other, have I ever been baptized?” The questioner was a bright, intelligent, blue-eyed lad, some thirteen summers old. The deep seriousness of his countenance, and the earnest, wistful gaze with which he looked into his mother’s face, showed that, for the moment at least, the question seemed to him a very important one.
“Certainly, my son; both you and your sister were baptized by the Rev. Doctor Fisher, at the time when I united with the church. Your sister remembers it well, for she was six years old; but you were too young to know any thing about it. Your Aunt Jones said it was the most solemn scene she ever witnessed; and such a prayer as the good old doctor made for you, I never heard before.”
“But, mother,” rejoined the lad, “sister and I have been down to the river to see a lady baptized by the Baptist minister, who came here last month and commenced preaching in the school-house. They went down into the river, and then he plunged her under the water, and
quickly raised her out again; and sister says if that was baptism, then we were not baptized, because we stood on the dry floor of the church, and the preacher dipped his hand into a bowl of water, and sprinkled a few drops on our foreheads: and she says Cousin John Jones was not baptized either; for the preacher only took a little pitcher of water, and poured a little stream upon his head. Sister says she don’t see how there can be three baptisms, when the Scripture says, ‘One Lord, one faith, one baptism.’”
“Your sister is always studying about things above her reach, my son. It is better for young people like you not to trouble yourselves too much about these knotty questions in theology.”
“But, mother, this don’t seem to me to be a knotty question at all. One minister takes a person down into the water, and dips her under it; another stands on the dry floor of the church before the pulpit, and sprinkles a few drops into her face; another pours a little stream upon her head. Now, anybody can see that they do three different things; and if each of them is baptism, then there must be three baptisms. There is no theology about that, is there?”
“Yes, my child, this is a theological question, and I suppose it must be a very difficult one, since I am told that some very good and wise men disagree about it.”
“But, mother, they all agree that there is only one baptism, do they not? And if there is only one, why don’t they just look into the Testament and see what it is? If the Testament says sprinkle, then it is sprinkling; if it says pour, then it is pouring; if it says dip, then it is dipping. I mean to read the Testament, and see if I cannot decide which it is for myself.”
“Do you think, my son, that you will be able to know as much about it as your Uncle Jones, or Dr. Fisher,
who baptized you, or Dr. Barnes, whose notes you use in learning your Sunday-school lesson, and all the pious and learned ministers of our church, and the Methodist Church, and the Episcopal Church? They have studied the Testament through and through, and they all agree that a child who is sprinkled is properly baptized.”
“Yes, mother, but if the baptisms in the New Testament were sprinkling (and of course they were, or such wise and good men would not say so), why can’t I find it there, as well as anybody?”
“Very well, my son, you can read and see; but if you should happen to come to a different conclusion from these great and learned men, I hope you won’t set up your boyish judgment against that of the wisest theologians of the age. But here comes your sister. I wonder if she is going to become a theologian too!”
Mrs. Ernest (the mother of whom we are speaking) was born of very worthy parents, who were consistent members of the Presbyterian Church; and she had grown up as one of the “baptized children of the church.” As she “appeared to be sober and steady, and to have sufficient knowledge to discern the Lord’s body,” she was doubtless informed, according to the directions of the confession of faith, page 504, that it was “her duty and her privilege to come to the Lord’s supper.” But she had felt no inclination to do so until after the death of her husband. Then, in the day of her sorrow, she looked upward, and began to feel a new, though not an intense interest in the things of religion. She made a public profession, and requested baptism for her two children.
The little boy was then an infant and his sister was about six years old, a sprightly, interesting child, whose flowing ringlets, dimpled chin, rosy cheeks, and sparkling eyes, were the admiration of every beholder.
Twelve years had passed. The lovely girl had become a beautiful and remarkably intelligent young lady. The little babe had grown into the noble looking, blue-eyed lad, with a strong, manly frame, and a face and brow which gave promise of capacity and independence of thought far above the average of his companions.
Theodosia and Edwin. How they loved each other! She, with the doting affection of an elder child and only sister, who had watched the earliest developments of his mind, and been his companion and his teacher from his infancy; he, with the confiding, reverential, yet familiar love of a kind-hearted and impulsive boy, to one who was to him the standard at once of female beauty and womanly accomplishments.
Theodosia came in, not with that elastic step and sprightly air which was habitual with her, but with a slow and solemn gait; scarcely raising her eyes to meet her mother’s inquiring gaze, she passed through to her own room, and closed the door.
