“On their reaching the frontiers of the empire, the emperor Alexander ordered them to be supplied with from thirty to forty ducats each, to bear their expenses to some other place of residence. But though this mighty force of papal agency was removed from the Russian territories by one stroke of the autocratic pen, yet the influence which they had acquired was not so easily to be annihilated; and there is no doubt, that in the succeeding intrigues which were played off so successfully against the Russian Bible Society, their powerful friends in the capital took a part.” p. 62.

“Instead of restraining the use of brandy, the government, even of the present day, affords every facility to the people to obtain it, in order to enhance the gain derived from this iniquitous source; which amounts to nearly one-fourth of the whole revenue of the empire.”

“The cathedral church at Odessa is a noble building, in the Grecian style, with domes and crosses. One day I entered it, when the protopope, or dean, was baptizing an infant. The day was excessively cold, there being upwards of ten degrees of frost, and the water in the font almost freezing. After the ceremony was over, I expressed to the priest my surprise that they did not use tepid water, seeing the infant had to be three times immersed over head and ears in the icy bath. He smiled at my compassion, and exclaimed—‘Ah, there is no danger: the child is a Russian.’ Indeed, such are the superstitious opinions of the people, that were the chill taken off the water, they would probably doubt the validity of the ordinance.” p. 153.

“In Great Russia, the child is baptized usually in the church, or in a private house; and the prayers, exorcisms, and ceremonies attending this ordinance, are long and complicated. The Greeks and Russians always use the trine immersion; the first, in the name of the Father—the second, in that of the Son—and the third in that of the Holy Ghost. When a priest cannot be obtained, they permit lay-baptism; and they never rebaptize on any account whatever.”

“They make the sacraments consist only in a spiritual reception of them, and therefore reject infant-baptism. Their origin is to be sought for among the Anabaptists, or Quakers.”

“In the Ukraine, or Little Russia, it is customary also to baptize by sprinkling or pouring water upon the body. This change the Little Russians, many of whom are Uniats, adopted from the Roman Catholics, when they were under the power of the Polish government. However, in cases of necessity, even in Great Russia, baptism by sprinkling or pouring water on the body is practised, and held to be valid.”

Sin requires no teaching.

Thieves are not abroad every night; yet every night make fast.

Praise not thyself, nor dispraise.

Thou wilt not see all the world by looking out at thy own window.

A fool can cast a stone where seven wise men cannot find it.

Two hares at once, and you catch neither.

His wealth is not on the barn-floor; it is in his brains.

At home, as I like it; in company, as others will have it.

They gave a naked man a shirt, and he says, ‘How coarse it is!’

Hast thou a pie? Thou wilt soon have a friend at table.

The largest ass will not make an elephant.

‘Freedom,’ says the bird, ‘though the cage be a golden one.’

Every soldier would be general—every sailor, admiral.

In travelling, and at their sports, men show what they are.

A Greek speaks truth once in the year.

The cow has a long tongue, but she is not allowed to speak.

A golden bed will not relieve the sick.

“From this commencement in 1813 till my leaving Russia, the princess had published ninety-three different pieces, amounting to upwards of 400,000 copies, on religious and moral subjects, which together form eight volumes, 8vo., and which were gratuitously distributed, or sold at low prices.”

“A protestant nobleman of true piety, who laboured in the cause with indefatigable zeal, during the whole period of the existence of the national institution.”

“Wise, energetic, and humane,” “who has begun a reform in the courts of justice;” “a man of penetration, energy, and benevolence; who has already given many pleasing proofs of his sincere desire to advance the spiritual interests of the Russian people;” “the determined courage and wise management of the young emperor,” &c.—pp. 348, 389, 392.

“This work is the result of many reflections, excited at different times, through a long series of years, by the reading of many articles and discussions in the Christian Observer. The practice of admitting infants to the sacrament of baptism, I apprehend, must appear to almost all reflecting persons, at some times, to be of a very dubious character; and if it shall appear that the fair tendency of those parts of your work which I refer to, is to render it still more so, then I am persuaded that you will allow that the publication is, without impropriety, thus offered to your notice.”

“The question respecting the propriety of admitting infants to the sacrament of baptism must, I conceive, before long, become a subject of grave discussion within the church. Then the real importance of the question will become manifest, and it will be found necessary that it should be more comprehensively considered in all its bearings, than it has hitherto been. With regard to the question, as it stands between the church and the AntipÆdobaptist party, excepting the question—whether it is the duty of Christian governors to promote Christianity—this, respecting infant baptism, is of more real importance than all others in dispute between the church and orthodox dissenters.

“The reading of the papers in an early volume of your work, on Dr. Taylor’s Key to the Apostolical Writings, first excited the reflections which led to my determination to offer, for the consideration of the Christian public, some thoughts on the subject of infant baptism.”

