rite might be dispensed with. During the Commonwealth, so long as
the public ceremonial of the Church of England was prohibited, private
baptism had become a custom even among those churchmen who were most
attached to the Anglican ritual. Such, thought Sherlock, were the
principal causes of a neglect which seems to have become in his time
almost universal.[1220] Often the form for public baptism was used on
such occasions. But this irregularity was not the worst. There can be no
doubt that these 'home christenings' had got to be very commonly looked
upon as little more than an idle ceremony, and an occasion for jollity
and tippling. This flagrant abuse could not fail to shock the minds of
earnest men. We find Sherlock,[1221] Bull,[1222] Atterbury,[1223]
Stanhope,[1224] Berriman,[1225] Secker,[1226] and a number of other
Churchmen, using their best endeavours to bring about a more seemly
reverence for the holy ordinance.

The taking of fees for baptism was a scandal not to be excused on any
ground of prescription. This appears to have been not very unusual, and
to have been done without shame and without rebuke.[1227] Probably it
chiefly grew out of the above-mentioned habit of having this sacrament
celebrated privately in houses.

Early in the century the sign of the cross in baptism was still looked
upon by many with great suspicion. Even in 1773 Dean Tucker speaks of
it[1228] as one of the two principal charges--the other being that of
kneeling at the Eucharist--made by Dissenters against the established
ritual. Objections to the use of sponsors were not so often heard. They
would have been fewer still if there had been many Robert Nelsons. His
letters to his godson, a young man just setting out to a merchant's
office in Smyrna,[1229] are models of sound advice given by a wise,
Christian-hearted man of the world. Wesley thought the office a good and
expedient one; but regretted, as many other Churchmen before and since
have done, the form in which some of the questions are put.[1230]

In the latter part of the seventeenth and through the earlier years of
the eighteenth century, we find earnest Churchmen of all opinions sorely
lamenting the comparative disuse of the old custom of catechizing on
Sunday afternoons. Five successive archbishops of Canterbury--Sheldon,
Sancroft, Tillotson, Tenison, and Wake--however widely their opinions
might differ on some points relating to the edification of the Church,
were cordiall