The mother was struck with the deep and earnest seriousness of her face and manner. What could it mean? What could have happened to distress her child?
“Edwin, my son, what is the matter with your sister?”
“Indeed, mother, I do not know of any thing. We stood together talking at the river bank, and just before we left, Mr. Percy came up to walk home with her. It must be something that has happened by the way.”
The mother’s mind was relieved. Mr. Percy had been for many months a frequent and welcome visitor at their pretty cottage, and had made no secret of his admiration of her accomplished and beautiful daughter; though he had never, until a few weeks since, formally declared his love. Mrs. Ernest did not doubt but that some lovers’ quarrel had grown up in their walk, and this
had cast a shadow upon Theodosia’s sunny face. She waited somewhat impatiently for her daughter to come out and confirm her conjectures. She did not come, however, and at length the mother arose, and softly opening the door, looked into the room. Theodosia was on her knees. She did not hear the door, or become conscious of the presence of her mother. In broken, whispered sentences, mingled with sobs, she prayed: “Oh, Lord, enlighten my mind. Oh, teach me thy way. Let me not err in the understanding of thy word; and oh give me strength, I do beseech thee, to do whatever I find to be my duty. I would not go wrong. Help! oh help me to go right!”
Awe-struck and confounded, Mrs. Ernest drew back, and tremblingly awaited the explanation she so much desired to hear.
When at length the young lady came out, there was still upon her face the same serious earnestness of expression, but there seemed less of sadness, and there was also that perfect repose of the countenance, which is the result of a newly formed, but firmly settled determination of purpose.
Mrs. Ernest, as she looked at her, was more perplexed than ever. She was, however, resolved to obtain at once a solution of the mystery.
“Mr. Percy walked home with you, did he not, my daughter?”.
“Yes, mother.”
“Did you find him as interesting as usual? What was the subject of your conversation?”
“We were talking of the baptism at the river.”
“Of nothing else?”
“No, mother; this occupied all the time.”
“Did he say nothing about himself?”
“Not a word, mother, except in regard to the question whether he had ever been baptized.”
“Why, what in the world has possessed you all? Your brother came running home to ask me if he had been baptized; Mr. Percy is talking about whether he has been baptized. I wonder if you are not beginning to fancy that you have never been baptized?”
“I do indeed begin to doubt it, mother; for if that was baptism which we witnessed at the river this evening, I am quite sure that I never was.”
“Well, I do believe that Baptist preacher is driving you all crazy. Pray tell me, what did he do or say, that gave you such a serious face, and put these new crotchets in your head?”
“Nothing at all, mother, He simply read from the New Testament the account of the baptism of Jesus and of the Eunuch. Then he took the candidate, and they went down both of them into the water, and he baptized her, and then they came up out of the water. I could not help seeing that this is just what is recorded of Jesus and the Eunuch. If so, then it is the baptism of the Scriptures; and it is certainly a very different thing from that which was done to me, when Dr. Fisher sprinkled a few drops of water in my face.”
“Of course, my dear, it was different; but I don’t think the quantity of water employed affects the validity of the baptism. There is no virtue in the water, and a few drops are just as good as all the floods of Jordan.”
“But, mother, it is not in the quantity of water that the difference consists; it is in the act performed. One sprinkles a little water in the face; another pours a little water on the head; another buries the whole body under the water and raises it out again. Two apply the water to the person, the other plunges the person into the water. They are surely very different acts:
and if what I saw this evening was scriptural baptism, then it is certain that I have never been baptized.”
“Well, my child, we won’t dispute about it now; but I hope you are not thinking about leaving your own church; the church in which your grandfather and your grandmother lived and died: and in which so many of the most talented and influential families in the country are proud to rank themselves, to unite with this little company of ignorant, ill- mannered mechanics and common people, who have all at once started up here from nothing.”
“You know, my mother, that it is about a year since I made a profession of religion. I trust that before I did so, I had given myself up to do the will of my Heavenly Father. Since then I have felt that I am not my own. I am bought with a price. It is my pleasure, as well as my duty, to obey my Saviour I ask, as Paul did, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? You taught me this lesson of obedience yourself; and I am sure you would not have me on any account neglect or refuse to obey my Saviour. If He commands me to be baptized, and the command has never been obeyed, I shall be obliged to do it. And I trust my mother will encourage me in my obedience to that precious Redeemer she taught me to love.”
