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disfranchise her whole family whom Christ had gathered into his fold,
and some of them into heaven, did violence to her feelings. At one time,
it seemed likely that the engagement of marriage would be terminated, on
this ground alone. Some one of the gentleman's persuasion, who thought
that she "ought to follow Christ in ordinances," and "take up her cross"
in this instance, whispered to her that she was, perhaps, in danger of
denying Christ, from love to her kindred, and he said to her, "He that
loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me." This had the
opposite effect from that which was intended, for it showed her, in the
strongest light, the error of supposing that love to Christ could ever
require her to separate from herself, at the table of Christ, such
friends of Jesus as the members of her dear Christian home,--a home
which had been like that of Bethany to many of the Saviour's friends.
She felt more sure of being actuated by right motives in giving up her
marriage, and not withdrawing fellowship from her mother and the family,
than she would be in sacrificing that fellowship to gratify a new
affection. Her next younger sister was baptized after the father's
death. She was a deaf-mute. The mother was a very beautiful woman. She
had borne severe trials for her religion with a spirit of patience and
Christian propriety which won the love and esteem of the community. She
went to the altar of God, a widow, with the little deaf and dumb child,
and presented it for baptism. It was as though the impending calamity of
its father's death had shut up some of the senses of the child, and God
had placed it in the mother's hand as a silent memorial to her, for
life, of his chastising love. She left her fatherless flock in the
family pew, and went with her nursling, not merely to give it to God,
but to receive for it the seal of his covenant, bowing submissively to
his inscrutable appointment, and imploring the God of Abraham to be
still her God, and the God of this her seed. That scene had not failed
to make deep impressions upon the other children; and now it was
proposed to one of them that she should, by connecting herself in
marriage, disavow her mother's right to cling, in those hours of
anguish, to that asylum of the fatherless, infant baptism,--that very
present help in trouble, the covenant of God with believers and their
offspring. The little child, moreover, had become a Christian, and had
sat with