“Never before, in any way, were so large a number of persons, so competent to the task, brought together for its consideration. In your volumes, men of the deepest piety, of fine talents, and with minds every way prepared for the consideration of the subject, have laboured to produce the scriptural elucidation of the baptismal grace. I am persuaded that I should not exaggerate, if I were to say that if all the divines in Christendom had been assembled at the commencement of the present century, and had held as many sessions as the council of Trent, for the purpose of settling this question, the controversy would not have been so happily conducted as it has been in your pages, nor pursued to a more satisfactory result. But what is the result? Notwithstanding that nothing is so manifest as the effects of the operation of divine grace, for wheresoever it does operate the effects are ‘known and read of all men,’ yet in answer to the inquiry, ‘What are the nature and consequences of the grace communicated by the Holy Spirit in baptism?’ the Christian Observer, with all its voices united, declares, ‘We cannot tell.’ This issue of the matter is virtually avowed by yourself incidentally in a short sentence in the number for October, 1833, where you say, ‘The Church of England certainly assumes far more than the nudum signum, though it does not go to the length of the opus operatum.’ Within these boundaries, then, it is admitted that the proper place of rest is not yet discovered.”

“I now, Sir, with great humility, beg to submit that the church has made its utmost efforts in this inquiry—that every thing respecting it has been concentrated in your volumes; that the best Christian talents have been bestowed upon it in vain, up to the conclusion of the first third part of the nineteenth century, and to the commencement of the fourth century of the Reformation, and that, therefore, it is a fair conclusion that further inquiry is quite hopeless, the imagined baptismal grace for unconscious infants being manifestly an undiscoverable, non-existent thing. I wish here to add, that a reference to obvious facts leads inevitably to the same conclusion. In the all-wise providence of the great Head of the church, the matter has been brought to the test of experiment, which has been going on upon a sufficiently large scale for more than two centuries in this country. Two Christian parties have conscientiously refrained from having their children baptized; so that, if the baptizing of infants were accompanied with any measure of the Holy Spirit’s influence, the effects would have been rendered quite evident by the contrast. But what do facts declare! What spiritual advantages do baptized children discover themselves to be possessed of which unbaptized children do not possess, in cases where all other things are equal! Surely all fair Christian observers of the dispensations of the King of grace in his church, must be constrained to allow that the advantages are undiscernible, and therefore can have no existence.”

“It may be assumed that I have come to a wrong conclusion; but, I presume, it will be admitted to be desirable that the question I have considered should be more satisfactorily settled than it is at present, and if, as I trust it will appear, that I have examined it under no influence but the love of truth, it may be allowed that the work may be useful in assisting others to come to a right conclusion. Every man who treats a subject honestly, does something to put it in a right point of view. I confess, I cannot now hope that, if I am wrong, I shall live to be convinced of it; but truly I feel no interest in error, and I take no pleasure in differing from ministers and brethren in Christ; so that, if I were convinced of being wrong, I could renounce my present opinions with more ease than I can now divest myself of a garment.”

“In the present day, no intelligent evangelical writer would think of advancing such things as Hooker and some other eminent and good men have said on the subject of baptism. Men of reflection and genuine Christian character now perceive themselves here to be but in cloudy regions, where mighty minds have strangely bewildered themselves, and refrain from venturing distinct speculations and positive assertions. They do not come forward with anything like the confidence of their predecessors. They speak strongly against the opus operatum of Papists, and papistical Protestants; and though they would not be thought to deny that grace is, in some way, connected with baptism in the case of infants, yet they frequently make it evident that they would rather escape from close discussion. There is a remarkable instance of this in the Bampton Lectures of the late Dr. Heber, Bishop of Calcutta. He says: ‘Both grace and comfort, if they are not necessarily inherent in the washing of regeneration, and the eucharistic bread and wine, may at least be attained by a proper use of those means.’ Surely this obscure and doubtful passage, on a subject simple and apprehensible enough in Holy Scripture, is something different to what ought to be expected from a profoundly learned ruler of the church. What Christian ever thought of denying that grace and comfort might be attained by a proper use of these ordinances? On the other hand, are we to be driven to the mortification of supposing that, in the present day, others beside Papists can be induced to suppose that grace and comfort can be necessarily inherent in any thing material? Upon the whole, I think it is evident to an observer, that there is some hesitation and want of confidence among thinking members of the church with regard to this view of baptism: yet the idea of a mysterious connexion between the materiel (if I may use the word) of the ordinances and divine grace, has by no means lost its hold of the mind; which is in a great measure owing to the magic influence of imaginary sacred words. Such terms as ‘elements,’ ‘holy mysteries,’ have a strange effect in causing men to feel as though it would be sacrilegious and presumptuous to open their eyes, and view those divine institutions in the light of Scripture.

