It is like a great river rising in a desert place, and seeming to lose itself in a lake, but flowing out again into another lake, and thence to the sea.

So Judaism was only a great lake, which took and seemingly held this river of baptism for a time, but its current went on and flowed into another lake, the Christian dispensation.

But you cannot say that a river which makes a chain of lakes, rises, for that reason, in the first lake.

No, its head spring, in this case, was antecedent to the lake.
_Mr.K._ Did Abraham or the Jews baptize children, Mr.M.?
I answered, "Every male child of Abraham's descendants, who should not receive the sign of consecration to God, was to be cut off from among the people.

Proselytes of the covenant and their children were baptized, very early." _Mr.K._ But where is the command to apply baptism to children?
_Mr.M._ Where, my dear sir, is the command to discontinue that which was enjoined upon the founder of the race of believers for all time?
I believe in the perpetuity of Abraham's relation to us as the father of the faithful, as I believe in Adam's relation to us as the representative of the race, and in the Saviour's relation to us as our representative.