THE TENTH NIGHT’S STUDY…

THE TENTH NIGHT’S STUDY

Which is mainly devoted to the subject of “Close Communion.”

Tenth Night’s Study.

In accordance with the request expressed by Mrs. Jones, as her visitors were about to leave on the previous night, our company of inquirers met at her house to hear her complaint about close communion. This subject had now assumed a new and touching interest to her. It had associated itself with her domestic affections. She felt that henceforth, in a very important sense, she must be separated from her husband; and though from the moment that she saw he had decided upon being baptized, she had, from courtesy and affection, refrained from any further argument to him—yet her heart was full of reasons, which she longed for an opportunity to pour out upon some one else, showing that, in this particular at least, the Baptists were the most bigoted, selfish, conceited, and uncharitable people that ever deserved the name of Christians. Mrs. Ernest, though she had entertained the same opinion until her daughter and her brother had become associated with the people she had formerly so much condemned, yet was now almost ready to admit that they might be right in this, as well as other things. In truth, she was like a great multitude of both sexes in all our religious bodies, who never have any opinion of their own upon any disputed point of faith or practice. She had always had full faith in the learning and the piety of her brother Jones and her pastor Johnson. What they said was true, she never thought of doubting. They were, to her, infallible as the priest to a Catholic. What had she to do with these knotty questions? Had not her pastor spent his life in studying them? and was it not in part for this that he was paid, to do the people’s thinking for them, and tell them what was the true faith and practice of a Gospel church?

But now, when her brother doubted the pastor’s word, and even Theodosia had gotten the better of him in the argument, her confidence was gone; her mind was all unsettled; she knew not where to look for truth; she must have time to choose anew her spiritual guide; and in doing this, she was likely to be influenced more by her feelings than her judgment.

Mr. Courtney found Mrs. Ernest and Theodosia waiting for him when he called to accompany them to the Professor’s residence; and even Edwin had been diligently studying his lessons, that he might gain time to go with them and listen to the discussion. On their arrival, they found that the Rev. Dr. McNought, the President of the college, had called to take a friendly cup of tea; and, at the urgent request of both the Professor and Mrs. Jones, he consented to remain and take part in the conversation. Uncle Jones stepped out for a moment, and Mrs. Jones introduced the subject by saying:

“Don’t you think it hard, Doctor, that my husband has placed himself in a position that will forever prevent us from communing together at the table of the Lord? I declare it almost breaks my heart when I think of it.”

“It does indeed seem hard, madam; but we all know that Professor Jones has only acted in accordance with the requirements of his conscience. I do not think that any one who knows him can find any reason to blame him for any thing but too great haste in making his decision. If he had taken more time, and examined the whole subject with proper care, he must have come to different conclusions.”

“No, doctor, Mr. Jones did not act hastily. This is no new subject to him. He has been laboring over it for months, and I feared how it would end. He has examined it with the most careful attention, and decided with cool and prayerful deliberation. He knows every inch of the ground over which he has passed, and can give you a reason for every change of opinion that he has made. He is not a man lightly to change his faith on any superficial investigation; and that is what so much troubles me. I know when his mind is once decided, and he has openly expressed his conviction, he is immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar. I have no hope of ever winning him back. His path and mine are henceforth separate: I am a Presbyterian, he is a Baptist. He will abandon his professorship; he will engage in the work of the ministry. I shall go and listen to his preaching; I shall be present when he administers the Supper of the Lord, and neither I nor his sister here—who loves him more than any one in the world except myself—neither of us can partake of the elements at the table where our own brother and husband is presiding. He will be bound to reject us from the company of those whom he will call the saints of God, as though we were not Christians, and never expected to commune together in heaven.”

“As for me,” said Mrs. Ernest, “if brother ever becomes the pastor of a church, and thinks that I ought to be baptized, I shall let him baptize me. I suspect he is as competent to judge of the meaning of the Scripture as Mr. Johnson, if he only took the same pains to study into it. But I don’t see why the Baptists can’t act like other Christians. We always invite them to our table—why should they not invite us to theirs? Don’t we all trust in the same Saviour; and are we not all seeking the same heaven? I wonder if they expect there will be two tables up there, and they can sit down by themselves in the very presence of Jesus, and send every one who has not been under the water to another apartment? No, no! we will all commune together there, and we ought all to commune together here. I don’t blame brother or Theodosia for becoming Baptists, for I know they were compelled to do it by a sense of duty; but I do blame the Baptists for being so bigoted and uncharitable, and acting as though they thought nobody was good enough for heaven but themselves; and I don’t see as they are so much better than other people, after all.”

“You place the matter on the right ground,” replied Dr. McNought. “Every man ought to be fully persuaded in his own mind, and then ought to be at liberty to act out his own convictions of duty. We demand this for ourselves, we ought to concede it to others. If any one feels that he cannot obey Christ without being immersed, let him be immersed; but let him not say, that because his conscience requires immersion, that therefore every person’s must. I profess to love the Lord Jesus, and I desire sincerely and honestly, if I know my own heart, to obey all his commandments. But while Professor Jones has become fully convinced that the Lord commanded us to be immersed after we believe, I am as fully convinced that he commanded us to be sprinkled while we were yet unconscious babes. My conscience, therefore, is satisfied; and if I should be immersed, I should commit a grievous sin, for I would be doing that in professed obedience to Christ which Christ has never commanded. Now, Baptists have no right to ask me to violate my conscience, nor (I say it with all due respect to you, Mr. Courtney) have they any right to exclude me from the table of the Lord for not doing what I regard as a sin.”

“You set the subject in a very strong light,” replied Mr. Courtney, “and I am glad you do so. I wish to meet this difficulty fairly and candidly. I seek no evasion, and am willing to submit our faith and our practice, in this and every other particular, to the sternest and strictest Scriptural tests. If we are wrong, no people in the world should sooner hasten to get right than we, who have no law but the Scripture, and no leader but Christ. And now, let us look at your argument. You say that a church has no Scriptural right to exclude from her communion any person who professes to love the Lord Jesus, and desires to obey all his commandments, whether he regards those commandments in the same light which the church does or not. A great many professed Christians seem to see the subject in the same light. They say it is the Lord’s table; and because it is his, and not ours, the church in which the table is set has no right to exclude from it any who profess to love the Lord, and who desire to approach it.”

“Certainly,” said Mrs. Jones; “I do not see how any body of Christians could ever have felt disposed to arrogate to themselves the authority to determine who shall and who shall not approach the table of the Lord, or upon what authority they can possibly rest so presumptuous a claim.”

“Doubtless, then,” mildly replied Mr. Courtney, “you will think it is a great exhibition of personal self-confidence, or of Baptist assumption on my part, when I assure you that I can prove, not only to my own satisfaction, but also to yours and Dr. McNought’s—

“I. That every church of Christ has the exclusive right within itself to decide who shall be participants in its communion.

“II. That all Pedobaptists, including Presbyterians, are accustomed to recognize and exercise this right, on the same general principles that Baptists do; and,

“III. That no church can refuse or neglect to exercise that right without being guilty of open rebellion against the positive requirements of the law of Christ.”

“I don’t know,” replied she, “what you may be able to do about the first and the last of your three propositions; but I am sure you can’t make me believe that Presbyterians and Methodists either believe in or practice close communion like the Baptists. You and my husband have proved so many strange things from the Scriptures since he has been engaged in this investigation, that I won’t deny that you can prove any thing you say you can, which depends upon them. But the faith and practice of our church, I am sure, I know as much about as you do. And I know we have never set any such restrictions around our table, as you habitually set around yours. We have always regarded it as the Lord’s table, and we constantly invite to our communion all who profess to love the name of Jesus.”

“You almost tempt me, madam, to prove my second proposition first, and show you at once that you Presbyterians are as close in your communion as we are, and that the only difference between us is that you are more open in your baptism.”

“I wish you would, and I think then I could better attend to your proof on the other points.”

“Very well—since you desire it, we will take this up first, and then return to the other. If I did not misunderstand you, it is your opinion that all who profess to love the Lord Jesus should be invited to his table, and that the practice of your people is in accordance with this rule.”

“Certainly; it is the Lord’s table and not ours. And we do not undertake to decide on the fitness of those who approach it. Let every one judge for himself. ‘To his own master he standeth or falleth;’ whoever thinks he has the love of Jesus in his heart, let him come.”

“Then of course you invite the Roman Catholic, whom you regard as a follower and subject of anti-Christ, the man of sin—the great enemy and persecutor of the church, of whom it was foretold that ‘he should wear out the saints of the Most High.’ He will assure you that although he loves, and reverences, and worships the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, he also loves her Son and the holy child Jesus. And he will assure you, moreover, that his conscience absolutely demands of him to be the very creature of the Pope, which he is known to be. If he should renounce his faith and practice, he feels that he would be guilty of a mortal sin. Of course, Doctor, you would not exclude him ‘for not doing what he would regard as sin.’

“Then there is the Unitarian. He claims that he loves Christ and delights in his service, although he denies his divinity, and regards him only as a creature. He is sincere and honest in his faith; of course you make him welcome. He says he could not worship Christ without being guilty of idolatry; and no idolater hath any part in the kingdom of heaven. You surely will not reject him for not doing what he honestly believes would place his soul in danger of destruction.

“And near him stands a Universalist. You invite him, of course, for he says he loves Christ better than any of us, and has more reason to love him. We can only love him as the Saviour of those who believe and repent, but he can love him as the Saviour of all the human race; and he will assure you that he would regard it as dishonorable to God to condemn a soul to endless punishment for the few sins he might be able to commit in this life, that he would feel himself fearfully guilty should he venture in his heart to believe that he will do it. And I am sure, Doctor, you could not, according to the rule you laid down awhile ago, exclude him for not believing what, in his opinion, he could not believe without sin.

“There are also many people in the world who come to your meetings, who have never connected themselves with any religious society, who, nevertheless, make great professions at times of their love to Jesus. They thank their God that they are so much better than many members of your church. Not only will they assure you that they love God better than you or I, but can boast they have always loved him, and never have done much, if any thing, for which they think he can complain of them. Upon what ground can you exclude these: since, according to your rule, it is the Lord’s table, and every one is entitled to judge for himself of his fitness to approach it? How dare you say that each and all of these shall not come and fill your table every time the cloth is spread, mixing with yourselves as every way your equals, and showing to the world that they are in all respects equally entitled to this great and distinctive privilege of the church of Jesus Christ?”

“Oh, no, Mr. Courtney, I did not mean that. I don’t want to commune with Roman Catholics, or Unitarians, or Universalists, or non-professors; and we Presbyterians never have been accustomed to invite to our table any such people. All I meant to say was, that we invite all those whom we have reason to regard as converted men or women, and who have made an open profession of their faith in Christ.”

“Ah, madam, that is quite a different thing from inviting all who profess to love the Lord of the table. It seems then, after all, that you, not they, are to be the judge of their fitness. But will Dr. McNought agree to this new rule? He says, if I did not misunderstand him, ‘No church has any right or ought to have any inclination to exclude any one from the table of the Lord who professes to love the Lord Jesus, and to desire to obey all his commandments, and who is sincere and honest in his conviction that his faith and practice is correct, however widely it may differ from that of the church whose communion he seeks.’”

“Perhaps I expressed myself a little too loosely,” replied the Doctor. “I did not intend to say that the church is to have no discretion in the matter; but only that she has no right to exclude any whom she recognizes as genuine and evangelical Christians. Now, you Baptists do not pretend to doubt (at least you often say so) that Presbyterians and Methodists, and members of other evangelical churches, are just as good Christians as you are yourselves, and every way as worthy and well qualified for the table of the Lord as you are, saving only that we have not been under the water; and as we are prevented from going under the water by our conscientious regard to what we understand to be the commandments of Christ, you have no right and ought to have no disposition to exclude us on that account.”

“Never mind the Baptists just now, Doctor. We will come to them presently. We are now investigating the practice of Presbyterians, and the principles on which it rests, and we have progressed thus far. You do not, it seems, leave it for every one to determine for himself in regard to his fitness to commune. You do not invite all who may think themselves worthy and well qualified, but those only whom you have reason to think are converted or regenerated men—and the testimony on which you regard them as such is the fact that they are members in good standing in any of these churches which require evidence of conversion as a prerequisite to membership.”

“Precisely so, sir,” replied the Doctor. “I could not have described our practice more perfectly myself.”

“But there is another thing which you Presbyterians require besides evidence of conversion, and which you will no more dispense with than you will with that.”

“And what is that, pray?” asked Mrs. Jones. “You seem to know more about us than we do ourselves.”

“You shall yourself answer your own question, madam. When one not previously a member of any religious denomination is converted from his sins, repents and believes, and gives good evidence that he has become a new creature in Christ Jesus, do you at once, without any further preliminaries, invite him to your communion table?”

“Certainly we do, as soon as he has made a public profession and united with the church. We could not, of course, invite one who was not a member of any church.”

“Very good; but in what manner does he become a member? Is he not received in the ordinance of baptism?”

“Of course—if he has not been baptized in infancy he must be baptized. Baptism is the door of entrance into the church, and no one can be a member who has not been baptized.”

“Perhaps, Doctor, you may be more familiar with the practice of your denomination than Mrs. Jones. Do you agree with her that no one is recognized as a full member till he has been baptized; or do you invite him at once to your table as soon as you are satisfied that he is a converted man?”

“Our rules in regard to this matter,” replied the Doctor, “are clearly laid down on pages 504 and 505 of the Confession of Faith, ‘ON THE ADMISSION OF PERSONS TO SEALING ORDINANCES’:

“‘Children born within the pale of the visible church, and dedicated to God in baptism, are under the inspection and government of the church, and are to be taught to read and repeat the Catechism, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer. They are to be taught to pray, to abhor sin, to fear God, and to obey the Lord Jesus Christ; and when they come to years of discretion, if they be free from scandal, appear sober and steady, and to have sufficient knowledge to discern the Lord’s body, they ought to be informed that it is their duty and their privilege to come to the Lord’s Supper.’ ‘When unbaptized persons apply for admission into the church, they shall, in ordinary cases, after giving satisfaction with respect to their knowledge and piety, make a public profession of their faith in the presence of the congregation; and thereupon be baptized.’”

“And on page 456,” replied Mr. Courtney, “you will find this rule—‘All baptized persons are members of the church, are under its care, and subject to its government and discipline; and when they have arrived at years of discretion, they are bound to perform all the duties of church members.’

“It would seem, therefore, that although you are, according to your ‘Confession of Faith,’ at liberty to dispense with any public profession of faith in the case of those baptized in infancy, you are not to dispense with baptism. All the baptized, whether converted or unconverted, are, when they come to years of discretion, ‘bound to perform all the duties of church members.’ And if the celebration of the Holy Supper is one of the duties of church members, they are bound to commune; but no one whom you regard as unbaptized, however pious he may be, can be permitted to approach your table, any more than any one whom we regard as unbaptized can come to ours. What then is the difference between your practice and ours? In what respect is your communion more open than ours? Simply and only in this: That you, according to page 456 of your Confession of Faith, admit the unreligious and unconverted, who have never even professed to be the subjects of regenerating grace, provided they were baptized in their infancy—while we admit none who have not made for themselves a credible profession of their repentance and faith. I will, however, do you the justice to say, that many of your churches in this country so far repudiate your own rules, as not to invite or require the baptized children to come to the table of the Lord till they have given evidence of conversion; and these bodies and ourselves, therefore, stand on precisely the same ground—that is, we each require evidence of both conversion and baptism, before we admit or invite any to our communion.”

“But yet,” said Mrs. Ernest, “we can’t stand upon the same ground, for we always invite you, and you never invite us.”

“The reason is not, madam, that we do not act upon the same principle, but that we differ in regard to what baptism is, and consequently as to who have been baptized. You consider all baptized who have been sprinkled in infancy. We regard those only as baptized who have been immersed on a profession of their faith. But you no more extend your invitation to commune to those whom you consider unbaptized than we do. Your baptism reaches further than ours, but your invitation to commune never reaches beyond your baptism. Do you not see, therefore, that all our difference of opinion is simply about baptism, and not about communion? Show us that the sprinkling of infants is Scriptural baptism, and we can, and will at once extend our invitation to the communion so as to embrace you all. But until you can show us that, you surely cannot ask us to invite those whom we regard as unbaptized, while you cannot invite those whom you regard as unbaptized?

“Except in case of the children of your own church members, you require both conversion and baptism as prerequisites to communion. And for the most part, in this country, though not in Europe, you repudiate your Confession so far as to require it even of them. You refuse to commune with Universalists, and Unitarians, and Roman Catholics, because, although you think they have been baptized, you do not believe they have experienced the regeneration of the Gospel. You refuse to commune with a newly converted person, though satisfied that he is really born again, till he has publicly professed his faith, and been baptized. It was on this ground that Professor Moses Stuart, one of your ablest writers and most learned men, said that if a pious member of the society of Quakers or Friends should so far forsake his principles, as to desire to commune with him at the table of the Lord, he must refuse unless he would be first baptized.

“Precisely so it is with us. We also require evidence, both of conversion and of baptism. We ask for neither more nor less than you do. Are you not satisfied? or shall we spend further time upon this point?”

“I did not,” replied the Doctor, “need to be told that Presbyterians require baptism as a prerequisite to communion. No one has ever doubted it, so far as I have been informed. I am sure no one ever had any reason to doubt it.”

“On what ground, then, do you complain of us so bitterly, since we require nothing more than you do?”

