Mr. S. _ It is evident, nevertheless, that Hopkins goes further than he, and requires that those who, at years of full responsibility, refuse toown the covenant, shall be cut off. Modern writers on this subject, while insisting on the church-membership of children, draw back fromthis position, and are more in harmony with what, it seems to me, may besaid to be the general sense of the churches on this subject. I feelglad, when reading such passages as those from Hopkins, that we haveliberty of opinion, and are not compelled to swear by the words of anymaster. I bow to such a divine as Dr. Hopkins, but he fails to satisfyme that he is right in these views of church-discipline for children. 

Mr. R. , who was the oldest man of the company, now returned to thediscussion, and said: "It is clear that one cannot be dispossessed ofthat which he never possessed, except as in the case of a minor, who mayhave his claim to a future possession wrested from him. Of what is achild of the covenant, allowing him to be, while a child, a member ofthe church, --of what is he in possession? Not of full communion, not ofaccess to the Lord's table, not of the right to a voice in the call andsettlement of a pastor, nor in any other church act. From what, then, ishe turned out by being cut off? He has never arrived at anything fromwhich he can be separated, except the covenant of God with him throughhis parents, and its attendant privileges of watch and care. If, then, we excommunicate an unconverted child, we can only declare the covenantof God with him, henceforth, to be null and void, --an assumption fromwhich, probably, Christian parents and ministers would shrink. The samelong-suffering God, who bears and forbears with ourselves, we shall bedisposed to feel, is the God of this recreant child, and no good manwould dare to pronounce the child to be separated from the mercies of'the God of patience and hope. ' One who, being in a church, breaks acovenant to which he assented, may be a just subject for discipline, even to excommunication; but, all the promises of God to the child beingwholly free, conditioned, at first, upon his parents' relation to God, all the disability which the child seems capable of receiving, is, thatthe promises made to him he must fail, by his own fault, to receive. Who will declare even his prospect of their fulfilment to be terminatedat any given time? Much more, who will undertake to divest him of thingswhich he never had? The church-membership, from which you profess toexpel him, does not yet exist in his case; he has not reached it. Allthe church-membership of which, if any, he has been possessed, is, hishopeful relation to God and his people through a parent. Toexcommunicate a child from this would be a strange procedure. "

_Mr. A. _ That is the strongest thing which I have heard on that side. Imust confess (said he, rising and leaning against one of the maples)that I am a little staggered. 

But Mr. B. Came to reinforce his faltering brother. 

"Here, " said he, "is the Cambridge Platform. You will all be willing tohear from that source. "

"Let us hear, " said two or three voices. 

Mr. B. Read as follows:

"The like trial (examination) is to be required from such members of thechurch as were born in the same, or received their membership, and werebaptized in their infancy or minority, by virtue of the covenant oftheir parents, when, being grown up unto years of discretion, they shalldesire to be made partakers of the Lord's Supper; unto which, becauseholy things must not be given to the unworthy, therefore it is requisitethat these, as well as others, should come to their trial andexamination, and manifest their faith and repentance by an openprofession thereof before they are received to the Lord's Supper, andotherwise not to be admitted thereunto. Yet those church-members thatwere so born, or received in their childhood, before they are capable ofbeing made partakers of full communion, have many privileges whichothers, not church-members, have not; they are in covenant with God, have the seal thereof upon them, namely, baptism; and so, if notregenerated, yet are in a more hopeful way of attaining regeneratinggrace, and all the spiritual blessings both of the covenant and seal;they are also under church-watch, and consequently subject to thereprehensions, admonitions, and censures thereof, for their healing andamendment, as need shall require. "[9]

[Footnote 9: Cambridge Platform, chap. Iii. 7. ]

_Mr. R. _ Now, please, Br. B. , what does all that prove?

_Mr. B. _ Why, it proves that, in the judgment of the Cambridge Platform, the children of church-members are members of the churches. 

_Mr. R. _ It shows that the Cambridge Platform calls them members; but itgives us no proof that they are properly called members. A great deal inthat extract, I undertake to say, will command the cordial assent of allwho practise infant baptism, if we except the use of the term members. It shows that, as to coming into the company of true believers, andbeing one of them, the only way is through repentance and faith, --a waycommon to the unbaptized. The only advantage, but one which isexceedingly great and precious on the part of the believer's children, being, that they "have many privileges, " and "are in a more hopeful wayof attaining regenerating grace. " But the term membership does notexpress their relation to the church before they are converted. 

_Mr. B. _ (After a pause. ) I do not know but you are right. 

Mr. C. , the remaining advocate of the sermon, said, "Let me refreshyour memories with the famous case quoted in Morton's New EnglandMemorial. He says:

"'The two ministers there (Salem, 1629), being seriously studious ofreformation, they considered the state of their children, together withtheir parents, concerning which letters did pass between Mr. Higginson(of Salem) and Mr. Brewster, the reverend elder of the church ofPlymouth; and they did agree in their judgments, namely, concerning thechurch-membership of the children with their parents, and that baptismwas a seal of their membership; only, when they were adult, they beingnot scandalous, they were to be examined by the church officers, andupon their approbation of their fitness, and upon the children's publicand personally owning of the covenant, they were to be received unto theLord's Supper. Accordingly, Mr. Higginson's eldest son, being aboutfifteen years of age, was owned to have been received a member togetherwith his parents, and being privately examined by the pastor, Mr. Skelton (the other minister of Salem), about his knowledge in theprinciples of religion, he did present him before the church when theLord's Supper was to be administered, and, the child then publicly andpersonally owning the covenant of the God of his father, he was admittedunto the Lord's Supper, it being there professedly owned, according to 1Cor. 7:14, that the children of the church are holy unto the Lord, aswell as their parents. '"

Mr. R. Stood up, and, with an animated look and manner, but with a verypleasant voice, said:

"What, now, my good brother, did these good ministers do, with thisyouth, more or less than we all do for the children of our pastoralcharge?

"Of what practical use was his so-called infant 'church-membership, ' inaddition to his being, as we all hold, a child of the covenant?"

They made no reply for a little while, till at last Mr. A. Said:

"Well, Br. R. , what names would you substitute for _members_ and_membership_?"

_Mr. R. _ "THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH;" for you have it in the lastsentence of the extract which you read from Morton;--the true, the mostappropriate, and, in every respect, the best name for those who are soambiguously called _members_. 

_Mr. B. _ There is great beauty and sweetness in that name, Iconfess, --"the children of the church, " "the church's children. "

_Mr. R. _ A father never, except for concealment, says, "a member of myfamily, " when "a child" is meant. The term _members_, besides beingequivocal, and requiring explanation, is not so good as "children of thechurch, " an expression which includes and covers all that any wouldclaim for "infant church-members. "

_Mr. C. _ I confess, I like Br. R. 's views and proposition. If, bycalling the offspring of believers, "the children of the church, " we, byimplication, abridged any of their privileges, or if, by calling themchurch-members, we believed that they acquired rights and privileges nototherwise appertaining to them, we ought to prefer the words member andmembership; but it is not so. No one of the writers cited, --and theproofs we all know could be extended by quoting from otherauthors, --claims the right of a child to full communion, except uponevidence, in his "trial and examination, " that he is regenerate. Indeed, the only use to which the terms member and membership seem to beapplied, is, in furnishing some ground for urging the discipline andexcommunication of the child. This, though urged by some, is urged invain. 

