"I take the initiating ordinance of religion for the time being," said I, "whatever it may be. Is not baptism the initiating ordinance, as circumcision was? When they built our long bridge, and the ferry-boats ceased running, did the town put up a great sign over the gate, saying, 'It is enacted that this river shall continue to be crossed'? Did they add, 'This bridge is hereby appointed as the way of getting over the river'? Or, did not people take it for granted, when the bridge was opened and the ferry-boats were withdrawn, that the bridge was designed to be the way by which they were to pass over the river? "Now, suppose so impossible a thing as this, that hereafter baptism should, by divine revelation, be changed for anointing with oil, and nothing were said about children. I would anoint the child with oil, instead of baptizing it with water. We are to use the initiatory rite of the church for the time being." "But," said Mrs. Benson, "is there any resemblance between circumcision and baptism?" "There need be none," said I. "Resemblance does not give it efficacy, but God's appointment of it. If marking the flesh in some way should be appointed to succeed baptism, we need not look for a likeness between it and baptism before we complied with the divine requirement." "I do wish," said Mrs. Benson, "that the authority to baptize children were more expressly stated in the Bible, to satisfy all who were not brought up as we have been." _Pastor._ The overwhelming majority of those who now receive the Bible as the word of God find it there. _Mrs. Benson._ But why did not Paul receive a revelation about it, as he did about the Lord's Supper? _Pastor._ Did that make the thing any more authoritative with us than the original appointment? We will not prescribe to God how to teach us. We will not make up our minds how he ought to have made a revelation, but we will take that revelation and try to understand it. "I agree to that," said they all. _Pastor._ It appears to me that God prefers, on certain subjects, that the world shall reason by inferences. It is a wise way of educating children and youth, to leave some things to be learned in this way, and not by setting everything before them, like too many examples in the arithmetic wrought out.