Chapter XI: Baptism of the Sick Wife and Her Children, 272 (5)

MY DEAR BROTHER: Here we are, at our journey's end. We have had a most romantic journey, arriving in health, though wayworn, much of our ride having been in wagons. My wife says, Give my love to brother, and tell him of the scene at "the hill Mizar." Your letter, which we found awaiting us, made her think that you would be deeply interested in the story. 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 and his wife, with an infant in her arms, took seats with us, bound far beyond our own home. The parents had been delayed by the birth of the child during the journey from New York. They proved to be truly excellent people, and they made our journey with them very agreeable.

The father, Mr. Blair, had been greatly tried during his stay at the hotel 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, he went to avail himself of a stranger's privilege at the table of Christ. He found, however, that the ordinance was not to be administered till the afternoon, and, moreover, the hymn-book, and some things in the sermon, disclosed to him that the church was one which closed its doors against communicants who had not been baptized by immersion, on profession of their faith.

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

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 to partake 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 encourage your 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 have been a professing Christian fifteen years.

_Deacon._ That is not believers' baptism, as we view it. The Lord's Supper, in our communion, is for baptized persons only. We hold to no baptism but by immersion.

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

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

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

_Deacon._ Perhaps we shall not agree, if we continue to discuss the point. I am sorry that our rules operate to your inconvenience. We wish to see everybody on New Testament ground, and we think that the surest way to bring them there is to stand there ourselves. By departing from the literal command to immerse, and by baptizing infants, the church of Christ became corrupted with traditions and human inventions. We are at the antipodes to all this; we refuse everything which is not in black and white on the surface of the Bible, and so we are the more consistent Protestants.

"Considering the day and the occasion," said my friend to us, "I forbore to argue, or to press the good man by asking him if the 'seventh-day Sabbath' people had not the advantage of him as to greater consistency in their Protestantism; or, whether the church-membership of females was anywhere in black and white on the surface of the Bible. As to his going 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, it surely was not necessary, nor best, to become an alkali. But having often reflected how God uses one and another sect, and its set of principles and practices, to correct evils, by their sharp antagonism, and to restore a balance to ecclesiastical disorders by allowing some to go, for a while, to an opposite extreme, I did not find it in my heart to inveigh, nor to upbraid. It also seemed good to be in a land of liberty, where even Christians could, from a sense of duty to Christ, if they chose, fence out their acknowledged brethren and sisters from their table. There are great inconveniences, and, now and then, hardships, resulting from it; but our friends, of course, suppose that greater good, on the whole, than evil, is the consequence, apart from considerations of duty. But I know of a congregation, in a small place, who have had public worship for several years, but have not had the Lord's Supper administered, because they cannot agree as to terms of communion."

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

"In the afternoon," he continued, "I went to meeting, and, when the ordinance was to be administered, I took a seat in a pew alone. I watched to see which aisle the good deacon would serve, and concluded to sit there, so as not to seem clandestinely seeking from another deacon, who would not know me, my inhibited bread; for I wished to be honorable in the transaction, and, besides, I desired that my friend should see me, and, if he had changed his mind, give me the symbols. So I sat where he 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 the administration of the Supper. I had no feeling of resentment or ill-will. The exclusion of four fifths of the Christian family from the Lord's table by one portion of it, for such a reason, seemed to leave me in such good company, that I said to myself, 'They that be with us are more than they that be with them.' I rejoiced in Robert Hall, John Bunyan, and others like them. I thought of that interesting piece in Bunyan's works, 'Water Baptism no Bar to Communion.' I questioned whether this church and its sister churches would not hear a mild reproof from the lips of Christ,--'I was a stranger, and ye took me not in.' Certainly they could not say with Job, 'If I have eaten my morsel alone.' Using the table of Christ for a wall or bars against acknowledged Christians,--that table, that Supper, which, of all places and scenes, is most suggestive of communion and fellowship,--seemed to me 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; but that afternoon I saw it, I felt it; I worked out the sum myself, and saw the demonstration, I felt very happy in belonging to the great host of God's people who can commune together, however much they differ."

