I told him that I would not be for reflecting upon other denominations; that my motto, with regard to them and us, is, "Live, and let live." I would only appeal to our own people, and encourage them to take up the subject afresh, in a spiritual manner; that is, to dwell upon the privilege and duty of being in covenant relations, with our children, to God, baptism being the ordinance of ratification, and its memorial.
_Dr.D._ Your reference to controversy about baptism makes me think of one which I listened to in a rail-road station, last winter, while waiting in a snow-storm, several hours, for the cars.

Two students of divinity, as I took them to be, were discussing their respective tenets with regard to baptism.

I was reading a book, but could not help hearing what they said.

One was decrying infant baptism as a "rag of Popery," "the last relic of Rome in Protestantism," "a device of Satan to fill up the church with unconverted members," and much more to that effect.
His friend, in reply, undertook to give his impressions of immersion.

He spoke of India-rubber bathing-dresses;--a tank in which he saw two or three men and as many women, one of them a young lady, immersed, to his apparent disgust;--of Elder some one breaking the ice at some cape on New Year's Sabbath, and immersing several carriages full of females, who went back dripping wet, to the carriages, and rode an eighth of a mile to the vestry;--of several females immersed, in a southern State, going into a creek with white garments, and with white fillets about their heads, and coming out yellow; and he asked his fellow whether infant baptism could be any worse than such things.
_Mr.M._ What did his friend say?
_Dr.D._ O, it was the common talk on both sides, painful and revolting.
I could not help saying to them, as the cars were coming up, and we were parting, "But, if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another." _Mr.M._ They probably left each other as little convinced of the opposite opinions, respectively, as when they began.
_Dr.D._ More confirmed and set against each other's views, I have no question.