_Mr. R. _ Other terms, in connection with members and membership, havebeen proposed, such as members in minority, members in suspension, future members; but all in vain. The children of believers are certainlythe children of the church, and such I devoutly hope and pray they maycome to be called. 

_Mr. A. _ Seeing that the use of the term _member_ keeps before our mindsa theoretical, hard necessity, from which every one shrinks, I think Iwill alter my sermon so far as to dismiss the term, and, with it, allsense of inconsistency in neglected obligations as to disciplining theseyoung "members. "

"Well, Br. A. , " said Mr. B. , "I will join you in submission. "

"So will I, " said Mr. C. "How good it is to be convinced, and to give upone's own will; is it not?"

"It ought to be, " said Mr. A. , "to those whose great business it is topreach submission. But I think we did not differ at first, except as tothe use of terms. "

_Mr. T. _ I wish to make a confession. Though I have always been of Br. R. 's opinion, I have felt it to be invidious, and, for several reasons, disagreeable, to call a meeting of "the children of the church, "--makinga distinction between them and the other children of my pastoral charge. Am I correct in such views and feelings?

"Come, Mr. Chairman, " said Mr. A. , "we have not paid you sufficientdeference, I fear; for we have hardly kept order, in addressing oneanother, and not through you. Now, please to speak for us, and tell uswhat you think of Br. T. 's difficulty. "

_Mr. C. _ I have sinned with you, as to keeping order, if there has beenany transgression; but I have been so much interested and instructed, that I forgot my preëminence over you. But to Br. T. , I would say, Thereis a church; and it means something, and something of infiniteimportance. All our labors have this for their end, to make menqualified for worthy church-membership, on earth, and in heaven, --theconditions of admission here and there, as we hold, being essentiallythe same. This church, which we thus build up, has children, call themwhat we may, the objects of God's peculiar love. On that topic I neednot dwell. We ought to pay some marks of special regard to thesechildren, for God has done so. As to its being invidious, it is not moreinvidious than to address our congregations as partly Christians, andpartly unconverted; or to invite the unconverted to meetings especiallydesigned for them. Meetings of the children of my church, called by me, and addressed by me, never fail to make very deep impressions upon theyoung, upon their parents, upon other children, and upon the parents ofthose children. Another form of effecting the same desirable ends, is, to call meetings of parents in the church, and their children, and toaddress the parents and the children in sight and hearing of each other. In doing so, if there are any parents in the church who are withholdingtheir children from baptism, we have the best of opportunities toconciliate their feelings to the ordinance of baptism. We all know howlittle is effected in our minds by abstract reasoning upon any subject, where the feelings are deeply concerned; close argument, invinciblelogic, absolute demonstrations, and all measures seemingly intended tocoërce the will, excite resistance, and confirm us in our prejudices. But open to a parent, who has doubts on the subject, its inestimablebenefits to all concerned, and he will be more disposed to see thegrounds for it, and the abundant proofs of its divine authority, whichthe atmosphere of pure reason had not sufficient power of refraction tomake him apprehend. 

_Mr. S. _ I thank the chairman heartily for those remarks. May I add aleaf from my observation? I have noticed that in such meetings ofparents, in the church, and their children, good influences sometimesreach those who are pursuing the mistaken course of withholding theirchildren from baptism, under the plea that they can consecrate theirchildren to God as well without baptism, as with it. They need to learnthe spiritual power which God has vested in the sacraments of his ownappointment, and to be disabused of the notion that the baptism of achild is, from beginning to end, merely a human act, of which God isonly a spectator;--they need to feel that baptism is something conferredupon a child by God; and not merely a sign, but a seal. 

"Yes, " said Mr. R. , "it is an ordinance of God, and the neglect of it isnot merely a failure to obtain blessings, but a disregard of a divineordinance; not merely the withholding a sign of allegiance, but the lossof a seal, --the government seal, not ours, which God would affix to theintercourse between himself and our souls. If we, pastors, feel thisdeeply, and so perceive the design of God in bestowing baptism upon thechildren of his people, we shall convey to the hearts and minds ofdoubting Christian parents, persuasive influences, which will succeedwhere arguments and appeals, based on mere proofs and obligations, havefailed. "

_Mr. A. _ It is gratifying, now, to think that these things, and otherslike them, may be done without calling the children "members of thechurch. " Except discipline, it is obvious that everything in the way ofwatchfulness may be done for them as children of the church, which itwould be proper, or even possible to do, if they were counted asmembers. 

_Mr. R. _ I am aware of the analogy which many, who plead for the termmembers, seek to carry out between the Old and the New Testament church, making children members of the Christian church, because the church inancient days included the children. But it seems to me that there isthe same difference, now and formerly, between the relation of childrento the church, that there is between the relation of the whole religiouscommunity, now and formerly, to the church of God. Formerly, all themembers of the religious community were, by their association under thesame belief and worship, members of the church. To make the case with usparallel, our whole Christian community ought to be members of thechurch. No examination or discrimination should be used; to belong tothe Christian community should constitute church-membership. 

But this, we know, is not the case. God chooses now to make up hisvisible church not as formerly, but of those who give credible evidenceof regeneration. They who worship with us, but do not profess to beChristians, are hopeful subjects of effort and prayer, whom we expect toreceive hereafter to the visible church, on profession of their faith. 

As the Christian church is constituted differently from the Jewishchurch, in this respect, discrimination and separation taking placebetween the members of a Christian congregation, have we not analogicalreason to infer that it may also be thus with regard to children?--whoonce, indeed, were members of the church of God, but, under thedispensation of the Spirit, they fall, with other unconverted members ofthe congregation, out of membership in the church. 

_Mr. C. _ And yet, Br. R. , the fall is not far, nor hurtful. They areentitled to all the privileges, and they enjoy, or should enjoy, all thecare and effort, which they would have under a different name. Only theydo not come to the Lord's Supper, as a matter of course, as they did tothe Passover. 

_Mr. S. _ Suppose that the legislature should incorporate a fish-market, and cede to the proprietors fifteen square miles of the sea, withinwhich they should have the privilege of taking fish. All the fish, within those fifteen miles of salt water, might be said to _belong_ tothe market; yet every one of them must be taken by hook and line ere hisbelonging to the market is of any practicable value. So the children ofthe church may be said to belong to the church, and are to constituteher chief resource. Rivers, and other distant or neighboring waters, would also send fish to that market, even if they were "far off;" but itis from the bay at her doors that the market would derive her principalsupplies. I do not see that children are members of the church, anyfurther than those fishes belong to that market. Go there when you will, you see the stalls filled from those adjacent waters; supplies arecontinually coming in; they are, in a sense, secured to the market by acovenant; yet every fish is caught and handled, before he has anythinglike membership in that market, as really as though he swam and werecaught in Baffin's Bay;--only he is now far more likely to be caught, and, in a sense, he already belongs to the market by the seal of thestate. 

