id something to her of all
those things, but that he was himself so wicked a creature, and his own
conscience so reproached him with his horrid, ungodly life, that he
trembled at the apprehensions that her knowledge of him should lessen the
attention she should give to those things, and make her rather contemn
religion than receive it; but he was assured, he said, that her mind was
so disposed to receive due impressions of all those things, and that if I
would but discourse with her, she would make it appear to my satisfaction
that my labour would not be lost upon her.

Accordingly I called her in, and placing myself as interpreter between my
religious priest and the woman, I entreated him to begin with her; but
sure such a sermon was never preached by a Popish priest in these latter
ages of the world; and as I told him, I thought he had all the zeal, all
the knowledge, all the sincerity of a Christian, without the error of a
Roman Catholic; and that I took him to be such a clergyman as the Roman
bishops were before the Church of Rome assumed spiritual sovereignty over
the consciences of men. In a word, he brought the poor woman to embrace
the knowledge of Christ, and of redemption by Him, not with wonder and
astonishment only, as she did the first notions of a God, but with joy
and faith; with an affection, and a surprising degree of understanding,
scarce to be imagined, much less to be expressed; and, at her own
request, she was baptized.

When he was preparing to baptize her, I entreated him that he would
perform that office with some caution, that the man might not perceive he
was of the Roman Church, if possible, because of other ill consequences
which might attend a difference among us in that very religion which we
were instructing the other in. He told me that as he had no consecrated
chapel, nor proper things for the office, I should see he would do it in
a manner that I should not know by it that he was a Roman Catholic
myself, if I had not known it before; and so he did; for saying only some
words over to himself in Latin, which I could not understand, he poured a
whole dishful of water upon the woman's head, pronouncing in French, very
loud, "Mary" (which was the name her husband desired me to give her, for
I was her godfather), "I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost;" so that none could know anything by it
what religion he was of. He gave the benediction afterwar