"Do you know," said she to me, "that I am thinking of joining your church? I have had a very trying visit from my own pastor, and he says that I am too sick to be baptized by immersion, and that it is, therefore, too late for me to receive Christian baptism. It is not necessary, he says, in order to being accepted of God. I was born and brought up in that Communion, and never thought much of the subject of baptism till I hoped that I began to love God, here in my sick-room. If baptism is so important as our ministers tell us it is, in their preaching and by their practice,--for you know how important they deem it, in times of religious attention, to have people baptized in our way,--I cannot see why it is not important to me. If it is man's ordinance, and merely for an effect on others, very well; but if God has anything to do in it, I feel that I need it as much as though I were in health. So my husband asked your minister to come and see me, and he did; and he is to baptize me and my children on Saturday afternoon, and administer the Lord's Supper to me after church the next day." I asked her what ground of objection her pastor had in her case. _Mrs. P._ My minister tells me it is superstition to be baptized on a sick-bed, and that they are careful not to encourage such Romish practices. "But, O," I said to him, "Mr. Dow, I am afraid it is because your form of baptism will not allow you to baptize the sick and dying, so you make a virtue of necessity." He colored a little, but said, pleasantly, though solemnly, "We see how important it is, Mrs. Peirce, to attend to the subject of religion in health, when we can confess Christ before men, and follow the Saviour, and be buried in baptism with him."