Without emulating the Roman Catholic habit of confession, I much like to feel that each family possesses some clergyman among its friends, who stands to it in some measure in the position that a Romish priest does to many households. The finer ceremonies of life and death should be conducted by one man; and it is always a great pleasure to me to feel that he who married us christened all our children, while it is as great a regret that he cannot any more perform any more ceremonies for us, for he has gone where ceremonies are of no avail, and where he has, no doubt, already received his reward. However, though none can take his place, we have still a ‘family priest;’ and I think all the simple ceremonies of our Church are made a thousand times holier by the fact that one man performs them, and that he takes that individual interest in us no strange clergyman ever can. Let anyone see a christening in a town church, hastily performed by a man to whom the infant is nothing but an unpleasant lump of lace and fussy clothes, or at best one more little soldier for the great army, and the same ceremony performed by a man who knows and loves the parents, and I shall need no more words if this does not express all I mean. Let my readers note the conduct of any cemetery chaplain reading the burial service, with which custom has made him hideously familiar, and then hear someone who has known and loved the dead read it; I am sure, after that, I need not plead for the election in each family of some good man as family priest. He is a comfort, indeed, with whom no one can afford to dispense, even in this hurrying, fashionable life of ours.
When the church and all is settled, the baby’s dress is undoubtedly a matter for great consideration. In some families grandmamma produces the robe the child’s father was christened in, and of course that, and nothing else, should be worn. Of course, equally, high neck and sleeves should be added, and a little flannel bodice can be placed with advantage under the fine open-neck bodice of the robe; white ribbons should tie up the sleeves and be placed under the waist, and the cloak should not be either heavy or unduly gorgeous. The hood and cloak must be removed in the church, and the nurse should do this quickly and silently the moment the ceremony begins, placing a big, soft shawl round the child; this allows it to become quiet, and does not ensure the roar which invariably follows if the child is handed to the clergyman the moment its clothes are taken off. It should be rolled in the shawl until the christening service is over, then it can be dressed and shriek if it likes; no one but the nurse will be disturbed by its howling then.