Bertha and Her Baptism

N >> Nehemiah Adams >> Bertha and Her Baptism

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BERTHA
AND HER BAPTISM.

By the Author of

AGNES AND THE LITTLE KEY;
_or_,
BEREAVED PARENTS INSTRUCTED AND COMFORTED.

BOSTON:
S.K. WHIPPLE AND COMPANY,
161 WASHINGTON STREET.
1857.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
S.K. WHIPPLE & CO.,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.

STEREOTYPED BY
HOBART & ROBBINS,
New England Type and Stereotype Foundry,
BOSTON.

PREFACE.

This book, and that which is also named in the title-page, were written
at the same time, and as one book; but they were afterward separated, as
more properly constituting two volumes, the part which was the original
of the present volume now being greatly enlarged. Thus the two books
grew in the author's mind together, from one and the same root,--the
death of a little child.

CONTENTS.

Page
CHAPTER I.

PROBABILITIES OF AN ORDINANCE FOR CHILDREN, 9

CHAPTER II.

THE GRANDFATHER'S LETTER.--THE NATURE, GROUNDS AND INFLUENCE,
OF INFANT BAPTISM, 16

CHAPTER III.

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BAPTISMS.--THE SUBJECTS AND MODE OF
BAPTISM, 76

CHAPTER IV.

IS THERE ONLY ONE MODE OF BAPTISM? 121

CHAPTER V.

SCENES OF BAPTISM.--REASONABLENESS, BEAUTY AND POWER, OF
INFANT BAPTISM.--USE OF SPECIAL VOWS.--HUSBANDS AT
BAPTISMS.--NEGLECT OF BAPTISM, 130

CHAPTER VI.

TESTIMONY OF THE CHRISTIAN FATHERS.--APOSTOLIC PRACTICE OF
INFANT BAPTISM.--MINISTERIAL USAGES IN BAPTISMS, 143

CHAPTER VII.

TERMS OF COMMUNION.--NON-INTRUSION.--DENOMINATIONAL COURTESY
AND KINDNESS, 184

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ROAD-SIDE BAPTISM, 198

CHAPTER IX.

THE CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH.--ARE THEY MEMBERS OF THE
CHURCH? 216

CHAPTER X.

MATERNAL ASSOCIATIONS.--CONSTITUTION AND RULES FOR THEM.--A
CHRISTIAN MOTHER'S QUESTIONS TO HERSELF, 255

CHAPTER XI.

BAPTISM OF THE SICK WIFE AND HER CHILDREN, 272

BERTHA
AND HER BAPTISM.

Chapter First.

PROBABILITIES OF AN ORDINANCE FOR CHILDREN.

'Tis aye a solemn thing to me
To look upon a babe that sleeps,
Wearing in its spirit-deeps
The unrevealed mystery
Of its Adam's taint and woe.--MISS BARRETT.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy.--WORDSWORTH.

It is generally believed that, of those who have gone to heaven from
this world, by far the larger part have been infants and young children.
Born here, they were by one man's disobedience made sinners; born of the
Spirit, at their early translation to heaven, they hold an important
place in the plan of salvation by Christ. Very beautiful, as well as
sublime, is the thought of so large a contribution, to the heavenly
world, of human beings in the dawn of their existence, enhancing, as we
may suppose, the happiness of heaven by such large admixture of exotic,
youthful nature, and illustrating, by their redemption from a helpless
state of sin and misery, the unsearchable riches of wisdom and grace.

Has God done anything, in this world, to mark his regard for that class
of the human race constituting, thus far, the greater part of the
redeemed? We naturally look for something reminding the world of his
interest in these subsidiaries of his kingdom. Has he confined his
notice to those that are full-grown, and who have, thus far, the larger
part of them, withheld from him the fruit of his vineyard? God has a
church on earth, with ordinances, symbols, covenant signs: among them is
there not some sign, symbol, or ordinance, recognizing those who, more
than any other of the race, have, till now, been swelling the numbers of
that church in heaven?

Like those elements of astronomical calculation which require and lead
men to expect undiscovered planets in a certain quarter of the
firmament, analogy, and the known intercourse of God with mankind, and
our moral sense, incline us to look for some symbolic recognition of
this earthly constituency of heaven by him who ordained and is
redeeming to himself a church from among men. Words of interest and love
toward them on the part of God, we all know, are not wanting in the
Bible. Acts of loving-kindness, also, proving the sincerity of those
words, and reaching even to a thousand generations of them that love
God, are everywhere seen in sacred history.

