"If people," said I, "thought more of the spiritual meaning and privileges of baptism, and viewed it as they do in times of sickness and death, they would think less of inconveniences and discomforts, and see that the ordinance is something more than giving a child a name."
Some time after this, I called upon a cousin of ours, a young married lady of our congregation, who, within a year, had come to us from another place, she having been married to an educated, intelligent member of another congregation, and who, from his great love for her, had come with her to our place of worship from another denomination, this having been made a condition of their marriage. For she felt that she could not be debarred the privilege of sitting at the Lord's table with her mother, three sisters, and brother, as she would be if she united herself with her friend's church. The idea of going to any table of Christ on earth where they could not come, thus seeming to disfranchise her whole family whom Christ had gathered into his fold, and some of them into heaven, did violence to her feelings. At one time, it seemed likely that the engagement of marriage would be terminated, on this ground alone. Some one of the gentleman's persuasion, who thought that she "ought to follow Christ in ordinances," and "take up her cross" in this instance, whispered to her that she was, perhaps, in danger of denying Christ, from love to her kindred, and he said to her, "He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me." This had the opposite effect from that which was intended, for it showed her, in the strongest light, the error of supposing that love to Christ could ever require her to separate from herself, at the table of Christ, such friends of Jesus as the members of her dear Christian home,--a home which had been like that of Bethany to many of the Saviour's friends. She felt more sure of being actuated by right motives in giving up her marriage, and not withdrawing fellowship from her mother and the family, than she would be in sacrificing that fellowship to gratify a new affection. Her next younger sister was baptized after the father's death. She was a deaf-mute. The mother was a very beautiful woman. She had borne severe trials for her religion with a spirit of patience and Christian propriety which won the love and esteem of the community. She went to the altar of God, a widow, with the little deaf and dumb child, and presented it for baptism. It was as though the impending calamity of its father's death had shut up some of the senses of the child, and God had placed it in the mother's hand as a silent memorial to her, for life, of his chastising love. She left her fatherless flock in the family pew, and went with her nursling, not merely to give it to God, but to receive for it the seal of his covenant, bowing submissively to his inscrutable appointment, and imploring the God of Abraham to be still her God, and the God of this her seed. That scene had not failed to make deep impressions upon the other children; and now it was proposed to one of them that she should, by connecting herself in marriage, disavow her mother's right to cling, in those hours of anguish, to that asylum of the fatherless, infant baptism,--that very present help in trouble, the covenant of God with believers and their offspring. The little child, moreover, had become a Christian, and had sat with her sister, side by side, at the communion-table, for several years. "Forbid it," she prayed with herself, "that I should go where I cannot be allowed to follow Christ till I have separated this dear one from my side."