not legislate them into a spiritual observance of the
Lord's Supper, much less of baptism.

_Dr. D._ No; and I trust that our denominations who practise infant
baptism, will never urge it otherwise than in connection with parental
piety, and as a helper of parental obligations.

_Mr. M._ But ought we not to stir ourselves up with regard to parental
duties? and, if so, must we not necessarily insist on the dedication of
children to God, and upon baptism as the acceptable way of signifying
it, and the powerful means of helping us to perform our duties?

_Dr. D._ Surely we ought; and in doing it we have the satisfaction to
know that we are laboring for something more than to establish a mode
of applying an ordinance. In urging the baptism of children, if we do it
not for the sake of the ordinance, but for the things which it signifies
and promotes, we advance the cause of piety in the parents.

_Mr. M._ Would that some one would blow a trumpet in the churches on
this subject. I do feel that if parents would appreciate the influence
of such a state of heart as would lead them to offer their children to
God in baptism, as an expression of their previous and subsequent views
and feelings toward their children, we should see a new state of things
in the rising generation. How striking it is that the Old Testament
closes with such a passage as that last verse of Malachi. It is the
promontory of the Old Testament, looking across the coming ages,
yearning toward the new dispensation, and, as it were, making signals,
concerning the forerunner of that new era, with those words: "And he
shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of
the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a
curse." May we not conclude that this is God's most acceptable way of
effecting the revival of religion from one period to another?

_Dr. D._ I have no doubt of it.

_Mr. M._ I spoke to our good Deacon Goodenow about it, lately; but he
said he had a great horror of a controversy about baptism, and he was
afraid that, to say much upon this subject, would involve us in one. I
told him that I would not be for reflecting upon other denominations;
that my motto, with regard to them and us, is, "Live, and let live." I
would only appeal to our own people, and encourage them to take up the
subject afresh, in a spiritual manner; that is, to dwell upon the
privilege and duty of being in covenant relations, with our ch