it by the weight of evidence? All these facts which have been adduced must for ever stand a full and sufficient justification of the assertion that baptism, as originally practised, was immersion. They constitute a defence never to be shaken by the petty objections which, in Liliputian mimicry of war, are marshalled and arrayed against them. There are some who try to ignore this solid granite mountain of truth. Like certain animals which burrow in the ground, they dig a little way into the looser covering which is over the rock, and when they have thus buried themselves cry out that they see no such mountain.

66

We have next to show that THE IMMERSION ORIGINALLY PRACTISED WAS OF THE ESSENCE OF THIS RITE, AND NOT A MERE ACCIDENT. Here recall the two preliminary considerations already noticed-the first, that of the natural fitness of immersion to constitute such part; the second, the antecedent improbability that a feature so important should be merely accidental. Add to these the significant fact that the very name of the rite is immersion. How unreasonable that intelligent men, and especially if inspired, should name the initiatory and perpetual rite of the church from a mere accident of that rite, and not from that which pertained to its essence. Every one would expect that its name would have been a word containing the idea of water, or at least of cleansing, if water had been the only essential thing. Still further, if water alone were essential, and the mode of its use quite indifferent, why was the most difficult, and, as some allege, indelicate mode adopted and employed? Is it of the genius of Christianity to impose upon its professors needless and senseless burdens? And yet, once more, why, when the apostle gave an interpretation of the spiritual import of the rite, did he once and again in his epistles, and, without doubt, habitually, in oral instruction, seize upon the mode, to the entire omission of the element? Did he coldly purpose to mislead, or was he ignorant? There can be no other reason for his course than that immersion was then essential to the rite-a constituent and inseparable part of it. I trust that the assertion has been made good, that the divinely instituted and perpetual rite of baptism, as originally given, was the immersion of the candidate in water; that the element water, and the immersion with the consequent emersion, were both and equally essential to that rite.

"Let us now advance together one step further. The divine, perpetual rite, as instituted, was never to be altered. There are three conceivable grounds, any one of which might justify, or be supposed to justify, an alteration. The first is an express command, or permission; the second, the lodgment in the church, or some part of it, of a power to change the rite at will; the third, its little importance. No command or permission to change the ordinance has ever been found, unless such permission or command exist in the impossibility or impropriety of its administration in its original character. Those who are pleased to stigmatise immersion as indelicate, unbecoming, and improper, unfitted to the refinements of our modern civilisation, and therefore to be set aside for something more genteel and elegant, are perhaps honest, are surely silly. To set their taste above Christ's law would be monstrous, if it were not ridiculous. As to the impossibility of immersing, it does sometimes exist. Persons who are proper subjects are sometimes too feeble, or otherwise unfitted to observe the ordinance. But what is the rational view to take of these cases? Is it that for such persons another and different rite shall be substituted, or rather that these persons are, by divine providence, for the time excused from performing the outward act, and, instead of that, the inward disposition is accepted? The question carries its own answer. But how much more emphatic would be this answer if it were claimed that the inability of a few exceptional persons to be immersed justified such substitution, not for these only, but for the whole body of believers, sick and well, lame and sound? This would be a leap of logic astounding, bewildering. But it is said that there are countries too cold to allow immersion; and, as Christ's religion was for the race, he must have intended that the rite should be modified to make it tolerable. In this, then, is the divine

permission. Permission for what? Not merely to excuse those of the cold clime from the outward act, which impossibility of performance would certainly justify. Is it then in those special cases to substitute another act in its place for them? No; it is even worse; it is a permission to give another rite to the But where are those whole church, in frigid, temperate, and torrid zones. regions whose cold makes immersion impracticable? The practice of the Greek church shows that they form no habitable part of this earth. Are they, then, on the dark side of the moon? I suspect they lie somewhere in the drear imagination of partisan objectors. This ground of divine permission or command to change Christ's ordinance is supported by no argument which can fairly be called respectable, even if courtesy shall concede the name of argument. "How, next, is it with that second ground, the lodgment in the church or its officers of an authority to change the ordinance at discretion? Does it not require precisely the same authority to change a law that it does to repeal? and the same to either change or repeal that it does to enact? Has Christ We know that delegated this authority? We have already found the answer. not even to apostles was such authority delegated. How much less to their successors or the church of subsequent time!

