Somerset became aware that it was the Baptist minister, whose rhetoric he had heard in the chapel yonder.
'Now,' continued the Baptist minister, 'will you express to me any reason or objection whatever which induces you to withdraw from our communion?
It was that of your father, and of his father before him.

Any difficulty you may have met with I will honestly try to remove; for I need hardly say that in losing you we lose one of the most valued members of the Baptist church in this district.

I speak with all the respect due to your position, when I ask you to realize how irreparable is the injury you inflict upon the cause here by this lukewarm backwardness.' 'I don't withdraw,' said a woman's low voice within.
'What do you do ?' 'I decline to attend for the present.' 'And you can give no reason for this ?' There was no reply.
'Or for your refusal to proceed with the baptism ?' 'I have been christened.' 'My dear young lady, it is well known that your christening was the work of your aunt, who did it unknown to your parents when she had you in her power, out of pure obstinacy to a church with which she was not in sympathy, taking you surreptitiously, and indefensibly, to the font of the Establishment; so that the rite meant and could mean nothing at all....

But I fear that your new position has brought you into contact with the Paedobaptists, that they have disturbed your old principles, and so induced you to believe in the validity of that trumpery ceremony!' 'It seems sufficient.' 'I will demolish the basis of that seeming in three minutes, give me but that time as a listener.' 'I have no objection.' 'Very well....

First, then, I will assume that those who have influenced you in the matter have not been able to make any impression upon one so well grounded as yourself in our distinctive doctrine, by the stale old argument drawn from circumcision ?' 'You may assume it.' 'Good--that clears the ground.