One who looked into the mother’s face, at that moment, might have read there “a tablet of unutterable thoughts.” She did not try to speak them. We will not try to write them. She sat silent for a moment, drew her breath deeply and heavily, then rising hastily, went to look for something in her daughter’s room.
Theodosia was not only grieved but surprised at the evident distress which she had given her mother. While on her knees in prayer to God after her return from the river, she had determined to do her duty, and obey the
commandment of Jesus Christ, her blessed Saviour, whatever she might find it to be. But she had not determined to be immersed. That river baptism, connected with the reading of those passages of Scripture, had only filled her mind with doubts; these doubts had yet to become convictions. The investigation was yet to be made. The question, Have I ever been baptized? had been prayerfully asked. It was yet to be conscientiously answered. But if the very doubt was so distressing to her mother, and so ridiculous to Mr. Percy (as it had seemed to be from some remarks he made on the way home from the river), how would the final decision affect them, if it should be made in favor of immersion! Yet, aided by power from on high, she felt her resolution grow still stronger to please God rather than those whom she loved better than all else on earth. And she had peace verging almost on joy.
When her mother came back, Theodosia saw that she had been weeping; but no further allusion was made to the subject of Baptism, until Mr. Percy came in after supper.
This young man was a lawyer. He had united with the Presbyterian Society, to which Mrs. Ernest and her daughter belonged, during an extensive revival of religion, while he was yet a mere boy. Since he had come to years of maturity, he had constantly doubted whether he was really a converted man, and often seriously regretted the obligation that bound him to a public recognition of the claims of personal religion. He often made it convenient to be absent when the Sacrament of the Supper was to be celebrated, from an inward consciousness that he was an unfit communicant; yet his external deportment was unexceptionable, and his brethren regarded him as a most excellent member, and one whose intellectual capacity and acquirements
would, one day, place him in a condition to reflect great honor on the denomination to which he belonged.
He had already taken a high position in the ranks of his profession; and had come to the sage conclusion, that the possession of the heart and hand of the charming Theodosia was all that was required to complete his arrangements for worldly happiness; and having overheard her remark to her brother, that if what they had just witnessed was baptism, they had never been baptized, he hastened to her side, and on their way home exerted all his powers of raillery to drive this new conception from her mind.
As for himself, he had never had a serious thought upon the question. He had been told that he was baptized in his infancy, and took it for granted that all was right. He had very serious doubts about his ever having been converted, but never the shadow of a doubt whether he had been baptized. When he listened to the religious conversation of some of his friends, and especially of the young lady of whom we are speaking, he heard many expressions, which, to him, were meaningless, and seemed almost fanatical. They talked of sorrows which he had never felt; of joys, the source of which he could not understand; and strangest of all, to him, appeared that habitual subjection to the Master’s will, which led them to ask so constantly, and so earnestly, not what was desirable to themselves or agreeable to those about them, but what was required by the command of Christ.
That one should do this, or that, under the conviction that to refuse or neglect to do so would endanger their soul’s salvation, he could easily understand; but how any one could attach much importance to any act not absolutely essential to obtain eternal life, was to his mind an unfathomable mystery, He had himself determined to secure his own soul’s salvation at any cost, and if he
had believed that immersion would insure salvation, he would have been immersed a hundred times, had so much been required. But thinking it as easy to get to heaven without, as with it, the whole business of baptism seemed to him as of the slightest imaginable consequence.
“What difference does it make to you, Miss Ernest,” said he, “whether you have been baptized or not? Baptism is not essential to salvation.”
“True,” she replied; “but if my Saviour commanded me to be baptized, and I have never done it, I have not obeyed him. I must, so far as I can, keep all his commandments.”
“But who of us ever does this? I am sure I have not kept them all. I am not certain that I know what they all are. If our salvation depended on perfect obedience to all his commandments, I doubt if any body would be saved but you. You are the only person I ever knew who had no faults.”
“Oh! Mr. Percy, do not trifle with such a subject. It is not a matter of jesting. I do not perfectly obey. I wish I could. I am grieved at heart day after day to see how far I fall short of his requirements. Oh, no. I do not hope or seek for salvation by my obedience. If I am ever saved, it will be by boundless mercy freely forgiving me. But then, if I love my Saviour, how can I wilfully refuse obedience to his requirements? I do not obey to secure heaven by my obedience, but to please him who died to make it possible for a poor lost sinner like me ever to enter heaven. I think I would endeavor to do his will, even if there were no heaven and no hell.”
