The baptism itself cannot save the child, any more than the Lord's Supper can save you; but it is among the first of means to promote the salvation of the child, not merely through its effect on you, or its remembered grace and goodness when the child can be made to appreciate it; but above all, and through all, and in all, it seals that covenant of a covenant-keeping God, assisting your efforts and those of the child,--that promise, I say, 'I will be his God, and he shall be my son.'" We named the little boy, PHILIP, as a memorial of the road-side baptism.
We stood under the shadow of that great rock, and worshipped Abraham's God.

"Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not." The voice of prayer was joined by chimes and symphonies from trickling rills, and the freshening breeze in a silver-leaved maple, leaning at an angle of thirty-five degrees, just above us in the rock, all as quiet as the dear infant's breathing; while, now and then, the sudden flapping and rushing of birds' wings made the monotone around us more soothing.
From a little jet of water, that formed an arc of about an inch, as it burst into life and then disappeared in a great moss-bed, I caught my palm full, and laid it upon the unconscious head.
The little hands were suddenly lifted and dropped, as though a slight shock had been experienced, then a smile played round the mouth, and the sleep seemed deeper.
And will God in very deed dwell on earth?
Will the adorable Trinity be present at such a scene as this?
Present! "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." He will not appoint this ordinance, and fail to be present; the God of redemption is a party to that transaction by which an immortal soul, with an existence commensurate with his own, is consecrated to him by its natural guardians, acting in the place of God, and for the child, and joining them in covenant.
"Shall we ever forget this ?" said the husband to his wife, as we were riding along that beautiful afternoon.
"Never," said she; but she added, sensible woman as she was, "the beauty and sentiment of the place seemed to me nothing, compared with the privilege of covenanting with God, and having him covenant with us for the child.

After all," said she, "I would have been glad to have had the baptism in our little church at home, and to have secured good Mrs.
Maberry's prayers, and those of our church, for the child, at its baptism.

I must write to her, and get her to tell the Maternal Association about it, and ask them not to forget little Philip." "What would you have named it," said my wife, "had it been a girl ?" "O," said she, smiling, "I was thinking on the hill, that, if it had been a girl, I should have called it Candace, for the Ethiopian queen." "And Canda, for shortness and sweetness, I suppose," said her husband, his eyes twinkling and sparkling with love, as he looked at her, and from her upon us.
"He's a sweet little thing, you know he is," said the mother, burying her face in the child's bosom, and giving it something between a good long smell and a good long kiss, or both; a thing which mothers alone know exactly how to do.
"Suppose," said I, "that, instead of little Philip, it had been you, sir, and Mrs.Blair, who had needed to be baptized.
"Here you are, on a journey.