"While I was sitting there alone, put aside, one might say, by my brothers and sisters, whom I had, as it were, run in so cordially to meet, one thought came over me, as they were feasting with Christ, which made me weep. I thought of the possibility of being set aside in the great 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 the Saviour approach me, with a smile. His look seemed very significant, as though 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, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.' I surely said and did this."

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

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

I asked her what her husband said in self-defence;--for we loved to hear her 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 members of that church, who, learning the occasion of their sojourn in the village, poured upon them their hospitality. Several wished to remove her to their dwellings. They had a "Busy Bee," and made up everything in an infant's wardrobe for her. She opened her travelling-bag, and took out a white enamelled paper semi-circular box, containing a pin-cushion, made of straw-colored satin, in the shape of a young moon, with these words tastefully printed in pins: "Welcome, little stranger!" She held it 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 it hindered her in gaining strength, her feelings were so continually wrought upon by ingenious devices of loving-kindness. It became known that the husband had proposed to commune, and what the issue had been. This only served to make them all the more generous. They felt it deeply, and bore it as a necessity which they evidently regretted; but, with much self-respect, they refrained to make any apology, or explanation; "and, for this," said the wife, "I respected them." There was one elderly maiden-lady, however, who once was so far excited when the subject was alluded to, while several of them were sewing in the wife's room, that, after moving about in her chair, evidently struggling with her emotions, she ventured at last to say, "O, if I could get hold of that old fence, how I should love to shake it!" They all smiled; and one sensible and well-educated woman immediately gave a pleasant turn to the conversation.

I fully agreed with the wife in her very dignified and proper view of the whole subject. Is there not something extremely charming in the highly lady-like sentiments and expressions of a Christian woman, as contradistinguished from those of a gentleman? He, with all his urbanity, is apt to show the smallest possible vein of testiness, or, at least, the clouded look of high-bred sense of honor. It seems to me there is no power which woman exerts over us, in softening and humanizing our feelings, more beautiful and effectual, than in her delicate forbearance and charity in taking the kind view of an irritating subject, without compromise of principle, but just the view which reflection, and gentler moods, and the softening hand of time, invariably present. She arrives at it at once, by intuition; our slow and phlegmatic sense goes through a process of mistake and rectification, to reach it.

It occurred to me to test this good lady's feelings a little further, by reading to her an item from a newspaper, which I had met with in the cars a few days before, and which I had transferred to my pocket. It had disturbed my equanimity a little. It was an extract from the annual circular letter of a conference of ministers to their churches, in one of the New England States, in 1855, in which mention was made of "the monstrous 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 act under the impulse of the moment; but the true way to regard and treat it, as it seems to me, is, with pertinacious forgetfulness." She would not 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 were about to make a profession of religion. Her mother replied to these visitors, that there was far more apprehension in her own mind whether they themselves were properly baptized, if but one mode is valid.--As to Mr. Blair's effort to commune at that table, she said that she would never seek nor receive as a boon from men, that which her Saviour had purchased for her, and for them, with his own blood.

Our conversation was here interrupted by the exclamation of my wife, "Do look 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 large perpendicular buttress of the ridge stood out, so as nearly to close up the 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 twenty feet from the ground, a cascade fell into the air for about forty feet, and, without touching anything, became dishevelled, and disappeared in mist.

It was one of the most beautiful objects which I ever saw. It was pure white, relieved against the wet and very black rock. It waved to and fro in the air like a streamer; it had a slow pulse, lifting it and letting it drop, like the appearance of a waterfall seen from the window of a car in motion, only this was irregular and quite slow; it was soft and fleecy; it made no audible noise; it looked dangerous to see it fall from so great a height; but it was caught in the air, to your relief, as one 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 by any 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 a beautiful hand, waving Godspeed to us on our journey." That brought tears into the eyes of some of us, reminding us so of meetings and partings at home, and chording well with our pilgrim condition. We concluded to make response; and we tarried there.