But is there no great, conspicuous symbol of these things,--no type, no
rite? Symbols appear to be inseparable attendants of God's manifested
favor to men. He cannot enter into covenant with an individual, much
less a people, but there is at least a stone set up, or a
threshing-floor is bought for him, an altar is built, or they pour out a
horn of oil. He invites Ahaz to ask of him a sign of his promise: "Ask
it," he says, "either in the depths, or in the height above;" and, when
that man refuses, God gives him a sign. Emblems, seals and types, in the
early dispensation, burst forth like images in the waters of everything
along the banks, and even of things far off. Everything has its
memorial, its rite; are the children, is the parental relation,
forgotten?

Here let us consider that God began with the first parents and the
first children of the human race to set forth that great law of his
administration, the connection of children with parents for good or
evil. Every descendant of Adam is an example under that law. Thus it was
for nineteen generations,--from Adam to Abraham.

When, therefore, God reestablished his church at the call of Abraham, it
was no new thing to connect parents and their children in covenant
promises and blessings. It had its origin in the very nature of man.
Abraham, and the covenant made with him for all believers and their
children, are, indeed, a striking illustration of a principle recognized
and applied by the Most High; but the principle itself is older than
Abraham,--it is coeval with the moral constitution of man. In making a
covenant with Noah, God included his children; so with David, making
mention of his house, "for a great while to come."

As soon, therefore, as religion was established in the earth, by
securing its perpetuity through the conservative influences of one
selected line of descent, the child was taken, as being the object of
the covenant, and the means of its perpetuation, and received its seal.
God designed to perpetuate religion in the earth, thenceforward,
chiefly by means of the parental relation; for the parent represents God
to the child more than any other fellow-creature, or thing, can
do,--more than any instituted influence, whether of prophet, priest,
church, or ritual. Setting up his church for all future time, with
Abraham for its founder, God included children with parents who
covenanted with him, as the objects of special regard and promise, and
he appointed a rite to mark and seal that covenant. Thus it was from
Abraham to Christ, during three times fourteen generations.

But the day of types and symbols was succeeded by another era, in which
the church of God comes forth with the glory of God risen upon her, and
all the nebulous matter of types and ceremonies is gathered together
into two permanent sacraments; for human nature was not beyond the need
and help of outward signs. Now, in the earlier of the two ages of the
church, the child was recognized by a rite of the church; the child,
with that rite inscribed on him, was the sign-bearer of the church's
perpetuity. Yet, in the age following, the child was as dear to the
parent as ever; the Christian parent was as much concerned to have
religion flow through his seed, as were his predecessors; the salvation
of the child was regarded with the same solicitude, and the principle of
perpetuating religion by the family constitution was still the same.

But did God withdraw from the children of his servants, from the most
hopeful of all the sources of his church's increase on earth and in
heaven, all token of his regard in any sacramental act? Is parental
affection, under the reign of Immanuel, debarred the enjoyment of one of
its most valuable privileges, the sealing of the child to be the Lord's
by the use of a divinely-appointed symbol? Had no ordinances and symbols
been allowed after the institution of Christianity, this question would
not arise; the inference would have been that human nature, under the
Gospel, will no more need the aid of rites in religion. But there are
Christian rites, expressly and solemnly instituted. Is not that most
important relation of a believer's child to God perpetuated; and is it
not still to be sealed by the use of one of the Christian ordinances?

In considering this question, and the many interesting topics connected
with it, the writer will be allowed to take his own way, following an
historical order in the occurrences which may be supposed to have made
the subject interesting and clear to the minds of two parents.

Chapter Second.

THE GRANDFATHER'S LETTER.

THE NATURE, GROUNDS, AND INFLUENCE, OF INFANT BAPTISM.

If temporal estates may be conveyed
By cov'nants, on condition,
To men, and to their heirs; be not affraid,
My soule, to rest upon
The covenant of grace by mercy made.
GEORGE HERBERT,--"_The Font._"

--No finite mind can fully comprehend the mysteries into which his
baptism is the initiation.--COLERIDGE,--"_Aids_," &c.

Christian faith is the perfection of human reason.--IBID.

