ch the
Christian heart receives such a denial of infant baptism is at least a
presumptive evidence against it. But we think enough has been said to lay
the foundation of some practical comments upon the subject of Christian
baptism.

If it is a fact that infants are proper subjects of baptism, then it is the
duty of Christian parents to have them baptized. It is not only a duty, but
a delightful privilege, to consecrate them to God in a perpetual covenant
never to be forgotten, regarding them as the members of the kingdom of
Christ, and so called to be God's children by adoption and grace.

Their baptism involves many parental duties and responsibilities. If it is
both a sign and a seal of the covenant of grace, and a means of grace, so
that the parent's faith, in their baptism, places the child in covenant
relation to the Incarnate Word, through the life-giving Spirit, then it is
plain that the parent is bound to secure for the child those blessings
which that baptism contemplates, and which hang upon the exercise of a
receiving faith. This sacrament gives the child a churchly claim upon
parental interposition in its behalf, in all things pertaining to its
spiritual culture,--in a true religious training, in a proper direction in
the use of the means of grace, in a holy Christian example. Here it is the
parent's duty to represent the church, to act for the church in religious
ministrations to the child, to be the steward of the church in the
Christian home, to rear up the child for a responsible membership.

No parent, therefore, who neglects the baptism of the child, can have "the
answer of a good conscience towards God." If we are satisfied to have our
homes separate from the church; if we are satisfied with individualistic,
disembodied, unassociated christianity,--a religion that owns no church,
but which has its origin, root and maturity in the self-conscious activity
of the individual, we may then neglect this duty. But in doing so, to be
consistent, we must also discard the sister ordinance of the Lord's supper,
yea, all the churchly means of grace; yea, the church itself; for why
repudiate one ordinance,--one idea of associated Christianity, and not all
the others?

That baptism is greatly abused and neglected, none will deny. It is often
abused by neglect of the proper time of its administration. The earliest
period of infancy is the proper time; for then there will be a proper
correspondence in time between