from Baptist teachings, I hope he will favor us with light from his stand-point."

“Yes,” said the teacher, looking at Israel, “we invite you, sir, to state any objections to our view which may occur. By so doing you will best help us to find our own fortifications."

"I am not a Baptist," replied Israel, somewhat embarrassed by these words, "though I confess that their principal arguments upon their mode of baptism seem to me unanswerable."

"For instance, state the first root of the difficulty, if you please."

"The origin of baptism, as an example for Christians, or, in other words, of Christian baptism, was the baptism of Christ by John in the river Jordan; was it not?" asked Israel.

"I hold Christian baptism' to be an unimportant term," replied the teacher; "since Christ was baptized, not to found a rite, but to observe one long established. He did not say of his baptism, as of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, This do in remembrance of me,' but 'Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness,' signifying the necessity of answering an established law of practice. He also said that he came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil them. The spirit of this rite under different figures is seen throughout the dispensations which preceded Christ.

"In the first age of the world is the covenant between God and Adam, the article of which was, to have and to hold every tree in the garden for food, save the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and

evil. Abstinence from this fruit was the sacramental seal of the covenant. After this covenant, or baptism into the will of God, man was known by a name distinct from his kind. He was called Adam. This covenant being broken on the part of man, God in his goodness did not forsake him, but manifested his first covenant of grace in a new form, under certain conditions, promising him the sustenance of life. The sacrament of this covenant was the offering of the firstlings of the flock by man unto the Lord, and its acceptance. This prefigured the sacrifice of Christ, and may properly be called the first covenant, with its attending sacrament, between God and fallen man.

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"In the second age of the world, the event which prefigured salvation through faith in Christ is best described by the Apostle Peter, In the days of Noah while the Ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure, whereunto, even baptism, doth now also save us.' (1. Pet. 3: 20.)

"God's covenant with man was here renewed to Noah and to his seed after him. In the cloud which should bring a baptism upon the earth, was the bow or sign of his promise of salvation from destruction.

"In the third age of the world, again did God covenant with man through Abram. He was promised to be a father of many nations. His name was pronounced to be Abraham. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee.'

"The seal of this sublime promise was the rite of

circumcision, which was also a like figure to baptism, typical of salvation through faith.”

Here Israel asked to interrupt the teacher, and said: "Since it was only the male child who was required to receive this rite, how can it be made to answer in correspondence to baptism, which is the profession of faith by all believers, or by the responsible for the irresponsible, whether male or female."

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"Before the birth of Christ," answered the clergyman, woman was considered, like Eve, to be one flesh with man, - bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh. But when Christ came, born of a woman, her sex took on a new importance, and assumed a distinct personality."

"Eve," said Israel, "was a wife, and I supposed the identity of sexual bone and flesh to have referred solely to this relation of life. By whom were the single women represented before the descendants of Mary?"

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By their fathers and brothers," promptly replied the teacher. "The rite of circumcision," he went on, "like baptism, was a figure of Christ's death. In that death the man, and not the mother, suffered. And although it may be truly said that no being, male or female, other than Christ himself, endured the penalties of man's transgression on the cross, it is equally plain that Christ's human nature, united with the divine, endured the agonies of the Passion. This nature belonged to man peculiarly, while in general it embraced all mankind.

"From this I derive the idea that it is far easier for woman to experience the birth into the new life or the

regeneration, than for man. Throughout Christendom it will be found that women are far more numerous among the followers of the Master, than men. This is one of the compensations in the Infinite Plan, for the curse she received at the Fall."

Some of the members of the class exchanged glances of incredulity; but Israel, unconsciously adopting the expression of a work in the French language, which he had lately translated, said, in a low voice, "Vous avez raison."

"It appeared," now spoke one of the young men of the class, "that when Moses asked Pharaoh that they might go and serve the Lord, and Pharaoh said, Who are they that shall go? Moses said, We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go: for we must hold a feast unto the Lord. Not so,

answered Pharaoh; go now ye that are men, and serve the Lord. It seemed, then, that Moses and Aaron made some account of the daughters as well as the sons, in distinctive enumeration."

"That," said the teacher, "was with reference to the event, which was one of joy—a feast not of suffering. The benefits of circumcision as a ceremonial observance accrued equally to the female as to the male."

"In all mention of the ancient Church, the promise includes the seed of the Father of believers," observed another.

"What evidence," asked Israel, "do we find in the New Testament of any change taking effect in the state of woman after the incarnation of Christ? "

"Turn to I Cor. 7: 14" said he, “and there you

learn that the believing wife of an unbelieving husband makes the children holy, or members of the Church, and partakers of the covenant of grace. If she be a true believer, she will avail herself of the benefits of the Abrahamic covenant to the children of believers, which is promised to be everlasting. She will be

faithful to instruct her children in the faith, and bring them to the participation of its sacramental fruits, in answer to the seal which she caused to be placed upon them in their infancy."

"We infer, then, that the coming of Christ, not only effected the scheme of Redemption of the human family, but preeminently redeemed the condition of woman," remarked a member.

"The fourth age of the world brings us to the Passover," the teacher resumed. "Upon the fourteenth day of the first month, which was the fourth of May, Monday evening with us, did this event take place. (Ex. 12: 11.) Here we find that the paschal lamb was to be for every house, unless the household be too little for the lamb, in which case, the neighbor was to unite, according to the number of souls.

"Not long after this, we read of a baptism of the chosen people by God himself: 'Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses, in the cloud and in the sea.' And yet they all walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea. You will here mark that God must have baptized children as well as the heads of families; but more of this hereafter," he concluded, for the bell announcing the close of the exercises rung.