CHAPTER Fourth.
IS THERE ONLY ONE MODE OF BAPTISM?
Were love, in these the world's last doting years, As frequent as the want of it appears, The churches warmed, they would no longer hold Such frozen figures, stiff as they are cold; Relenting forms would lose their power, or cease, And e'en the dipped and sprinkled live in peace; Each heart would quit its prison in the breast, And flow in free communion with the rest.
COWPER.
Opening my entry door, on my return, several faces looked out to welcome me, all in the house having waited till a late hour, with surmises as to the cause of my long absence, and then all dispersed, except the venerable, and not yet aged, grandmother of little Bertha.

With her it was always pleasant to talk.
_Mr.M._ Have you had no company this evening?
I was in hopes that the Moores would come in, as they promised to do.
_Mother._ They have been gone nearly an hour.

Mr.Moore wished to read husband's letter, so Bertha lent it to him.
_Mr.M._ Father will be glad to know how much good his letter is doing.
Cousin Eunice would be glad to see it, and I wish to read it again, for I find that I am likely to need more instruction, if I am to discuss the subject as I did this evening with Mr.Kelly.
_Mother._ Was he at home?
I hope you did not get into a controversy about baptism; for, of all things, nothing dries up religious feelings like that.
_Mr.M._ The subject has taken too practical a hold upon my feelings to have that effect.

I find myself more and more led to believe that God gave his church an appointed form of baptism, and that that form was sprinkling; for I search the New Testament in vain for a single case where immersion seems to have been practised.

I believe that, under the operation of early tendencies, of which Paul writes to the Thessalonians, the church began to prefer immersion as more sensuous, making a stronger appeal to the passions.