be president of the Conference.

No. V.

FISHERGATE BAPTIST CHAPEL.

The "right thing" in regard to baptism is a recondite point; but we
are not going to enter into any controversy about it. We shall say
nothing as to the defects or merits of aspersion or sprinkling,
immersion or dipping, affusion or pouring. Opinions vary respecting
each system; and one may fairly say that the words uttered in
explanation of the general theme come literally to us in the "voice
of many waters.", Jacob the patriarch was the first Baptist; the
Jews kept up the rite moderately, but had more faith in its
abstergent than spiritual influence; John turned it into an
institution of Christianity; the Primitive Church carried on the
business slowly, Turtullian kicking against and Cyprian lauding it;
in the fifth century baptism became fully established amongst all
Christian communities; then the Eastern and Western Churches
quarrelled as to whether sprinkling or immersion constituted the
proper ceremony; other small disputes concerning the modus operandi
followed; and from that time to this the adherents of each scheme
have spilled a great deal of water in piously working out their
notions. There was once a time when nobody could undergo the
ordinary process of baptism except at Easter or Whitsuntide; but
children and upgrown people can now be put through the ceremony
whenever it is considered necessary. In Preston, as elsewhere, the
majority of people think well of water when it is required by
children for engulphing or baptismal purposes; but they care little
for its use when the teens have been trotted through. It may be
right enough for the physical and religious comfort of babes and
sucklings; but its virtues recede in the ratio of development. There
are, however, some sections of men and women in the town who,
symbolically at least, have a high regard for water at any time
after the years of sense and reason have been reached.

These are the Baptists. There are four or five chapels set apart for
their improvement in Preston, and the smartest of these is in
Fishergate. In Leeming-street it was in the chrysalis state; in
Fishergate the butterfly epoch has been reached. A dull, forlorn
looking edifice, afterwards taken advantage of by the Episcopalian
party, and now cleared off to make way for St. Saviour's church,
once formed the sacred asylum of a portion of the Baptists; but a
desire for better accomodation, combined with