t the
principal part of his life in Syria and Palestine."

I would place implicit reliance on the testimony of such a man, under
such circumstances, to any question of history with which he professed
to be familiar, even if I differed from him in matters of opinion. But
such a man would not state, for veritable history, that which the world
knew to be false.

Now, what is Origen's testimony as to the fact, simply, of the
apostolic usage with regard to infant baptism?

In his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Book v., he says:

"For this cause it was that the church received an order from the
apostles to give baptism even to infants."

In his homily on Lev. 12, he says:

"According to the usage of the church, baptism is given even to infants,
when, if there were nothing in infants that needed forgiveness and
mercy, the grace of baptism would seem to be superfluous."

In his homily on Luke 14, he says:

"Infants are baptized for the forgiveness of sins."

It was the practice, then, in Origen's day, to baptize infants. He tells
the people of his day, to whom he preaches and writes, why it was that
the church had received a command from the apostles to baptize them, not
proving to them the fact of history, but, taking that as well known,
explaining the theological reason for it, as he understood it.

It is now 1857. Eighty-five years ago, the length of time after the
apostles to the birth of this man, brings us back to 1772. There is good
Dr. Sales, who was born in 1770. Suppose that he should say that
steamboats came from England at the time that the Hudson river was
discovered, and that they had plied there ever since?

No man in his right mind (not to say a scholar like Origen), however
singular his opinions, would assert, for veritable history, that which
was as palpably false as such a fiction respecting steamboat navigation
upon the Hudson would be. Yet Origen asserts that the practice of infant
baptism was received directly from the apostles. Everybody could
contradict him if he were in error.

_Mr. M._ But we know that he was in error in saying that forgiveness of
sins was a consequence of baptism.

_Dr. D._ Very well. The erroneous opinions, or practices, of men, with
regard to the shape of the earth, did not prove that there was no earth
in their day. On the contrary, their theories and speculations are
proof, if any were needed, that the earth then existed, surely. A man
who boldly advocate