Now, why is this? What has a child's name to do with his Faith and
duty as a Christian?

You may answer, Because his Christian name is given him when he is
baptized.

But _why_ is his Christian name given him when he is baptized? Why
then rather than at any other time?

Because it is the old custom of the Church. No doubt it is: and a
most wise and blessed custom it is; and one which shows us how much
more about God and man the churchmen in old times knew, than most of
our religious teachers now-a-days. But how did that old custom
arise? What put into the minds of church people, for the last
sixteen hundred years at least, that being baptized and being named
had anything to do with each other? Men had names of their own long
before the Lord Jesus came, long before His Baptism was heard of on
earth;--the heathens of old had their names--the heathens have names
still;--why, then, did church people feel it right to mix a new
thing like baptism with a world-old thing like giving a name?

My friends, I feel and say honestly, that there is more in this
matter than I understand; and what little I do understand, I could
not explain fully in one sermon, or in many either. But let this be
enough for to-day. God grant that I may be able to make you
understand me.

Any one's having a name--a name of his own, a Christian name, as we
rightly call it--signifies that he is a person; that is, that he has
a character of his own, and a responsibility, and a calling and duty
of his own, given him by God; in one word, that he has an immortal
soul in him, for which he, and he alone, must answer, and receive
the rewards of the deeds which it does in the body, whether they be
good or evil. But names are not given at random, without cause or
meaning. When Adam named all the beasts, we read that whatsoever he
called any beast, that _was_ the name of it. The names which he
gave _described_ each beast, were taken from something in its
appearance, or its ways and habits, and so each was its right name,
the name which expressed its nature. And so now, when learned men
discover animals or plants in foreign countries, they do not give
them names at random, but take care to invent names for them which
may describe their natures, and make people understand what they are
like, as Adam did for the beasts of old. And much more, in old
times, had the names of men each of them a meaning. If it was
reasonable to give names full of meanin