“We do not complain of you for requiring baptism as a necessary and invariable prerequisite to communion, but for requiring immersion, and thus setting up your judgment against that of the whole Christian world. You will not only have baptism, but you must have your own baptism—whereas, we receive that of all other denominations, including yours. How then can you say that we stand on the same ground?”

“I do not say that we stand on the same ground as regards baptism. Here I know we differ as far as a few drops sprinkled upon the forehead of an unconscious babe, differs from the plunging of a believing Christian man or woman into a liquid grave. But in regard to communion, we agree, at least, so far as this subject under discussion is concerned. That is, we both require baptism as preparatory to a Scriptural approach to the Lord’s Table. This much you freely admit. You admit also, that no Presbyterian Church is accustomed to invite or permit the approach of those to your communion whom you regard as unbaptized. You will admit, moreover, that you have somewhere, in what you call ‘The Presbyterian Church,’ the power to exclude from your communion such as you may deem unworthy. I need not, therefore, dwell any longer on this point. You cannot deny that I have fully established my second proposition, which was, as you will remember—That Pedobaptist churches, even Presbyterians, are accustomed, as well as Baptists, to recognize and exercise the right to determine for themselves whom it is proper and expedient to admit to their communion. And I have proved, also, that you as well as we refuse to admit any one who has not, in your opinion, been baptized.

“So far we are perfectly agreed; but because you consider many persons as baptized whom we regard as unbaptized, you can invite many whom we must refuse. Here, then, is the gist of the whole dispute. Now, let me ask you one question. Does not the Presbyterian Church claim and exercise the right to decide for herself what baptism is, according to her understanding of the Scriptures?”

“Certainly she does,” replied the Doctor, “and you may find her decision, with the proof-texts on which it rests, recorded on page 146 of the Confession of Faith: ‘Dipping of the person into the water is not necessary; but baptism is rightly administered by pouring or sprinkling.’”

“Why then should you or any one complain if a Baptist Church should feel that she had equally the right to decide for herself according to her understanding of the Scriptures, and should give her opinion and the proof-texts on which it rests? And what if she should come to the conclusion, that ‘dipping the person in the water is necessary,’ and that baptism cannot be administered at all ‘by pouring,’ or ‘by sprinkling?’ What then? Must she act as though she did not believe it? Must she submit her judgment to yours, and receive as baptism, on your recommendation, what she solemnly believes and declares is no baptism? Yet this is what you so modestly require her to do, when you deny to her the right to exclude from her communion the sprinkled and the poured-on members of Pedobaptist societies. If sprinkling and pouring are not baptism, then they have not been baptized; and if they have not been baptized, then they are not Scripturally prepared for communion.”

“But how is it made so certain,” asked Mrs. Ernest, “that no one can be permitted to commune who has not been baptized? I know it is the common practice of the churches of all denominations, but I don’t remember any express declaration of Scripture on which it rests.”

“It is not necessary, madam, to have any express precept, when we have a plain and unmistakable example. But in regard to this point, we have what is equivalent to both.

“We have the often repeated command—Repent and be baptized, believe and be baptized—showing that baptism was at once to follow penitence and faith, without any intervening act. Then we have the unvarying example, many thousand times repeated, showing that this command was thus understood and thus literally obeyed. They believed and were baptized. Baptism instantly followed the profession of their faith, leaving no time for the observance of any other rite between; and then we read, Acts ii. 46, that after their baptism they continued ‘in breaking of bread.’

“Moreover, the sacrament of the Supper is a church ordinance. It was ordained to be observed by the church, assembled together in a church capacity. And of course no one could participate in it but church members. And no one has ever been regarded as a church member till he had been baptized. This was the door of entrance, the initiatory rite by which one was received among and united to the people of God, and so became entitled to the privileges of the visible kingdom of Christ. Hence the Apostle, in writing to the ancient churches, frequently alluded to their baptism; always addressing them as baptized persons, who had put on Christ in baptism; who had been buried with him by baptism; who had been planted together with him by baptism; who had been in a certain sense regenerated by baptism; and who were in some sort saved by baptism. This is so evident that no sect or denomination have ever considered the unbaptized as church members and communicants. The open communion Baptists are, so far as I know, the first and the only Christians who have advocated the giving of the communion to those whom they regarded as unbaptized.

“That godly, learned man and excellent commentator Dr. Doddridge, author of ‘The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul,’ and many other excellent works, says: ‘It is certain that Christians in general have always been spoken of as baptized persons by the most ancient Fathers, and it is also certain, so far as our knowledge of primitive Christianity extends, that no unbaptized person received the Lord’s Supper.’—(Miscellaneous Works, p. 510.) Dr. Wall, the great champion of Pedobaptism, says expressly: ‘No church ever gave the communion to any persons before they were baptized.’ ‘Among all the absurdities that ever were held, none ever maintained that any persons should partake of the communion before they were baptized.’ Lord Chancellor King, of the Church of England, in his work on the Church, says, page 196: ‘Baptism was always precedent to the Lord’s Supper, and none ever received the Eucharist till he had been baptized.’ And those who might have any doubt about this, he refers to the testimony of Justin Martyr, who describes the practice of the primitive churches in his famous ‘Apology,’ addressed to the Roman Emperor, about the year A. D. 138 or 139. You will find a translation of so much of this memorable document as refers to this subject, in one of your own historians, Rev. Lyman Coleman’s Apostolical and Primitive Church, page 340. ‘After baptizing the believer and making him one with us, we conduct him to the brethren, as they are called, where they are assembled fervently to offer up their common supplication for themselves, for him who has been illuminated, and for all men everywhere, that we may live worthy of the truth which we have learned, and be found to have kept the commandments, so that we may be saved with an everlasting salvation. After prayer, we salute one another with a kiss. After this, bread and a cup of wine and water are brought to the president, which he takes, and offers up praise, etc.’”

“Oh, that is enough, Mr. Courtney. I did not want to know what Justin Martyr, or Lord King, or Dr. Wall, or any body else said about it, but only what was in the Scriptures. If I understand aright, you Baptists claim that your faith and practice rests exclusively on them.”

“That is very true, Mrs. Ernest; but I thought it might be satisfactory to you to know that the same Scriptures which have led us to require baptism as an essential prerequisite to communion, have been equally able to convince all our most learned and zealous opponents, so that in whatever else we may be found to differ, we agree in this. A sect of the Baptists themselves are; I believe, the first and only people who have ever attempted to show from the Scriptures that the communion of the church may be shared with the unbaptized; and they were led to this evidently from their desire to be free from the reproach of close communion. They could not deny that immersion was the only baptism, and therefore they could not but regard their sprinkled brethren as unbaptized, and they could only commune with them by denying that baptism was an essential prerequisite to the Eucharist. But not even Robert Hall, who was the leader, or at least, the ablest champion of his sect, with all his vast learning and surpassing eloquence, could persuade the Pedobaptists that they ought to dispense with baptism in their communicants, though many of them and some Baptists profess to have been convinced that Baptists ought to dispense with it in regard to those who wish to approach their table. But the great body of the Baptist Churches still agree with their Pedobaptist brethren in requiring baptism before communion, and we must continue to do so till some one can find in the Scriptures some precept or example for reversing the order so plainly established by Christ and the Apostles, which places repentance and faith first, then baptism, and then the breaking of bread and the other ordinances of the church of God.

“It is as evident as any thing can be, that if any Jew or Gentile had professed his faith in Christ in the Apostles’ days, and yet had neglected or refused to put on Christ in his holy ordinance of baptism, he would never have been invited to the privileges of a church member.”

“Of course he would not have been,” replied the Doctor, “for there was then no room at all for doubt about the nature or the subjects of baptism. The Apostles had the act visibly set before their eyes by Christ himself. And the people all knew what was intended when they were commanded to be baptized. If any one refused or neglected to obey, it was prima facie evidence that he was no Christian, and consequently an unfit subject for communion. It showed that he either did not believe or was disobedient at heart. The early churches, therefore, were bound to reject all who would not be baptized. But now the case is very different. The mode of baptism has now, in many minds, become a matter of great uncertainty. Some think it is one thing and some another; and some think it any one of three things. Now, since good Christians may thus, while they seek and intend to do right, yet fall into the wrong, how can any church take it upon herself to decide that one of these modes is right and all others are wrong, and so exclude all who do not conform to her standard? for now a failure to conform is not, as in the Apostles’ days, an evidence of an unbelieving or a rebellious spirit, but only of a mistaken apprehension of duty, into which the most sincere and pious Christian is liable to fall.”

“I acknowledge, Doctor, that this argument has a great deal of plausibility about it. It is the best that can be offered in favor of open communion, and has succeeded in imposing upon the minds of some eminent Baptists. But now, if you will give me your candid attention for a few minutes, I will show you that it is utterly destitute of any Scriptural foundation or logical force.”

“You speak very confidently, sir, and I will gladly give you the attention you require; but if you can do what you say, I will concede that you are a master in logic—for I conceive it perfectly unanswerable.”

“I know, Doctor, that it is the best and strongest argument which can be made for open communion; and yet I am sure I can satisfy you that it ought not to have the very slightest weight in the decision of this controversy—because it has not even the shadow of a foundation in the Word of God on which to rest. But before I enter upon it further, I will, with your consent, go back and take up the first general proposition which I purposed to establish when we entered upon this discussion, and that was, as you will recollect, That every church of Christ has the exclusive right within herself to decide who shall be partakers of her communion. We have seen already in what manner your church and others are accustomed to exercise this right. It is simply the right to determine who shall be entitled to the privileges of membership—a right which must of necessity belong to every such organization in order to preserve its purity or perpetuity.”

“I do not,” said the Doctor, “feel disposed to dispute with you about this. If a Baptist church is a church of Christ, I am willing to grant that within certain limits it is to judge of the qualifications of its members and communicants.”

“What are the ‘limits,’ Doctor, to which you refer?”

“The requirements of the Scriptures. She is to require only such qualifications as the Scriptures demand.”

“But who is to judge of what the Scriptures demand, Doctor, the church or the applicants for her communion?”

“She must, of course, judge for herself. The Scripture is given for her guidance. She must examine for herself, and be governed by her understanding of its instructions. Those who are not of her membership can have no right to dictate to her in the matter of their own reception—that is self-evident.”

“But now, Doctor, what if she should, upon a careful examination of the Scriptures come to the conclusion, as your church has done, that no one is permitted to commune that has not been baptized?”

“Then as a matter of course she will do as we do—admit none who have not been baptized.”

“But suppose she should come to the additional conclusion that sprinkling and pouring are not baptism, and that, contrary to the decision of your church, dipping of the person in the water is necessary to constitute a Scriptural baptism—what then?”

“Why, then I suppose she must admit none who have not been thus ‘dipped,’ for she cannot recognize any others as baptized.”

“Of course she must. That is self-evident. And now, Doctor, I trust you see the fallacy of your boasted argument for open communion; for if every church is to decide for herself who shall commune, subject only to the laws of Christ, and if she is to be the interpreter and judge of these laws, and should be led to determine that these laws demand that every communicant shall have been immersed, what could she do for those who had been only sprinkled or poured upon? Must she not reject them, however good and pious they might be? They may be sincere and honest—they may be intelligent and learned; but they are not to decide this question for the church. Those without cannot dictate the terms of communion to those who are within. The church must for herself examine. For herself she must decide, and upon her own decision she must act. What if the nature of baptism be the subject of doubt to many good and holy men—she as a church has nothing to do with their doubts, unless they are her own members. What if good and pious men, seeking to go right, do sometimes go wrong, she as a church is not to forsake what she thinks right, and go wrong too, merely to accommodate them. On the contrary, she is to stand firmly, like a great rock in the wilderness, a fixed and settled way-mark, which men may see afar off in their wanderings, and by it be guided back into the old paths. If others, like the mariner at sea without his chart and compass, wander to and fro, being wafted about with every wind of doctrine—she is to stand like the light-house, against whose base the winds and waves beat alike in vain, standing ever erect, and sending far across the ocean of doubts and uncertainties the calm and changeless light by which they may direct their course into the destined haven.

“Now look at your argument again. In the days of the Apostles, every one knew certainly what baptism was, and every church was bound to exclude all who had not been baptized. But now, many good and pious people have become doubtful what baptism is. Some think it one thing, and some another; and therefore no church of Jesus Christ ought to have any opinion about it; and every one ought to be received who thinks himself baptized. The church has no right to decide even as to what constitutes the very act by which men are admitted to her membership, or as to who shall be permitted to enjoy the peculiar and distinctive privileges of members. This must all be left to the good and pious, without her ranks, to determine for her. If they have doubts, she must give up her right to determine for herself, and humbly receive those who judge themselves to be worthy and well qualified, although she may have no doubts at all. Do you not see, that if the principle on which your argument rests be once admitted, it will destroy not only the independence, but the very organization of the churches? The principle is this—A Baptist Church has decided that certain prerequisites are needful to her membership or communion; but there are certain persons, out of her ranks, who think she ought not to require these preliminaries, and demand the privileges of church members without having complied with them. The church consents to their demand—admits them on their terms—abandons her own judgment, and repudiates her own rules—does she not at once lose her distinctive character, and cease to be a Baptist Church? Is she a church at all, when those without make laws for her—decide questions of faith and practice for her, and determine who shall take the place of members at her table, and by what rules she shall exercise her discipline?—for if they determine that she has no right to exclude a member for want of baptism, they can, of course, with equal reason determine that she has no right to exclude any one for any other cause.

“Look at your argument again. It takes it for granted, that because you and some other good and pious men doubt about the nature of the act of baptism, that therefore NO ONE can arrive at any certainty in regard to it; and therefore no church of Christ has any right to take any decisive action in regard to it. If this be true in respect to baptism, it is, of course, equally so in regard to other things; and the necessary result will be, that no church has a right, in regard to any subject, to hold opinions, and to act upon them, if good and pious people of other denominations chance to differ from them. Your argument, if it is good for any thing at all, destroys all church independence and all church sovereignty, and makes it necessary for every church of Christ to go out and ask those who are not of her membership, and have no special interest in her affairs, what she may believe, and teach, and do; and this in regard to matters which are to her of the most vital importance, involving her very existence, by determining for her who she shall admit to the privileges of membership.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Courtney, I did not intend to intimate that the church had no right to deny membership to those who might sincerely and honestly differ from her on matters about which good men have not been able to agree. But we were speaking of only occasional communion.”

“The principle is the same, Doctor, whether the communion be occasional or continual. If he may commune once, why not twice? If twice, why not a dozen times—and, indeed, every time the table is spread? And if he may, of right, continually enjoy this peculiar and distinctive privilege of church membership, why not every other privilege? If we have no right to exclude you from communing with us occasionally, we have none to exclude you perpetually—and if we have no right to exclude you, who are not a member of our church, we could not, of course, exclude one who is a member for a similar cause. Your right to determine for a church the terms of its communion, includes the right to determine for it any other principle of faith or practice. If you may dictate who shall commune once, you may with equal propriety dictate who shall commune all the time. And yet, you modestly require us, because forsooth you and some other good and pious men are doubtful about the nature of baptism, to yield our convictions to your doubts, and assure us that we have no right to decide for ourselves upon the nature of the very act of initiation into our membership—forgetting, of course, that your own church has positively decided for herself, page 146 of the Confession, where she declares that ‘dipping of the person in water is not necessary;’ and on page 431 (chap. vii. of Directory), where she absolutely requires the minister to ‘baptize the child with water, by pouring or sprinkling it on the face of the child, without adding any other ceremony.’ Presbyterians can decide for themselves what baptism is; so can Methodists; so can Lutherans; so can Episcopalians; so can Roman Catholics; so can every body else who will decide that it is sprinkling or pouring. But if the Baptists claim the same privilege, they are counted guilty of the most unheard-of presumption, and all the Pedobaptist world desires to know by what authority they venture, like other churches, to think for themselves, investigate for themselves, and come to their own conclusions; or, if they must think, and investigate, and decide, yet you demand to know how they can dare to carry out their convictions in their practice.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Courtney, we do not,” said Mrs. Jones, “object to your deciding for yourselves. It is to the nature of your decision that we object. If you had decided, like all the rest of the Christian world, that baptism was sprinkling or pouring, or that it was of little consequence which way it was done, no one could object to your exercise of the abstract right to decide for yourselves. But we do think it is evidence of either bigotry or self-conceit, when you set up your opinions against the whole religious world.”

“Your idea of church independence, then, is simply this: Every Baptist church has a full and perfect right to think and decide for herself on all matters of faith and practice, provided she will always think and decide just as your church does.

“But, Doctor, I have another objection to your argument, which makes me wonder how it could ever for a single moment have imposed upon any thinking Baptist—and that is, that it assumes, and takes for granted as the very basis on which it rests, that no one now can certainly know what the act of baptism was. In the days of the Apostles, you say, there could not be any doubt about this, and therefore all who would not be baptized, must of necessity have been excluded; but now it is so very uncertain, that good men, meaning to go right, may yet go wrong, and must not on that account be excluded. Let us look at it again in this light. The Apostles knew what baptism was, for they had seen the Saviour himself baptized. The early churches knew, for they had seen the Apostles baptize according to the pattern which Jesus showed in Jordan. But we who live in these ends of the earth, are entirely dependent for our information on the written Word of God. The Holy Spirit of Inspiration attempted to convey to us in writing such an account of the organization of a church, and the ordinances of Christ’s visible kingdom, that we might continue them to the end of time; but he made such bungling work of it, that it is now absolutely impossible to find out what he meant. We can neither know who were the persons to be initiated, nor by what act they are to be brought in.