Mr. A. , the reader of the sermon, not having much ideality, but muchplain good sense, yet taking everything literally at first, and from hisown honesty supposing that all figures of speech are to be cashed, as itwere, for what they purport on their face, immediately challenged hisbrother to carry out the illustration. He asked him whether the constantpassage, in and out, of fishes from and beyond the ceded fifteen miles, allowed of any resemblance, in the migratory creatures, to the childrenof the church, who are born and remain in the limits of the church, andare designated, individually, by virtue of their parentage. 

Mr. S. Replied, that he did not mean to make a comparison to satisfy allthe points of the case, and he hoped that the brethren would take itwith due allowance. 

Mr. T. Said that he had thought of this illustration: "All the youngmale children of the Levites might be said to be members of thepriesthood. They certainly 'belonged' to the priesthood. But no one ofthem could officiate till he had complied with certain conditions, norif he was the subject of certain disabilities. He believed that thechildren of God's people have, by the grace of God, as really apresumptive relation, by future membership, to the church of Christ, asan infant Levite boy had to sacred offices; prayer, with the child, aswell as for it, and faithful training, with a spiritual use of God'sappointed ordinances, constitute, he was persuaded, as good reason tohope that the child of a true believer will become a Christian, andthat, too, early in life, as that the young son of Levi would ministerin the levitical office. "

"O, " said Mr. B. , "how many cases there are which seem to disprovethat. You will be obliged to reflect severely on some good people asparents, if you take so strong ground. "

_Mr. T. _ I do not despair of a child whose parents, or parent, hasreally covenanted with God for him, even though the child be long awanderer from the fold. 

But it is the same now with Abraham's spiritual seed as it was with hisnatural posterity, --neglect on the part of parents may work a forfeitureof the covenant promises; failure in family government, above allthings, may frustrate every good influence which would otherwise havehad a powerful effect in the conversion of the child. The sons of Eliwere not well governed; Esau was evidently of an undisciplined spirit. With regard to the children of several good men, in the Bible, it may beinferred, that the public engagements of the fathers hindered them frombestowing needful attention upon their sons. The only thing derogatoryto the prophet Samuel, of which we are informed, is, that his sons werevile. With regard to certain cases of mournful wickedness, on the partof the children of eminently good men, it will be found that some ofthese men, occupying, perhaps, important stations of a public nature, such as the Christian ministry, were so engrossed in their public dutiesas not to give sufficient time and attention to their own families;which is a great shame and folly in any father of a family. In vain dowe plead the covenant promises, if we neglect covenant duties. Grace isnot hereditary in any sense that compromises our free agency; itssubjects are born "not of blood;" there are many of the children of thekingdom who will be cast out into outer darkness, but among them, we mayventure to say, will not be found those whose parents diligently soughttheir moral and religious culture in the exercise of a strict, judicious, affectionate, prayerful, watch and care, praying with them insecret, which, it seems to me, is, perhaps, the most powerful of all themeans which a parent can use to influence the moral and religiouscharacter of a child. 

"Is it not a mournful inconsistency, " said Mr. R. , "for us to belaboring and spending our strength and lives for the conversion andsalvation of others, and not be equally zealous for the souls of thechildren whom God has given us?"

_Mr. C. _ Our habits of seclusion and study may operate to make usreserved, moody, and so repulsive, to our own children. We ought to beinterested in their every-day affairs, and watch for opportunities toform their opinions, on moral as well as religious subjects, and be askind and assiduous to them, certainly, as we endeavor to be to otherchildren. 

 * * * * *

What more could these good men have said, with regard to the subject, had they concluded to adopt the terms "member" and "membership, " toexpress the relation of children to the church? They were not consciousof omitting or diminishing one privilege or blessing to which thechildren of the church are entitled; everything which the most strenuousadvocates of "infant church-membership, " so called, mention as accruingto them, they claimed in their behalf. Did infant church-membershipadmit to the Lord's Supper, as it did to the passover, the childrenwould now, with propriety, be said to be "members of the church. " But, inasmuch as, under the Christian dispensation, they cannot come to thesacrament which distinguishes between the regenerate and theunregenerate, without a change of heart, they, and all those who areassociated with the church in general acts of worship, and in Christianprivileges, but are not converted persons, are, alike, under theChristian system, removed from outward membership--only, that thechildren of the church have privileges and promises which go far toincrease the probability of their future church-membership, and directlyto prepare them for that sacred relation. 

"THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH, " then, is the sufficient name by which itseems desirable that the children of believers should be designated. And, instead of using the term "church-membership, " applied to them, weshall include everything which is properly theirs, we shall losenothing, we shall prevent great misunderstanding, and liability toperversion, by substituting the "Relation of Baptized Children to theChurch, " whenever we wish to express the peculiar and most preciousconnection which they hold, in the arrangements of divine grace, withthe covenant people of God. 

Chapter Tenth. 

MATERNAL ASSOCIATIONS. 

 The mother, in her office, holds the key Of the soul; and she it is who stamps the coin Of character, and makes the being, who would be a savage But for her gentle cares, a Christian man. --Then, crown her Queen o' the world. 

 OLD PLAY. 

The pastors now adjourned their session under the maples, and repairedto the room where their wives were sitting. The ladies had finishedtheir deliberations, and had been strolling in the woods. But they, too, had been engaged, like their husbands, in conversation about theirchildren, and the children of the church. "Maternal Associations" hadbeen the chief topic. They had discussed their advantages, and hadconsidered objections to them. The result was, that they had unanimouslyagreed to promote such associations in their respective churches. Theirinfluence on young mothers, in helping them to train their children, affording them the results of experience gained by others; the privilegeof stating difficult and trying cases for advice, of praying togetherfor their children, of having those mothers, during the intervals oftheir monthly meetings, pray for the children of their sisters, andsometimes, specially, for a child in peculiar need of prayer, commendedthese associations to their judgment and affections. One lady referredto the possible disclosure of family secrets, at such meetings, which itwas unpleasant to hear, and to the undesirableness of revealing thefaults of a child. They agreed that these things should never be done, and that it was easy to avoid them by employing a friend, if necessary, to state the case, hypothetically, so as to conceal its connection withany member of the circle. The ladies had gone so far as to adopt alittle manual, for their respective circles, which they submitted totheir husbands for criticism. One of the gentlemen read it, as follows:

"MATERNAL ASSOCIATIONS. 

"Maternal Associations are designed for mutual instruction andconsultation, in connection with united prayer. Subjects for reading anddiscussion relate chiefly to the physical, mental, moral, and religioustraining of children. Some individual is usually prepared at eachmeeting to give method and tone to the conversation, which mightotherwise become desultory. The faults of children who are known to themembers are _not_ made the subject of remark; but cases of difficultyare so presented as to avoid individual exposure. Associations conductedon these principles are found to be greatly beneficial. 

"CONSTITUTION OF----CHURCH MATERNAL ASSOCIATION. 

"Impressed with a sense of our entire dependence upon the Holy Spirit toaid us in training up our children in the way they should go, and hopingto obtain the blessing of such as fear the Lord and speak often to oneanother, we, the subscribers, do unitedly pledge ourselves to meet atstated seasons for prayer and mutual counsel in reference to ourmaternal duties and responsibilities. With a view to this object, weadopt the following constitution:

"ARTICLE I. This circle shall be called the 'Maternal Associationof----Church;' any member of which, sustaining the maternal relation, may become a member by subscribing this constitution. Other individuals, sustaining the same relation, may be admitted to membership by a vote oftwo thirds of the members present. 