MY DEAR DAUGHTER BERTHA:--I am glad that you think of taking your little
namesake to the house of God for baptism. You wish to know my views
about it in full. My new colleague having relieved me of many cares and
labors, I shall hope to write more frequently; but not often so long a
letter as I fear this will be; for I wish to tell you of some
conversations which I have had on the subject in question. This will
show you the common difficulties, in which, perhaps, you share, and my
way of removing them; and also set before you the privileges and
blessings connected with the baptism of your child.

A man and his wife--sensible, plain people--came to our house one
evening last July, when the "vines with the tender grape gave a goodly
smell," through that trellis which you and Percival have such pleasant
reason to remember. We were all sitting there in the moonlight, when
this Mr. Benson and his wife came up the door-way, and were welcomed
into our little group. After a few words of mutual inquiry and answer,
he said:

"Wife and I, sir, thought that we would make bold to come and trouble
you a little to tell us about baptizing our boy. He is getting to be
four months old, and we are not willing to put it off much longer.
Still, we would like to know the grounds of it a little better. People,
you know, do not think much about it till it comes to be a case in hand.

"But I do not know," said he, looking round on your mother and the
children, "but that we do wrong to take this time for it. It will be
rather a dry subject for these young friends to hear."

_Pastor._ Not at all. They owe too much to what was done for them when
they were little children, to dislike it. Besides, there is nothing dry
about it, as I view the subject. It is one of the most beautiful things
in religion.

_Mrs. Benson._ It is next to the Lord's Supper, I always thought, if
people take the right view of it.

_Pastor._ It makes you love God the Father in some such way as the
Lord's Supper makes you love the Saviour. I think, sometimes, that the
baptism of children is our heavenly Father's Sacrament.

_Mr. B._ I like that; but there is so much to study and learn about the
"Abrahamic covenant," that I feel a little discouraged. I have had books
lent me on the Abrahamic covenant, and I began to read them; but they
looked hard; so I told my wife that perhaps you would make the thing
more clear, and bring it home to our feelings, and that we would come
and get your ideas about it.

_Pastor._ How glad I am that you came! But tell me what you take the
Abrahamic covenant to mean.

_Mr. B._ I suppose it means that God told Abraham to circumcise his
children, and infant baptism comes in the place of it, and we must do it
if we are Abraham's spiritual children. But I wish to see the use of it.
I am willing to do it, but I should like to feel it more; and I want to
know how baptism comes in the place of circumcision, and a great many
other things.

_Pastor._ I think that you may possibly have what may be called some
Jewish notions about the Abrahamic covenant, though I trust you are
right in the main. That phrase sounds foreign and mysterious, and I
never use it except in talking with people who I know have the thing
itself already in their hearts.

I called Helen to me, and told her to say the hymn which she had
repeated to me the last Sabbath evening.

She cleared her voice, leaned against me, and twisted her fingers in my
hair behind, and, with her eyes fixed there, she said this hymn:

"Begin, my tongue, some heavenly theme,
And speak some boundless thing;
The mightier works or mightier name
Of our eternal King.

"Tell of his wondrous faithfulness,
And sound his power abroad;
Sing the sweet promise of his grace,
And the performing God.

"Proclaim salvation from the Lord
For wretched, dying men;
His hand has writ the sacred word
With an immortal pen.

"Engraved as in eternal brass
The mighty promise shines;
Nor can the powers of darkness rase
Those everlasting lines.

"He who can dash whole worlds to death,
And make them when he please,
He speaks, and that Almighty breath
Fulfils his promises.

"His very word of grace is strong
As that which built the skies:
The voice that rolls the stars along
Speaks all the promises.

"He said, 'Let the wide heavens be spread;'
And heaven was stretched abroad.
'Abra'am, I'll be thy God,' he said;
And he was Abra'am's God.

"O, might I hear thy heavenly tongue
But whisper, 'Thou art mine!'
Those gentle words should raise my song
To notes almost divine.

"How would my leaping heart rejoice,
And think my heaven secure!
I trust the all-creating voice,
And faith desires no more."

_Pastor._ What a happy man Abraham must have been when the Almighty made
this engagement and promise: "I will be a God to thee!" That was the
"Abrahamic covenant," in part.

"Does covenant mean that?" said Mrs. B.

"What?" I inquired.

"Why, sir, what you have just said,--engagement, promise?"

"Nothing more," said I. "But what a happy man, I say, Abraham must have
been! 'A God to thee!' To have the Almighty say to one, 'I will be a God
to thee!' You know that this is everything."

