the
Evangelist, says: "Christ came to save all through Himself; all, I say,
_who are born anew_ (or baptized) through Him--infants and little ones,
boys and youths, and aged persons."(341)

Origen, who lived a few years later, writes: "The Church received the
tradition from the Apostles, to give baptism even to infants."(342)

The early church of Africa bears triumphant testimony in vindication of
infant baptism. St. Cyprian and sixty-six suffragan Prelates held a
council in the metropolitan city of Carthage, in the year 253. While the
Council is in session a Prelate named Fidus writes to the Fathers, asking
them whether infants ought to be baptized before the eighth day succeeding
their birth, or on the eighth day, in accordance with the practice of
circumcision. The Bishops unanimously subscribe to the following reply:
"As to what regards the baptism of infants, ... we all judged that the
mercy and grace of God should be denied to no human being from the moment
of his birth. If even to the greatest delinquents the remission of sins is
granted, how much less should the infant be repelled, who, being recently
born according to Adam, has contracted at his first birth the contagion of
the ancient death."(343) The African Council asserts here two prominent
facts--the universal contagion of the human race through Adam's fall, and
the universal necessity of Baptism without distinction of age.

Upon this decision, I will make two observations: First--Fidus did not
inquire about the necessity of infant baptism, which he already admitted,
but about the propriety of conferring it on the eighth day, in imitation
of the Jewish law of circumcision. Second--The Bishops assembled in that
Council were as numerous as the whole Episcopate of the United States,
which contains about five thousand Priests and upwards of six millions of
Catholics. We may therefore reasonably conclude that the judgment of the
African Council represented the faith of several thousand Priests and
several millions of Catholics.

St. Augustine, commenting on this decision, justly observes that St.
Cyprian and his colleagues made no new decree, but maintained most firmly
the faith of the Church. And this is the unanimous sentiment of tradition
from the days of the Apostles to our own times.

Is it not ludicrous as well as impious to see a few German fanatics, in
the sixteenth century, raising their feeble voice against the thunder
tones of all Christendom, b