,
being fond of music, had, for some time, requested the choir to chant
select passages of Scripture at baptisms.

So, as we came up the aisle with the child, the choir breathed out those
words, "And I will establish my covenant between thee and me, and thy
seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant; to
be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee." "Suffer the little
children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the
kingdom of God." "And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon
them, and blessed them." And, as we turned away from the font, they
added, "So shall he sprinkle many nations." "The Lord shall increase you
more and more, you and your children." "But the mercy of the Lord is
from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his
righteousness unto children's children; to such as keep his covenant,
and to those that remember his commandments, to do them."

How I loved that choir, and the congregation! for, many a face did I see
bathed in tears, and others beaming with smiles and love, as, with
respectful, half-turned looks, they seemed to give us their blessing.

"Do you not think, more than ever," I said, to the beloved grandmother
of my child, after church, as we watched the little sleeper in her
cradle, "that people lose very much in having their children baptized at
home?"

"It makes a different thing of it," she replied. "I felt that all the
congregation loved Bertha and you. How many prayers you obtained for her
and for yourselves, which you would have missed by a private baptism!"

"Besides," I remarked, "'God loveth the gates of Zion more than all the
dwellings of Jacob.' I think that for that reason, and on the same
principle, namely, that he is more honored, he regards our public
dedication of children with more favor than a private baptism, except,
of course, where sickness makes the public service impossible. But it is
some trouble to mothers, and no doubt many shrink from it."

"The trouble is more in anticipation than reality," she replied. "That
pastor's room, where they stay till the introductory services are over,
makes it more convenient and agreeable. But all the trouble, even if it
were far greater, is nothing compared with the satisfaction of having
taken your offering and come into His courts. You have paid your vows
unto the Lord, in the presence of all his people. You will remember
those prayers, those words of Scripture wh