"That is a fact," said Mr. B., wiping his eyes; "for, when I went to my
store, the morning after I became a Christian, I went along the street,
saying to myself, 'Now I have a God. God is God to me. Thou art my
God.'

"Yes," said his wife; "Deacon B., the post-master, heard you, as you
went by his side-window, and he made an excuse to bring me up a paper,
that forenoon, and asked whether you had not met with a change in your
feelings on the subject of religion."

"Did he?" said Mr. B. "Well, I did not mean to be heard, and yet I was
willing that everybody should know how happy I was in having one whom I
could call my God. How I had lived so long without God for my God,
amazed me."

_Pastor._ You make me think of a man who, one night, on reaching his
house, after having attended a lecture in a school-room, was filled with
such surprising views and feelings, with respect to the greatness and
goodness of God, that he saddled his horse, rode three miles, waked up
the minister, and, as he came to the door, took hold of each arm, and
said, "O, my dear sir, what a God we've got!" He would not go in, but
soon hastened back. It was the substance of all that he wished to say;
he desired to pour out his soul to some one who would understand him. He
was like a thirsty land when at last the great rain is descending.

_Mr. B._ I suppose many people would have thought him crazy.

"I suspect the minister did, at first," said Mrs. B.

"And yet I suppose," said I, "he was never more rational. Just think
what it is for a poor sinner all at once to feel that the eternal God is
his; that He will be a God to him! We hear of some people dying at the
receipt of good news; and I have seen some so happy at this experience,
of having a God to love and to love them, that, if the thing itself did
not, as it always does, bring peace and inward strength with it, nature
could not have sustained it."

"Joy unspeakable," said Mr. B. "And full of glory," said his wife,
waiting a moment for him to finish the quotation.

"Now, my dear friends," said I, "that man on horseback, at his
minister's door at midnight, had, at that moment, the first part of what
is meant by the 'Abrahamic covenant.' How little way do these words go
toward expressing the thing itself, and a man's feelings under it! There
was a time when God made Abraham far more happy even than he did you on
your way to the post-office that morning."

Helen came along, just then, with a fruit-basket of apples, and I said
to her, as she was going round with them, "Say again that verse in your
hymn, which has these words in it, 'Thou art mine.'"

So, while Mr. B. was paring his apple, Helen stood before him, and said:

"O, might I hear thy heavenly tongue
But whisper, 'Thou art mine!'
Those gentle words should raise my song
To notes almost divine."

Mr. B. put his apple and knife down, and took his red bandanna
handkerchief from under his plate, and, wiping his eyes, said:

"Hymns always make me feel a good deal, especially Watts's. I've read
that hymn in meeting before the exercises began."

_Pastor._ You know, by happy experience, what it is when that heavenly
tongue whispers, "Thou art mine."

_Mr. B._ I do, sir, if I know anything.

_Pastor._ Now, my dear friends, there is something awaiting you, which
you seem not to have experienced, but which is as good as that.

"We would like to hear about it," they both replied.

"How should you like, Mrs. B.," said I, "to have your little boy become
a sailor?"

"O dear!" said she, "I should have no peace from this time, if I thought
he was to be a sailor."

"But that," said I, "may be God's chosen occupation for him,--the way in
which he will employ him to bring him to himself, and then use him to be
a preacher to seamen, for example, and so to scatter the truth in many
parts of the earth. We are not our own, Mrs. B., and this dear boy was
not given you, as we say, to keep. 'For thou hast created all things,
and for thy pleasure they are and were created.'"

"I want him brought up at college," said Mrs. B., looking at your
mother, who, she probably thought, would understand her motherly
anticipations about her boy so far ahead.

"Well," said I, "let us send him to college. I suspect that you would
feel a good deal the morning he left you, would you not?"

"O," said she, "I should so want him to be good first! If he should not
be a good man, I would not have him get learning to do harm with it, and
make himself more miserable hereafter."

The little gate, with its chain and ball, swung to at this moment, and
a woman and girl came up the walk. It was Mrs. Ford, who used to be your
dress-maker, and her daughter Janette, now about thirteen. It was a
farewell call from Janette, who was going to the neighborhood of
Philadelphia, into a coach-lace manufactory.

"So Janette is going to leave us, to-morrow, Mrs. Ford?" said your
mother.

"Yes, madam, and I feel sorely about it; so young, and such a way off,
and all strangers except the foreman, who spoke to me about her coming!
O, sir," said she, changing her undertone, and turning to me, "what
should we do without that promise, 'I will be a God to thee and to thy
seed after thee'?"