6

"And now can I speak soberly and temperately of that other supposed ground for changing God's law, to wit: its little importance. Only a form;' Merely external; Not essential;' A mere question of the amount of water.' Is it possible that men, who call Christ Lord, can use such a plea to justify a known change of his sacred ordinance? Are they really in earnest? Why do they not say of the Bible, It is made up only of words and sentences? Words are but trifles. Why be so scrupulous to retain them, just as they come Let us, from the pen of inspiration? Phariseeism! Bondage! Judaism! in the free Catholic spirit, which is the very genius of Christianity, drop a letter bere, a word there, and a sentence elsewhere. Let us at will add and change, for elegance, convenience, or utility. The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. The letter killeth! Then kill the letter.' No! Christian men dare not thus reason of the written word. They well know that to kill the letter, is to kill the indwelling spirit. How, then, dare they reason thus of that grand symbolic, pictorial language, in which our Lord incarnated, and visibly bodied forth to the view of the race, the central sublime verities of his holy religion? If possible, the sin is greater in the case of the rite than in that of the written word. The rite is alone, solitary. In the word, a multitude of passages contain the same grand truth. The rite is a summary, gathering into itself many truths. Often the word holds but one feature of the truth. The rite embodies verities which are at the very centre. Much of the Bible treats of exterior truth. But worse though the sin be, in some of its features, yet in principle it is just the same. It is vicious in the extreme. It degrades the authority of Christ. Suppose the rite worthless. You bid your child take from the floor a pin; may he disobey you because it is a pin, and not a diamond? It degrades the wisdom of Christ. Is he to be charged with the institution, and the perpetual requirement, of a trivial or worthless rite? It degrades the judgment, and outrages the Christian consciousness of the whole family of Christ; for the church deems the rite invaluable-her heart cherishes it as a sacred legacy. But, if it is so unimportant that one of its constituents may be cast aside, then, either or both may be rejected, and the whole ordinance discarded. There is, there can be, no ground which justifies any, the least change of that which belonged to the essence of the rite; hence there is no ground which will justify the substitution either of another element in place of water, or of another use of water in place of immersion. Every argument which binds the church to retain the ordinance of baptism, and all those arguments combined which the church so unanimously and heartily, in word and practice, pronounces in vincible, equally bind it to retain the rite as it was instituted. Indeed, not otherwise does she retain Christ's ordinance, but substitutes another and different. The command to observe it, given without

any kind of limitation, expressed or implied; the non-existence of even the shadow of authority to repeal; the express declaration of its perpetuity to the end of time; its relation to the Lord's Supper, which by independent evidence is shown to be perpetual; and the continuance to the last of the same need which originated-all these, several and conjointly, lift up the clear, articulate, solemn voice of authority, and command the church and the world to lay no desecrating hand upon God's ordinance, or change in the least his abiding decree. These all warn the erring to return to the right way, and those in that way to turn not one hair's breadth to right or left.

Shivering Jemmy.

MISERABLE impostor in the streets of London was accustomed to extract money from the pockets of the charitable by standing in a public position in the winter weather, clothed in rags, and shivering as with ague and extreme cold. He was great adept at shivering, and could imitate it to a marvel. At last he shivered in very deed without shamming, and could not cease from it, whether he would or not. Summer or winter, in all places, his shivering was as constant as that of an aspen: he had violated Nature's laws in his attempts to deceive, and she took a dreadful revenge upon him; for the rest of his life he carried with him the name of Shivering Jemmy, and no explanation of the title was required by those who looked upon him.

Eat one plum from the devil's trees, and you must eat a bushel. Talk falsehood at a trot, and you must soon lie at a gallop. Beware of anything approaching to the false, for falsehood has a terrible fascination about it. Like the spider, it casts film after film over its victim, but it never suffers him to escape its toil. Paint the face, and it must be painted.

The same is true of other vicious habits. He who brags once is sure to boast again, and at last he unconsciously pitches all his conversation on the high key, and becomes renowned for "tall talk." A religious professor who runs over his devotions in a formal manner, will find formality grow upon him, till genuine prayer and real emotion will utterly leave him;, the man will become for ever a heartless pretender. It is dangerous to preach an affected sermon, in which the lips utter more than the heart can actually endorse, the tendency will be for the minister to be always talking above himself, and what is this but to be a professional liar? We fear that some have feigned sympathy with others till now their tears lie ready salted in the corners of their eyes, and their cant is something more than stale. Others have so often expressed emotions which they did not feel, that it has become habitual with them to roll their eyes and clasp their hands under a sermon, or during the singing of a hymn: they are "Shivering Jemmies" in the streets of the New Jerusalem, a pitiable and a disgusting sight.

