ear sir, how unfair that reasoning is. This is
placing me on a level with one who rejects baptism. I profess to have
been baptized to the best of my knowledge, and to have fulfilled the
requirements of Christ. Should a man come to our church, and say, I have
reason to believe that I have been baptized, though I cannot bring
evidence to satisfy you, except so far as you have confidence in me, his
case would be parallel with mine. Such a man we would not exclude.

_Deacon._ Perhaps we shall not agree, if we continue to discuss the
point. I am sorry that our rules operate to your inconvenience. We wish
to see everybody on New Testament ground, and we think that the surest
way to bring them there is to stand there ourselves. By departing from
the literal command to immerse, and by baptizing infants, the church of
Christ became corrupted with traditions and human inventions. We are at
the antipodes to all this; we refuse everything which is not in black
and white on the surface of the Bible, and so we are the more consistent
Protestants.

"Considering the day and the occasion," said my friend to us, "I forbore
to argue, or to press the good man by asking him if the 'seventh-day
Sabbath' people had not the advantage of him as to greater consistency
in their Protestantism; or, whether the church-membership of females was
anywhere in black and white on the surface of the Bible. As to his
going to the antipodes, to get clear of Romish principles and practices,
I was strongly tempted to say that, to avoid being one of the acids, it
surely was not necessary, nor best, to become an alkali. But having
often reflected how God uses one and another sect, and its set of
principles and practices, to correct evils, by their sharp antagonism,
and to restore a balance to ecclesiastical disorders by allowing some to
go, for a while, to an opposite extreme, I did not find it in my heart
to inveigh, nor to upbraid. It also seemed good to be in a land of
liberty, where even Christians could, from a sense of duty to Christ, if
they chose, fence out their acknowledged brethren and sisters from their
table. There are great inconveniences, and, now and then, hardships,
resulting from it; but our friends, of course, suppose that greater
good, on the whole, than evil, is the consequence, apart from
considerations of duty. But I know of a congregation, in a small place,
who have had public worship for several years, but have not had the
Lord's Supper