I looked at Mr. and Mrs. B., and we all smiled, while I said:

"Now we have got the second part of the 'Abrahamic covenant.' So now we
have the whole of it. Mrs. Ford, when you came in, we were talking about
baptizing children, and about the 'Abrahamic covenant.' What do you
understand by that covenant?"

"I understand by it, sir," said she, slowly gathering her words into
proper order; "why, I think I understand by it, that God promises to be
a God to a believer's child, as he was in such a wonderful way to
Abraham's people."

_Pastor._ Well, that is the substance of one part of it, at least. Did
you know, Mrs. Ford, that when you came in we were just entering Mrs.
Benson's son at college?

_Mrs. Ford._ Not this Mrs. Benson, of course. Whom do you mean, sir?

_Pastor._ This Mrs. Benson;--her little son.

_Mrs. Ford._ O, I understand! Well, you will send him to P., I suppose,
it is so near.

"We had not fixed on the college," said Mrs. Benson, with a laugh.

"Janette," said I, "how do you like the thought of going off so far from
us all?"

Janette pulled the ends of her plain cotton gloves, and her heart was
full, so that she could not speak for a moment. I was sorry that I had
asked the question, and therefore added:

"You will not go where God cannot take care of you and bless you the
same as at home, will you, dear?"

She lifted her white apron to her eyes, while Mrs. Ford said for her:

"I tell Janette that I gave her up to God in baptism; and when her
father lay sick, he said, 'That child was given to God in his house; I
leave her destitute, and with nothing but her hands, but I leave her to
a covenant-keeping God.'"

"Now," said I, "here is a dear daughter going to a strange place to
learn a trade. She knows not a soul in the place but the foreman who has
hired her. A boy is going to college, another to sea, another to a
distant city. Here is a daughter, who receives particular attentions
from certain young friends, and the probability is that she will be
asked in marriage; and here is a son, who with his parents are in doubt
with regard to his future occupation and course of life. God only knows
the feelings of parents at such times. What prayers are made in
secret,--what vows! One wrong step may embitter life. A right step may
lead to prosperity and great happiness. I sometimes wish that we could
gather our children together, in some of these emergencies and critical
periods of their lives, and offer up prayers and vows, as parents and
friends, in their behalf. There would not be many meetings more
interesting than these, Mr. Benson. How the parents of such children
would love everybody that came at such times to pray for their children;
and what prayers would go up to God!"

"Can we not have some such meetings?" said Mr. Benson. "Every parent
would like it, I am sure."

_Pastor._ Well, we do have some such meetings occasionally, I remember.

"Our minister loves to use parables," said Mrs. Benson, looking at your
mother, "so as to make us understand the meaning better, and remember
it."

"I must ask you to explain," said Mr. Benson.

_Pastor._ As often as we bring a child to the house of God for baptism,
Mr. Benson, we have such a meeting, if Christians will but understand it
so. We come with the parents, and say, "Lord God, here is this dear
child, with a momentous history pending upon thy favor and blessing. In
all future time, in the critical moments and eventful steps of its life,
or in its early death, or in its orphanage, be thou a God to this
child." If God should to-night, Mrs. Ford, say to you, "I will be
Janette's God," would you not send her away with a light heart?

"He should have her for life, dear child!" said she; "and I do feel that
he is a God to her."

"He is," said I, "if you have really made a covenant with him about your
daughter."

"I have, sir," said Mrs. Ford.

_Pastor._ Did the covenant have any seal? Some good people, you know,
think it enough to covenant with God about their children, without using
any special act to mark and seal it. Now it is only in consecrating
children to God that they omit the seal from the covenant. We practise
adult baptism, joining the church, confirmation, and we partake of the
Lord's Supper, feeling the propriety and the use of acts and testimonies
in the form of an ordinance. What seal had your covenanting with God
about your child?

_Mrs. Ford._ I see it now clearer than ever. As we stood with this child
in our arms, we both said, afterwards, we made a public profession of
religion anew; and, when the minister said those sacred names over her,
I felt more than before that I was having transactions with God about
the child. But people used to say to me, "Why not wait and let Janette
be baptized when she is old enough to understand it?" How little they
knew about it! Just as though, I told them, if I had money to put into
the savings-bank for Janette, I would wait and let her put it in herself
(it is so pleasant to put it in when you know all about it!), instead of
laying it up for her in the funds, and let it count up while she is
growing.

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