ntioned, and the consistency of the
views expressed by Dr. Ryerson twenty years before, are very remarkable.

* * * * *

Now what are these solemn and affecting words of John Calvin, of Richard
Watson, and of the British Conference, but a mockery and a snare, if the
baptized children are not to be acknowledged and treated as members of
the visible church of Christ? Ought not then children baptised by the
Wesleyan ministry to be recognized and cared for as members of the
Wesleyan Church? It is absurd, and leaves them in a state of religious
orphanage, to say that they are members of the visible Church of Christ,
but not members of any particular branch of it. As well might it be
said, that the children born in Canada, are members of the Canadian
family, but not members of any particular family in Canada. To be the
former without being the latter, would indeed allow them a country, but
would leave them without a home, without a parent, without a protector,
without an inheritance--homeless, houseless, destitute orphans. Is this
the relation in which the baptized children of our people are to be
viewed to the Church of their parents? In doing so, are not the most
powerful considerations, motives and influences brought to bear upon
both parents and children? In not doing so, is not the greatest wrong
inflicted upon both, the ordinance of baptism virtually ignored, and its
blessings lost? But in denying that any one is or can be a member of the
Church except one who meets in class, are not the baptized children of
our people refused a place within its pale? deprived of their baptismal
birthright, before they are old enough to forfeit it by transgression?
shut out from the family of God's people, and as practically unchurched
as if they had never received a Christian name, in the name of the
Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost? I cannot reflect upon the
subject or contemplate its consequences, without the deepest pain and
solicitude. I will pursue it no further, but will leave it with you and
those on whom the responsibility of deciding upon it devolves.

It will be remembered that I have never said anything as to the mode of
receiving adult persons from without into the Church; nor as to the
class of members who alone should be eligible to hold office in the
Church; nor have I entertained the idea that any other than the
scriptural summary of Christian morality contained in the General Rules
of our Societies sho