ning, but
receive it as you would any easily understood historical fact of this
present time. If you should read in your county paper of a man down by one
of the rivers of your adjoining county who was administering baptism to
the people, and the whole neighborhood round about went out to him and
were baptized of him in the river, and when he had baptized a certain
individual he went up straightway out of the water, what idea would you
form as to the mode of the baptism? Would you think it was a little water
sprinkled on the head somewhere in a meeting-house? There is nothing in
the account to convey such an idea. How unreasonable it would be for you
to study to change the meaning of the plain account and mystify it because
it was not congenial to your desires.

Suppose you should read in your paper of two men traveling along the way.
One of them had never heard of Jesus nor of the ordinance of baptism; the
other talked to him of the Savior, of his death and his resurrection, and
how he had authorized him to go into all the world and preach this gospel
to every creature, and he that believed and was baptized, the same should
be saved. And as they traveled on their way they came to a certain water,
and the one said to the other, "See here is water, what doth hinder me to
be baptized?" The other replied, "If thou believest with all thine heart
thou mayest." He answered, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God." Then they stopped their carriage and they went down both into the
water and there the one was baptized of the other, and when they came up
out of the water the one went one way and the other another way, and they
saw each other no more. What idea would you form as to the mode of
baptism? This is all very plain to the candid heart.

The other instances of baptism recorded in the New Testament do not
express so clearly the mode as the two we have given, yet they can not
with propriety be made to express anything contrary to immersion. The
apostle Paul in his letter to the Roman brethren speaks of baptism as a
burial. Rom. 6:4. This only confirms in our mind (concerning the mode) the
ideas suggested by the baptism of the Savior and of the man of Ethiopia.
For yet greater clearness we will present a few thoughts suggested to us
by the recent writings of a brother, which we consider very conclusive.

A word, perfectly synonymous with another word can be used in its stead
with the same correctness of diction. As,