not circumcised as a Jew, but, as the Bible
says, to have a seal of the righteousness which he had by faith. God
made a covenant with him as a believer, to be his God and the God of his
children, as the children of a believer, not a Jew; so that all
believers are blessed with believing Abraham, by having the same
covenant extended to them. Then, I take it, God gave him a sign and seal
as a pledge, and to remind him of it, and to keep his children in
remembrance." She paused, and I said:

"Please to go on." You remember, Bertha, how you used to make this Mrs.
Ford discuss doctrinal matters when she was sewing for you.

_Mrs. Ford._ I remember that father said that God took the rainbow as a
sign and seal of his promise, to Noah and all future generations, that
there should never be another universal deluge. So he appointed a
children's ordinance to mark his covenant with believers to the end of
time. Only there was this difference; the way of signing and sealing the
covenant not being coupled with the laws of nature, but conforming to
the kind of symbols successively in use, it was changed, at the time
that the Sabbath was changed, and the whole of the old dispensation; but
father used to say, Is the commonwealth and citizenship broken up
because the legislature adopts a new state seal? Does that destroy all
the old public documents?

_Pastor._ Good! So the United States' mint is from time to time changing
its dies; lately it has abolished copper, and substituted equivalent
coins of different composition. But money does not perish. A cent is a
cent still, red or white. So, whether the seal be blood or water, the
great ordinance which it seals remains the same.

"And now I will tell you," said I, "how it seems to me God's covenanting
with parents for their children came to pass. He wished to give Abraham
a token and seal of his love to him. So he took his child, the thing
which he loved best, and would see oftenest, and thought of most, and
made the child, as it were, the tablet on which to write his covenant
with the father. That was one reason. 'Because he loved the fathers,
therefore he chose their seed.' But this is the least of the reasons in
the case.

"Here is one of vastly greater importance. God wished to perpetuate
religion in the earth. He knew that the family constitution would be
the principal means of doing this, parents teaching and commanding their
children, and so transmitting religion. Because he kn