“It is true, that he commanded people first to believe and then to be baptized. It is true, that he never, in a single instance, commanded any one to be baptized who had not believed. And that there is not in the record a single case in which any but a professed believer ever was baptized, nor is there a single allusion, direct or indirect, to the baptism of an unconscious babe. And yet men say, that no one now can certainly determine that he did not command, and does not now require, that little infants who cannot believe or perform any act of intelligent worship, shall be baptized, and thus made members of his churches.

“True, his people are always spoken of as a renewed and regenerated people; as a holy and peculiar people, zealous of good works. The churches of the Scriptures were addressed as active, intelligent, and pious people. And we know, from sad and frequent observation, that the baptism of an infant does not regenerate it or make it any holier than it was before. We know that baptized children do not, on account of their baptism, grow up servers of God and of his laws, yet no one now can tell that Christ did not require these unconverted children of wrath and heirs of hell, to be brought into his church and counted among its members.

“And then as regards the act of initiation, which the Scriptures call baptism, your argument takes for granted that nobody can now tell what it was. True, the very word itself declares that it was immersion, if we should read it as we do in any other book. No scholar ever dreamed of its meaning to sprinkle or to pour, in any book except the Bible, nor in any part of the Bible but the New Testament, nor in any place in the New Testament where it does not refer to the ordinance. Everywhere else its signification is sufficiently plain. When Josephus, writing in the same language, and about the same time with the Evangelists, speaks of a youth being baptized in a lake till he was drowned, no scholar ever doubted that the lad was dipped. When he speaks of a ship being baptized in the sea, no one ever ventured to doubt that he meant to say it was sunk. No one ever doubted what Hippocrates means when he speaks of the surgeon baptizing his probe into a wound. No one doubts what Homer means when he speaks of the blacksmith baptizing a huge pole axe in water to harden the steel. Those who are engaged in teaching our young men a knowledge of the Greek language, never have any difficulty in deciding about the meaning of this word in any of the poets, or philosophers, or historians of Greece. The Lexicons of the language all agree in giving ‘to dip,’ ‘to plunge,’ as at least its primary and most common signification; and no one of them gives to sprinkle or to pour—and yet you say, no one can tell for certain that this word means to dip, and not to sprinkle or to pour.

“It is true, according to the testimony of Dr. Barnes, that this word is used in the New Testament in the place of the Hebrew word ‘tabal.’ And Professor Stuart, one of your own ablest scholars, expressly says, that this word tabal always means ‘to dip.’ It is true that in the fifteen places where Dr. Barnes says it occurs in the Old Testament, it is translated ‘dip’ or ‘plunge,’ in every place but one, and there it is ‘dyed,’ which supposed a previous act of dipping, yet no one can know that it does not mean to sprinkle or to pour.

“It is true, that your most eminent Biblical scholars, as Stuart, Kitto, Chalmers, and McKnight, agree that it meant immerse, and state expressly that immersion was the act which was performed in the first churches; and yet you say, no one can certainly know what it was which Christ commanded, and the church must now require.

“It is true, the Holy Spirit, as if to obviate the very possibility of any misunderstanding, makes frequent and varied allusions to it in the Word, speaking of it as a burial, a bath, and the like. True, he has gone into particulars, so far as to explain that it was done in the ‘rivers,’ and places where there was ‘much water:’ and that they went down into the water to do it, and came up out of the water after it was done; and yet we can’t know any thing about what it was.

“True, the history of the early churches, written by the sprinklers themselves, as the Magdeburg Centuriators, Mosheim and Neander, clearly shows that, in the language of the London Quarterly, devoted to the interests of the Church of England, ‘There can be no question that the original form of baptism—the very meaning of the word—was complete immersion, and that for at least four centuries any other form was either unknown or regarded as an exceptional, almost a monstrous case.’

“True, we can show from ancient rituals and church canons, that for more than thirteen hundred years it was the only act recognized as baptism, except in cases of alarming sickness.

“True, we have the most unexceptionable records, made by the sprinklers themselves, showing the very time and manner of the change from immersion to sprinkling, and the very decree of the Pope, on whose authority it was done; and yet you take for granted that no Baptist Church now can tell for certain which it was that Christ commanded. And on this ground you demand as a right that she shall give to those who have submitted to the Pope’s ordinance of sprinkling, under the false impression that it was baptism, the same church privileges that she offers to those who have entered into Christ’s visible kingdom through the door which he appointed.

“If you have any doubts about the nature of baptism or the subjects of baptism, you may plead them for what they are worth before his bar to whom we all must give account; but you must not expect Baptist Churches to participate in them, or to act as though it were to them a matter about which there was even the slightest uncertainty. If there are any two things which they are satisfied are clearly and definitely set forth in the Word of God, they are, that believers are the only persons commanded to be baptized, and that those commanded to be baptized are commanded to be immersed. They have therefore not even the shadow of a doubt that you are unbaptized, and if baptism is a Scriptural prerequisite, as you yourselves believe and teach, then you are not prepared and cannot claim communion at their hands, unless you undertake to decide for them whom they shall consider as baptized.”

“Oh, we are willing to acknowledge,” replied Mrs. Jones, “that we cannot demand it as a matter of right. But the courtesy, Mr. Courtney. What we may not demand as a right, we surely may claim on the ground of Christian courtesy and kindness—I had almost said upon the ground of common politeness. And now I ask you seriously to say if you do not think that you Baptists are selfish and discourteous, to say the least, in your refusal to invite any but immersed believers to sit down with you? You admit that others are just as good Christians as yourselves, do you not?”

“Certainly; we do not refuse because you are not pious, but because you have not been baptized. And you as well as we believe that the Master does not permit all Christians, but only all Christians who are members of a visible church, and who have been baptized. You never invite a person to your communion merely because you consider him a converted man and a good Christian. You wait till he has joined the church, and been baptized.”

“But we think,” said Mrs. Jones, “that we have been baptized. You will grant that we are as sincere and honest in our opinions as you are in yours. The great majority of the Christian world think our opinion better founded than yours: would it not, therefore, be proper and becoming in you to show so much respect to the decision of more than half of Christendom, and so much Christian liberality to those who conscientiously differ from you, as to extend your invitation to them, not of right, but purely out of courtesy and politeness?”

“That can never be properly called Christian courtesy, madam, which asks for the sacrifice of Christian principle—and I am quite as willing to meet the demands of open communion on this ground as on the other. But before we enter into the argument, I would like to go back and call up the third proposition, which I stated at the beginning of this discussion, and that is—That no church can either neglect or refuse to exercise the right which has been given her by her Head, to preserve the purity of her communion, without being guilty of open rebellion against the positive requirements of the law of Christ.

“We have already seen that every church possesses this right, and it is plain that the duty to exercise it follows from its possession. Somebody must decide who shall be communicants; if not, there is no bar between the church and the world. If every one who chooses may not come, who shall decide who may? We answer, the church herself.”

“By what rule?”

“By the law of Christ, as laid down in his word.”

“May she not neglect or refuse to decide for herself, and leave it to those without to come or not to come, as they may think best?”.

“No; for God has constituted her the guardian of his ordinances, which he has placed within her gates.”

“But may she not reverse his order, and give communion first, and then baptism?”

“No; she must, of course, be governed by his law.”

“May she not dispense with baptism altogether?”

“Certainly not, if his law requires it.”

“May she not treat all those as baptized who think themselves baptized?”

“No; she is to be governed by his Word as she understands it, and not as it may be understood by those without her ranks. She is to examine and decide for herself. She is to recognize and treat as baptized those only whom she believes to have actually been baptized according to the Scripture model. She is not the lawgiver, but simply the executor of the laws of Christ. She is not at liberty to set them aside for any whims of her own. Nor is she at liberty to enforce one part and not another. If, therefore, he requires baptism as a prerequisite to communion, she dare not in any case refuse or neglect to do so also. She must see his rules carried out, or she becomes unfaithful to her trust, and a rebel to her Lord.

“If you have any doubt that each church is constituted thus by Christ the guardian of her own purity, and of the sanctity of his ordinances as administered within her doors, I refer you to Romans xiv. 5, and 2 Thess. iii. 6, in which the power of the church to determine whom they will receive, and the duty of the church to withdraw from every one who walked disorderly, is distinctly recognized. But both the right and the imperious obligation for its constant, faithful, and impartial exercise, follows of necessity from the simple fact, that if the church does not herself exclude the unprepared and the unworthy, there is no one to do it; and it cannot be done at all.

“I am now ready to answer your question about the Christian courtesy of refusing to invite the unbaptized to our communion. Permit me to put it in proper form for you, and let us see how it will sound. We will suppose it to be communion day at the Baptist church, and that your church in a body comes to our door, and asks admission to our table—not as a matter of right, but on the ground of Christian courtesy. You say to us, very affectionately and kindly—Dear brethren in Christ, we are fully persuaded that no unbaptized person, according to the laws of our Redeemer, should ever be permitted to approach his table. We never permit any to come to it in our church whom we do not believe to have been baptized. We could not do it without sinning against God. We know very well, brethren, that you act upon the same rule. You agree with us that it would be very wrong and sinful to permit any to approach your table whom you do not think have been baptized. We know, also, that you believe that we have not been baptized, and consequently that you cannot permit us to approach without doing what you would regard as an act of open and deliberate rebellion against the laws of Christ. But we regard you all as Christian gentlemen and ladies, and quite familiar with the laws of politeness and Christian courtesy, and it must be very evident to you that these laws require you to invite us to your communion. You surely will not be so impolite as to refuse us.”

“Oh, Mr. Courtney, that is too bad! Surely you have no right to look upon us in such a light as that!”

“I am well aware, madam, that your people have not been accustomed to see in this light your claims that we should invite you to our communion. You are so accustomed to think of yourselves as baptized, that you cannot fully realize the fact that others should think differently. But thus the case must always appear to the mind of any well informed Baptist. Nor is this by any means the worst of it.

“It is always and everywhere considered an act of great discourtesy to ask one to do any thing which it is well known he will regard as a moral wrong, though it should be asked of him only as a private individual, and in his personal capacity. But the discourtesy is much greater when you ask him, as a public man, in his official capacity, and in direct and open opposition to his avowed and publicly acknowledged sentiments, to do what not only you know he would consider wrong, but what all the world knows, or might know, he would so regard; what he has again and again publicly declared that he could not do without a grievous disregard of his conscientious convictions of right. To ask, for instance, of a Son of Temperance, whom you know is pledged not to drink intoxicating liquors; whom you know feels that he is under peculiar and solemn obligations not to drink; yet to ask him not merely to disregard the obligation, which you know, and which the world knows, that he recognizes as binding upon his conscience; but to ask him to do it publicly and officially as a Son of Temperance, in the Division room, would be something such an act of discourtesy, though much less flagrant than it is to ask a Baptist, as a Baptist, in his public capacity as a church member, to disregard his obligations to his Saviour, by which the purity of the church and the sanctity of the ordinances are to be preserved.”

“Oh, dear, no! Please, Mr. Courtney, don’t think so hardly of us. I am sure none of our ministers or members ever intended any thing of the sort when they invited you to our communion, or complained that you did not invite us to yours. We never thought about its being a matter of conscience with you.”

“And why should you not have thought of it, when we have preached it in the pulpit, and proclaimed it through the press, and repeated it continually in private conversation? No one need be ignorant of the ground on which Baptists stand in regard to this question. Their sentiments have been long and plainly before the world. There is no one who has any occasion to complain of them, who does not know, or might not know, that they cannot dispense with what they conscientiously regard as Christian baptism; and that on this account, and not from any impoliteness or discourtesy, they are debarred from inter-communion with sprinkled Christians.

“But I have not done with this question of courtesy. I want our Pedobaptist friends to see precisely where they stand. After you have asked us to disregard the most sacred obligations, to repudiate our conscientious convictions of duty, and as a church, in our assembled and official capacity, to refuse obedience to what you well know we all regard as the imperative law of Christ, and to perform an act which you well know we earnestly believe he has forbidden; when we respectfully decline to do it, and kindly give you our reasons, you set up a great and senseless cry of bigotry, of selfishness, of ignorance, and (will you pardon me for saying it?) =of christian discourtesy=; as though it were more discourteous for us firmly to resist all your solicitations to disregard our Master’s Word, than it is for you, who profess like us to love him, to ask us to do it, or complain of us for not doing it.”

“But we do not ask you to do what we think wrong.”

“No, you only ask us to do what you know WE think wrong, and then abuse us because we dare not do it. But let it pass. I should think, Doctor, you would find some serious, if not insuperable difficulties in your plan of inter-communion with other denominations, over whose discipline you have no control.”

“How so?”

“Let me explain. The peculiar and distinctive privilege of a church member in good standing in your church, is the liberty of approach to the Lord’s table. When you exclude the unworthy, they can no longer be permitted to sit down with you at this sacred feast. Now suppose you exclude a member to-day for heresy in doctrine, or irregularity in practice, and he goes to-morrow and unites with some other denomination, can he not, according to your principles, come right back, and claim a seat at your table as the member of another denomination, although you have just driven him away as a member of your own?”

“That might possibly happen; but I do not think we have ever been much troubled with cases of that sort.”

“That is because your open communion is held in theory, but seldom reduced to practice. If there were, in fact, that inter-communion between you and Baptists, which many of you profess so much to desire, I can conceive that it might happen very often, to the utter destruction of any effective discipline in both bodies. Let us see. You require of all your communicants who have children, that they bring them to the church for baptism, do you not?”

“Certainly; it is the solemn duty of every Christian parent to dedicate his offspring to God in this holy ordinance at his earliest convenience.”

“Very good. Now suppose some one of them should take a fancy to ask you for the text on which this requirement is based. You might, as you very well know, search all the New Testament, from Matthew to Revelation, and you could not produce a solitary precept or example. You would try to satisfy him with a wordy jargon about the covenant of circumcision, etc. But he might reply, Jewish children were circumcised at eight days old, because God commanded it to be done. If Christian children are to be baptized, you can show where he commanded that.”

“You will say—No, but a command was not necessary; they were to be baptized as a matter of course.

“Very well, then. Of course it was done, and you can show me at least one case among the thousands of ‘both men and women,’ in which there was one little child. But you can’t find it. And he begins to doubt the propriety of performing as an ordinance of Christ, what Christ did not command. He cannot be persuaded to bring up the little ones into the church. You exhort him and reason with him in vain; and you are obliged at last to exclude him. I have read of such a case. You exclude him, and he comes to us, and we receive him. Now he holds the same opinions, and is guilty of the same practices. But though you could not commune with him as a member of your own church, because he was guilty of the heinous sin of denying infant baptism, you will welcome him back the very next Sabbath as a Baptist. You urge him to sit down to the same table from which you have just now formally expelled him. And I suppose, if he should decline to accept, you would henceforth abuse him as narrow-minded, selfish, bigoted, and intolerant Baptist, who thought himself too good to commune with other Christians.

“The same thing might happen to us, and this furnishes an additional reason why we cannot commune with other denominations. I have said we could not, because you were in our view unbaptized; and that is of itself an unanswerable and all-sufficient reason, if there were no other. But there is another growing out of this matter of church discipline. Let us suppose a case for illustration. A minister in our church has imbibed the idea that the sprinkling ceremony, which you borrowed from the Roman Catholics, is valid baptism, and insists upon introducing it into our churches. We would regard it as a great wrong. We would, for the peace and purity of our communion, at once expel him, and deny him the privileges of the church. He goes to you, and you receive him gladly, and the very next day he comes back and claims, as a member of your church, privileges which we had just now formally denied him as a member of our own. Do you not see that this rule, carried out in actual practice, must necessarily destroy the force of all attempts at church discipline?”

“But how do Baptists now avoid that difficulty among themselves?”

“Very easily and simply. The right to our communion never extends beyond the reach of our discipline.”

“Then how can members of one Baptist Church claim a seat at the table of another; for, if I understand your church polity, every one of your churches is an independent body.”

“They cannot claim it as a right, and our invitation to commune is extended by courtesy only to those whose faith and practice is so like our own, that no person could be a member in good standing with them who would not stand equally well with us.

“The rule adopted by Mr. Wesley (Discipline, see. 5th), and which is founded alike in Scriptural principles and common sense, is the same in substance as that which regulates our practice. That is, ‘no person shall be admitted to the Lord’s Supper among us, who is guilty of any practice for which we would exclude a member of our church.’ This rule you see at once compels us to deny all who teach and practice sprinkling for baptism, and all who engage in what we regard as the sinful though solemn mockery of baptizing unconscious infants, or any others who have not made a personal and credible profession of repentance and faith, according to the plain requirements of the Word of God, which always and everywhere puts repentance and faith before baptism, as it puts baptism before communion. We are bound to this course by that solemn and most impressive injunction of the Apostles, 2 Thess. iii. 6—‘Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which ye received from us.’”

“Y declare, Mr. Courtney,” said Mrs. Jones, “I had no idea that you Baptists had so good and satisfactory reasons for your singular exclusiveness; and I promise you now that I will never complain of you again. In fact, if I ever become a Baptist, I shall be a close communion Baptist.”

“I do not see,” said Mrs. Ernest, “how any one can take the Scripture for his guide, and be any thing else; and I have been thinking all the time that there must be some good Bible reason for it, or else Theodosia and her uncle would not have agreed to it—but now, when I come to think of it, I have not heard either of them say a word on the subject.”