The rock seemed to be full of water, oozing out from the seams, dripping over rich mosses, with jets, here and there, leaping into the light with a bound of a few inches, and quietly expiring among the thick weather-stains and lichens, as if satisfied with their brief existence. The little things made me think of the sweet souls of infants passing into time, and then immediately out of it. As we listened, we heard what Addison 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 under the cascade, looking up, and feeling, or fancying that we felt, the cool spray on our heads and faces. We drank of the rock, and we thought of that Rock which followed Israel. It seemed good to have such an image of Jesus as such a rock, with the strength of the hills in it, and with its inexhaustible springs, its beautiful entablature, its cool shadow, following a company through a desert. What thoughts and feelings did it give 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 our little store, our friends wandered away by themselves, and left us to enjoy the opportunity for prayer, which we supposed they also sought in withdrawing 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 is water; 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 place at the West, and there is no church, you tell us, within several miles of where we expect to live. It is very uncertain about our being able to procure baptism for the child there; and where could we enjoy the ordinance 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." The probability of its being a road-side spring, in a rock, or out of the earth, was greater than of its being a pool in the desert, large enough to immerse a man in it, leaving out of view the inconveniences of being bathed along the way. We have both gone "down out of the chariot," said I--(you would have smiled to see our great, strong, muddied wain)--and we have done what the literal Greek says they did, "went down _to_ the water;" and when we start, we shall "come up _from_ the water." But let us read 'the place of the Scripture' which the eunuch was reading when Philip joined him.

Susan took from her bag the blue velvet-covered Bible, which you gave her, unclasped it, and turned to the fifty-second chapter of Isaiah, at my request, and began to read. O, how soft and sweet was the sound of a female voice, repeating words of inspiration in that beautiful, solitary spot! The Scriptures had not been divided into chapters and verses for the eunuch, as for us, but we noticed that the last verse of the chapter preceding "the place of the Scripture which he read," not divided from it in his copy of Isaiah, was, "So shall he sprinkle many nations;" which, we thought, proved that the eunuch had had the idea of baptism suggested 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 discourse about them, but dwelt upon the Son of God as the Redeemer of Abraham's seed, and in whom all the promises of God, including those made to Abraham, are yea, and in him amen.

I said to my friends, "The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are about to write 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 be claimed by them, to be brought up for the service and glory of its redeeming God.

"You are to give him away, to be disposed of by the Most High. You are to be, for Him, what the mother of Moses was for Pharaoh's daughter--nurses to your own child. This dear child lay helpless and exposed, with all of us, to destruction; the Redeemer passed that way; he heard its cries: he had compassion upon it; he saved it from the condemning 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 thy wages.' He does not commit the child to church, nor pastor, nor Sabbath-school, but to its own father and mother, who may and will avail themselves of all the appointed and the useful helps for its nurture and admonition in the Lord; but he looks to you, as having the chief and principal responsibility, to bring up this child for God.

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

"To this end, you will, from the first, watch over all his moral faculties, and instil into him the principles of truth and uprightness; not letting him run loose among the vanities of the world, and feed upon its miserable, corrupted sentiments, and choose worldly and godless persons for his intimate associates, his manners and his habits being like a garden which runs to weeds, and his whole nature left to the perils of sin, trusting to some sudden act of conversion to bring him right; but you will rather be diligent to 'fill the water-pots with water,' and wait for Christ to turn it into wine. You intend, and you promise, that you will educate this child from the beginning with all that strictness of Christian principle which you would expect of him were he, in his infancy, to be a professing Christian, his duty being the same, and, consequently, yours toward him, whether he is regenerate or not,--one and the same law of God being our rule, irrespective of conditions.

"In all times of sickness and peril, you are to feel that this child is the Lord's, to be disposed of by him, without consulting you. If called to 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 perfect that 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 your seed, affording you special help in training the child, bestowing special blessings upon it tending to its spiritual good, having a particular 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 he and you are to regard the child agreeably to this beautiful transmutation of ownership and loan. The baptism itself cannot save the child, any more than the Lord's Supper can save you; but it is among the first of means to promote the salvation of the child, not merely through its effect on you, or its remembered grace and goodness when the child can be made to appreciate it; but above all, and through all, and in all, it seals that covenant of a covenant-keeping God, assisting your efforts and those of the child,--that promise, I say, 'I will be his God, 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's God. "Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not." The voice of prayer was joined by chimes and symphonies from trickling rills, and the freshening breeze in a silver-leaved maple, leaning at an angle of thirty-five degrees, just above us in the rock, all as quiet as the dear infant's breathing; while, now and then, the sudden flapping and rushing of birds' wings made the monotone around us more soothing.

