did for them. Oh, ye baptized children,--ye
to whom the holy ministry of home has been faithfully applied,--know ye
not that the frowns of abused heaven are upon you, and that the memory of
your rebellion against the prerogatives of the family, will constitute an
ingredient in your cup of woe? The privilege of baptism lays you under
solemn requisition. If unfaithful to it, it will be your condemnation, and
add new fuel to the flame of a burning conscience.

Parents and children! be faithful to this holy ordinance of God. It is a
solemn service. You should approach the baptismal font with a trembling
step and a consecrated heart. And what a solemn moment it is, when you take
your child away from that altar! There you gave it up to God,--dedicated it
to His service; and there in turn He commits it to you in trust, saying to
you as Pharaoh's daughter said to the mother of Moses, "Take this child and
nurse it for me, and I will pay thee thy wages," and you bore it away, as
did that faithful mother, to bring it up for God. There you solemnly
promised that in training that child, the will of God should be your will,
and the law of all your conduct towards it. You can never forget that
solemn transaction, and how you there vowed before witnessing men and
angels that you would be faithful to the little one God has given you. What
now has been the result? Eternity will answer.

CHAPTER XII.

CHRISTIAN NAMES.

"She named the child Ichabod."--1 SAMUEL.

"Thus was the building left
Ridiculous, and the work confusion named."

Christian baptism suggests Christian names. This introduces us to an
important topic, viz., the kind of names Christian parents should give to
their children at their baptism. Baptismal names are indeed an important
item of the Christian home. Much more depends upon them than we are at
first sight of the subject, disposed to grant.

Christianity eminently includes the great law of correspondence between its
inward spirit and its outward form. Its form and contents cannot be
separated. The principle of fitness, it everywhere exhibits; and hence its
nomenclature is the herald of its spirit and truth. The names that religion
has given to her followers signify some principle of association between
them. They were adopted to designate some fact in the history of the
individual, or in his relation to the church. Hence the names adopted for
the children of the Christian home should