For all purposes of criticism the Offices for "Public Baptism of Infants, to be used in the Church," for "Private Baptism of Children in houses," and "Baptism to such as are of riper years, and able to answer for themselves," may be treated as one and the same, the leading idea of each service being identical; this idea is put forward clearly and distinctly in the preface to the Office: "Dearly beloved, forasmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin; and that our Saviour Christ saith, None can enter into the kingdom of God, except he be regenerate and born anew of water and of the Holy Ghost; I beseech you to call upon God the Father, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that of his bounteous mercy he will grant to this Child that thing which by nature he cannot have." According to the doctrine of the Church, then, baptism is absolutely necessary to salvation: "None can enter... except he be... born anew of water;" thus peals out the doom of condemnation on the whole human race, save that fragment of it which is sprinkled from the Christian font; there is no evasion possible here; no exception made in favour of heathen peoples; no mercy allowed to those who have no opportunity of baptism; none can enter save through "the laver of regeneration." Can any words be too strong whereby to denounce a doctrine so shameful, an injustice so glaring? A child is born into the world; it is no fault of his that he is conceived in sin; it is no fault of his that he is born in sin; his consent was not asked before he was ushered into the world; no offer was made to him which he could reject of this terribly gift of a condemned life; flung is he, without his knowledge, without his will, into a world lying under the curse of God, a child of wrath, and heir of damnation. "By nature he cannot have." Then why should God be wrath with him because he hath not? The whole arrangement is of God's own making. He fore-ordained the birth; he gave the life; the helpless, unconscious infant lies there, the work of his own hands; good or bad, he is responsible for it; heir of love or of wrath, he has made it what it is; as wholly is it his doing as the unconscious vessel is the doing of the potter; as reasonably may God be angry with the child as the potter swear at the clay he has clumsily moulded: if the vessel be bad, blame the potter; if the creature be bad, blame the Creator. The congregation pray that God "of his bounteous mercy," "for thine infinite mercies," will save the child, "that he, being delivered from thy wrath," may be blessed. It is no question of mercy we have to do with here; it is a question of simple justice, and nothing more; if God, for his own "good pleasure," or in the pursuance of the designs of his infinite wisdom, has placed this unfortunate child in so terrible a position, he is bound by every tie of justice, by every sacred claim of right, to deliver the blameless victim, and to place him where he shall have a fair chance of well-being. "It is certain by God's Word," says the Rubric, "that children which are baptized, dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved." And those which are not baptized? The Holy Roman Church sends these into a cheerful place called Limbo, and the baby-souls wander about in chill twilight, cursed with immortality, shut out for ever from the joys of Paradise. Many readers will remember Lowell's pathetic poem on this subject, and the ghastly baptism; they will also know into what devious paths of argumentative indecency that Church has wandered in deciding upon the fate of unbaptized infants;—how, when mothers have died in childbirth, the yet unborn children have been baptized to save them from the terrible doom pronounced upon them by their Father in heaven, even before they saw the light;—how it has been said that in cases where mother and child cannot both be saved the mother should be sacrificed that the child may not die unbaptized. Into the details of these arguments we cannot enter; they are only fit for orthodox Christians, in whose pages they may read them who list. Truly, the Lord is a jealous God, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children, since unborn children are condemned for the untimely death of their mother, and unbaptized infants for the carelessness of their parents or nurses. Of course, the majority of English clergymen believe nothing of this kind; but then why do they read a service which implies it? Why do they use words in a non-natural sense? Why do they put off their honesty when they put on their surplices?