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

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

And will God in very deed dwell on earth? Will the adorable Trinity be present at such a scene as this? Present! "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them 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 of redemption is a party to that transaction by which an immortal soul, with an existence commensurate with his own, is consecrated to him by its 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 were riding along that beautiful afternoon.

"Never," said she; but she added, sensible woman as she was, "the beauty and sentiment of the place seemed to me nothing, compared with the privilege of covenanting with God, and having him covenant with us for the child. After all," said she, "I would have been glad to have had the baptism in our little church at home, and to have secured good Mrs. Maberry's prayers, and those of our church, for the child, at its baptism. I must write to her, and get her to tell the Maternal Association 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 had been 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, and from her upon us.

"He's a sweet little thing, you know he is," said the mother, burying her face in the child's bosom, and giving it something between a good long smell and a good long kiss, or both; a thing which mothers alone know 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 to avail yourselves of religious ordinances, in your new home, for a long time to come; and, besides, regarding baptism not merely as a profession of religion, but as an act of Almighty God, sealing you with his appointed 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 to have you venture into untried waters, in this lonely place. Fear, at least, would prevent any peace of mind, or satisfying enjoyment."

"'What doth hinder me to be baptized?' you would properly say to me," I continued. "'O,' my reply could be, 'the water is not in an available shape. Had we time to scoop out a tank in the earth, or make a stone baptistery in the rock, then you might be 'buried with him by baptism into death.' But it is impossible. This living fountain of waters in the mountain, full and overflowing though it be, does not allow of Christian baptism. Besides, as to suitable apparel, and all the necessary arrangements 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 has appointed any such invariable mode of administering baptism,--one that cannot be applied in numerous cases?"

I said to her, "I cannot believe it. The genius of Christianity seems opposed to it. Let all who will, use immersion; we love them still, and rejoice in their liberty, but I cannot agree that it was the New Testament method. Even had it been, I should expect that the rule would be flexible enough to meet cases of necessity."

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

"How clearly," said I, "does that seem to prove that all the people of God have, as Paul says, 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism,' however variant 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 the unfortunate subjects of a superstitious or corrupt observance, at the hands of the ministers of Jesus, in all ages of the world. There must seem to them, as they increase in knowledge, a beautiful fitness in their having had those adorable names inscribed upon them, with God's own initiatory seal of his covenant. What loving-kindness it must appear to them, that God gave them the ordinance of baptism, and became their God! How it will stand out before their minds as a principal illustration of being saved by grace!"

"And then, again," said Mr. Blair, "think of the millions of children in heaven who were not baptized,--saved, the most of them, from heathen and pagan lands. How 'the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.' Baptism is not an austere law. There is nothing austere or rigid, in any sense, connected with it; but it makes me think of the water itself, scattered in so many beautiful and pliable forms all over the earth, in fountains, water-falls, dew, rain-drops; and, when it cannot 'stand before His cold,' it comes down softly upon us, in crystal asteroids and all the geometrical forms of snow. I love to think that God has associated that beautiful element, the water, with religion. And now it does not seem accordant with the works and ways of Him, of whom we say, 'How great is his goodness, how great is his beauty,' to make one obdurate mode of bringing the water in connection with us essential to an ordinance, whose element seems everywhere to shun preciseness."

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

But we had to part. I told them that my wife and I would certainly be sponsors for little Philip, in the best sense; we would make a record of its history, thus far, among our family memorials; tell our children about him, and charge them in after life to inquire for him, and lose no opportunity of doing him good. Though, as to that, I could not help saying, no one knows in this world who will be benefactor or beneficiary.