The reader will recollect, that at the beginning of this conversation Professor Jones had gone out of the room, for some cause at that time unexplained. He returned after a few minutes, but took no part in the conversation, in with indeed he seemed to feel but very little interest. Mrs. Jones had quickly noticed his abstracted manner, so different from his ordinary behaviour; and had several times cast an uneasy glance into his face, hoping to read there the cause. But she could only learn that it was in some way connected with Theodosia, whom he loved with the affection of a father. Each time she looked, his eye was resting with an expression of the deepest pity upon his lovely niece, who took no more part in the conversation than himself. In truth she had spoken very little to any one since the appearance of Mr. Percy at the courthouse on the preceding night. His relation of his experience of grace, and his declaration of his desire to be baptized, had placed him in a new relation to her. She did not know that he had then never seen her letter—and once (but only for a moment) the thought intruded into her heart that all this change had been made for her sake, and not for Christ’s. She repelled it, however, in the instant that it came, and all day long had held herself ready to welcome him back to his place in her heart as her betrothed, and felt that she could love him now with an affection even deeper and more intense, higher and purer and holier than that which with such agony of effort she had been trying to strangle in her heart. She thought he would have come and spoken to her before she left the meeting, but he did not seem to notice her presence there. She was sure he would call in the morning—but dinner was on the table, and he had not come. That letter of hers must have prevented; but surely there was not in it any harsh expression, any single word of unkindness. Did not her heart ache with the very intensity of her love, while she was writing it? And now she tried to recall it, sentence by sentence, and word by word, to see if there was any thing there which she should not have said.

The afternoon wore slowly away. She sat at the window where she could see the door of his office, but it was never opened. She listened to every foot fall on the pavement, but she heard not his familiar step. Once the latch of the front door was moved, and she sprang from her seat, and felt the blood crimson all her face and neck; but she sat down in a moment, for she knew it was her brother Edwin. Mr. Courtney called after supper. Mr. Percy had not come yet; but she hoped to meet him at her uncle’s. He was not there—and her spirit retired within itself; and she sat as mute, and almost as unconscious of what was passing around her, as a marble statue.

When Uncle Jones went out, it was to see Dr. Woodruff, a cousin of Mr. Percy, who was also his most devoted friend and confidant. He was to have officiated as the bridegroom’s friend on the expected wedding-day, and had just returned from Mr. Percy’s mother’s, where he had spent the day with one whose earthly career seemed likely soon to close. He had come in to break the melancholy tidings as best he could to Theodosia.

The facts, as he related them to Professor Jones, were briefly these: The servant who waited on Mr. Percy’s office had gone there in the morning, and had found the young man lying upon his face on the floor, with Theodosia’s letter in his hand. When the servant entered he seemed to be asleep. He aroused him, and raised him up; but his looks were so wild, and his face was so pale and his words (rather muttered than spoken) so strange and unnatural, that he placed him on the bed and ran for his cousin, the doctor.

When Doctor Woodruff came, and read the letter, he understood how it had been. Mr. Percy, from the time he wrote and sent that distressing letter to Theodosia, in the previous week, had been in a state of most intense mental excitement. Much of the time he had been suffering extreme agony of mind. His physical powers had become greatly exhausted, and his nervous system debilitated and excitable. He had gone from the meeting in the courthouse (where he had so unexpectedly had an opportunity to ask for Christian baptism) to his office. There he found Theodosia’s letter. He had never till then conceived that his letter would have occasioned such distress to her, or that it would have led her to such a determination. Yet if he had been entirely self-collected, and his mind had not been already exhausted by long continued over-excitement, the shock which the reading of her reply now gave him, would have been speedily followed by calmer thoughts, and an instant determination to see her at once, confess his fault, ask her forgiveness, and set himself right in her heart. But exhausted in body and excited in mind as he was, the revulsion of feeling was too great to be endured. He read on till he came to where she said, “When you return, I pray you to consider me but as one dead. It will be better for us both.” The paper seemed to grow black before his eyes. The room was suddenly darkened. He felt a strange, dreamy calmness creep over his brain. He sunk down out of his chair in a deep swoon, or fainting fit, upon the floor. He became conscious after a time, but had not strength to rise; and subsided again into a strange, unquiet sleep, mixed with half-waking dreams, in which he saw a beauteous form, more like an angel than a being of the earth, who came and raised him up, and looked into his eyes so sadly, so reproachfully, and yet so tenderly, that he struggled to tell her how his heart bled at the remembrance of the act which caused her so much sorrow—but he could not speak. He strove to raise his hand and make some sign to assure her that he loved her better for her firm adherence to the truth, but the muscles would not obey the will. He could not move—he could not speak—and she was gone. Oh, how deep and how long was the darkness of that night! She was gone! He felt that she was lost to him forever. The very light of his life was darkness now—and yet he waited and watched for her return. Could she leave him thus? Would she not love him still? Hark! he hears her footstep. The door opens. Some one touches him. He starts from his slumber to greet her with some word of love, but he sees only his servant, who is trying to remove him from the floor to the bed. He stares at him with the strange gaze of incipient madness, and bids him leave him to rest in peace. The doctor saw at once that a long and fearful brain fever was the best that he could hope for; and while his strength was yet comparatively undiminished, resolved to remove him to his mother’s house, some two miles in the country. This done, he prepared such remedies as his medical skill suggested, sat down, and watched beside his bed till he was satisfied that there was no immediate danger; and then, at his mother’s request, came in to explain to Theodosia the reason why he had not called on her. He had thought best to explain, as we have seen, to Uncle Jones, and leave him to make it known to his niece.

The Professor had been so much occupied with this matter, that he scarcely heard the discussion which was going on in his presence. He was glad when a pause in the conversation showed that the parties engaged had, for the present, at least, exhausted their ammunition, and were prepared for a temporary truce, if not for a permanent peace. He turned their attention to some other subject, and in a few minutes the Reverend Doctor took his leave.

Uncle Jones walked home with Theodosia. They walked slowly; and when Mrs. Ernest and Mr. Courtney had gotten some way before them, he broke the silence by reminding her that she had not spoken a word all through the evening; “and,” said he, “I will tell you why. You were distressed that Mr. Percy had not called to see you since his return, and wondering what could be the cause. Will it relieve your mind to tell you that he is sick?”

“I will not deny to you, uncle, that such was the subject of my thoughts. I hope he is not seriously unwell.”

“The doctor does not think him in any immediate danger, but fears it will be long before he can resume his business.”

“Why, uncle, what can be the matter? I am sure I never saw him look better than he did last night. Did you not notice the brightness of his eye, and the freshness of his cheek, and how rich and mellow was his voice while he was telling what God so wonderfully had done for his soul?”

“I was myself too much engaged to observe him closely, but I can well imagine that the unnatural flushing of his check, and the unusual brilliancy of his eye, were but the tokens of that intense mental excitement which preceded, if it did not produce, the fever from which he is suffering now.”

They had reached the cottage door. Uncle Jones thought best not to go into any further particulars, and returned to his home.

That night, if one had passed by the window of Theodosia’s room, he might have heard many a sob, mingled with half-uttered prayers. Had she known all the truth, her sobs might have been louder; but her prayers could hardly have been more earnest.

The messenger who went next day to inquire, returned to say that Mr. Percy was no better; and so it was the next day—and the next. Doctor Woodruff had called in a brother practitioner, but did not reveal to him, nor even to Mr. Percy’s mother, the whole secret of his attack. The letter which he found in his hand, he had considerately laid aside, to be returned to him should he recover. Its existence was a professional secret. He attributed his illness to the long and tiresome journey on horseback through the sun, and to such excitement of mind as he had himself publicly described before his strange attack.

On Saturday evening Mrs. Ernest received a line from Mrs. Percy, saying that her son was growing daily worse and worse; and, strange to tell, he had in his delirium conceived a singular fancy that Theodosia had ceased to love him, and had even formally discarded him. This idea, she said, was uppermost in all the wanderings of his mind, and evidently was exerting a great influence upon the progress of his disease; and Doctor Woodruff had suggested that if Theodosia could herself assure him of her continued affection, it might have a soothing, and perhaps a healing influence.

Mrs. Ernest handed the note to her daughter, with the remark, that in consideration of their well-known betrothal, there could be no impropriety in granting Mrs. Percy’s request.

“We will go to him at once, dear mother,” said Theodosia, when she had read the note, with eyes full of tears “Even a brief delay may be of fatal consequence.”

When they reached Mrs. Percy’s house, he had fallen into an unquiet slumber, from which they did not seek to awaken him. They sat down in the room, and conversed in a low tone about the nature of his disease, and other matters which the circumstances suggested. Theodosia took but little part in this conversation, except as a most eager listener. She sat down near the head of the low couch on which he lay, but presently arose, and, under pretence of shading the patient’s eyes, adjusted the candle so that it should not shine upon her own. Oh, who can tell the thoughts that then were thronging in her maiden heart! How changed he was! How pale—how corpse-like was his cheek! How wasted was the thin, emaciated hand, which lay outside the cover! How parched and feverish the lips! How sunken the eyes! How would they look when he should open them? Would he know her? Would he speak to her? What if he now should open his eyes and see me here?—and she almost unconsciously moved her chair back out of his range of vision as she thought of it. His lips moved: she reached the spoon in the tumbler of water upon the little table, and moistened them. He opened his eyes wide; he looked her steadily in the face; he glanced at her white dress; he looked in her face again. She fancied that the expression of wonder on his face gave place to a scarcely perceptible smile. But he did not speak; he did not make any sign of recognition. She sat down again and wept.

“You must need rest, Mrs. Percy. You may go and sleep, and leave the care of him to us to-night,” said Mrs. Ernest. “We will watch him as tenderly as you could do yourself.”

Mrs. Percy laid down, and Theodosia withdrew to some distance from the couch, and sat where she could see every change that passed upon his face. The love which she had for a time endeavored to eradicate from out her mind, had only, like the lofty oak when torn and wrenched by the mighty storm, extended its roots more widely and deeply, and clasped them more firmly round her heart; and now, when the cause which led her to cast it off had been removed, she clung more ardently and devotedly than ever to the hope that he would yet be hers. Again and again during that long night, when she hastened to do some little act of kindness, did he open his eyes and look at her with a kind of wondering tenderness in his gaze; but yet he did not speak, nor was she sure that he recognized her at all.

He slept more quietly that night than he had yet done, and when the doctor came next day, he whispered in his ear that a beautiful vision had come to him in his dreams and looked at him so lovingly, that he was ready to speak, and ask it whence it came, but feared his voice might break the charm, and it would vanish from his sight.

“You must stay with us, my child,” said Mrs. Percy, “till my son gets better. He talked of you continually until you came, but now it seems as though your very presence in the house exerts a sort of magic influence over him, for he is quiet, and does not so much as lisp your name. The doctor says if you could but become his nurse, he may yet recover. Will you not, my daughter?”

“If my mother thinks there would be no impropriety in my doing so.”

“Certainly, Theodosia, I think you ought to return and assist Mrs. Percy in every way you can. But your uncle and I are going to be baptized to-day, and you will not be willing to be absent from the meeting.”

This conversation took place in the hall, from which there was an open door leading to the patient’s room. He heard Theodosia’s voice; he thought he heard her name. He made some sound, which recalled his mother to his side, and looking in her face with a more natural expression than he had since his attack, he said:

“Mother, I thought I saw her spirit here last night, and just now I am sure I heard her voice, and thought that some one called her name. Tell me if she is here.”

“Would you like to see her, my son?”

“Oh, yes; I want to ask her to forgive me before I die.”

“You do not think you are going to die, my child!”

“I have strange feelings, mother. I do not know what death is, or how he comes; but I am sure I have been very near the world of spirits.”

“Do you feel any alarm at the prospect of death?”

“My mind is very weak, mother. I scarcely feel or think at all. I have a blessed Saviour: I remember that; and I will trust him, even though I die. But tell me—did I hear her voice, or was it but a dream?”

“Try to compose yourself, my child. The doctor says that you must sleep awhile this morning. If you wish to see Miss Ernest, I will send for her.”

“Do you think she would come?”

“I know she would. So make yourself easy, and you shall see her when you wake.”

On returning to her visitors, Mrs. Percy related this conversation, and insisted that Theodosia must remain to be there when he awoke; and as the young lady did not object, Mrs. Ernest went home without her. She laid down on her arrival, and took a short nap, and then taking Edwin by the hand, joined Uncle and Aunt Jones on their way to the Baptist meeting.

When the usual invitation was given to those who desired membership with the church to come forward and make their profession, Uncle Jones was surprised and delighted to see both his wife and his sister go up and ask admittance into the church of God. Neither of them had said a word to him upon the subject, for though both had yielded to their convictions of the truth, that immersion is the only baptism, some days before, and both had been convinced that believers are the only Scriptural subjects of baptism, they could neither of them overcome their repulsion to the practice of close communion, or consent to sever their connections with these to whom they had such strong attachments, until the explanations of Mr. Courtney in their last conversation put it beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Lord Jesus not only commanded believers, and them only, to be immersed, but that he had also forbidden all who had not believed and been immersed to approach his table, and required of those who had in this way become, according to his order, the members of his church, that they should carefully guard the purity and the perpetuity of his ordinances, by permitting no one to partake with them in the peculiar privileges of church members who had not, like themselves, been made members according to the same Gospel order. This difficulty removed, they were now ready to be baptized.

We need not detain you any longer, gentle reader, by describing to you the baptism of these three, who, with several others, followed the example of their Saviour, by going down into the water, and were buried with him in the liquid grave. Nor can we now continue the history in which you have come, we trust, to feel so great an interest that you would gladly see the end. We have finished our ten nights’ study of Scripture baptism. We have examined it in regard to its mode, its subjects, and its results. We have endeavored to do it plainly and candidly, but if we know our own hearts, we have tried to do it kindly—and in the spirit of that “charity” which “rejoices in the truth.”

We are grieved to leave our darling Theodosia in such distress. But she must remain a little while in the valley of tears, until, by her own sorrows, she has been taught how to sympathize with the sorrowful. He was the wisest man of earth who said, “By the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.” She needs the discipline of grief to fit her for the life of eminent usefulness which lies before her—and the history of which will soon be given in another volume.

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A DREAM,

Review Of N. L. Rice’s Notice of the Theodosia Ernest First Series.

By the Author of Theodosia.

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Preface

THE only attempted review or extended unfavorable notice of the first volume of Theodosia Ernest, appeared in the St. Louis Presbyterian, from the pen of its Editor, N. L. Rice, D.D. That notice is here given, and a review of Mr. R’s singular statements reviewed in a dream—and also the natural effect of such a treatment of the best arguments ever produced by Presbyterians or Pedobaptists—the conversion of Pastor Johnson. We regard this review, in connection with Mr. Rice’s notice, as the most powerful argument in favor of Baptist positions.

J. R. GRAVES.

Nashville, 1857.

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NOTICE OF THEODOSIA

By N. L. Rice.

AS IT APPEARED IN THE ST. LOUIS PRESBYTERIAN.

If perseverance and ingenuity were evidences of religious truth, there could no longer be a doubt that immersion is the only valid baptism. Long and earnestly have the advocates of this doctrine labored to sustain its claims. The pulpit, the newspaper, the tract, the book, learned argument, and assertion, and ridicule, have all been laid under requisition. Then the whole Bible must be translated anew to make it sustain the Baptist sense. And now we have before us, by the kindness of a friend, a Baptist novel, the title of which is “Theodosia Ernest, or the Heroine of Faith.” The author has modestly concealed his name, but the work is published by Graves, Marks & Ruthland, Nashville, Tennessee. The book is really instructive and amusing. We purpose briefly to notice a few of its peculiarities.

It displays throughout a consciousness of the weakness of the doctrine it is intended to advocate. 1st. The title betrays this consciousness—“The Heroine of Faith.” There is in every Christian’s heart a strong sympathy with the struggles and conflicts of a genuine faith, rising above the allurements and persecutions of a wicked world. The author has thought it necessary to take advantage of this noble sympathy. If he had adopted the more truthful title—“The Heroine of Immersion”—the book would have fallen still-born from the press. There is little that is either noble or romantic in the zeal of a professing Christian, young or old, for a narrow sectarian dogma. The author judged, merely, that the cause of immersion needs the advantage of a title far nobler than itself.

The same conscious weakness shows itself in the choice of a heroine instead of a hero, and of a heroine who is a highly cultivated, sensitive young lady of eighteen. Who can help strongly sympathizing with such a young lady, devotedly pious, evidently conscientious, willing to sacrifice every thing for the truth, conducting an argument against two or three men much older than herself? We forget the cause and sympathize with the girl. We put double weight to her arguments, and feel gratified at the perplexities into which her antagonists are thrown. The author of the novel judged rightly that the cause of immersion and anti-pedobaptism claims all this sympathy and more. If he had been a hero, instead of a youthful heroine, his hearers would have weighed his arguments, instead of being carried away with sympathy.

The cause needed even stronger sympathy; and, therefore, Miss Theodosia Ernest is brought in conflict with the man to whom she was engaged to be married—a cold-hearted, formal Presbyterian lover—whom she loves most devotedly. He opposes her joining “the contemptible sect of Baptists”—(we naturally sympathize with a person opposed). She, poor girl, is thrown into a paroxysm of grief, sighs, weeps, and prays, and resolves to break off the engagement, just for the pure love of immersion! The reader feels his eyes filling with tears of sympathy for the dear distressed creature who had also her mother in opposition, and is almost ready to be immersed himself just to comfort her. Who would have thought that a Baptist knew so well how much it was necessary to excite the sympathies of his readers to prevent them seeing the flimsiness of his arguments?

