But when advancing years bring the pulpit and other Calvinistic influences to bear, these impressions, more or less, fade away, and are followed by the depressing feeling that nothing that a child does is either good or pleasing to the heavenly Father till the “wicked heart” is changed by God, and that there is no definite, practical mode of securing this change. The consequence, in many cases, is, that all prayer and all attention to religious instruction ceases, and a desperate course of worldliness and departure from all recognition of God ensues. In other cases, the natural result of this Augustinian theory is more or less counteracted by conscience, common sense and the Bible. On the other hand, the Arminian view of the efficacy of rites and means of grace sanctioned by God as the mode of securing regeneration, has led to great stress on the use of those rites and forms. The Catholic and a portion of the Episcopal church, have taught that the rite of baptism was the appointed mode of remedying the depravity engendered from Adam. And so indispensable was it deemed to the salvation of infants, that not only laymen, but women were allowed to administer this rite at the approach of death, when no priest could be obtained, lest the infant soul should go to endless perdition with the taint of Adam’s sin unremoved. There have been great dissensions in the Episcopal church as to the efficacy of baptism. Some have taught that regeneration was imparted by this rite. Others have taught that this rite secured the implanting of “a seed,” or some new mysterious principle, which if cherished and cultivated by the church, would result in Christian character. Those who hold this view, rely chiefly on the training of children in the church as the appointed mode of securing their salvation. That branch of the Arminian school which left the Episcopal church under Wesley and his associates, were driven off by the laxity and want of spiritual life consequent on these tendencies to reliance on rites and forms. In place of this, they urged the doctrine of instantaneous regeneration, to be gained by certain means of grace. According to these teachers, regeneration consists in the return of God’s Spirit to the soul, which is withheld in consequence of Adam’s sin. The tendency of this view was to lessen reliance on educational training and to exalt the importance of other means of grace by which regeneration seemed to be secured, and to which the Bible, as was claimed, promised success. Thus, in the Arminian sects, where the efficacy of rites and forms by a regularly ordained and authoritative priesthood has been relinquished, educational training has conformed more to the Calvinistic view. As eternal salvation depends on securing regeneration, every thing is made secondary to those methods by which regeneration is to be gained.