“But the imagination, that the application of the ordinance of baptism to unconscious infants is a divinely appointed medium of grace to them, is so incompatible with real facts, that a philanthropic Christian, who looks around, and has his heart affected by the real state of society, even in this country, if he could at that moment be brought closely to reconsider this opinion, which, at other moments, when facts are forgotten, raise delightful feelings in his mind, could not but have his eyes open to the fallacy:—the illusion would vanish at once. If baptism were a divinely appointed medium of spiritual good to the minds of infants, then its beneficial tendency must appear in the development of children in Christian countries. If this manifestly appeared to be the case, all controversy would be at an end. But do the instructors of youth discover it? Has the warmest advocate for the practice of baptizing children ever ventured such an assertion? And if infants grow up, believe, and are baptized, is it conceivable that their heavenly lot will be at all worse than that of those who were baptized in their infancy; or that, if they die unbaptized, without any fault of their own, they will in any wise suffer for the omission? Now if all these questions be answered in the negative, as undoubtedly they must, what becomes of the imaginary paradise of blessings and privileges to which baptism is to introduce the millions of our infants? Why should the holy Lord God, our Saviour, be represented as mocking his church by promises of mysterious, pompous nothings?” pp. 65-69.

“But if the Church of England rests this practice on such insufficient grounds, how do the PÆdobaptist Congregationalists support the practice? They appear to me to have scarcely any ground at all which they can acknowledge, consistently with their fundamental principles as Congregationalists. They are supported in the practice wholly by clinging to custom, and by borrowing the arguments of the advocates of national churches just for an occasion. It is quite inconsistent with their principles to acknowledge such a visible church as infants are professedly introduced to by baptism. They recognise no such church, except on the occasion of baptizing their children. They admit of no officers, and allow no government, for such a church. They consider all apparently unconnected persons as belonging only to the world, and admit their own children to become members of their churches exactly in the same way as they would a stranger coming from a country not professing Christianity; except that, in their case, they are saved the ceremony of baptizing, which is the divinely appointed way of admission into a visible church. National ecclesiastical establishments, which yet unavoidably resulted from the practice of infant baptism, they hold to be altogether anti-scriptural, and founded upon an anti-christian union of church and state. They have, therefore, no reasonable pretence for arguing for the practice from the appointment of circumcision, which can with consistency be used only by those who think that Christianity was designed to have a secular, external character. Some of them, indeed, seem ashamed of this obvious inconsistency, and have recourse to an imaginary distinction between the covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace; and instead of professing that by baptism they make their children members of the visible church, they assert that by doing so they place them visibly within the one covenant, though not within the other. But a serious refutation of such a notion can hardly be necessary; it may be classed with other unintelligible and unauthorized imaginations.

“The members of the church, retaining their veneration for the notions respecting the sacraments established as catholic in the primitive ages, have some specious ground of hope that the administration of the ordinance to their infants will be accompanied with a communication of grace, in consequence of the imagined occult connexion between the ‘elements’ and the grace of the ordinance, they have, with something like a pretence of reason, expected that their children might thereby be made members of Christ, children of God, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven. They are persuaded that it is consistent with truth to speak of baptism for infants as ‘the washing of regeneration,’ the laver of regeneration—the well-spring of divine life, &c., &c., and that in this matter they rightly exercise Christian submission in following ‘the sacramental host of God's elect.’ But the Independents have no pretence of the kind for this application of a holy ordinance to infants. They expect their children to derive no benefit from it, other than what they would derive through their prayers, and from the blessing of God in bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They renounce all deference to catholic authority in matters of religion and conscience, and profess to believe that all the light which the case requires is to be found in the Scriptures, and that it is dangerous to follow any other. They have also no more right to use the argument drawn from the baptism of households, than they have that drawn from circumcision: they are both founded on the same principle—an assumption that the doors of the Christian visible church have been opened by our Lord himself to the unconscious and unconverted, in diametrical opposition to the principles on which they found their opposition to the established church. Surely it cannot be, that wise master-builders should much longer employ themselves in daubing this papal wall with untempered mortar.” p. 39-92.

“If the bee lights upon a flower where there is no honey (being wasted or gathered before), she quickly gets off, and flies away to another that will furnish her. Let us not lose ourselves and forget our errand: our father, Adam, lost our happiness, and we are sent to seek it; seek it where it is, and go handsomely to work; say, I am not for riches, they are made for me; I am not for creatures, they are made for me, and I am their master; therefore these cannot make me happy: I am made for eternity, for everlasting life and happiness; therefore, let me study that; mind that end beyond inferior ends. Why do men seek wealth, but to be happy? Why pleasures, why honours, but because they would be happy? If these things cannot bless and enhappy me, why should I burn daylight? why should I not off them, as the bee gets off the plants that yield her no honey, and once, at last, see where my happiness lies, in pursuing happiness, and where my happiness lies, in God’s ways; the first step whereof is poverty of spirit?” p. 22.