"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 her beautiful 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 them over to the river; we waved our farewell, and sent our kisses; and, just as they were turning a corner which hid them from our view, the father stood up in the wagon, and held little Philip as high as he could (the mother, of course, reaching up her arms to hold them both fast), as though to catch the last benediction. The long, flowing white dress of the child gave the picture a waving, vanishing effect, reminding us of our first sight of the cascade, which, with the whole transaction to which it gave occasion, has taken a permanent place in our sleeping and waking 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 the window of a country parsonage, with honeysuckle-vines trained over an arched lattice-work that spans the window. There are several large maples in the yard, which is a grass-plot, where six gentlemen are enjoying pleasant conversation, and are seated at their ease, some in chairs, 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 intercourse and friendly counsel, at the house of one of their number, with their wives, who are also together by themselves, in a pleasant room on the north side of the house, and into whose sayings and doings these husbands will, no doubt, be disposed to make, in due time, suitable inquiry.

Those wonderful little elves, the humming-birds, are frequent visitors to those honeysuckles, under which I have placed my reader to be a listener. How many vibrations those little wings make in a minute, how so long a bill can have subtractive force sufficient to get anything from the flower, how, when obtained, that product is conveyed to the throat, and where these creatures build their nests, and whither they migrate, are questions which will, perhaps, divert attention from everything else for a time, especially if the reader has escaped for a season from a large city, and is one of those who there "dwell in courts." Perhaps, therefore, he will choose to refresh himself, in silent contemplation, in this arbor; and I will make true report of all that transpires in the yard.

One of these pastors, Mr. A., has been reading to his brethren, for their judgment as to the soundness of his views, a sermon, not yet preached, on the relation of baptized children to the church. We will call him, and two of the ministers who agreed with his views, by their initials, respectively, which consisted of the first three letters of the alphabet; while the three who dissented from them had, as initials to their names, letters remote from these. Neither Messrs. A., B., and C., nor Messrs. R., S., and T., had had any previous concert or comparison of views on this interesting subject; but they found themselves 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 give the opening paragraph:

"It is held by all who practise infant baptism, that the children of believers have a peculiar relation to the church. That relation is very generally expressed by the word membership. We have treatises, by the most orthodox divines, on the church-membership of the children of believers; which children they freely call members of the Christian church; and, in catechisms and confessions of faith, the church of Christ is declared to consist of such as are in covenant relations with God, 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? If so, what is it? and, if not, what relation to the church do they sustain?

_Mr. R._ I presume that brother A. does not wish us to take up time with criticisms upon his style. He seeks to know our views with regard to the subject of the sermon. I am compelled to say, at once, that I differ from the views expressed by the reader, if he means by the terms, _members_ and _membership_, which he employs, all which they would convey to the majority of hearers. But I noticed that when he, and those excellent men whom he quotes, come to define what they mean by members, and membership, in this connection, they make explanations, and qualifications, and also protestations, showing that no one can be, in their 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 unscriptural terms of membership in the kingdom of Christ. And, perhaps, when those of us who dissent from some of their propositions, fully understand the limitations which the writers themselves affix to their use of terms, no great 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 that which these writers themselves intend to convey by them; for certainly they do not mean all which their readers at first suppose. The terms in question require a great deal of explanation, which a term, if possible, ought never to need. And, after all has been said, a wrong impression is conveyed to the minds of many, while opponents gain undue advantage in arguing against that which, for substance, all the friends of infant baptism 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 in the church itself, to show how children and females may be members of the community, and, in the case of females, may belong to the church, while yet their privileges and functions are limited. So, he says, the children of believers are a component part of God's church, not entitled to the use of all its privileges till they are renewed by the Spirit of God, yet so related by the sovereign appointment of God to those who are members, as to be, in a subordinate sense, a part of the church.

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

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

Mr. A., the reader, then said that he should be glad to learn from his Br. R. precisely what his views were of the relation of baptized children to the church. "Let us see," he said, "how far we are agreed as to 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 reminds Israel of their relation to Abraham, his friend, tells them they are beloved for the fathers' sakes, and he remembers his covenant with those friends 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 a friend of God), I suppose there are affections on the part of God, of which our own feelings toward the child of a dear Christian friend are a representation. This love to the child of his friend, I always thought, is the great element in that arrangement of the Most High which we call the Abrahamic covenant; for he who made us, knew how much a love for our children, on the part of others, draws us together, and what bonds are constituted and strengthened between men through their children; and that one great means of promoting love to Him would be, his manifesting special love and care for the offspring of those who love him. God has a people, friends; and the children of such are the children of his dearly-beloved friends. In this we are all agreed."

