Part 12 (1/2)
”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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.sociation 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d have, as Paul says, 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism,' however variant their modes of wors.h.i.+p 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 superst.i.tious 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 G.o.d's own initiatory seal of his covenant. What loving-kindness it must appear to them, that G.o.d gave them the ordinance of baptism, and became their G.o.d! How it will stand out before their minds as a princ.i.p.al ill.u.s.tration 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 G.o.d has a.s.sociated 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.