The necessities of immersion were even greater. Although Miss Theodosia is singularly furnished with Baptist arguments, for one who has just reason to doubt the validity of her baptism, Professor Courtney, an accomplished scholar, is called to aid her. He, having been a Presbyterian, and having examined the whole subject, is perfectly at home in the discussion. He understands Greek, and he can read all the learned authors on the subject. On the other side we have, first, Mr. Percy, the gentleman engaged to Miss Theodosia, who is represented as wholly ignorant of the subject; Rev. Mr. Johnson, the young lady’s pastor, who is made to talk like an ignoramus and a simpleton; and Professor Jones, the heroine’s uncle, who had confessedly never examined the subject, and scarcely had sense enough to keep him out of the fire. With such combatants on each side, immersion may lift its head in bold defiance. We cannot help admiring the author’s clear perception of the necessities of his cause. It was exceedingly proper that he should select, as the advocates of Pedobaptism, such persons as Mr. Percy, who “had never had a serious thought upon the question” (p. 13); Mr. Johnson, who said, “I have never studied these controversies much”; and “Uncle Jones,” who, though Professor of Languages, had considered it the duty of his parents and their pastor to attend to his baptism, and “had never inquired whether they did it illy or well” (p. 121). It is precisely over such persons, as the author rightly judged, that Baptist controvertists gain the victory. And yet we cannot but wonder that he would so publicly disgrace his cause by selecting such ignoramuses as the opponents of the learned Mr. Courtney!

The respective characters being thus selected, the advocates of immersion are, of course, allowed to make bold assertions which are utterly untrue, and to keep out of view the merits of the case, whilst their ignorant and soft-headed opponents gape and wonder. Thus “the heroine of faith” decides, as by intuition, that baptism is an act, and that if immersion is baptism, sprinkling and pouring cannot be. Her intellect is too lofty, and her perception too clear, to hesitate for a moment to decide against forty-nine fiftieths of the wisest and best men that have lived both in ancient and modern times. The author rightly judged that this heroine ought to be very self-conceited. Mr. Percy is made to admit, what every tolerable scholar knows to be untrue, that all the lexicons sustain the immersionists. It suited the purpose of the writer to keep out of view the declaration of the learned Baptist, Carson, that “all the lexicons” were against them. “Professor Jones,” poor simpleton, is made to express the opinion that immersion was first introduced “by the Mad Men of Munster during the Reformation of Luther.” He cannot tell, poor fellow, where he got the idea; but “perhaps he got something of it from reading D’Aubigne’s History of the Reformation—perhaps he received it by hearing something of the kind from the pulpit.” And the accomplished Baptist, Mr. Courtney, has “seen and heard such statements many times from various sources. They are often recorded in Presbyterian and Methodist newspapers” (p. 160). And the learned gentleman gravely goes to work to disprove this statement, which was never made by any tolerably informed Presbyterian, or recorded in any respectable Pedobaptist paper. The book abounds with such vile misrepresentations.

The book is written with ingenuity—it was necessary that it should be. It keeps out of view the facts and arguments on which Pedobaptists rely, or caricatures them to make them appear ridiculous. It puts into their mouths arguments they never use. It manufactures history to suit the occasion. In a novel, all this can be done in such a way that the uninformed reader will not readily detect it. We are gratified at observing how distinctly the writer shows, first and last, that the cause of immersion needs very peculiar advantage in order to sustain its claims.

After all, since he was advocating a fiction, he is probably right in adopting fiction as the means of its defence. The only way to find so ignorant and stupid Presbyterians as Percy, Johnson, and Jones, is to manufacture them for the occasion; and nowhere, but in the imagination of a zealous immersionist, can such Presbyterian young ladies as “Theodosia Ernest, the Heroine of Faith,” he found. The author could not successfully assail real, living Presbyterians; and, therefore, being resolved on battle and a victory, he manufactures a few to suit him, and then chooses their weapons for them, and directs them how to use them, so they will be sure not to hurt them. Brave man! Don Quixote was scarcely his equal.

Verily, the cause of anti-Pedobaptism seems to be “on its last legs.” If it cannot induce the Christian world to receive an immersionist Bible, and if novels will not sustain it, what is it to do?

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I. A DREAM

I had a dream, but whether it was all a dream, let him who reads it judge.

Methought in my dream that I was in Pastor: Johnson’s study. He had in his hand the Presbyterian newspaper, called the Presbyterian of St. Louis. He had just found the article of Doctor Rice on Theodosia. His little gray eyes began to twinkle the moment they caught the caption, “A BAPTIST NOVEL,” for, since his troubles with the young lady and her uncle, he has devoured with great avidity every thing which he could find against the Baptists. As he was reading, however, a heavy frown began to gather on his brow, his lips were pressed together with convulsive energy, and the paper shook with the tremulous excitement which pervaded his whole body. He continued to read, however, until he had finished the piece, and then, as if to assure himself that he had not read amiss, he began at the caption and read it every word again. When he had done, he folded the paper carefully, put it into the inside pocket of his coat, looked into the fire for several seconds, then nodded his head three times very significantly, not straight forward with the chin toward his breast bone, but diagonally, with the chin inclined toward the left shoulder, and the back of his head drawn toward the right.

What this peculiar pantomime might signify, I was, in my dream, greatly at a loss to determine, until he had gone into the room where his wife was engaged in her domestic duties.

“Mrs. Johnson,” said he, “I desire that you will pack my carpet-bag. I must make a journey to St. Louis, and to get home before the Sabbath must start this morning.”

“Why, my dear, what in the world is the matter?”

“I want to go and see Doctor Rice, madam; I don’t like the way he talks about me. He has had the audacity to call me a fool, madam; nay, more, he has even declared that there is not so great a fool in our whole denomination. It is too much, madam, for human nature to endure. I feel it my duty to go and talk to him as a Christian brother; I want to tell him to his face that I think he has done me great injustice, and, in short, has treated me very badly.”

Mrs. Johnson seemed instinctively to understand that delay or remonstrance was out of the question. She made at once the needful arrangements, and her husband was gone.

Then I saw, in my dream, that he entered the room where the Reverend Doctor was engaged in writing.

“I presume this is the Reverend Doctor Rice,” said he. “My name is Johnson, sir; the Reverend Mr. Johnson, of ⸻, I felt it my duty, sir, to come and see you about your paper of the ⸻”

“Ah, I am glad to see you, Mr. Johnson. Take a seat, sir; I hope you have had a pleasant journey.”

“Why, yes, sir, reasonably so; but in fact I have a great dislike to traveling, and nothing would have induced me to take the journey but a conviction of duty. I felt it to be my duty, sir, to come and tell you that I think you have treated me very badly, sir. And let me say, sir, that you have done more to destroy my confidence and that of my congregation, in the truthfulness of our positions on the Baptismal question, than all the Baptist arguments I have ever heard.”:

“Why, my dear sir, what can you mean?”

Mr. Johnson pulled the paper before referred to out of his pocket, and found the article on Theodosia.

“I suppose, sir,” said he, holding it up before the Doctor, “you will not deny that you are the author of that?”

“Certainly not,” replied the Doctor, as he glanced rapidly down the column like one who was familiar with the words. “I take credit to myself, sir, as being the first, and, so far as I know, the only person who has attempted to answer that peculiar book.”

“I have no objection,” replied Mr. Johnson, “to your answering the book. In fact, no one could rejoice more than I to see it rightly answered, but I want you to understand that you have done me and those who stood with me in that discussion very great injustice. It was unkind, sir, it was cruel in you to intimate that there was not in all the Presbyterian denomination so great a fool as I, just because I had never carefully examined the subject of baptism for myself, but trusted to Doctor Dwight and Doctor Miller, and our other Doctors of Divinity for my information and my arguments. I have always had a great regard, sir, for our Doctors of Divinity. I have supposed they must be pious, and learned, and truthful men. I thought I could rely upon any thing I had learned from a Presbyterian Doctor of Divinity; I therefore took the substance of their arguments, not venturing to employ a single one of my own, and yet for doing this you count me as a simpleton and called me a fool.”

“Ah, my dear brother Johnson, you must excuse me; I did not at first understand precisely who you were, I begin to see it now. Let me assure you, sir, that I heartily sympathize with you on the loss of so lovely a member as Miss Theodosia, and so influential an Elder as her Uncle Jones. I can easily understand, my dear sir, that you were deeply wounded by that event, and still feel a little sore on the subject. But you must not fall out with your friends on that account. We must DO SOMETHING to break the force of the arguments presented by the author in his silly narrative of that transaction. We must either meet those arguments with sober logic, or we must destroy their influence by ridicule. I am sure when you have come to look at the matter calmly, you will not only excuse but even approve what I have said.”

“What, sir! excuse and approve your calling me a fool, just because I used no better arguments than had been furnished me by our greatest Doctors of Divinity!”

“Ah, my dear brother, I see that you do not yet quite understand me. I mean to say that, in order to destroy the influence of that silly narrative, we must either fairly meet and logically confute the facts and arguments by which Miss Theodosia and her uncle were convinced that we are wrong and the Baptists are right, or else we must turn attention from them by calling the book a ‘NOVEL,’ and laughing at the arguments as though they were not worth answering. And now let me say to you in confidence, that it was a great deal easier to insinuate that as a ‘novel’ it must be a work unfit for the pious to read, and ridicule and laugh at the book, than to disprove its facts or answer its arguments. I trust, therefore, you will not take it too much to heart if you come in for your share of the laugh, since you can’t help seeing that if I had allowed your arguments and those of your friend, Professor Jones, to be the best we have, our cause is at once and forever irretrievably ruined; but by adroitly representing these as perfect nonsense and foolishness, I make the impression on the minds of my readers that we have some others of most tremendous power, which could not possibly have failed to convince your opponents if you had only known them and brought them forward.”

“But, sir,” replied Mr. Johnson, “I am sure I brought forward the very best that I could find—I took those of our most eminent Doctors of Divinity, living and dead, the present company only excepted. I would like to know, sir, if any doctor in our church ever stood higher than Timothy Dwight, D. D., and Samuel Miller, D. D., one the President of Yale College, the other an honored professor for many years in our leading Theological Seminary, that at Princeton, New Jersey. I thought, sir, I was safe from the charge of folly when I followed Dwight and Miller, and consequently I took the same ground with these eminent men to show Miss Theodosia that John did not baptize by immersion, but that the Lord Jesus must have been sprinkled on the bank of the river. Just turn to volume four, page 349, of Dwight’s Divinity—‘It is,’ says he, ‘incredible that the multitudes which John baptized in the wilderness were immersed. It will not be mistrusted that this promiscuous assembly were immersed naked. To have immersed them with their clothes on would have exposed them to certain disease and death.’ Now, I did not care to state it just in this way to Miss Theodosia, so I said that they could not have been immersed on account of their great numbers, and for this I had the authority of several Doctors of Divinity. Says Doctor Summers, page 82 of his work on Baptism: ‘It was not possible for him to baptize the immense multitudes that came to his baptism by immersing them,’ and gives as a reason that his ministry lasted only a year or less, and in that time ‘he baptized, perhaps, two or three millions.’ He thinks, as I did, that they must have stood in rows along the bank, while the Baptist sprinkled them either with or without hyssop, he don’t know which. So also Doctor Eagleton, of Tennessee, gives the same explanation.

“The great Doctor Rice, I know, does not venture to say, like Summers and Dwight, that it was ‘impossible’ and ‘incredible,’ but even he, in his work on Baptism, page 116, founds an argument on the assumption that ‘it was not very probable.’ And Doctor Miller, whom some will consider a greater than Rice, expressly says, ‘There is no evidence, and I will venture to say, no probability, that John ever baptized by immersion.’ Then, when I wished to prove that the Apostle did not immerse any more than John had dome, what better could I do than follow these great Doctors? Doctor Dwight expressly says, volume four, page 349: ‘It is impossible that those whom Peter and his companions baptized on the day of Pentecost should have been immersed,’ and gives as reasons, first, that they had no suitable clothes; second, there was not time enough, and he plainly intimates that there was not water enough.

“So Doctor Summers says it was impossible, because there were no places suitable for immersion, and besides it was impossible for the twelve to baptize such a multitude in the six or eight hours that remained of the day. So also Doctor Rice himself, page 120 of his work on Baptism, makes in substance the very same argument. ‘Where,’ he exultingly asks, ‘did the Apostles find sufficient water for the immersion of so many?’ And again, ‘The number—could the twelve Apostles baptize three thousand persons in that day?’ And Doctor Miller, whom some will think a greater even than Doctor Rice, declares, after dwelling upon these difficulties of the case, ‘The man, therefore, who can believe that the three thousand on the day of Pentecost were baptized by immersion, must have great faith and a wonderful facility of accommodating his belief to his wishes.’

“On these two points, therefore, you see I had the authority of our most learned Doctors, including even Doctor N. L. Rice himself, and yet Doctor Rice calls me a fool because I could not do better than them all.”

“Oh, no; excuse me, my dear brother Johnson, but these were not the points to which I particularly referred. I grant you had the substance of our arguments on these points, but then that argument of yours based upon with as the signification of the Greek preposition ‘en,’ you must allow that it was rather simple in you to rest so much upon the phrase ‘with water.’”

“Not at all, sir; I can admit no such thing. The truth is, sir, this is our great argument to the minds of the unlearned. It has more plausibility in it than any other that I have ever read. And, sir, you must let me tell you that though you may now call it silly and rate me as a fool for using it, I did it on the authority of more than one of our Doctors of Divinity. The Rev. Alexander Newton, D.D., in the ‘True Baptist,’ makes a long and carefully elaborated argument, based upon this rendering of the word. Dr. Summers, page 100, says expressly that ‘with’ is the proper meaning of the word ‘when found in connection with baptism.’ And even the great Doctor Rice himself, in his debate with Campbell, page 191, quoted Bloomfield to show that it was ‘with water’ and not in water that ‘en hudati’ should be rendered. How then can Doctor Rice call me a fool for using his own argument, and that of other doctors almost equal to himself?”

“I don’t deny that I alluded to it,” replied the doctor; “but I know too well its fallacy to risk our cause upon it as you did. But it was not for this so much as for your calling attention to those unguarded admissions of Barnes, and Chalmers, and McKnight, that I thought, to say the least, you were somewhat indiscreet.”

“Why, my dear sir, were not these all Presbyterians? Were they not all DOCTORS OF DIVINITY? Could I not venture to direct an inquiring member of the Presbyterian Church to our own Presbyterian Doctors of Divinity for information? I know those men were counted among the wisest and the best of all our doctors I took it for granted that they had studied the subject before they wrote about it; I had, I am sure, no suspicion that they would mislead those who trusted to their teaching.”

“But when you found which way they were leading your inquirers why did you not contradict and oppose their testimony?”

“I did do my best,” replied Mr. Johnson, “but the truth is I am not, like you, a Doctor of Divinity, and therefore I could not contradict such men with as good a face as you can. If you had been there you might have said, ‘My dear young friends, it is true that these learned men and eminent masters in the Presbyterian Church do teach thus, but they are utterly in error. They have stated what is entirely devoid of truth; you may take my word, but you cannot trust to theirs.’ But you, no more than I, could have denied that Dr. Barnes admits baptize in Greek to be the same as tabal in Hebrew, and that he says and proves that it in the Scriptures signifies ‘to dip.’ You, no more than I, could have denied that Chalmers and McKnight do both unquestionably give immersion as the meaning of the word, and both agree that it was immersion that John and the apostles employed. That is too plain for argument. But them, as you are a Doctor of Divinity, as well as they, and have been Moderator of the General Assembly one year, as McKnight was for twenty, you might have ventured to dispute their word—you might have called in question either their learning or their veracity, for if they told what is not true it must have been either from ignorance or falsehood; but it would not have done for a plain and simple pastor like myself to put my word against that of any one of these great doctors, much less against all three. I assure you, sir, that you Doctors of Divinity have a great advantage over us common pastors in such a discussion as that. When that learned Professor of Theology, Moses Stuart, says that all critics and lexicographers of any note are agreed that immersion is the common and primary meaning of the word baptism, and that the first Christians so understood it, you can simply say it is no such thing; but people would expect me to prove it, and that very plainly, too, before they would believe that Stuart lied about it, or that a man of his eminent learning could be mistaken.

“When the learned MARTIN LUTHER says that ‘Baptism is a Greek word, and signifies immersion,’ and that the etymology of the word seems to demand that the person baptized ‘should be wholly immersed, and then immediately drawn out of the water,’ as he does in his works, vol. 1, p. 386, you could reply: ‘Doctor Martin Luther must be egregiously mistaken about this, for I, Doctor N. L. Rice, have examined into the matter, and find it is not true.’ When that ‘godly, learned man, JOHN CALVIN,’ in his Institutes, b. iv., s. 15, says that ‘The word baptize signifies to immerse, and it is certain that immersion was the practice of the ancient church,’ you, as a Doctor of Divinity, can say: ‘Doctor John Calvin was mistaken—this is not true.’ When that very learned and eminent scholar, CASAUBON, says, ‘The manner of baptizing was to PLUNGE or DIP them into the water, as even the word baptism plainly enough shows,’ you have only to say: ‘Casaubon was either very ignorant of the matter, or else he lied, for I, Doctor N. L. Rice, have found it was not so.’

“When the learned BISHOP BOUSSET declares that ‘Baptize signifies to plunge, as is admitted by all the world;’ when the famous critic Venema says: ‘The word baptizien, to baptize, is nowhere used in the Scripture for sprinkling;’ when the great scholar says, in commenting on Matt. iii. 6: ‘Baptism consists in the immersion of the whole body in water’—you can simply reply: ‘I know these learned foreigners say such things, but Doctor N. L. Rice knows better.’

