formed themselves into societies, such new securities were introduced for the well-being of the community, as occasion. might render requisite. Among others, there was this: on a person's applying to be admitted into the infant church, questions were proposed to him calculated to ascertain what his real feelings were. He might, if his acquaintance with the habits of the new sect were derived (as may frequently have been. the case) from mere report, he might think that to become a Christian and be baptized, was, in fact, nothing more than to go through a certain number of forms, just as attended initiation into many of the rites of paganism; or, to take an illustration nearer home, just as are observable in the ceremonies previous to admission into the secret societies of our own time, which never have any visible effect on the conduct of the initiated. nor are ever expected to have any. To

remove these and other erroneous impressions, the elders of the church, with that grave and earnest simplicity which is invariably found in company with a true sense of the duty imposed, inquired of the supposed convert whether he really was honest in his intentions; whether he had a thorough conviction of the truth of the religion he was desirous of professing; and whether, in pursuance of such conviction, he was ready, on the instant," to renounce the devil and all his works," to overturn whose empire Jesus Christ came into the world; to renounce also "the vain pomp and glory of the world," with which the pure and undefiled religion of the humble Jesus had nothing in unison, "with all covetous desires of the same, and the carnal desires of the flesh, so that he would not follow nor be led by them”—if he hesitated to give consent to these,-to a heart wedded to the vanities of life

severe and repulsive conditions, he was rejected; but if he received them with a warm and hearty spirit, appealing to heaven for the sincerity of his assurances, thus returning "the answer of a good conscience toward God," he was joyfully, and with thankfulness to the Almighty for this mercy, received into the ranks of the faithful. The apostle Peter is alluding to this practice, and puts his brethren in mind, that baptism consists not in the mere outward ceremony which attended their introduction, but in that purification of the heart which they had voluntarily undertaken to attempt, and to promote which the first supplies of grace had been vouchsafed them, in the very instant of their initiation. In process of time, as Christianity extended wider, and one generation appeared to succeed to the spiritual inheritance of another, the practice of infant baptism came into general, almost universal

adoption — grounded on the express words of our Saviour, "suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not"--where a rule is evidently given to guide his church on a contingency, which it is certain he must have foreseen. And, indeed, if it was deemed so necessary to admit the children of the Jews to a participation in the benefits of their covenant, with so little delay that every male was ordered to be circumcised on the eighth day, surely we should be scarcely justified in withholding such as are born under the Christian dispensation, from the earliest possible participation in the benefits of a covenant so manifestly superior. But here a difficulty arises; "the answer of a good conscience" must be made, and who is to make it? The being who possesses but a consciousness of existence, and scarcely that, cannot be competent of itself to undertake a responsibility, of

which it can form no conception, and whose very ear is a stranger even to the sounds by which that obligation is conveyed. Since then the party concerned is incapable of undertaking, for himself, to perform his part in the contract, it were desirable that there should be some one who would undertake to perform it for him, with the understanding that the person or persons so undertaking, should be relieved from the responsibility so soon as the infant attained to such an age as admitted of his taking it upon himself: hence have arisen the institutions of godfathers and godmothers, with the subsequent rite of confirmation.

The sponsorial office is one of no light moment. I approach the temple of the Almighty; I stand, as it were, in the immediate presence of my of my Creator; on such a spot, associated with every serious and affecting thought, I hear myself solemnly