CHAPTER Third.
BERTHA'S BAPTISM .-- CHANTING AT BAPTISMS .-- PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BAPTISMS .-- WEEK-DAY BAPTISMS .-- A DAUGHTER'S LOVE .-- BAPTISM OF A DEAF-MUTE INFANT .-- FIDELITY OF A BAPTIZED CHILD .-- SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM .-- THE MODE .-- IMPROBABILITY OF IMMERSION, IN THE NEW TESTAMENT .-- ON BEING BURIED IN BAPTISM .-- NEW VERSION OF THE SCRIPTURES .-- OUR DIVISION INTO SECTS .-- A MOTHER'S PLEA FOR INFANT BAPTISM.
Where is it mothers learn their love?
In every church a fountain springs, O'er which th' eternal Dove Hovers on softest wings.
O, happy arms, where cradled lies, And ready for the Lord's embrace, That precious sacrifice, The darling of his grace! KEBLE.
We took Bertha to church when she was two months old.

The minister, being fond of music, had, for some time, requested the choir to chant select passages of Scripture at baptisms.
So, as we came up the aisle with the child, the choir breathed out those words, "And I will establish my covenant between thee and me, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant; to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee." "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God." "And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them." And, as we turned away from the font, they added, "So shall he sprinkle many nations." "The Lord shall increase you more and more, you and your children." "But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children; to such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments, to do them." How I loved that choir, and the congregation! for, many a face did I see bathed in tears, and others beaming with smiles and love, as, with respectful, half-turned looks, they seemed to give us their blessing.
"Do you not think, more than ever," I said, to the beloved grandmother of my child, after church, as we watched the little sleeper in her cradle, "that people lose very much in having their children baptized at home ?" "It makes a different thing of it," she replied.

"I felt that all the congregation loved Bertha and you.

How many prayers you obtained for her and for yourselves, which you would have missed by a private baptism!" "Besides," I remarked, "'God loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.' I think that for that reason, and on the same principle, namely, that he is more honored, he regards our public dedication of children with more favor than a private baptism, except, of course, where sickness makes the public service impossible.

But it is some trouble to mothers, and no doubt many shrink from it." "The trouble is more in anticipation than reality," she replied.