“When such a man as DOCTOR GEORGE CAMPBELL, of Scotland, the President of a Presbyterian College, says that ‘the word BAPTIZIEN, both in the sacred authors and classical, signifies to DIP, to PLUNGE, to IMMERSE, and was thus rendered by Tertullian, the oldest of the Latin fathers,’ that ‘it is ALWAYS construed suitably to this meaning,’ that ‘it is never in any case, sacred or classical, employed in the sense of rain or sprinkle,’ you have only to say, that ‘Doctor George Campbell differs on these points from Doctor N. L. Rice.’

“When a learned professor of Greek, like the well-known Charles Anthon, of Columbian College, the author of some of our most valuable classical school books, expressly asserts that ‘the primary meaning of the word is to dip or to IMMERSE, and its secondary meanings, if it ever had any, all refer in some way or other to the same leading idea,’ that ‘sprinkling and pouring are entirely out of the question,’ you have only to say: ‘Mr. Anthon is only a learned professor of languages, and I, a DOCTOR OF DIVINITY, take it upon myself to assure you that he is entirely mistaken. IT IS NOT TRUE; and whether Professor Anthon is ignorant or false, the world may judge.’

“Now if I, a simple, untitled pastor, should talk so, they would not believe me. I tried it, sir. I asserted roundly, just as Doctor Miller had done. I intended to use his very words: ‘Now we contend that this word does not necessarily, or even commonly, signify to immerse, but also implies to wash, to sprinkle, to pour on water, and to tinge or dye with any liquid, and therefore accords very well with the mode of baptism by sprinkling or affusion.’ ‘I can assure you,’ he says in another place, ‘that the word we render baptize does legitimately signify the application of water in any way as well as by immersion.’ Now I could make assertions as confidently as even Doctor Rice himself, but I found that I was expected to prove them, and that from the Scriptures, and in such a way that the demonstration should be plain to the common sense of an earnest and shrewd, quick-witted girl. I assure you I had rather have tried to satisfy a dozen Doctors of Divinity.”

“But why did you not go to the Lexicons, as I did in my Lexington debate? Why did you permit that young lawyer to wrest this weapon out of your hands at the very beginning? Mr. Campbell began to quote the Lexicons on me, but I showed that this was a game at which two could play.”

“And yet I am sure, sir, Miss Theodosia would have said that you lost the game, however well you played. The truth is, Doctor Albert Barnes, by pointing to the places in the Old Testament where they could find the meaning of the word as it was used among the Jews, had taken away the necessity for any reference to Lexicons, unless it were to prove that Barnes was a false interpreter, and this I did not like to do. But what could the Lexicons have availed for my purpose, even as quoted by yourself? You appealed to eleven of them, and I suppose you gave the most favorable definitions you could extract. Now, you will remember that neither Miss Ernest nor Mr. Percy had taken any such ground as Mr. Carson had done, or as Mr. Campbell did in your debate. No one in our company insisted that immerse was the only and necessary meaning of the word, but only that it was the common and most frequent meaning, in connection with which it was most likely to be employed, and which it must therefore (according to the ordinary rules of interpretation) be understood, unless the context required some other. Now you know, as well as I, that the rule of the Lexicons is to give the common, every-day meaning, as the primary or first definition. And yet, when you attempted to ascertain the meaning of the word baptizo by the Lexicons, what did they testify?

“Scapula, according to your own rendering, gives baptizo, to dip or immerse; also to dye, as we immerse things for the purpose of coloring or washing them; also to plunge, submerge, to cover with water, etc.

“Hedericus gives to dip, immerse, to cover with water.

“Stephanus.—To dip, to immerse, as we immerse things for the purpose of coloring or washing; to merge, submerge, to cover with water.

“Schleusner.—To plunge, to immerse.

“Parkhurst.—To immerse in, or wash with water.

“Robinson.—To immerse, to sink.

“Schrivellius.—To baptize, to immerse.

“Groves.—To dip, immerse, immerge, plunge.

“Bretschneider.—Properly often to dip.

“Suidas.—To sink, to plunge, to immerse.

“Ware.—To wash, perform ablution, cleanse; secondly, to immerse. “Greenfield.—To immerse, immerge, submerge, sink.

“Now, out of all the eleven, you could find but one, and that unknown to fame, which does not give dip or its equivalent as its first and common meaning. Miss Ernest would have said the testimony is ten to one against you. If you had come into court with ten witnesses against you, and only one for you, Mr. Percy, as a lawyer, would have declared your case utterly hopeless.

“But Mr. Campbell, at that time, gave you several other Lexicons, among which was:

“Robertson’s Thesaurus, which defines it to immerse, to wash.

“Pason.—To dip, to immerse, to dye, because it is done by immersing.

“Donegan.—To immerse repeatedly into a liquid, to submerge, to sink.

“Jones.—Plunge, dip, baptize, bury, overwhelm.

“Bass.—To dip, immerse, plunge in water. Baptisma, immersion, dipping.

“Stokius.—To dip, to immerse in water.

“So we have in all sixteen witnesses who depose that this is its primary and common meaning. Sixteen who testify that it must thus be understood when nothing in the context requires another sense. And only one who gives to wash as its primary meaning. Mr. Campbell also mentioned several others, whom he said gave it the same sense, and you did not dispute his word.”

“But what of all that?” replied the Reverend Doctor Rice. “I would have set aside all that array of dictionaries by quoting just one sentence from the great Baptist, Doctor Carson, who ought surely to understand what he says, and who was no friend to sprinkling; and yet he expressly says, ‘THAT ALL THE LEXICONS ARE AGAINST HIM.’ This is testimony enough for me.”

“But it would not have been for Miss Theodosia or Mr. Percy. They would have asked to see the BOOK and the place, and would have read it for themselves, and doing so, would have been sure to discover what you must have known before you quoted it, that he does NOT say that all the Lexicons are against the Baptists—he does NOT say that all or any of the Lexicons gives sprinkling or pouring as a meaning of the word—he does NOT say that they do not all agree in giving dip or its equivalent as the primary and common meaning. ‘On this point,’ he says, ‘I have no quarrel with the Lexicons. There is the most complete harmony among them in representing dip as the primary meaning of bapto and baptizo.’ But Mr. Carson denies that it has any secondary meaning at all, or that it ever means any thing else but dip or immerse. And it is on this point, that he says, page 55, ‘He has all the Lexicographers and Commentators against him.’ I could not have satisfied my inquirers with such a misrepresentation, even though my conscience could have permitted me to use it. We all know that the Lexicons give secondary meanings to these words, and in our company there was no disposition to question the propriety of their doing so. But, sir, it has struck me with surprise, since my attention has been turned to the subject, that not a single one of all the seventeen Lexicons referred to and quoted by you and Mr. Campbell give sprinkle or pour as even a secondary meaning. They give wash and cleanse, but several of them are careful to explain that it is because things may be washed and cleansed by dipping them in water. And I have been thinking, especially since I read your piece, that what we are accustomed to call baptism is not even a washing—for if the Doctor should tell me to wash one of my children, who was sick, with warm water, I am sure I should not feel that I had carried out the prescription by dipping the tip of my fingers in the water and touching them to his forehead. And the truth is, sir—I suppose I may just as well tell it—that since you have made so light of all the arguments which I advanced in our discussion, and yet have given me no better, nor told me to which of all our Doctors I can go to find any more forcible or convincing, I begin to doubt whether we are not both mistaken, and that Miss Ernest and her friends had better reasons for leaving us than I can ever find for remaining where I am.”

“Yes,” exclaimed Professor Jones (who suddenly made his appearance, unaccountably, as people often do in dreams), “I have often thought how angry we should be if those who owe obedience to us should render it as some of us render obedience to God. Doctor Rice, for example, says to a little servant boy on Saturday night, go wash yourself, or go bathe yourself, and put on clean clothing for the Sabbath. The servant, instead of bathing his whole body, takes a few drops of water in the palm of his hand and pours it on the top of his head. ‘You little rascal,’ Doctor Rice would say, ‘why did you not wash yourself as I directed you?’

“‘I did wash myself, sir.’

“‘You did! Do you call that washing yourself? Why, you did not even wet your scalp. Come here, sir; I’ll teach you how to trifle with my commandments.’

“‘Please, sir,’ exclaims the lad. ‘Please sir, don’t punish me; I am sure, sir, I did wash myself; I can prove it to you sir.’

“‘Why, you little impertinent. You just now confessed that you only put a few drops of water on the top of your head.’

“‘I know it, sir; but that was washing myself, sir; I can prove it by the united testimony of all your DOCTORS OF DIVINITY, including the Reverend Doctor N. L. Rice. You may be so angry, sir, just now, that you don’t remember it, but in your Lexington debate you said again and again that baptize means to wash, and of course wash means to baptize, and when you and our other DOCTORS OF DIVINITY baptize, you only put a few drops of water on the person’s head. Besides, you said again and again, that wash was a “generic” word (I believe that was it, sir), and might be performed in any way, and as this is the way which all the great DOCTORS OF DIVINITY use when =God= tells them “to wash” people, I am sure, sir, you could not expect me to do more in obedience to your command than you do in obedience to HIS.’

“But let it pass; I have just called in, Doctor, to thank you for dealing so kindly with me in your article on Theodosia. It is customary when one has been driven by his convictions of duty to leave some denominations for others for those he leaves to seek by defamation to destroy his peace and injure his usefulness. It is customary to attack his character and impugn his motives. And the same course has sometimes been adopted to counteract the influence of a controversial BOOK. When its arguments could not be met and refuted, the moral or Christian character of the author has been assailed with a malignity which argues very little for the piety of the assailants, and of itself affords prima facie evidence that there is something rotten in the system which requires such foul means to sustain it, and breeds such rancorous spirits to contend for it. But it has gratified me much to see that you speak of me in ‘sorrow more than anger;’ that you are more inclined to pity than abuse. You think me weak and foolish, and that is the worst of it. I could expect no less than that, for we all are apt to think disparagingly of the intellect which cannot see what seems to ours as clear as light. You thought that my friend, Mr. Johnson, was simple, because he failed to convince my niece and myself; and I might have expected that you would think still worse of me, because I could not be convinced. If Mr. Johnson had used all the arguments which he could have found in the works of Presbyterian Doctors of Divinity, you might with good reason have thought him a simpleton indeed.

“He contended with Doctor Miller and other doctors, that the word baptize means to sprinkle or to pour, as truly as to immerse.

“Like several others, and yourself among them, he denied that John’s baptism was Christian baptism.

“Like you and all the rest he denied that Jesus went into the water, or that John baptized in Jordan, but asserted that he sprinkled the people standing in rows on the bank.

“Like you and the other doctors, he denied that there was water enough to be had in Jerusalem to immerse three thousand, or time enough to do it.

“Like you and the other doctors, he made an argument upon the design of baptism, as being better symbolized by sprinkling than immersion.

“Like you and the other doctors, he made a very plausible argument upon the Pentecostic outpouring of the Holy Ghost as baptism.

“Like you and some of the other doctors, he made the strongest argument that it is possible to make upon ‘with water’ as the translation of ‘en udati.’ And he gave to each and every one of these arguments all the force to which it was logically entitled, and if they could not stand before the simple, common sense of a strong-minded, earnest-hearted girl, it was not his fault, but the fault of the arguments. If he had presented all the arguments which he could have found gravely set forth by Doctors of Divinity, little Edwin himself would have laughed him out of countenance. What if, like Doctor Dwight, he had declared that ‘Christ himself has expressly taught us that immersion is unessential to the administration of this ordinance.’

“When he said to Peter, John xiii.: ‘He that is washed needeth not care to wash his feet, but is clean every whit,’ from which the learned doctor concludes that ‘a symbolical washing is perfect although applied only to the feet; as perfect as if it were applied also to the hands and the head, and if this construction be admitted, it must also be admitted that the declaration is general and extends to every other symbolical washing, and therefore to baptism, unless excluded by some plain exception.’ See Dwight’s Divinity, vol. 4, pp. 150, 157.

“So also another Doctor of Divinity declares, that ‘Christ discountenanced the practice of immersion in religious purifications. He that is washed, said he to Peter, needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit. John xiii. 9, 10. By reading this text in its connection, we will perceive that so far from introducing the practice of washing the body all over as a religious rite, he discouraged it, by declaring it unnecessary, and by refusing to gratify Peter, who wished to have the water applied to him in a more profuse manner than the Saviour was using it.’ See James Wood, D. D., on Christian Baptism, page 35. If Doctor Wood is consistent with himself, he applies the water to the baby’s. dear little foot, for it was the application of water to the ‘hands’ or the ‘head’ that Jesus ‘discountenanced’ and ‘discouraged.’ I presume, therefore, that Doctor Wood is not only a Pedobaptist, but a pedal-baptist, a foot-baptizer.

“What if Mr. Johnson had said, as more than one of the DOCTORS OF DIVINITY has done, that there is the same proof that the Eunuch immersed Philip that there is that Philip immersed the Eunuch? Yet the great Doctor Miller says: ‘There is the same evidence that Philip was plunged as that the Eunuch was.’ And Doctor Dwight argues that if ‘eis’ means into, and ‘ek’ means out of, in the narrative of this transaction, they were both plunged twice and the Eunuch three times. Here are his words: ‘The declarations here made, are made concerning the Eunuch and Philip; alike of both it is said that they went down into the water, if we render eis into; of both also it is said that when they came up out of the water, if we render the word ek out of. Now let us see what will be the true import of the passage according to this method of construing the words in question, and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the Eunuch. That is, they were both plunged. And he baptized him, that is, Philip plunged the Eunuch. And when they were come up out of the water; that is, when they had both been plunged a second time and risen up from their immersion, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip. In other words, they were both plunged twice and the Eunuch three times.’ See Dwight’s Divinity, vol. 4, p. 350, Sermon on Baptism.

“Suppose that Mr. Johnson, like Doctor Wood, had gravely argued that the Eunuch must have been baptized by sprinkling, because he had been reading in Isaiah, and Isaiah somewhere, though not in the passage quoted as that which he was reading, says that Messiah shall sprinkle many nations, while every scholar knows that in the Septuagint, which it is most likely he was reading, the word sprinkle does not occur, but ‘thaumasontai’ astonish, ‘so shall he astonish many nations.’ And Doctor Adam Clarke says it is the best rendering of the Hebrew. That the Jews so understood the Hebrew is evident from their so translating it; and therefore, whether the Eunuch read Hebrew or Greek, he could have found no such word as sprinkle.

“But though your Doctors of Divinity had talked volumes of such nonsense, my friend, Mr. Johnson, had sense enough to see that arguments like these could not be expected to stand the scrutiny of earnest, inquiring common sense, even in a simple girl, and therefore would not offer them. He used the best you have, and did the best he could with them. I grant that both he and I used some very simple arguments; nay, that all our arguments were silly as long as we argued against the truth, for every false argument must be foolish, but neither of us was as silly as some of you DOCTORS OF DIVINITY, and since you have yourself condemned and ridiculed the very arguments by which not only he but thousands of your people are deluded and prevented from yielding obedience to Christ, I trust both he and they will see their folly, abandon their errors, obey their Lord, and like my niece and myself, unite with his visible church.”

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Chapter II

Then I saw, in my dream, that Pastor Johnson sat with his good old wife, in their own quiet room; but his countenance was sad, and she saw that his heart was troubled, and knew that something had gone amiss with him during his absence. With true womanly tact she sought to find out what it had been without seeming to ask.

“I hope, my dear, you had a pleasant journey, and met with no disagreeable accidents by the way.”

“It was as pleasant as I had expected.”

“You saw Doctor Rice, of course. I have been told since you started that he is a perfect model of a Christian gentleman, and would certainly explain every thing to your satisfaction. Did you not find it so?”

“Gentleman! Why, yes; I suppose he is what people call a gentleman—a polished, pleasant gentleman—and he made, probably, what he thinks the best apology that the case admits of.”

“But you were not quite satisfied with it? Well, I don’t wonder. It was too bad to call you a greater simpleton than could be found in all the Presbyterian Church. But what explanation did he make?”

“My dear wife,” said the pastor, suddenly raising his eyes, and looking earnestly into her face, “I begin to think that our Doctors of Divinity are no more to be confided in than other people, and that Miss Ernest, Esquire Percy, and Professor Jones, were right in just casting all their assertions aside, and going to the sacred Word and hunting out its teachings for themselves.”

“Why, Mr. Johnson!”

“Yes, my dear; I never mean to trust the bare assertion of any Doctor of Divinity again as long as I live. Just think of it now—Doctor Rice laughs at my arguments in favor of sprinkling, and at Mr. Percy’s, and at those of Professor Jones. He holds them up to the scorn of the world. He speaks of them as though they were almost beneath contempt; and yet you and I know very well that they are arguments which I borrowed, EVERY ONE OF THEM, from a Doctor of Divinity. They are the very same arguments which have been employed by Doctor Eagleton, by Doctor Newton, by Doctor Wood, by Doctor Summers, by Doctor Miller, by Doctor Dwight, and even by Doctor Rice himself. But to make the world believe that we have some stronger and better arguments he laughs at these, as though they were the mere twaddle of the veriest ignoramus in all Christendom. But does he bring forward any stronger or any better ones? Does he point to the chapter and the page in the works of our Doctors of Divinity, where they presented any thing more convincing? So far from it, he was obliged to own to Professor Jones, whom I met at his house, that he had himself employed these very arguments in his debate with Campbell; and the Professor also pointed out to him the volumes and the pages in the works of our greatest doctors, where they had employed arguments so much sillier than mine, that I would have been ashamed to mention them to a shrewd, sensible girl, like Theodosia. Now, what am I as a Christian man and a Christian minister to do? I have all the time believed that we were right, and, therefore, I so preached and practiced. But you know I would sooner cut off this right hand than use it to sprinkle another babe if Christ does not require it. It was because I trusted to the teaching of our doctors that I thought he must be right; but when these doctors hold up these very arguments, by which I was convinced, to the scorn of the religious world, and yet give me no better in the place of them, I can’t help thinking there is something rotten in the system somewhere.