"ART. II. The monthly meetings of this Association shall be held onthe----of the month. 

"ART. III. The quarterly meetings in January, April, July, and October, shall be held on the last Wednesday of the month, when the members shallbe allowed to bring to the place of meeting such of their children asmay be under the age of twelve years, and they shall be consideredmembers of the Association. The exercises at these meetings shall besuch as shall seem best calculated to instruct the minds and interestthe feelings of the children who may be present. 

"ART. IV. At each quarterly meeting there shall be a small contributionby the children for benevolent purposes. 

"ART. V. The time appropriated for each meeting shall not exceed onehour and a half, and shall be exclusively devoted to the object of theAssociation. Every monthly meeting shall be opened by prayer and readinga portion of Scripture, which may be followed by reading such othermatter as relates to the interests of the Association, or byconversation tending to promote maternal faithfulness and piety. Theseexercises may be interspersed with singing the songs of Zion, and withhumble and importunate prayer, that God would glorify himself in theearly conversion of the children of the Association, that they maybecome eminently useful in the church of Christ. It is desirable thatthe last meeting in the year be spent in reading the Scriptures and inprayer. 

"ART. VI. Every member of the Association shall be considered assacredly bound to pray _for_ her children daily, and _with_ them asoften as circumstances will permit; and to give them from time to timethe best religious instruction of which she is capable. 

"ART. VII. It shall be the duty of every member to qualify herself, bydaily reading, prayer, and self-discipline, to discharge faithfully thearduous duties of a Christian mother; and she shall be requested to givewith freedom such hints upon the various subjects brought before theAssociation as her own observation and experience may suggest. 

"ART. VIII. When any mother is removed by death, it shall be thespecial duty of the Association to regard with peculiar interest thespiritual welfare of her children, and to evince this interest by acontinued remembrance of them in their prayers, by inviting them toattend quarterly meetings, and by such tokens of sympathy and kindnessas their circumstances may render proper. 

"ART. IX. Every child, upon leaving the Association, at the prescribedage, shall receive a book from the mothers, as a token of theiraffection, to be accompanied by a letter, expressive of the deepinterest felt in their temporal and spiritual welfare. 

"ART. X. The officers of the Association shall be a 'First Directress, 'a 'Second Directress, ' a 'Secretary, ' and a 'Corresponding Secretary, 'who shall be appointed annually in September. 

"ART. XI. The duty of the First Directress shall be to preside at allmeetings, call upon the members for devotional exercises, and regulatethe reading. In the absence of the First Directress, these duties shalldevolve upon the Second Directress. 

"ART. XII. It shall be the duty of the Secretary to register the namesof the members, and of their children, and to supply each of the motherswith a list of the same, together with a copy of the constitution. Sheshall also keep a record of the proceedings of each meeting, and, as faras may be convenient, of the topic discussed, and of the remarkselicited by it. This record shall be read at the commencement of thenext subsequent meeting. She shall likewise receive the contributions ofthe children, keep an account of the same, and pay it according to thevote of the Association. 

"ART. XIII. It shall be the duty of the Corresponding Secretary to writethe letters addressed to the children upon leaving the Association, toconduct the general correspondence, receive the contributions from themothers, and purchase the books to be given to the children. 

"ART. XIV. Any article of this constitution may be amended by a majorityof the members present at any annual meeting. 

"It is recommended to the members of the Association to observe theanniversary of the birth of each child in special prayer, withparticular reference to that child. May He who giveth liberally, andupbraideth not, ever preside in our meetings, and grant unto each of usa teachable, affectionate, and humble temper, that no root of bitternessmay spring up to prevent our improvement, or interrupt our devotions. The promise is to us and to our children; we have publicly given them upto God; his holy name has been pronounced over them; let us see to itthat we do not cause this sacred name to be treated with contempt. MayChrist put his own spirit within us, that our children may never haveoccasion to say, '_What do ye more than others?_'"

 * * * * *

No criticism was made upon this production, but the pastors commendedit, and rejoiced in the good which an increased attention to the subjectwould be sure to accomplish. They promised to preach on the subject, and, in their pastoral visits, to encourage mothers in the churches tojoin the Associations. 

One of the ladies said that she had a paper, which she had thought bestto read, if the company pleased, when they were all together, and shehad therefore reserved it until the gentlemen came in. 

It was a paper in the handwriting of a Christian friend, which was foundin her copy of the "Articles and Covenant" of her church, after herdecease. This lady had been in the habit, as it seemed, of reading overthose articles and the covenant, on the Sabbath when the Lord's Supperwas to be administered; and the religious education of her children, being identified with her most sacred thoughts and moments, she readthese questions at the same time. 

The lady who read them said that it was proposed by some to append themto the little manual already presented for Maternal Associations. 

 * * * * *

"QUESTIONS TO BE THOUGHT UPON. 

"1. Have I so prayed for my children as that my prayer produced aneffect upon myself?

"2. Have I realized that to train my children for usefulness and heavenis probably the chief duty God requires of me?

"3. Have I realized that, if I cannot eradicate an evil habit, probablyno one else can or will?

"4. Have I granted to-day, from indulgence, what I denied yesterday fromprinciple?

"5. Have I yielded to importunity in altering a decision deliberatelymade?

"6. Have I punished the beginning of an evil habit?

"7. Have I suffered the indulgence of an evil habit through sloth ordiscouragement?

"8. Have calmness and seriousness marked my looks, tones, and voice, when inflicting punishment?

"9. Was my convenience, or the guilt of the child, the measure of itspunishment?

"10. Has punishment been sufficiently private, and have I tried toaffect the mind more than the body?

"11. Do my children see in me a self-command which is the effect ofprinciple?

"12. Have I, in my plans, my heart, and conduct, sought first for mychildren the kingdom of God?

"13. Have I commended God to my children, and my children to God?

"14. Have I aimed to govern my children on the same principle and in thesame spirit which God adopts in the government of his creatures?

"15. Have I, in pursuance of the above resolution, acted in the spiritof that prayer in God's word, 'Them that honor me, I will honor, andthey that despise me shall be lightly esteemed'?

"16. Have I aimed to secure the love and obedience of my children?

"17. Have I remembered that it is full time to make a child obey when itknows enough to disobey?

"18. Do I realize that the fulfilment of covenant promises is dependenton my fidelity? Gen. 18: 19. 

"19. Have these resolutions been undertaken in the strength of Christ, remembering 'I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me'?

"20. Have I labored to convince my child that its true character isformed by its thoughts and affections?

"21. Do I daily realize that each of my children is a shapeless piece ofmarble, capable, through my instrumentality, of being moulded into anornament for the palace of the King of kings?

"22. Do I, by my conversation and actions, teach my children thatcharacter, and not wealth or connexions, constitutes respectability?

"23. Do I realize what circumstances are educating my children;--myconversation, my pursuits, my likings, and dislikings?

