related to the Romish mysticism than I had supposed. It is Christianity shrouded in mystical deism, and struggling with it, like a lamp in a vapoury atmosphere. It combines the Platonism of a learned age with the fanaticism of the seventeenth century, and is a skilful combination of opposite elements well adapted to beguile both the proud and the simple. Is it not so? But that God has had a people among the Society I cannot doubt; and this revival, which is passing Quakerism through an ordeal, is detecting and manifesting who have indeed the Spirit of Christ.

We have consented to admit into the Patriot an account of the proceedings of the ensuing yearly meeting, which we expect to have furnished by some of your friends. I fear that the old leaven will mar the feast.

And now, my dear sir, permit me to advert to the subject of infant baptism. I believe I have told you that I am in the practice of attending the Baptist chapel in this town, of joining with them in the Lord's Supper, and of occasionally occupying their pulpit; so that you will not suspect me of being very strongly influenced by party prejudices. But I am more and more firmly convinced that the restricting of baptism to adult confession of faith is an error, and, like all errors, of evil consequence.

Baptism is no part, as it appears to me, of a profession of discipleship, but is rather an admission to discipleship. The question, then, is, "Who are the disciples of Christ?" Our Lord Himself said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me." The duty of bringing our children to Christ-their claim to be taught their capacity to be discipled their susceptibility of Divine teaching, will not be denied: why then should it be

scrupled to employ this rite of discipleship according to the spirit of the reasoning of St. Peter, Acts x. 47? A convert from another religion can only be received on his own profession and desire to be taught. But the children of believers have a claim to be taught, and a correlative obligation of the most binding nature lies on their parents, of which the performance of the rite is a solemn recognition. "I reminded them" (the Baptists in Scotland, who were reported to be negligent of family religion) "that if family religion was neglected, Pedobaptists would be furnished with the most weighty objection against our sentiments as Baptists." Such are the words of Andrew Fuller, a leading minister among the Antipedobaptists. And do they not amount to an admission that the Baptist views have a possible tendency to lead to this neglect of God's great ordinance of family religion? Does not the denial of this rite to the infant children of believers sanction the dangerous notion that not their baptism merely, but their choice of a religion, and their becoming partakers of Divine grace, must (or may) be deferred till they attain an adult age? Is it not implied that the child of a heathen stands in the same relation and condition towards God as the child of one who, with his whole household, fears and worships God? And, further, does not deferring the rite till an adult age divide a Christian family into the baptized and unbaptized, and thus render it a rite of disunion? In ancient times, and according to Eastern notions, this would have been no trivial consideration. It appears to me very questionable whether unbaptized children would have been permitted to sit at table with baptized perand what we read of the baptism of households (that is, families) as well as a remarkable passage, 1 Cor. vii. 14, sanctions this idea. I am not contending for

sons;

what is, in technical phrase, termed the church-membership of children; but I cannot think the institutions of the Gospel were intended to supersede or clash with the domestic economy, by which chiefly, if parents were faithful to their charge, the church would be perpetuated.

You are aware that it is the practice of our churches to require an adult confession or profession of faith on the part of those baptized in infancy, prior to their admission to communion or membership. This answers, in some degree, to the original design of the Popish rite of confirmation: We differ from the Baptists only in this, that they defer the rite of initiation-what I should venture to call the rite of Christian education-till the time of admittance to their church fellowship; and they then first bestow the sign of discipleship, as they would upon a heathen convert of yesterday, upon one who, it may be, has grown up in the fear of the Lord-the son of pious members—an attendant with them on the ministry and public worship—receiving him, though a child and nursling of the church, as from the world. Is this rational? Is it Scriptural? Allow me to entreat your consideration of the subject in this light: When a Gentile in primitive times embraced the faith of Christ, did he not renounce idolatry for his offspring and descendants, and pledge himself to bring up his children in the Christian faith? Look at 1 Cor. x. 2, and consider whether all the young children were not baptized unto Moses, discipled or subjected to him as their leader, in the cloud and in the sea. The Apostle evidently borrows the phrase from the Christian rite of initiation, which he applies to the Mosaic church in the wilderness.

I am not surprised that evangelical friends, when led to perceive the evils arising out of membership by birthright in their own society, should be disposed to view

with jealousy any practice that may seem to favour the notion of an hereditary title to those Christian privileges which belong only to those whom God has sanctified. The Popish heresy of baptismal regeneration, so tenaciously retained by the Church of England, has, I imagine, produced the opposite mistake of the Baptists, whose opinions I must admit to be rational and Scriptural on this point, in comparison with those who convert a symbolic rite into a sort of incantation. Still, the undue stress which the Baptists lay upon the rite, in another point of view, has been found to produce a fallacious assurance on the part of many; so strong is the tendency to exalt the ritual above the spiritual. Quakerism, which was in part produced by the Popish abuse of the sacraments, seeks to escape from this tendency by substituting the mystical for the ritual; but this is found. to be still more fatally opposed to genuine spirituality. How wise is our Heavenly Master, who, knowing what was in man, has instituted but two symbolic rites—each, properly viewed, so replete with instruction-the one implying the necessity of the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Ghost in all who would enter the kingdom of Christ, and the other perpetuating through the darkest ages of the church, notwithstanding the idolatrous superstition that had become attached to it, the fundamental doctrine of the propitiatory sacrifice, and thus showing forth the Lord's death till He come.

CHAPTER VIII.

LONDON AGAIN.

AFTER fifteen years spent at Watford, Mr. Conder found it desirable, for reasons sufficiently indicated in the preceding chapter, to remove to London, or at least to its immediate neighbourhood, within omnibus range of Temple Bar. Scarcely any motive attracted him to one suburb more than another, so that the selection of a residence was a perplexing problem. At last, Highgate, lying close on the skirts of the still uninvaded country, and lifted more completely than any other suburb out of the atmosphere of the great city, was preferred. Mr. Conder took a house at Holly Terrace, and removed thither in the summer of 1839. Here he resided for six years, and then removed to Clapham, where he continued until the spring of 1851. His family circle having, meantime, diminished, as the sons went out one by one into the battle of life, until it consisted only of himself, Mrs. Conder, and their daughter, Mr. Conder quitted Clapham, and being unable to decide where to fix his home, took lodgings at Kennington, near one of his sons. His stay was prolonged from time to time, until more than three years had slipped away. Circumstances then indicated St. John's Wood as the most desirable locality. He removed thither, near the close of 1854, just twelve months before he was called to enter on that eternal house, not made with hands, which awaits the tired pilgrim at the end of his life-wanderings.