d to Dot and Mat;
when the door suddenly opened, and James Mesurier stood there, a little
aloof,--for it was seldom he entered this room, which perhaps had for
him a certain painful association of his son's rebellion. Perhaps, too,
the picture of this happy little corner of his children--a world
evidently so complete in itself, and daily developing more and more away
from the parent world in the front parlour--gave him a certain pang of
estrangement. Perhaps he too felt as he looked on them that same dreary
sense of disintegration which had overtaken the mother on Henry's
departure; and perhaps there was something of that in his voice, as,
looking at them with rather a sad smile, he said,--

"You look very comfortable here, children. I hope that's a profitable
book you are reading, Esther."

"Oh, yes, father. It's 'Jane Austen,' you know."

"Well, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I want a few words with Dorcas.
She can join you again soon."

So Dot, wondering what was in store for her, rose and accompanied her
father to the front parlour, where Mrs. Mesurier was peacefully knitting
in the lamplight.

"Dorcas, my dear," he said, when the door was closed, "your mother and
I have had a serious talk this evening on the subject of your joining
the church. You are now nearly sixteen, and of an age to think for
yourself in such matters; and we think it is time that you made some
profession of your faith as a Christian before the world."

The Church James Mesurier referred to was that branch of the English
Nonconformists known as Baptists; and the profession of faith was the
curious rite of baptism by complete immersion, the importance claimed
for which by this sect is, perhaps, from a Christian point of view, made
the less disproportionate by another condition attaching to it,--the
condition that not till years of individual judgment have been reached
is one eligible for the sacred rite. With that rationalism which
religious sects are so skilful in applying to some unimportant point of
ritual, and so careful not to apply to vital questions of dogma, the
Baptists reasonably argue that to baptise an unthinking infant, and, by
an external rite which has no significance except as the symbol of an
internal decision, declare him a Christian, is nothing more than an
idolatrous mummery. Wait till the child is of age to choose for him or
herself, to understand the significance of the Christian revelation and
the nature of the pro