w perfectly
restored.

As I stood in the entry, not having rung the door-bell, and was hanging
up my hat and coat, some one in the parlor said:

"What good can it do the child or us to sprinkle a little water on its
head?"

"Good-evening, Mr. M.," said the husband, as I went in. I was
interrupted in my expression of a fear that I had intruded upon their
conversation, by their assurances to the contrary. "I am glad you came
in," said Mr. Kelly, "for perhaps you can help us. You heard, I suppose,
what I was saying as you came in. If I am not mistaken, Mr. M., you
yourself are not very strenuous about infant baptism, for I have heard
of your making inquiries on the subject."

"Not only have all my doubts been removed," said I, "but the baptism of
my child has been the source of the richest instruction and comfort."

"I am glad to hear you say so," said Mrs. K.

"But," said Mr. K., "you do not, of course, derive your warrant for it
from the word of God. That is our only guide, you know. There is no more
authority in the Bible for baptizing children than there is for praying
to saints. You are probably aware that the practice originated in the
third century of the Christian era."

_Mr. M._ It originated with a man by the name of Abraham, I believe,
sir, two or three thousand years before Christ.

_Mr. K._ O, then, you go to Judaism for it!

_Mr. M._ Judaism comes to me with it, and hands it over to me. There was
something good in Judaism, we all think. Judaism was not a Mormonism, as
certain ways of speaking of it not unfrequently would make us think it
to have been; it was not an exploded folly, but the form which the
church of God bore for two thousand years. But it began before Judaism;
it is older than Moses. Judaism received it from Abraham. It is like a
great river rising in a desert place, and seeming to lose itself in a
lake, but flowing out again into another lake, and thence to the sea. So
Judaism was only a great lake, which took and seemingly held this river
of baptism for a time, but its current went on and flowed into another
lake, the Christian dispensation. But you cannot say that a river which
makes a chain of lakes, rises, for that reason, in the first lake. No,
its head spring, in this case, was antecedent to the lake.

_Mr. K._ Did Abraham or the Jews baptize children, Mr. M.?

I answered, "Every male child of Abraham's descendants, who should not
receive the sign of consecration to God, was