true.

"Doctor, which fact must I accept?" she asked. "Must we baptize infants
because of what they are in themselves with their heavenly natures, or
must we baptize only those infants who can come and have somebody
believe for them?"

"I see your point, and it has a show of logic in it."

"Oh, Doctor," she said, almost impatiently, "why do you say a show of
logic? Can both of these positions be true? If the child's nature
entitles it to baptism, then all children are entitled to baptism; but
if it is the faith of some parent or some god-parent that entitles the
child to baptism, then it is only a certain class of infants that can be
baptized and the baptism is put on the basis of the faith of another."

"That sounds a little strange to me," said the father. "I did not know
that one person could be religious for another. I thought that every tub
had to stand on its own bottom in religion. This thing of one person
believing for another person so that the other person, especially a
little infant, is entitled to baptism--well, that sounds very new and
strange. How can the parent make the child fit for baptism? Do you mean
to tell me that if I had a little infant and I should believe in
Christianity that that would be a reason why not only I should be
baptized, but my little infant also?"

"Is it thought, Doctor," asked Dorothy, "that the baptism does the
infant any good?"

"Oh, no," said the Doctor, "the baptism has no power in itself."

"I think the baptism does the infant a wrong," said Dorothy. "Baptism
is a religious ceremony which everyone ought to obey of his own will and
accord. In the Bible it comes after believing and is a sign of what has
taken place in the person's heart. Now, when you baptize an infant you
force on him a religious ceremony. Suppose he grows up and is converted
and desires to obey Christ in baptism and then learns that baptism was
forced on him in infancy. Instead of believing and then being baptized
he is first baptized and then many years afterwards he believes."

"And suppose, Doctor," said the father, "he never believes; then what
have you got? You have a person walking around baptized who ought never
to have been baptized, though he is not to be blamed for it. If the
baptism does no good, why do you baptize him? Why not follow the regular
course and get him first to believe and then to be baptized?"

"I have an idea," said the brother, "that infant baptism started with
parents wit