And why will the laity not give utterance to their thoughts on these and all such objectionable parts of the Service? In the Office for adults, as regards the necessity of the Sacrament, the words come in: "where it may be had;" but the phrase reads as though it had been written in the margin by some kindly soul, and had from thence crept into the text, for it is in direct opposition to the whole argument of the address wherein it occurs and to the rest of the office, as also to the other two offices for infants. The stress laid upon right baptism, i.e., baptism with water, accompanied by the "name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," appears specially in the office to follow the private baptism of a child, should the child live; for the Rubric directs that if there be any doubt of the use of-the water and the formula, "which are essential parts of Baptism," the priest shall perform the baptismal ceremony, saying, "If thou art not already baptized, I baptize thee," &c. Surely such care and pains to ensure correct baptism speak with sufficient plainness as to the importance attached by the Church to this initiatory rite; this importance she gives to it in other places: none, unbaptized, must approach her altar to take the "bread of life:" none, unbaptized, must be buried by her ministers, "in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life." The baptized are within the ark of the Church; the unbaptized are struggling in the waves of God's wrath outside; no hand can be outstretched to save them; they are strangers, aliens, to the covenant of promise; they are without hope. The whole office for infants reads like a play: the clergyman asks that the infant "may receive remission of his sins;" what sins? The people are admonished "that they defer not the Baptism of their children longer than the first or second Sunday next after their birth." What sins can a baby a week old have committed? from what sins can he need release? for what sins can he ask forgiveness? And yet, here is a whole congregation prostrate before Almighty God, praying that a tiny long-robed baby may be forgiven, may be pardoned his sins of—coming into the world when God sent him! The ceremony would be ludicrous were it not so pitiful. And supposing that the infant does need forgiveness, and has sins to be washed away, why should a few drops of water, sprinkled on the face—or bonnet—of the baby, or even the immersion of his body in the font, wash away the sins of his soul? The water is "sanctified;" we pray: "Sanctify this water to the mystical washing away of sin." As the hymn sweetly puts it:

Blood once more! how Christians cling to the revolting imagery of a bygone and barbarous age of gross conceptions. And, applied by faith, it cleanses the soul of the child from sin. Well, the whole thing is consistent: the invisible soul is washed from invisible sin by invisible blood, and to all outward appearance the child remains after baptism exactly what it was before—except it chance to get inflammation of the lungs, as we have known happen, from High Church free use of water, which is, perhaps, the promised baptism of fire. The promises of the sponsors are in full accordance with the rest of the services; promises made by other people, in the child's name, as to his future conduct, over which they have no control. The baby renounces the devil and all his belongings, believes the Apostles' Creed, and answers "that is my desire," when asked if he will be baptized; all which "is very pretty acting," but jars somewhat on the feeling of reality which ought surely to characterize a believer's intercourse with his God. The child being baptized and signed with the Cross, "is regenerate," according to the declaration of the priest. Some contend that the Church of England does not teach baptismal regeneration, but it is hard to see how any one can read this service, and then deny the teaching; it is clearer and fuller than is the teaching of her voice upon most subjects. The ceremony of baptism and the idea of regeneration are both derived from the sun-worship of which so many traces have already been pointed out: the worshippers of Mithra practised baptism, and it is common to the various phases of the solar faith. Regeneration, in some parts, especially in India, was obtained in a different fashion: a hole through a rock, or a narrow passage between two, was the sacred spot, and a worshipper, squeezing himself through such an opening, was regenerated, and was, by this literal representation of birth, born a second time, born into a new life, and the sins of the former life were no longer accounted to him. Many such holes are still preserved and revered in India, and there can be little doubt that the ancient Druidic remains bear traces of being adapted for this same ceremony, although a natural fissure appears ever to have been accounted the most sacred.*

One ought scarcely to leave unnoted the preamble to the first prayer in the baptismal service: "Who of thy great mercy didst save Noah and his family in the ark from perishing by water; and also didst safely lead the children of Israel thy people through the Red Sea, figuring thereby thy holy baptism; and by the baptism of thy well-beloved Son Jesus Christ, in the river Jordan, didst sanctify water to the mystical washing of sin." In the two first examples given the choice of the Church appears to be peculiarly unfortunate, as in each case water was the element to be escaped from, and it was a source of death, not of life; perhaps, though, there is a subtle meaning in the Red Sea, it points to the blood of Christ: but then, again, the Red Sea drowned people, and surely the anti-type is not so dangerous as that? It must be a mystery. It would be interesting to know how many of the educated clergymen who read this prayer believe in the story of the Noachian deluge, and of the miraculous passage of the Red Sea; and further, how many of them believe that God, by these fables, figured his holy baptism. Will the nineteenth century ever summon up energy enough to shake off these remnants of a dead superstition, and be honest enough to stop using a form of words which is no longer a vehicle of belief? When the Prayer Book was compiled these words had a meaning; to-day they have none. Shall not a second Reformation sweep away these dead beliefs, even as the first away for its own age the phrases which represented an earlier and coarser creed?