Nothing is more to be dreaded than the insensible growth of hypocrisy. Since we are none of us free from a measure of self-deception, the danger is that the false within us may grow to power, and obtain a sort of established respectability within the little world of our nature. Better anything than a religious windbag. It were impossible to imagine a fate more horrible than to be all smoke-a pious fraud, a holy sham, a nothing blown out with foul gas. It were better to think ourselves incapable of a holy emotion, and to be breaking our hearts because of our obduracy, than to be shivering with a sham sensitiveness, to which we have attached the idea of eminent tenderness of spirit. O Lord, deliver us from every false way. Save us from deceit.

C. H. S.

HE

Father Sewell, and the Collection.

E could not help being absent from the meeting, but his heart was there. His feet would have carried him down to the chapel two hours before, only duty forbade. As soon, however, as he had concluded his business, off the old gentleman walked, saying to himself, "I'm afraid I shall be too late, but I shall at least see how they have got on. The Lord grant a blessing on the meeting and the work in hand!" It was Father Sewell-an Israelite indeedthe very image of Old Honest in Bunyan's Pilgrim. There had been a meeting to raise money for home mission work, and the collection had just been made when the old gentleman entered, and the deacons had brought all the plates into the table-pew. The pastor no sooner caught sight of his aged friend than he said, "Our friend, Mr. Sewell, will I am sure close the meeting by offering prayer for God's blessing on the proceedings of this evening." Father Sewell stood up, but he did not pray. He did not shut his eyes, but on the contrary seemed looking for something. He did not clasp his hands, but put them into his pockets, and fumbled there with much perseverance. "I am afraid," said the pastor, "that my brother did not understand me. Friend Sewell, I did not ask you to give, but to pray." Ay, ay," said the straightforward, bluff speaker, "but I could not pray till I had given. It would be hypocrisy to ask a blessing on that which I did not think worth giving to." There was not a bit of ostentation in the old man; it was his honest heart pouring out its true feelings, and, odd as his behaviour seemed, his conduct preached the whole congregation such a sermon as they will not soon forget.

Prayer unattended by effort is, before the Lord, as when the churl saith: "Be ye warmed and be ye filled," to a hungry man. It is a mockery and no more. Clasp in supplication hands that have been free in offering. Let none of us appear before the Lord empty. To be allowed to give to the Eternal God is an honour so great that none but brutish worldlings will decline it. If we are liberal in serving the Lord's cause with our substance, we may expect him to grant the prayers in which we ask him to establish the work of our hands upon us.

C. H. S.

Reviews.

Short Tales for Young Readers. Edited and Revised by ROBERT PASTOR. Hamilton, Adams & Co.

By

England's Curse, and its Cure.
Rev. J. WALKER. With an Introduc-
tion by Rev. CHARLES GARRETT.
Elliot Stock.

THE first six of these tales are by Mr.
John Ashworth, the prince of sketchers
of humble life; this is quite enough to
gain them attention on all sides. The
other seven tales are by the Editor, who
assumes the title of Robert Pastor, and
are quite worthy of the first six. In fact,
we think them better than those by Mr." Jessica's First Prayer."
Ashworth, which are evidently among
his earlier essays in the art. The col-
lection of stories is likely to do much
good, and deserves to be read by all our
youth. The more of these truthful,
warning, and encouraging incidents and
narratives the better. Real life is a far
better teacher than fiction.

A BOOK for teetotallers: vehement,
vigorous, thorough-going.
How Little Bessie kept the Wolf from
the Door. Religious Tract Society.
ANOTHER delicious story after the
order of "Little Meg's Children" and
All our

scruples about fiction are nonsuited
when we come across tales like these;
they are so life-like, that if they are not
true they ought to be. "Little Bessie
and the mysterious wolf" will be a great
favourite in thousands of English homes,
and help to keep alive the flickering
flame of charity.

Eternal Suffering of the Wicked. By | offender applied the remonstrance to himR. GOVETT. Nisbett & Co.