"24. Do I realize that the most important book a child can and doesread, is its parents' daily deportment and example?

"25. Do my children feel they can do what they like, or that they mustdo what they are commanded?

"26. Have I felt that a timid child is in great danger of beinginsincere?

"27. Do I, as an antidote to timidity, cultivate the fear of God andself-respect?

"28. Do I realize that I must meet each child at the judgment-seat, andhear from it what my influence over it has been as a mother?

"29. Do I realize that it is in my power to exert such an influence thatChrist shall see in each the travail of his soul, and shall besatisfied?

"30. Do I realize that my children will obey God much as they do me?

"31. Do I impress on my children that little faults in Christianfamilies may be as dangerous to the soul, and as evil in theirtendencies, as larger faults where there is no Christian education?

"32. Do I realize the danger of retarding or hindering the work of theHoly Spirit, by evil habits, worldly pursuits, or companions?

"33. Do I make each child feel that it has a work to do, and that it isits duty and happiness to do that work well?"

 * * * * *

The paper having been read, one of the pastors stated that he knew thelady who had been referred to; that she died leaving a large family ofchildren, all of whom, he had learned, were now members of the church ofChrist except the youngest, of tender age. He hoped that the Questionswould be printed in the Manual for the Maternal Associations. 

"I was struck with the remark in some old writer, " said Mr. R. , "that'God had clothed the prayers of parents with special authority. ' It mademe think that, as the Saviour promised the apostles, for their necessaryassurance and comfort, that they should always be heard in theirrequests, while engaged in establishing the new religion, so parents areencouraged to think, since family religion, the transmission of piety byparental influence, is so important, in the view of God, that they willhave special regard paid to all their petitions for aid, as God'svicegerents in their families. "

But the repast was now ready. It was a goodly sight, when that companyof ministerial friends and their wives were sitting round that table. "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell togetherin unity. " There is a mysterious charm in eating together. It is wellknown that associations designed for social acquaintance andconversation, have, very generally, fallen to pieces soon after therelinquishment of the repast. Our great ordinance, for the communion ofsaints, is appointed to be at a table, where it originated. The flow ofkind feeling, which had prevailed during the afternoon among thesefriends, seemed now to be in full tide, and many were the entertainingand gratifying things which were there said and done. All possible waysin which the products of an acre or two of well-cultivated land could beprepared to tempt the appetite, were there. Br. S. Was informed thatthose fried fishes swam in Acushnit brook no longer ago than when he wasrehearsing his parable of the fishes. The strawberries had been kept onthe vines a day or two, for the occasion, and were in perfection. Eggsfigured on the table in every shape into which those most convertiblethings could turn themselves; and, being praised, the lady of the housesaid that she must tell them of Ralph, a boy of fourteen, whom herhusband had taken to look after his horse and garden, giving him histuition in Latin and other branches, for his services. Ralph was a greatamateur in fowls and eggs. No sooner did a hen cackle, but he resortedto the nest, and, with his lead-pencil, wrote the day of the month uponthe egg. The lady rung her table-bell, and called him to her, tellinghim to bring his egg-basket. He brought in an openwork, red osierbasket, with a dozen and a half of eggs in it, laid on cotton batting, each egg as duly inscribed as the specimens of a mineralogist. Ralph washighly praised. 

"I suppose you think, my son, " said Mr. R. , "that an egg, likereputation, should be above suspicion. "

"It is best to be safe, sir, " said he. 

"Ralph, " said Mr. S. , "do you know who baptized you?"

"You baptized me yourself, sir. "

"Do you remember, Ralph, how you reached out your hands, at that time, and took my hand, and put my finger into your mouth, and tried to biteit with your little, new, sharp teeth?"

Ralph blushed, and smiled. 

"You do not remember it, Ralph. Well, I do; and now, Ralph, you mustcome and preach your first sermon in my pulpit. "

"It will be a long time first, sir, " said Ralph. 

"Your dear mother told me, when she was sick, that she thought she leftyou in the temple, like Samuel, when she offered you up in baptism. "

"Be a good boy, Ralph, " said another of the pastors; "we will all beyour friends. " He retreated slowly, feeling not so much alone in theworld. 

The company did not separate till two of their number had led in prayer, seeking, especially, the blessing of God upon their own children, andthat they, as parents and ministers, might be warned by the awful fateof the sons of Aaron and of Eli, and not feel that the ministerialoffice gave them a prescriptive right to the blessings of grace fortheir children, but rather made them liable to prominent exposure andcalamity, if they suffered public duties to interfere with that first, great ordinance of God, family religion. 

The horses were now coming to the door. Farewells and good wishes wereintermingled, the joyous laugh at some pleasantry or sally of wit madethe house and yard alive for some time, the pastors had arranged theirexchanges for several months to come, visits and excursions were plannedand agreed upon, till one by one the vehicles departed, leaving theparsonage silent, while its occupants sat down to rest a while, and talkover the events of the day, in their pleasant window under thehoneysuckle. 

Chapter Eleventh. 

BAPTISM OF THE SICK WIFE AND HER CHILDREN. 

 In having all things, and not Thee, what have I? Not having Thee, what have my labors got? Let me enjoy but Thee, what further crave I? And having Thee alone, what have I not? I wish nor sea, nor land; nor would I be Possessed of heaven, heaven unpossessed of Thee. 

 QUARLES. --"_Emblems. _"

 He whom God chooseth, out of doubt doth well. What they that choose their God do, who can tell?

 LORD BROOKE (London, 1633). --"_Mustapha. _"

A lady with whom we spent a summer at a watering-place, and who was thenan invalid, and with whom we had formed an intimate acquaintance, wasnow very sick, with cancerous affections, which threatened to end herlife at no distant period. 

She had become established in the Christian faith, during her illness, and, being a woman of great intelligence and cultivation, it wasinstructive to be in her company. Many a lesson had I learned from her, in the freshness and ardor of her new discoveries as a Christian, theold themes of religious experience being translated by her renewedheart, and discriminating mind, into forms that made them almost new, because they were so vivid. She was fast ripening for heaven; she hadlooked in, and her face shone as she turned to speak with us. 

A lady, a friend of hers from a distance, was visiting us, and, knowingthat she was sick, requested me to call with her upon the invalid. Hearing that I was in the parlor, she sent for me to come up and sitwith her and my friend, after they had seen each other a little while. She was in her easy-chair, able to converse, and was calm and happy. 

The door opened suddenly, as we were talking, and in rushed a little boyof about six years, his cap in his hand, a pretty green cloth sackbuttoned close about him, his boots pulled over his pants to his knees, and his face glowing with health and from the cold air. 

"O, mother!" said he, before he quite saw us, --and then he checkedhimself; but, being encouraged to proceed, after making hissalutations, he said, in a more subdued tone, holding up a great redapple, "See what the man, where we buy our things, sent you, mother. Hecalled me to him, and said, 'Give that to your mother, and tell her itwill be first-rate roasted. '"

As the mother smelt of it, and praised it, with her thanks, the boy hunground her chair, and wished to say something. 

"Well, what is it, my son?"

