In all men sinful is it to be slow To hope: in parents, sinful above all.
In a few Sabbaths from this time we had a most interesting scene at our church.
Little Henry Ferguson Kelly was brought, and offered up in baptism by his mother. We all felt deep respect for her as a woman of decided character, and a devoted Christian. We saw that she wept much during the service. The father was not there. She held the little boy upright on her arm, and he turned his face over her shoulder, looking all about the church, above and below. He then undertook to apply his little palm to his mother's cheek, with several decided strokes, to rouse her usual attention, which he seemed to miss. She took his hand in hers, and held it, and he then rested his cheek, and his chin, alternately, upon her shoulder.
A sweet little girl, two months old, was also brought by a young couple to be baptized. Few things are more interesting than the sight of a young couple, with their first-born child, standing before God. A world of thought and feeling passes through their minds in those hallowed moments. Not much more than a year had gone since they stood before God to take the vows of marriage from those same lips, perhaps, which now lead their devotions, and bless them out of the house of the Lord. The little child is an offering which gathers about itself more of rich joy and gratitude, recollection, present bliss, and anticipation, than any gift of God; it is itself an ordinance, a little rite, a sign and seal of covenants and love to which earth has no parallel. The light of nature almost teaches us the propriety of infant dedication, in the use of the prevailing religious rite. The only wise God manifested his goodness and wisdom, in establishing his covenant with the children of those who love him, as really as in creating a companion for Adam.
There were other sights, on this baptismal occasion, besides Henry Ferguson and his mother, and the young couple with their child.
A woman, in the habiliments of the deepest mourning, went up the aisle, leading with her finger a little boy between two and three years old, followed by a noble son of fifteen, and his sister of twelve. Our pastor's rule, as to the limit of age within which children may be admitted to baptism, is this: So long as a parent, or guardian, or next friend, has the immediate tutelage of a child, so as to direct its instruction and government, and thus continues to exercise parental authority, he may properly offer the child for baptism; and therefore, as children differ as to degrees of maturity within the same ages, no express boundary of time can be prescribed to limit those baptisms which are by the faith of another.