all
that strictness of Christian principle which you would expect of him
were he, in his infancy, to be a professing Christian, his duty being
the same, and, consequently, yours toward him, whether he is regenerate
or not,--one and the same law of God being our rule, irrespective of
conditions.

"In all times of sickness and peril, you are to feel that this child is
the Lord's, to be disposed of by him, without consulting you. If called
to die and leave him, you will remember that you received him from God,
that he belonged to God at first, and when he was placed in your care;
and that God, who thus has the most perfect claim to him, will perfect
that which concerns him, even if his parents are in the grave.

"And while you thus covenant with God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
covenant with you, and with the child through you, to be the God of your
seed, affording you special help in training the child, bestowing
special blessings upon it tending to its spiritual good, having a
particular regard for it as something lent to him, and belonging to you;
while, in another sense, it is lent to you, and belongs to him; and he
and you are to regard the child agreeably to this beautiful
transmutation of ownership and loan. The baptism itself cannot save the
child, any more than the Lord's Supper can save you; but it is among the
first of means to promote the salvation of the child, not merely through
its effect on you, or its remembered grace and goodness when the child
can be made to appreciate it; but above all, and through all, and in
all, it seals that covenant of a covenant-keeping God, assisting your
efforts and those of the child,--that promise, I say, 'I will be his
God, and he shall be my son.'"

We named the little boy, PHILIP, as a memorial of the road-side baptism.
We stood under the shadow of that great rock, and worshipped Abraham's
God. "Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us,
and Israel acknowledge us not." The voice of prayer was joined by chimes
and symphonies from trickling rills, and the freshening breeze in a
silver-leaved maple, leaning at an angle of thirty-five degrees, just
above us in the rock, all as quiet as the dear infant's breathing;
while, now and then, the sudden flapping and rushing of birds' wings
made the monotone around us more soothing.

From a little jet of water, that formed an arc of about an inch, as it
burst into life and then disappeared in a great moss