cent age make
haste to the forgiveness of sins? Men act more cautiously in temporal
concerns. Worldly substance is not committed to those to whom divine
things are entrusted. Let them know how to ask for salvation, that you
may seem to give to him that asketh.

"It is for a reason no less important that unmarried persons, both those
who were never married, and those who have been deprived of their
partners, should, on account of their exposure to temptation, be kept
waiting," &c.

As these extracts prove that the institution of marriage existed in
Tertullian's day, so they prove the existence then of infant baptism.
Nothing can be more conclusive. How pertinent and useful to his object
would it have been, could he have assailed the practice of infant
baptism as a human invention! He would not have failed to use that line
of attack, had it been possible. Now, as certain articles in the
newspapers, in a distant part of the country, remonstrating against the
street-railroads, for example, prove that street-railroads exist there,
so does Tertullian's argument against infant baptism prove that it was
practised within one hundred years after the apostles.

_Mr. M._ Is not this stronger, if anything, than Origen's testimony,
being so much nearer the apostolic age?

_Dr. D._ For that reason it may have more weight; but Origen's
testimony, being direct and positive, is most easily quoted. He was near
enough to the apostolic age for all the purposes of credible testimony.

There is another historical testimony, if you wish to hear of more,
which has great weight.

THE COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE, one hundred and fifty years after the apostles,
and composed of sixty-six pastors, has given us full testimony on the
subject. A country presbyter, by the name of Fidus, had sent two cases
for their adjudication. One was, "Whether an infant might be baptized
before it was eight days old?" Here is the answer:

CYPRIAN, and the rest of the presbyters who were present in the council,
sixty-six in number, to Fidus our brother, Greeting:

"---- As to the case of Infants: whereas you judge that they must not be
baptized within two or three days after they were born, and that the
rule of circumcision is to be observed,--we are all in the Council of a
very different opinion." "This, therefore, was our opinion in the
Council, that we ought not to hinder any person from baptism, and the
grace of God. And this rule, as it holds for all, is, we thi