“I intend, God helping me, to search into the Scripture teachings for myself. I remember that we could not find a single command to baptize infants, nor a single example of one baptized. I remember that our own best commentators, such as Barnes in this country, and Olshausen in Europe, say there is nothing about it in the text I most relied upon, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me.’ I remember that we could not find one single text, which even our own Doctors of Divinity all agree upon as requiring or justifying the practice—that even concerning the covenant of circumcision, which Doctor McNought thinks is our strongest fortress. Professor Stuart expressly declares, in his commentary on Genesis xvii. and Galatians, that they can afford it no countenance whatever; and as to sprinkling, even Doctor Rice himself did not, and dare not say that the Greek word baptize in the Scriptures has ever been truly rendered sprinkle by any reliable Lexicon or eminent critic. He only contends that it may be rendered to wash, and then says that washing may be done by sprinkling a dozen drops or less of water on the person’s head. But can it be thus done? If you or I should tell one of the children to wash, not his face, but to wash himself, would he consider it a full and complete obedience if he should only dip the tip of his fingers in water, and touch them on his head, or face, or feet, or hands; for I don’t see as there is any more propriety in touching one part than another.”

“I don’t think we would, my dear,” replied the good woman. “And if this be so, I am sure it must be some wicked MOCKERY to do that in obedience to God’s commands, which we would consider as the veriest trifling if it were done in the place of actual obedience to a similar command by us.”

“I am afraid, my dear,” resumed the pastor, “I am awfully afraid we have been wrong. God knows I meant to do right—God knows I verily believed that I was right; but this communication of Doctor Rice has made the case look fearfully dark to me.

“I have thought, and prayed, and thought again, until my brain is dizzy. I can’t help seeing Jesus baptized, as Mark says, ‘Eis,’ not merely in, but into the river of Jordan. I can’t help seeing the Eunuch and Philip going down into the water, then the baptism, then the coming up out of the water. I fear our doctors twist and pervert the words in trying to make them mean any thing less. I fear some of them almost prevaricate to hide the simple and natural meaning of the language. But oh, it is a dreadful thought that we have all the time been wrong; that I, a minister of Christ, have all my life been the advocate of error, and have been doing in his name that which he never commanded, and having constantly undone that which he actually did commission all his ministers to do. I must study more about it. I must pray more over it. But if I find it so—much as I love my people, much as I love my church, much as I love my brethren in the ministry, much as I love the doctrines and the ordinances which I have so long taught and administered, I trust I love the truth and love my Saviour better than them all, and I will go down into the water as the Eunuch did, and Mr. Percy shall himself baptize me, as Philip did the Eunuch, and when we come up out of the water I trust to meet the Spirit of the Lord ready to find a place for me to labor, and to bless my work.”

Then I saw, in my dream, some few weeks after this, that Mr. Percy had returned from his visit to Nashville and the hill country of Tennessee (an account of which is given in the second volume of Theodosia Ernest), and he was standing in the same place where Theodosia had gone down into the water. The company that stood upon the bank consisted of a great multitude. Many of them had walked in a procession from the beautiful new Baptist meeting-house, which stood near the old school-house where Theodosia had been admitted to the visible company of Christ’s people. Many others had come from the magnificent old building, in which, until recently, Pastor Johnson had been accustomed to minister for many years. Many had come from other places of worship, and not a few were there who seldom witnessed any act of religion but one like this, which called them out merely to gratify their curiosity. But vast and various as was the crowd, they were silent, and solemn, and tearful, when the old man stopped at the verge of the water, turned to their expectant gaze, and briefly gave the reasons why, following his Saviour’s example, and in obedience to his positive command, which he could no longer misunderstand, he was about to “be buried with Christ by baptism.”

Those reasons we have not space to tell as he told them that day. It is enough for us merely to state that, after earnest prayer for guidance from above, he had resolved to “search the Scriptures” and discard the doctors. That he had been unable to find any sprinkling commanded or practiced as baptism. Nor could he find a single text which either commands or justifies the baptism of babes, Presbyterian Doctors of Divinity themselves being judges, since each text that one may claim as teaching it, a half a dozen others will declare has no relation to the case.

“There are,” said he, in conclusion, “many of my own former people here. I see their once familiar faces. Some look on me with pity; and could I have continued to practice, in my Master’s name, what he has nowhere commanded, I should need their pity.

“Some look on me with heartfelt sorrow; and I see even now the traces which their tears have marked upon their loving faces. My friends, I am happier now than I have been for many months. Doubt has now given way to certainty, hesitation to decision—the struggle, the long, agonizing, heart-rending struggle between old attachments and personal inclination, on the one hand, and duty to my Lord and Master on the other, has ceased at length, and I have peace with God and peace with my own conscience.

“It may be there are some who look on me with anger; some who will follow me with bitter words; some who may malign my motives, and seek to destroy my character; some who may send out rumors that their old pastor was deranged, or something worse, and that the people whom he served so long were glad to be so easily rid of him. Such things have been said of others, and, doubtless, will be said of me. But, though you may revile me, I will love you still. Though you may persecute me, I will still pray for you, and long and strive to bring you to a knowledge of the whole truth of the glorious gospel of my blessed God. And since you cannot make me hate you, you cannot harm me by your hatred. I part with you all in the love of the gospel, and pray for all, that God will help you see, as I have seen, the sin and danger of setting aside the ordinance of Christ, and teaching for doctrines the traditions and commandments of men.”

Then they went down into the water, both Mr. Percy and the former pastor, and he baptized him; and they came up out of the water, and I awoke—and behold it was a dream! And yet, kind reader, was it ALL a dream?

The End.

FOOTNOTES

[1] See Dr. Miller.

[2] “What,” says Professor Moses Stuart, page 298—“What are the classical meanings of bapto and baptizo? Both these words mean to dip, to immerse, to plunge into any thing liquid. All lexicographers and critics of any note are agreed in this.” And again, on page 288: “The original etymological root of baptizo, bapto, and also of the nouns and adjectives kindred with them, appears plainly to be the Greek monosyllable BAP. The leading and original meaning of which seems to have been dipping, immersing, plunging, soaking, drenching in some liquid; and as closely associated with this, the idea of dyeing or coloring, since this was done by dipping.” And again: “The precise difference between bapto and baptizo is, that while they both agree in one common and original meaning, that of immersion or plunging, usage has employed bapto to express the idea of coloring, as well as the idea of dipping or plunging; while baptizo is not employed in the additional sense of coloring.”

[3] For an immense amount of testimony on this point, see Robinson’s History of Baptism.

THEODOSIA ERNEST. VOLUME II.: OR, TEN DAYS’ TRAVEL IN SEARCH OF THE CHURCH.

Nashville, Tenn.: Baptist Publishing House. S. C. Rogers, 59 North Market St. 1866.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by R. B. Davidson, In the District Court of the United States, for the Middle District of Tennessee.

CONTENTS

First Day’s Travel.

The converted infidel—The authority of the Scriptures—The object of our investigation—Is the Church one, or many?—Has the Church any branches—Difficulties increasing—A mystery developed. Pages 11⁠–⁠25

Second Day’s Travel.

The meaning of certain words and phrases used in Scripture to designate the institutions set up by Christ, such as the kingdom of God, etc., examined and settled—Mr. Percy’s call to the ministry. 26⁠–⁠67

Third Day’s Travel.

The difference between the Kingdom and the Church, and some other remarkable things concerning the Church brought to light—No Church universal. 68⁠–⁠130

Fourth Day’s Travel.

In which we come upon some marks by which to know a true Church of Christ, whenever and wherever we may find it. 131⁠–⁠165

Fifth Day’s Travel.

More marks of a true Church found—The tablet of marks completed. 166⁠–⁠182

Sixth Day’s Travel.

The Church of Rome tried by the marks or Scripture tests—Introduction of episcopacy—Episcopacy unscriptural—Rome apostate, and the consequences to Protestants. 183⁠–⁠256

Seventh Day’s Travel.

Digression on the introduction of Infant Baptism—The trial of the Church of England begun. 258⁠–⁠288

Eighth Day’s Travel.

The trial of the Church of England completed—The trial of the Methodist Episcopal Church begun. 288⁠⁠–⁠⁠314

Ninth Day’s Travel.

The trial of the Methodist Episcopal Church continued and concluded— Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Congregational Churches tried. 314⁠–⁠444

Tenth Day’s Travel.

In which the Church is found and identified. 444⁠–⁠485

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Introduction

OUR blessed Saviour, when he was upon the earth knowing how very difficult it is to engage the attention and open the heart to the reception of religious truth, when presented abstractly, and in a didactic manner, was accustomed to connect his enunciation of the most important doctrines with a narrative suited to illustrate and enforce the teachings, while it gained the attention and secured the reception of his doctrine. We have every reason to believe that these narratives were most of them fictitious. The persons introduced did not actually exist, and the incidents related had not really occurred. He was pleased to invent the narrative, to suppose the events to have happened, in order that he might by them illustrate and enforce the great lessons which he came to teach. We do not imagine that there was really “A certain rich man who had two sons,” to whom it happened as he related in that most beautiful parable of the Prodigal Son. We do not suppose that he had in his mind any particular person whom he called the “Unjust judge, who feared not God nor regarded man,” and yet was moved by the poor widow’s “importunity” to do her justice. His hearers understood perfectly well that these were fictitious narratives, employed to gain attention to a real truth. Such fiction is no falsehood. It is not intended to deceive, and it does not deceive. Its object is accomplished when it has won the attention to the truth of which it is made the vehicle.

What the prophets often did, and what Jesus habitually did, has been done by good men in every age. They have invented narratives, sometimes brief, and designed to enforce and illustrate a single thought, and sometimes continued and connected, in order to convey a system of doctrine or a series of truths. Those are fables, or parables, poems or allegories, or simple stories, as may best suit the objects which the speaker or writer has in view. If Bunyan had merely told in plain, didactic language, the fears, the hindrances, the doubts, the sorrows, the hopes and labors and final triumphs of the Christian, he would have taught just what his Pilgrim’s Progress was designed to teach; but he would not have taught it so effectually, nor indeed so truthfully, as he has done by means of his inimitable work of fiction, in which the truth is not only told to the ear, but shown, as it were, to the eye of the mind, acting itself out in its natural and necessary results.

The numerous writers who have labored so sedulously and so successfully to make religious truth attractive and familiar to the minds of children and young people, and whose works constitute the bulk of our Sunday-school libraries, have not neglected to employ the narrative as the chief means of gaining attention and reaching the heart. And just so fax as such narratives are fitted and designed, not merely to interest the reader, not merely to excite his sympathy of arouse his feelings, but to convey important information, to teach some practical lesson in morals or religion, to illustrate or enforce some great religious truth, so far they have the sanction of the example of the best of men in other days, and even of the Lord himself.

And what if it be true that wicked men have made fiction the instrument of most terrific evil? What if they have used it to pander to the vilest passions of depraved humanity? What if they have employed it as the vehicle of false philosophy and false religion? What if they have prostituted it to minister to a morbid and mawkish sensibility? What if they have flooded the land with the filthy outpourings of the vilest and most loathsome stews of profligacy and impiety? What if the infidel has seized on it and wielded it as his most powerful weapon against Christianity? Shall we leave it to the exclusive possession of the enemies of God and man? True, they have degraded and polluted it, but it is still a weapon of tremendous power. We will wrest it from their grasp. We will sanctify, by consecrating it to God and souls. We will increase its energies by earnest prayer for Heaven’s blessing. And we will turn it against vice and infidelity. We will use it against error. We will make it the exponent and defender of the truth as it is in Jesus. Why should we not? Do we hesitate to make poetry the medium of truth, because the vicious and the dissolute have sometimes stolen her beautiful garments to cover up the most licentious conceptions of the veriest profligates that have ever been blessed with intellect? Do we cast aside our sacred songs because the lyre has been degraded, and made to sing what modesty would not dare to speak in simple prose? No such thing. If others deface her beauty, misconceive her purpose, and misapply her power, we will weep over the perversion of so glorious a gift, but we will not refuse to employ the mighty energies of poetry and song in the soul-elevating work for which they were intended. Nor will we, for a similar cause, abandon to the vicious the exclusive use of the fictitious narrative. We cannot conscientiously refuse to employ a weapon at once so effective and so necessary to the present condition of the reading world.

In the first volume of Theodosia Ernest, we have endeavored to make it the medium of instruction to a class of minds which would, we thought, be more easily reached by this than any other means in regard to certain subjects which we consider as of vast importance to the true interests of the religion of Jesus. We intended, when we began that work, to condense to a single volume such arguments and facts as should appear to us essential to the right understanding of the main points of difference between the Baptists and other denominations of Christian people. But we found that we could not do justice to the argument, and bring it all into the compass of a single volume. We were therefore obliged, contrary to our wishes and our first intentions, to continue the discussion into the present volume.

In the first, we confined our investigations to those topics which are embraced in what is commonly called the “baptismal controversy,” to wit, the act of baptism, the subjects of baptism, and communion. We did not say all we desired to say, nor all that we intend to say, upon these subjects; but we have been assured, by those whose opinions we value more than our own, that on each of these points the argument is satisfactory and unanswerable. If there is in the manner of presenting it any thing unkind or disrespectful to those who have conscientiously come to different conclusions from the author and his brethren, we sincerely regret it. We would not willingly grieve any lover of our Saviour, or cause the weakest of his little ones to stumble. If we are not self-deceived, we seek to know, and do, and teach the simple truth as we find it recorded in the Sacred Word; and to do this kindly and tenderly, but yet as one who feels that he must give account if he should “handle the Word of God deceitfully.”

In this volume we have presented the subject of Church polity. We are sure that Baptists themselves (we mean the masses, and not the educated few) have very much to learn in regard to the true nature and constitution of a scriptural Church of Jesus Christ. This has been less frequently than baptism the topic of pulpit instruction or newspaper discussion. What has been written upon it has, until recently, been mostly inaccessible to the common people; and much of it, we humbly conceive, has not been suited to give them entirely correct impressions even if they had seen it. We hail, however, with great pleasure, the recent appearance of several most valuable works upon this subject; and if we chance in some things to differ from the authors of these works, or others who have attempted to develop the true idea of the Church of Christ, we trust that our teachings will be tried, not by the common opinion of modern Christians, of ancient Christians, not by the theories or the practice of Pedobaptists, or of Baptists, but simply and solely by the Word of God. To this the author has endeavored to bring every position, and examine it carefully by its sacred light. To this he appeals. By this, and this alone, will he be judged.

NASHVILLE, July 22d, 185

Ten Days’ Travel In Search of the Church.

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FIRST DAY’S TRAVEL

The converted infidel—The authority of the Scriptures—The object of our investigation—Is the Church one or many?—Has the Church any branches?—Difficulties increasing—A mystery developed.

IN the ladies’ cabin of one of those magnificent steamboats which ply upon the Mississippi, was a mixed company, consisting of persons brought together from various portions of our own and other lands. Some lounged lazily on the rich sofas; some walked uneasily up and down the room; some talked apart, in groups of two or three; some read the morning papers, which the obliging clerk had obtained at the last landing; others were intent upon the “latest novel,” or other trashy literature, which may always be procured about the wharf from which a boat is starting. Every thing readable had been seized upon by some one of the passengers, to while away the tedium of the monotonous voyage, with one exception. THE LARGE BIBLE, which some generous-hearted people had presented to the boat, lay unopened upon the centre-table. Seeing this, a gentleman who had been walking up and down in the dining-saloon, came in through the open door, sat down by the table, opened the book with an air of uncommon reverence, and silently read several chapters in succession.

There was something in the appearance and the manners of the man that attracted the special attention of a lady remarkable for the tasteful neatness of her plain apparel, and the extraordinary beauty and expressiveness of her face, who was sitting on the left of the table, engaged in conversation with a matronly personage, who, with quite a patronizing air, was expounding to the newly married pastor’s wife the mystery of making a certain variety of bread.

The Bible reader had, on sitting down, taken his pencil from his pocket, as though it had been his habit to lead with it in his hand; and once he had placed it on the margin of the page, seemingly with the design to make some mark, or note, when, recollecting that it was not his own Bible, he laid it aside. When he had done reading, however, he turned to the fly-leaf opposite the title-page, and wrote slowly and carefully these lines:

The Book of God! let man beware, And note the words with earnest care; Heedful to learn what God will say, And not to cavil, but obey.

After which, he reverently closed the book, and returned to the other cabin. As soon as he was gone, the young lady reached the Bible, and, with true womanly curiosity, hastened to examine the writing. When she had read it, she found her husband, (a noble-looking man in the early prime of life, dressed, like herself, with great simplicity, yet with most perfect taste,) and brought him to look at it; remarking, as he was reading it, “That man is a Christian, my dear, and, it may be, a minister. We must become acquainted with him.”

“That is not unlikely. Show me which he is, and I will get the captain to introduce me to him.”

She pointed him out, and her husband went to seek the wished-for introduction.

“Captain, do you know that tall, dark gentleman yonder?”