He spoke loud enough for us to hear, with his eyes glancing occasionallyat us, to be sure that we were not too intently looking at him, and, with his arm resting in his mother's lap, he said:

"Do, please, let me go with my sled on the pond. It is real thick, mother. Gustavus says that last evening it was as thick as his bigdictionary, and you know how cold it was last night, mother. Please letme go; I won't get in; besides, if I do, it isn't deep--not more than upto there; see here, mother!" putting his little mittened hand, with thepalm down, as high as his waist. 

His mother looked troubled, and knew not what to say to him, butremarked to us, "O, if I were well, and about the house, I could diverthim from his wish; but, " said she to him, "if you will ask Gustavus totake care of you, and bring you home when he comes, you may go. "

Off he went, making fewer steps than there were stairs, and we heard hismerry voice without announcing his liberty. 

"Here I am, " said she to us, "with those three children, who come homefrom school twice a day, and there is no mother below to receive them. With the best of help, things sometimes go wrong, and the young womanwho sews for me cannot, of course, do for them what a mother could. Nothing has tried my patience, in suffering, more than to hear the dooropen, and my children come in from school, and to feel that I amseparated from them, within hearing, while I cannot reach them. "

She controlled her feelings, and helped herself to conceal them byturning to rock a cradle which stood behind her, though we perceived noneed of her doing so; yet we must all distrust our own ears incomparison with a mother's. The child was a boy seven months old. 

"Do you know, " said she to me, "that I am thinking of joining yourchurch? I have had a very trying visit from my own pastor, and he saysthat I am too sick to be baptized by immersion, and that it is, therefore, too late for me to receive Christian baptism. It is notnecessary, he says, in order to being accepted of God. I was born andbrought up in that Communion, and never thought much of the subject ofbaptism till I hoped that I began to love God, here in my sick-room. Ifbaptism is so important as our ministers tell us it is, in theirpreaching and by their practice, --for you know how important they deemit, in times of religious attention, to have people baptized in ourway, --I cannot see why it is not important to me. If it is man'sordinance, and merely for an effect on others, very well; but if God hasanything to do in it, I feel that I need it as much as though I were inhealth. So my husband asked your minister to come and see me, and hedid; and he is to baptize me and my children on Saturday afternoon, andadminister the Lord's Supper to me after church the next day. "

I asked her what ground of objection her pastor had in her case. 

_Mrs. P. _ My minister tells me it is superstition to be baptized on asick-bed, and that they are careful not to encourage such Romishpractices. 

"But, O, " I said to him, "Mr. Dow, I am afraid it is because your formof baptism will not allow you to baptize the sick and dying, so you makea virtue of necessity. " He colored a little, but said, pleasantly, though solemnly, "We see how important it is, Mrs. Peirce, to attend tothe subject of religion in health, when we can confess Christ beforemen, and follow the Saviour, and be buried in baptism with him. "

That made me weep, though perhaps it was because I was weak; but I said, "God is more merciful than that, Mr. Dow. I know that I have neglectedreligion too long, but God has brought me to him, by affliction, and nowI do not believe that the seals of his grace are of such a nature thatthey cannot be applied to people in my condition. I feel the need ofthose seals, not as my profession to God, but as his professions of loveto me. I believe you are wrong, Mr. Dow. You seem to make baptism ouract toward God, chiefly; now I take a different view of it. My sick andweak condition makes me feel that in being baptized, and in receivingthe Lord's Supper, I submit myself to God's hand of love, and take fromhim infinitely more than I give him. "--"O, that is rather a Romish viewof ordinances, " said he, smiling. --"No, " said I, "Mr. Dow, I am notpassive in the ordinances, any more than in regeneration; my whole soulis active in receiving their influences. But there is something done forus in the ordinances, as there is something done for us in regeneration, while we actively repent and believe. Are you not so afraid of Romanism, and of 'sacramental grace, ' that you go to an opposite extreme? for itseems to me a morbid state of feeling. I wish for no extreme unction, but I do believe that, in being baptized, and in receiving the Lord'sSupper, something more is done for us than helping us to take up andoffer to God something on the little needle-points of our poor feelings. I should feel, in being baptized, that God has adopted me, and notmerely I him; and, in the Lord's Supper, that it is more for Christ togive me his body and blood, than for me to give him my poor affections. "He asked me if I had not been reading the Oxford Tracts. I told him thatI read the Oxford Tracts, and other Puseyite publications, in their day, and that I saw through their errors, and had no sympathy with theirviews. 

But I told him I was satisfied that the human mind, in thatdevelopment, was craving something more supernatural in religiousordinances, to make the impression that the hand of God is in them, andnot that we are the principal party. So, instead of taking enlightened, spiritual views of ordinances, the Tractarians sought to improve thequality, by multiplying the quantity, of forms; and others are followingthem into the Roman Catholic church in the same way. 

"There always seemed to me, " she said, "to be a grain of truth in everygreat error. Is it not so? Even among the Brahmins of the East, andamong savages, each superstition, and every lie, retains the fossils ofsome dead truth. When a new error breaks out among us, I feel that thehuman mind is tossing itself, and reaching after something beyond itsexperience. It seems to me, " she continued, "that, at such times, it isgood for ministers and Christians to reëxamine their mode of stating thetruths of the Bible, to see how far they can properly go to meet the newdevelopment, and, by preaching the truth better, intercept it. The cold, barren view, which many take of ordinances, makes some people hankerafter forms and ceremonies; whereas, if we would present baptism andthe Lord's Supper as divine acts toward us, we might meet theinstinctive wants of many, and hold them to the side of truth. 

"But I told Mr. Dow that I was no formalist, nor did I believe incompromising the truth to win errorists. Clear, faithful, strictdoctrinal views commend themselves to men's consciences. "

I came near saying to the good lady, that, if she were able to talk insuch a strain, and to say so much to her minister, he, surely, could nothave deemed her so enfeebled in mind as to be incapacitated foradmission to the Christian church. 

"I told him, also, " she added, "I was satisfied that his unvarying modeof baptism was not ordained by Him who sent the Gospel to everycreature. --Why, said I, Mr. Dow, what do you make of the apostles'baptizing the jailer, 'at the same hour of the night, ' and 'before itwas day?' It could not have been for any public effect. What need tohave it done just then? Was it superstitious and Romish? No; it was tocomfort the soul of the poor, trembling convert, with a sense of God'slove to him. How it must have soothed and cheered him to receive God'shand of love in that ordinance, before he himself fully knew what themaking of a Christian profession implied! I want that same hand of lovehere, in my prison of a sick-chamber, --And, I never thought of it muchbefore, but, I said then, it seemed so clear to me that they would nothave gone to all the trouble, that night, and in the prison-house, andafter the terrors of the earthquake, to put a whole family intobathing-vessels. To take people from sleep, ordinarily, and immerse themin water, would be a singular act; much more when they are weak andfaint, as the jailer's family must have been, from fear and excitement. In my own case, I could not be immersed, even at home; it would probablycost me my life. Sprinkling came to me as so sweetly harmonious, in thatscene of the jailer's baptism, that I believed it to be the apostolicmode of baptizing, and I told Mr. D. That I should imitate the jailer;and that I should send for a minister who could imitate Paul and Silas. "

"But, " said I, "what brought you to believe in the propriety ofbaptizing your children?"

