ing the first day of the week the
Christian Sabbath?

_Mr. K._ So long as we may keep the thing, observing one day in seven,
it makes no difference which day we keep, if we can all agree on one and
the same day. We do not all agree to retain circumcision in any way.

_Mr. M._ So long as we may retain the thing signified by circumcision,
it makes but little difference what form is used to express it.

_Mr. K._ The apostles, who changed the Sabbath from the seventh to the
first day, knew the mind of Christ.

_Mr. M._ And so the men, who first practised infant baptism, knew the
minds of the inspired apostles, and they knew the mind of Christ. But to
go a step further back, the only ground for inferring that the Sabbath
is rightly changed from the seventh to the first day of the week, is the
incidental mention of Christ's meeting his assembled disciples a few
times after his resurrection on the first day. On that slight ground we
are all content to rest our present observance of the Sabbath. Now, I
say that the mention of the baptism of households eight times, in one
form and another, is as good a warrant for infant baptism, as those two
or three Sabbath-evening meetings were for the institution of the
Lord's-day Sabbath.

_Mr. K._ I cannot agree with you, Mr. M., in putting circumcision on the
same level with the Sabbath.

_Mr. M._ I myself see a resemblance in the changes made in the two
cases. I have no wish to proselyte you to my views. I have only answered
your polite inquiries.

_Mr. K._ O, I know that; we shall be good friends still; but I see no
grounds for baptizing children on the faith of their parents.

_Mr. M._ We look at the thing from different points of view. I see it as
clearly as I see that the church of God is essentially the same in all
ages, with its variety of forms. This matter of children's baptism is
with me a spiritual thing, and is independent of dispensations. You know
that a river may have, in one district of the earth through which it
flows, one name, and in another district another name, while it is the
same river. Now, the divine recognition of believers' children, as
standing in a special covenanted relation with God, is the headspring of
infant dedication by the use of a rite. The object of this recognition
is, that He may have a godly seed. God does not perpetuate religion
directly by natural descent, it is true, but he seeks to promote it by
descent from a pious parentage, and he