Mr. Percy did not understand this. If he had been convinced that there was no heaven and no hell, he felt quite sure that all the rites, and rules, and ceremonies of religion would give him very little trouble. It was only in order to save his soul that he meddled with religion at all; and all that could be dispensed with, without endangering his own final salvation, he regarded as of very little consequence. He read some portion of the Scriptures almost every day (when business was not too pressing). He said over a form of prayer; and sometimes went to the communion table, because he regarded these as religious duties, in the performance of which, and by leading a moral life, he had some indistinct conception that he was working out for himself eternal salvation. Take away this one object, and he had no further use for religion, or religious ordinances.
“I know,” said he, “that you are a more devoted Christian than I ever hope to be, but you surely cannot regard baptism as any part of religion. It is a mere form. A simple ceremony. Only an outward act of the body not affecting the heart or the mind. Why even the Baptists themselves, though they talk so much about it, and attach so much importance to it, admit that true believers can be saved without it.”
“That is not the question in my mind, Mr. Percy. I do not ask whether it is essential to salvation, but whether it is commanded in the Word of God. I do not feel at liberty to sin as much as I can, without abandoning the hope that God will finally forgive me. I cannot think of following my Saviour as far off as I can, without resigning my hopes of heaven. Why should I venture as near the verge of hell as I can go without falling in? My Saviour died upon the cross for my salvation. I trust in Him to save me. But he says, ‘If ye love me, keep my commandments’—not this one or that one, but all his commandments. How can I pretend to love, if I do not obey him? If he commands me to be baptized, and I have not done it, I must do it yet. And if that which we saw at the river was baptism, then I have never been baptized.”
“And so you think that all the learned world are wrong, and this shoemaker, turned preacher, is right; that our parents are no better than heathens, and a young lady of eighteen is bound to teach them their duty, and set them a good example. Really it will be a feast to the poor Baptists to know what a triumph they have gained. It will be considered quite respectable to be immersed after Miss Theodosia Ernest has gone into the water.”
“Oh, Mr. Percy,” said the young lady (and her eyes were filled with tears), “how can you talk thus lightly of an ordinance of Jesus Christ? Was it not respectable to be immersed after the glorious Son of God had gone into the water? If my dear Redeemer was immersed, and requires it of me, I am sure I need not hesitate to associate with those who follow his example and obey his commandments, even though they should be poor, and ignorant, and ungenteel.”
“Forgive me, Miss Ernest, I did not intend to offend you; but really the idea did appear exceedingly ridiculous to me, that a young lady who had never spent a single month in the exclusive study of theology, should set herself up so suddenly as a teacher of Doctors of Divinity. If sprinkling were not baptism, we surely have talent, and piety, and learning enough in our church to have discovered the error and abandoned the practice long ago. But pardon me. I will not say one word to dissuade you from an investigation of the subject. And I am very sure, when you have studied it carefully, you will be more thoroughly convinced than ever before of the truth of our doctrines, and the correctness of our practice. If you will permit, I will assist you in the examination; for I wish to look into the subject a little to fortify my own mind with some arguments against these new comers, as I understand there
are several others of our members who are almost as nearly convinced that they have never been baptized as you are, and I expect to be obliged to have an occasional discussion, in a quiet way.”
“Oh, yes. I shall be so happy to have your assistance. You are so much more capable of eliciting the truth than I am. When shall we begin?”
“To-night, if you please. I will call in after supper, and we will read over the testimony.”
They parted at her mother’s door. He went to his office, revolving in his mind the arguments that would be most likely to satisfy her doubts. She retired to her closet and poured out her heart to God in earnest prayer for wisdom to know, and strength to do all her Heavenly Master’s will, whatever it might be; and before she rose from her knees, had been enabled to resolve, with full determination of purpose, to obey the commandment, even though it caused the loss of all things for Christ. The only question in her heart was now, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”
True to his promise, Mr. Percy came in soon after supper, anticipating an easy victory over the doubts and difficulties which had so suddenly suggested themselves to the mind of his intended bride. He could not help admiring her more, and loving her better, for that independence of thought and conscientious regard for right, which made the discussion necessary; and it gratified his vanity to think how fine a field he should have to display those powers of argument which he had sedulously cultivated for the advantage of his professional pursuits.
How he succeeded will be seen in the next chapter.