_Mrs. P. _ Your minister enlightened me on that subject. I told him myheart yearned to have it done; for I took the same view of it which Ihave mentioned with regard to my own baptism--that it is something whichGod does, to and for the children, primarily, and it is not merely ahuman act. He said that it was like laying "a penal bond" on children, to baptize them, and oblige them to do or be anything without theirconsent. O, how many such "penal bonds" I have laid on my children, already!--the more the better, I told him. "A penal bond" to love andserve God!--I mean to add my dying charge to it, and make it as bindingas I can. How imperfect such a view of baptism is! It is God coming tous with his seal, not we coming with our own invention to him. I wishedto have God enter into a covenant with me, who hope I love him, to be aGod to my children forever. I felt that I could die in peace, if I mightfeel some assurance of this; and, it seemed to me that, to have a signand seal of it from God himself would make me perfectly happy. 

She handed me a book, which her pastor had lent her, and she asked me toread a passage, to which she pointed. It was an argument against baptismin sickness. Speaking of the penitent thief, the writer says:

"The Saviour did not, as a Papist would have done, command some of thewomen, that stood by bewailing, to fetch a little water; nor thebeloved disciple to asperse the quivering penitent. "

Remembering the view which the mother of little Philip took of suchthings, I merely said, that the writer seemed to me to asperse a largepart of the Protestant world, under the name, Papist. Christian baptism, I remarked, had not been instituted when the Saviour and the thief wereon the cross. 

I received an invitation from the husband, a day or two after, to bepresent at the baptism of his wife and children. The husband was notprofessedly, nor in his own view, a regenerate man, but one of the bestof husbands and fathers, destitute, however, of the one thing needful. 

The wife had on a loose cashmere dressing-gown, but was sitting in bedfor greater support and comfort. 

The pastor read to her the articles and covenant of the church. Sheassented to them; whereupon, at his request, I laid the church-book ofsignatures before her, gave her a pen full of ink, and she wrote hername among the professed followers of the Lamb. 

The pastor then declared her to be admitted, by vote of the church, intofull communion and fellowship, after she should have received theordinance of baptism. 

He rose, and read, "And Jesus came unto them, and spake, saying, Allpower is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, andteach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of theSon, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all thingswhatsoever I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you alway, even untothe end of the world. Amen. "

He continued: "My dear Mrs. Peirce, God is your God. He will have hisname written upon you, by its being called over you, with the use of hisown appointed sign and seal of baptism. The name in which he has chosenthus to appear to you, is not God Almighty, nor his name Jehovah; butthose names which redemption has brought to view, and which impress uponus the acts of redeeming grace and love. Do not feel, chiefly, that yougive yourself up to God in this transaction, though this, of course, youdo, and it is essential that you do so; but feel that the Father, Son, and Spirit, come to you, and own you in the covenant of redemption, inconsequence of your accepting Christ, by faith, which itself, also, isthe gift of God. Professing repentance of your sins, and faith in theLord Jesus, you are now to receive, from the Sacred Three, a sign andseal, confirming to you all the promises of grace, adopting you as amember of the whole family in heaven and earth, and engaging God to beyour God. 

"And now, as you are, yourself, a child of God, your children God adoptsto be, in a peculiar sense, his. This is the method of his love from thebeginning. Had Adam remained upright, doubtless his children would havebeen confirmed in their uprightness; but, inasmuch as he fell, and, byhis disobedience, they were made sinners, God reëstablished his covenantwith Abraham as the father of all believers, under a newchurch-organization, to the end of time, promising to be the God of abeliever's child. "

He then read this hymn; and certain expressions in it never struck mewith such force and sweetness as in that baptismal scene:

 "How large the promise, how divine, To Abraham and his seed; I'll be a God to thee and thine, Supplying all their need. 

 "The words of his extensive love From age to age endure; The angel of the covenant proves, And seals, the blessing sure. 

 "Jesus the ancient faith confirms To our great fathers given; He takes young children to his arms, And calls them heirs of heaven. 

 "Our God, how faithful are his ways! His love endures the same; Nor from the promise of his grace Blots out the children's name. "

"And now, " said he, "as you belong to the church of Christ, so yourchildren, in a certain sense, and that a very important and precioussense, _belong_ to the church. Your little, unconscious babe belongs, inthat sense, to the church. You will not, you cannot, misunderstand me. These are the children of a child of God. All your brethren and sistersin Christ count them in their great family circle. They covenant withyou to pray for them, to watch for their good, and to rejoice in it, toprovide means for their spiritual prosperity, and to seek theirsalvation. But, above all, God will ever have special regard to them asthe children of his dear child. 

"Receive now, " said he, "the divine ordinance of baptism, whereby Godsignifies to you, and seals, all that is implied in being your God. "

He drew near the bed, with a silver bowl, from which he sprinkled waterupon the head and forehead of the dear believer, whose countenanceexpressed the peace of receiving, rather than the effort of giving, while her lips moved now and then during the quiet scene. 

They brought Edward, the first-born, and he stood, with his hand in hismother's hand, and was baptized. There were almost tears enough shed byus for his baptism, had tears been needed. Lucy came next, and then therosy-cheeked Roger, who had been persuaded to leave his new sled, alittle while, that Saturday afternoon. 

But now the little boy was coming in from his cradle. His mother raisedherself in the bed, and received him in her arms. He had been weaned, but, on coming to his mother, he began to make some solicitations, which, beautiful and affecting though they were, some of us endeavorednot to see, but turned to smell of some violets, and to open a book ofengravings. The mother smiled, and held him off, but immediately put twofingers, one on each eye, and wept;--the marriage-ring on one of thosefingers, --ah, me! how had the finger shrunk away from it. The nurse tookthe child and diverted its attention. The husband sat far on the bed, put one arm under the pillow that supported his wife, and held her handin his. Recollections and anticipations, we knew, were thronging, unbidden, into that mother's soul. She had been reminded of fountains oflove sealed up, and yet there were opening within her living fountainsof water. She grew calm, beckoned for a little book on the table, openedit, and pointed her husband to a stanza, which she had marked, and heread it for her:--

 "When I can trust my all with God, In trial's painful hour, Bow all resigned beneath his rod, And bless his sparing power; A joy springs up amid distress, A fountain in the wilderness. "

That was her profession of religion, and her signal to the pastor toproceed. The father took the little boy in his arms, held him over thebed, before his wife; the pastor reached from the other side, andbaptized Walter, in the name of the covenant-keeping God. The fatherheld the child for the mother's kiss, and then took him away, fearing arepetition of the previous scene. But the wife drew her husband back toher, and left a kiss on his own cheek, amidst his tears. 

"And now, " said the pastor, after prayer, "God has been in this place, and has himself applied to you and your children the seal of hiseverlasting covenant. Do not make your faith in it to depend on thedegree of equanimity or vividness in your feelings; but remember whatElizabeth said to Mary: 'And blessed is she that believeth, for thereshall be a performance of those things which were told her from theLord. '"

"O, " said Mrs. P. , "is it possible that I live to see this day? I almostforget my sickness, my separation from my husband and children, in thethought that God is my covenant God, and the God of my children. Mybaptism is to me a visible writing and seal from God; and my children'sbaptism is the same. I always used to think of baptism merely as aprofession on our part. O, how much more there is in it, besides that!It is God's covenant and testimony toward me. Blessed names!" said she, soliloquizing, --"Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! sweet society of theGodhead! They come together; they are like the three that came toAbraham's tent. Each has his precious gift and influence for my soul. Why was I allowed to see this day, and enjoy this?"