“Certainly, sir. That is Dr. Thinkwell, formerly a practitioner of medicine, but now a wealthy planter. His summer residence is not many miles from Nashville. He will make the whole trip with us.”

“Will you have the kindness to make me acquainted with him?”

“Certainly; but you may not find his company so pleasant as you think; though, for that matter, he is a perfect gentleman. But you know you clergymen have your own opinions about some things; and the Doctor is said by some to have very different ones. In fact,” and the captain dropped his voice to a whisper, “he is said to be a Universalist, or an infidel, or something of that sort—I don’t know exactly what.”

“I am all the more anxious to know him, then.”

“Well, I only thought best to put you on your guard. He is coming this way: I will introduce you now.—Dr. Thinkwell, let me make you acquainted with the Rev. Mr. Percy, a young clergyman, who, with his lady, will travel with us as far as Nashville.”

“I am most happy to meet with you, Mr. Percy. There are but few of our present company who will make the whole trip, and I shall enjoy the voyage more for having some acquaintance in the ladies’ cabin.”

“Come with me, then, and let me introduce you to Mrs. Percy.”

They walked to the other apartment, and Mr. Percy introduced him to the lady as Dr. Thinkwell; and, to correct her conjecture that he might be a clergyman, added that he believed he was not a doctor of divinity, but of medicine.

“I had fancied, sir,” said she, “that you must be a minister of the gospel.”

“Why did you think so, Mrs. Percy?”

“From the reverent manner of your reading that book, and the lines you left upon the blank leaf at its beginning.”

“I have good reason, Madam, to love and reverence that book, although I am entirely unfit to become the expounder of its glorious truths. It is true I once despised it. I will not say I hated it: I scarcely thought it worthy of more than quiet contempt. Now I feel that it deserves far more grateful consideration at the hand of all men than it is accustomed to receive even from Christians. I cannot open it but with a sense of amazement at the goodness and the wisdom of the God who gave it.”

“Then you were once an infidel?”

“If by an infidel, Madam, you mean one who does not believe that the book called the Bible was a revelation from the Deity, I was an infidel. But I was also more.”

“Surely you were not an atheist! I have been accustomed to think that no person of ordinary intelligence and a sane mind could be an atheist.”

“If by an atheist you mean one who is fully satisfied that there is no God, I was not one. But if you mean one who very seriously doubts the being of a God; one who believes that there is not in nature, so far as known to us, sufficient and satisfactory proof to show that there is a God; then I was an atheist. He must be a bold man, indeed, who would undertake to say that there is certainly not a God; for although there might be no evidence of God within his sphere of observation; nothing within him, nothing around him, nothing in the earth beneath or in the sky above him to show that God exists, he could not determine that there might not be such evidence somewhere else. Unless he had ranged through all the immensity of the universe, and perfectly mastered all the facts which it presents, that one world where he had not been might be the very world where God might be distinctly known; that one fact which he did not know might be the very fact which, if known, would prove the existence of a God. If any man be mad enough to take such ground, you may well call him a fool. He has said in his heart not merely that there is not evidence enough to prove that God is—so leaving his existence in doubt—but plainly and positively that there is no God. Such a man is not properly an atheist, but an anti-theist—not only without God, but against God I was an atheist, but not an anti-theist.”

“Pray, Doctor, sit down and tell us, (that is, if you have no objection to speak of these things,) how it was that you were brought out of this darkness of unbelief into the light of faith.”

“When I was an unbeliever, I did not hesitate to express my doubts, and the reasons why I doubted. I took pleasure in encountering in argument those who were silly enough, as I then considered them, to believe such incredible things as the doctrines of the Christian religion; and why should I now hesitate to avow my faith in God and in his word, and, more than all; in Jesus Christ, my blessed Saviour? I will take pleasure, therefore, in relating to you the process of reasoning by which I have been led to the reception of the truth. But the story is a long one: the arguments are various, and may, to you, seem complicated, and will require our careful and undivided attention. This we can hardly give during our stay upon the boat; but I trust there will be some favorable opportunity before we part.[1] Meantime, let me have some conversation with you upon another subject, in regard to which you are probably better informed than I am, and about which I am just now in a state of distressing uncertainty.

“It is not very long since I was led, in God’s great mercy to take Jesus Christ for my Saviour. In doing so, I took him for my Lord and King. I feel that to him alone I owe allegiance in all matters of religion; and, if I am not self-deceived. I sincerely desire and intend to know and do his will. I am aware that he requires of those who believe in him, that they shall make a public profession of their faith in him, and unite themselves with his visible people. This I should have done ere now, but for a single difficulty, which is not yet removed, and in the removal of which you possibly may aid me.”

“And what is that great difficulty?”

“Simply this: there are so many different organizations, each claiming to be the Church of Christ, that I do not know which to receive and unite with as his.”

“Permit me to suggest,” replied Mr. Percy, “that you have probably not made a careful examination of the subject in the light of the Scriptures alone; but have permitted the cross-lights of tradition and of prejudice, or at least of early impressions, to confuse your vision, and so divert your attention from the real object of your search; for, had this not been the case, I do not understand how you could find reason for even a moment’s hesitation.”

“Do you think, then, that the peculiar characteristics of The Visible Church of Christ are so plainly and definitely set forth in the Scriptures, that it is not easy to mistake on this point?”

“Surely they are, my dear sir; so that it is not only easy not to mistake, but, I had almost said, so that no man of common sense, who will be guided by Scripture alone, casting aside the influence of all human teachings, can possibly mistake. Why, sir, after the revelation of Christ himself, the great object of the New Testament Scriptures—the very purpose for which they were intended—is, to give the constitution, the laws, and the history of the kingdom which Christ came to establish upon the earth; and it would be strange, indeed, if they have given them in language so ambiguous that no one could understand it, or that any candid inquirer should have any sort of difficulty in knowing what this kingdom in its essential features is.”

“How, then, does it happen, sir, that there exists such a wide diversity of opinion among the good and pious? If the thing is so plainly set forth, why do not all see it, and see it all alike? How is it that we have Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, and Lutherans, and Congregationalists, and Methodists, and I can’t say how many others, all claiming, each for themselves, that they are the true Church of Christ?”

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” said a middle-aged man, who looked up suddenly from the newspaper which he had apparently been reading; “I do not conceive of these various Churches that each claims for itself that it is the Church, but only that it is a branch of the Church of Christ. I am a minister of the Methodist Connection, and I am sure that, while we claim for ourselves to be a part of the Church of Christ, we do not deny that Episcopalians, provided they are good and pious, and Presbyterians, and Lutherans, and Baptists, and, in fact, all evangelical Christians, are just as much branches of Christ’s Church as we are ourselves.”

“You would remove my difficulty, then,” replied the Doctor, “by showing that it is a matter of no consequence at all with which of these various organizations I shall unite, since all are equally Churches of Christ, and I would obey him equally whether I attach myself to one or to another. Do I understand you rightly?”

“O, of course I think my owe denomination more nearly right than any other, or I would not belong to it; and if I should give you any advice, I would say, sir, by all means unite with the Methodists. But still, we hold that every man should be fully persuaded in his own mind, and that every Christian, therefore, should belong to that connection where he can best enjoy himself.”

“Your suggestion, then, does not quite meet my case. I not seeking to secure my own enjoyment, but to obey Christ’s requirements. I am willing to deny myself to do his will I only ask to know which (if any) of these various organizations was that which he established, and into which, therefore, he requires me to be incorporated. They are certainly very different in doctrine, different in practice, and different in the character of their membership. They cannot all be right. They cannot be each the Church of Christ, unless Christ established several distinct Churches. They cannot be branches of his Church, unless he established a Church with several different branches. This is self-evident. But if he did, there is, of course, some record of it in this book;” (laying his hand reverently on the Bible;) “and if you will do me the kindness to point it out, I shall certainly avail myself of your suggestion, and unite with that body in which I think I will best enjoy my religion.”

Saying this, he pushed the Bible across the table, so that it lay directly before the stranger, who mechanically opened it, but without looking into it, as he replied, “You would not, of course, expect to find the Methodist, or Episcopal, or Lutheran, or Presbyterian Churches described by name in the Word of God, for none of them existed, or were known by name, in the days when the Scriptures were written; but we hold that it is all-sufficient, if the essential doctrines and practices of each or any of them can be established by Scripture proof. If the doctrine and practice of any of them, or all of them, are scriptural, then they are scriptural Churches.”

“But do you not see, my dear sir, that while they differ in doctrine and practice, they cannot be all scriptural, unless the Scriptures teach as many different and opposing systems of doctrine and practice as there are Churches. If any one of them is in accordance with Scripture, it follows, of necessity, that just so far as the others differ from it, they differ from the Scripture. There can be only one scriptural Church of Christ, unless Christ founded more than one, and gave them different laws. This, I am sure, needs no proof: it is self evident: And what I ask, and must require, before I can avail myself of your kind suggestion, that I may unite with any one of these organizations, and feel that I am obeying him, is, that you show me some shadow of proof, some faint intimation at least, that his Church was not one and undivided, but that he gave different constitutions, laws, and doctrines to different classes of people, or, at least, that he authorized the one Church to divide itself into what you call branches. So far as my investigations have gone, I find his kingdom spoken of as an undivided kingdom. His people are said to be one. There is one fold and one shepherd: there were to be no divisions among them. They were all to speak the same thing. We read, indeed, of different individual Churches, as the Church of the Corinthians, and of the Church of Ephesus, and the like—separate, and distinct, and independent organizations—but they were one in doctrine, one in practice. They all walked, or were required ‘to walk, by the same rule.’ They had all ‘one Lord, one Faith, and one Baptism.’ It is thus that I read; but if I read amiss, I will be thankful to him who will show me my error. You say, sir, that these modern sects are branches of the Church: if so, where or which is the main and parent stock planted by Christ and cultivated by the apostles, from which these branches grow? If that is still alive, I will be engrafted into it. If it dead, what keeps alive the branches? If the original stock is so cut up into branches that it cannot be found, show me some scriptural authority for the cutting up, and some command requiring me to add my name to any of them as I may think most proper. I read, indeed, of Christ as the vine, and of individual Christians as branches growing out of him, and living by his life; but nowhere of a parent stock of churches, with branches growing out of it. Can you point me to any such a passage?”

“Indeed, sir,” replied the preacher, “I do not deny and suppose that no one can deny, that there ought to be general unity among Christians, and that the divisions and dissensions which have separated the professed followers of Christ are greatly to be deplored; but, at the same time, sir, human nature is imperfect: men will not all see alike, and hence there always have been, and always will be, differences of opinion, and, consequently, of practice.”

“Very true, my dear sir, but this does not affect the point about which we are conversing in the slightest degree. The question which I ask is this: What or which is that organization which was established by Christ, and called his Church or kingdom? I feel that it is my duty to join myself to it. You reply that human nature is imperfect, and men will differ from each other, so that some think this and some think that is it. One says, here, in the Roman Catholic hierarchy; another says, there, in the Episcopal; another, in the Lutheran another, in the Presbyterian; and so on, through the catalogue. You have your private opinion that it is in the Methodist Connection, but assure me that any of them will do. Now, to me it seems evident that, although human nature is imperfect, God’s revelation cannot be. In that revelation (it is admitted by all) is revealed and described a visible organization, which was devised and established by Jesus Christ, and is called his Church. Whatever that may be, it is some one thing, and not a dozen different things; for a kingdom divided against itself, said Jesus, cannot stand. It is, what it is there represented to be, just that, and nothing else. It must be still in existence, because he foretold that it should never fail; that the gates of hell should not prevail against it. Now, my object is to find it; and, having found it, to become a part of it.”

“I do not conceive, sir,” said Mr. Percy, “that you will meet with any serious difficulty in making the discovery, when you once begin at the right place and look in the right direction.”

“I must have started wrong then, for, up to this time, I confess there is an impenetrable obscurity hangs over the whole subject.”

“Will you permit me to ask,” said Mrs. Percy, “of what denomination were your parents?”

“They belonged to the Church of England, madam.”

“Then you were sprinkled in your infancy.”

“So I have been told. And I remember that, when I was about twelve years old, the bishop put his hands upon my head, and said some words, which they informed me confirmed my baptism, and completed the process of making me a Christian.”

“Then,” said she, “you have some predilections for the organization which you were taught in childhood to regard as the only Church of Christ.”

“It may be so, madam; but I do not think you apprehend the exact nature and extent of the difficulties which embarrass and distress me. My mother was a good and pious Christian. In most things she was right; and I grant that I cannot help feeling a smothered conviction that she must have been right in whatever pertained to her religion. But, at the same time, I am quite ready, upon sufficient evidence, to admit that she was wrong. My parents did not make religion the special study of their lives. They received their religious opinions from others, in their childhood, as I did mine, so far as I had any, until recently; they never made them the object of any careful examination, but took it for granted that what ‘the Church’ believed must be the truth. So, if what is called the Church was wrong, they were wrong, of course. But here is the trouble: I have not made religion the study of my life any more than they did; my judgment, therefore, is worth no more than theirs. And when I turn to those who have given the labor of their lives to this very thing, I find that they have come to such various and contradictory conclusions, that I am ready to despair of the possibility of ever knowing certainly what is the truth.

“I fix my attention upon one man. I see that he has an intellect superior to my own; that he has piety which I never expect to equal; that he has stores of learning such as I never can obtain. He is honest; he is earnest; he is studious and prayerful. He has spent a long life in the almost exclusive study of this very subject, and he is a Presbyterian. I turn to another, and he is a Methodist; to another of the same class, and he is a Lutheran, a Congregationalist, a Baptist, or possibly, like Fénélon, a Catholic.

“Now, what am I to do? How can I decide who of them all is right? How venture in my ignorance to determine what all the wisdom of pious sages leaves open to dispute?”

“That is just what I said,” replied the Methodist. “The whole matter is involved in so much uncertainty, and each of the Churches can present so many good and valid reasons in its favor, that every one must consult his own inclinations, and join that which is most congenial to his feelings.”

“I cannot think so, sir,” resumed the Doctor; “for when, on the other hand, I turn my attention to God, instead of man—when I look into the Holy Word, I find a positive duty is imperatively enjoined. This duty—that of uniting with the Church of God by a public profession of faith in Christ—poses a previous decision of the question, who and what that Church is. And the Scriptures must, therefore, (if I only knew how to find it,) contain such a specific description of the nature and peculiar characteristics of that Church as to enable me to decide which it is for myself, and that without any danger of mistake. Still, I confess that I have not yet found any such description in the book, or, if I have, have not yet found the corresponding organization in this country.”

“If you will pardon me for saying so, Doctor,” replied Mr Percy, “I think I can easily convince you that your difficulties are much more fanciful than real; or rather that they are much more theoretical than practical. The simple truth is this: You have nothing to do with other men’s decisions. It is nothing at all to you or to me what this good man or that great man may think. Religion is a personal matter; its faith is personal faith; its duties are personal duties. It rests upon a personal recognition of the teachings of God’s Word. You are personally responsible to God for your own individual faith and practice. You must therefore examine for yourself, and not leave others to decide these questions for you.

“You may investigate the subject just as though no one else had ever thought of it. You should regard no other man’s decision as of authority to you. You do not hesitate to treat a case of fever, because Hippocrates and Galen, Boerhave or Sydenham, Cullen or Bronsais, chanced to disagree either in theory or practice?”

“No, sir. I examine for myself, decide for myself, and act upon my own decision. If I should wait for the doctors to agree, I should never make a prescription.”

“Just so let it be in regard to this matter. I discover that you are in earnest. You desire to know the truth. You recognize God’s Word as the only standard of truth. By that, and that alone, we are to try our faith and practice. You have truly stated that this word teaches that the visible kingdom of Christ is not many, but one; and it must be now just what it was in the apostles’ days: I have my own opinion upon this question, but I will not intrude it upon you as an argument. If you will consent, we will together, during our voyage, make a careful, thorough, and systematic examination of the Scriptures in regard to their teachings on this subject. And when we have finished, if you have any shadow of a doubt remaining, it will be more than I expect. My friend, Mr. Courtney, who will join us at our next landing, has given more attention to these subjects than I have, and will doubtless take pleasure in giving us his assistance, as will also, I trust, our Methodist friend.”

“Please then,” said Mrs. Percy, “postpone this matter till to-morrow, and, for our mutual advantage, make the investigation so thorough and extensive as to leave no room for doubt in any mind.”

“But, madam, you do not reflect that this would require all the leisure which we will have during the next two weeks.”

“Suppose it should: it will be time well spent. But we shall get on faster than you imagine. Mr. Courtney is a sort of walking-library upon these subjects, and Mr. Percy has had some personal experience in such investigations.”

“Very good,” replied the Doctor; “we will at least do what we can towards a complete examination of the whole subject, and should we not finish it during our voyage, you and Mr. Percy will, I trust, do me the favor to continue it at my house, after our arrival in Nashville; for you are then to be my guests. Nay! no excuses. I have claims upon you both, of which you are yet quite ignorant; and, in due time, I am very anxious to learn how and when you chanced to become Mrs. Percy; for when I saw you last, you were Miss Theodosia Ernest; and how and when Mr. Percy became a minister of the gospel; for when I last saw him, he was regarded only as a very promising young lawyer.”

“Then, sir, you are not the utter stranger that we supposed you to be!”

“So far from it, madam, I am, in one sense, indebted to you, under God, for the greatest blessing of my life.”

“Indeed, sir, this is all a mystery to me. I am not aware that I ever saw you before to-day.”

“That may well be; yet I have seen you very frequently. Some other time I will explain: I have now been shut up here so long, that I must take a turn on deck, and get some fresh air.”

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