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

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

_They are the principal source of the church's increase_. The selection of Abraham, with a view to make of his lineage, the banks, within whose defensive influences grace should find helps in making its way in this ungodly world, had reference, I believe, to that power of hereditary family influence, which has not ceased, and will not cease, to the end of time. It is beautiful and affecting to see that recognition of our free agency, and that unwillingness ever to interfere with it, which leads the Most High to fall in with the principles of our nature established by himself, in placing his chief reliance on the natural love of parents for their offspring to contribute, by far, the larger part of those who shall be converted. In this arrangement and expectation do we not find the deep roots of infant baptism? which thus appears to be neither Jewish nor Gentile, but grows out of our nature itself, which also requires, which demands, some rite, a symbolic sign and 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 a stream to bear along the consequences of the first transgression. No new thing, therefore, was instituted when God, in calling Abraham, appointed the parental and filial relation to bear, on its deep and mighty stream, the most powerful means of godliness in all coming generations. How little do we think of this, Mr. Chairman, and brethren; how apt we are to neglect this great arrangement of divine providence and grace,--the perpetuation of the church, chiefly by means of the parental and filial relation. But, if such be the divine appointment, and the children of believers are therefore the most hopeful sources of the church's increase, of course they may be said to belong to the church, in a peculiar sense, but without being "_members_."

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

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

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

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

_The children of believers are the subjects of preeminent privileges and blessings._ Special promises are made to them from love to their parents; great advantages are theirs, directly and indirectly, from their 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 broken their father's commandment and forsaken the law of their mother. No words of tenderness, in any relation of life,--said Mr. R., turning to the Psalms,--surpass those, in which are described the feelings of God toward the rebellious sons of Abraham: "But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not; yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath." "For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham his servant." God still remembers Abraham, his servant, in the person of every father and mother who loves him, and is steadfast in his covenant; and "the generation of the upright shall be blessed." Mistakes in family government, growing out of wrong principles, too great reliance upon future conversion, and the neglect of that moral training which is essential to the best development of religious character, and, indeed, without which religious character is often a melancholy distortion, or sadly defective, may be followed by their natural consequences; and we cannot complain,--for God works no miracle, nor turns aside any great law, in favor of our misconduct; yet it remains true that all who love and serve him, and command their children and households to fear the Lord, enforcing it in all the proper ways of government, discipline, example, and the right observance of religious ordinances, public and private, may expect peculiar blessings upon their offspring.

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

_Mr. R._ Ordinarily, they will grow up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, to be followers of Christ; the proportion of persons baptized on admission to the church, will become small; a healthful tone of religious feeling will pervade our churches; less and less reliance will be placed on startling measures, on splendid talents, on novelties, to promote the cause of religion; but Christian families will extend like the cultivated fields of different proprietors, whose green and flowering hedges, instead of stone walls, mingle all into one landscape. "And the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever." "And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places." "And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children." Such, I believe, is sure to be the manner of the church's prosperity, and therefore the children who are to be the subjects of these inestimable blessings must be said, in some sense, to _belong_ to the church, they being the objects of special regard 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 I intended 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 feels obliged to call these children "_members_ of the church?"

For, we all know, that, notwithstanding all these glorious things, which are spoken of them, to which Br. A. has also referred, not one baptized child of a true believer can be, really, a member of the church, in regular standing, till he, like the unbaptized heathen convert, has repented of his sins and believed on the Lord Jesus. All the promises and privileges appertaining to his relationship as a child of a believer, promote, and make more certain, his repentance and faith; and therefore, if asked, "What profit, then, hath circumcision, and its substitute, infant baptism?" we can reply, "Much every way;" but it never stood, and never can stand, in the place of justification by free grace 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 this connection?

_Mr S._ My answer is, it is the occasion of great stumbling to those who reject infant baptism, and are confirmed in rejecting it, by misapprehending the views and feelings of many who use the term in an objectionable sense.

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