The pastor said, "This is just one of those things which make us say, 'His goodness is unsearchable. ' There seems to be no way of accountingfor this rich, free, sovereign love. "

"Can I fear, " said she, "to leave my children in such hands? No. God ofAbraham! 'thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. 'Faithful God! 'a God to thee and thy seed after thee;' what power theseal of the covenant has to make you believe it; yes, and seemingly tohear it read to you. Do speak to all our dear mothers, and tell them inhealth to make far more, than many do, of baptism for their children. "

"And have you no blessing for me?" said the husband, as the pastor roseto go. 

"Dear sir, " said the pastor, "they seem to have left you alone. "

He had been sitting, somewhat out of sight, at the foot of the bedstead;but, it was evident, from several signs, that his feelings were deeplymoved. 

The pastor took his arm, and, bidding the wife an affectionate but hastyadieu, he went with him to the sitting-room below. 

"I need no arguments, " said the husband, "to satisfy me, further, thatyou are right. You have a system of religion which, I see, is good foreverything, and for everybody, and for all times, and places, andcircumstances. Sir, I have been sceptical; but I must confess that areligion which can come into a family, like mine, and do what it hasdone, through you, sir, to mine, and to me, must be from God. Sir, Ishall always respect our pastor for his consistency with his principles, and for many other reasons; but I prefer principles like yours, whichcan go to the sick and dying, and to little children whose mother----"

Here he began to weep. The pastor said, "To take a mother from a youngfamily of children, like yours, Mr. Peirce, is just the thing which weshould prevent, could we have the ordering of affairs. "

"I feel, " said Mr. P. , "that God's hand is upon me. Passages from theBible, which I learned at sea, from love to my mother, come to me now. She put a Bible in a box, and covered it up with a dozen pairs ofwoollen hose, knit with her own hands. I have been saying to myself, inthe chamber, 'Behold, he cometh with clouds. ' It is growing dark over mydwelling; God is descending upon us in a cloud. 'Behold, he taketh away, who can hinder him? Who will say unto him, what doest thou. ' O, younever lost a wife, my dear sir, nor looked on a motherless family, as Ibegin to do. God help me, for I shall lose my reason. "

"No, my dear sir, " said the pastor; "think what has just taken place upstairs. You now seem to say, as Manoah did, 'We shall surely die;' buthis wife said, 'If the Lord were pleased to kill us, --he would not haveshowed us all these things. ' God has bestowed on your children, throughtheir believing mother, his covenant, to be their God. --You are a NotaryPublic, I believe, sir. "

"I am, " said Mr. Peirce. 

"Then, " said the pastor, "you know the importance of seals. "

"O, yes, " said Mr. P. "A gentleman, last week, came near losing the saleof a large property, situate in one of the Middle States, because he hadhad some papers executed, here, before a court not having a seal. I toldhim, beforehand, that he was wrong; but he wished to know of whatpossible use a seal could be, when the judge and the clerk used printedforms, and the blanks were filled under their own hands. The papers cameback, and he had to do his business over again, and before a courthaving a seal. "

"But he was perfectly honest, at first, I presume, " said the pastor, "only the form was defective. "

_Mr. P. _ Yes, sir; but the form, in such a case, is the warranty. Youknow that the power to have and use a seal is one of the thingsspecially conveyed by a legislature. 

"God has seals, " said the pastor. "One is baptism. It used to becircumcision. But, as the old royal seal is broken at the coronation ofa new king, God appointed a new seal, baptism, to mark the newdispensation; as he also changed the Sabbath of creation in honor ofhis Son's reign, and removed the memorial of his deeds of greatestrenown, the Passover, for one that signifies still greater deeds, theLord's Supper. Thus God has his seals. He attaches great importance tothem. He binds himself by them. Your wife, being a child of God, it ishis arrangement, from the beginning, to enter into covenant with her inbehalf of her children. He stands, now, in a special relation to them, and has placed the beautiful seal of Heaven upon his promise to thatdear sick mother, 'I will be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee. '"

"Is it necessary that the father should be left out?" said Mr. P. , covering his face with his handkerchief. "They are mine, and God holdsme responsible for them. I am to be left alone with them in the world. Is there not mercy for me, too? O, I had such a gleam of hope in thechamber! As I saw the water descending from your hand upon those dearheads, I thought, How much like a divine act such baptism is, --somethingfrom God. I always thought of baptism as a cross, to which I mustsubmit; now I see that it is a token of love, bestowed upon me. So Ithought of those words: 'I am found of them that sought me not. ' Godseems to have come to me in that baptism. I was expecting that, if Iever became a Christian, I must, in token of my submission, be buried inthe waters of baptism. I would be willing to be, still, if necessary;but that gentle baptism, coming to me and mine, seems like God beingbeforehand with me, doing something with me and for me. It made me thinkof Christ inviting himself into the house of Zaccheus, to save his soul. I always felt that I must obtain religion wholly of myself; now I feelthat God has begun the work in me. I am sustained and borne on. Thatbaptism was the most powerful appeal that ever reached my heart. Itseems to me, in its connection with the gospel, like a beautifulsymphony of instrumental music in an anthem, which strives to interpretthe words. It proved an overture to me, indeed, in the best sense. But, my dear sir, how near we came to losing all this which my wife hasenjoyed. "

The door opened, and little Lucy came in with two plates and two silverknives, and that great red apple which her mother had received a fewdays before. "Mother sends her love to you, sir, and begs that you andfather will eat this. "

They looked at the apple for a few moments, when the husband said, "I donot feel like eating it. Do oblige me by taking it home with you. "

The pastor took it home with him, placed it on his mantel-piece in hisstudy, where, for several days, it gave such an odor as to attract thenotice of every one that came in. The hand that sent it to him, in lessthan a week had finished its work on earth. The apple then became ahallowed thing. There it remained till it wilted, grew soft, and finallyturned nearly black. 

A little, unceremonious visitant to his father's study would often climbinto the chair near the shelf, and express his wonder, and repeat hisquestions, at the seeming mystery, --first, of not eating the apple, andsuffering it to be wasted; and then, of letting it remain when it oughtto be thrown away. It was not long, however, before the apple was buriedin a pot of earth. In due time green shoots appeared. And when thepastor saw them, he said with himself, "The children of thy servantsshall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee. "

How it grew in the pastor's study, a little sacramental emblem ofhallowed scenes, and of infinitely precious truths, --how a place wasselected, and afterwards prepared, for it, near a garden-wall whichseparates the wife's little garden from her grave, --and how the husbandcame alone, one Sabbath, and joined the church, receiving the seal ofbaptism from the same hand that sprinkled the water upon the heads ofhis wife and children, --I cannot tell you now, nor, after so longdetention, would you be willing at present to hear. 

THE END.