_Mr. R._ Ordinarily, they will grow up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, to be followers of Christ; the proportion of persons baptized on admission to the church, will become small; a healthful tone of religious feeling will pervade our churches; less and less reliance will be placed on startling measures, on splendid talents, on novelties, to promote the cause of religion; but Christian families will extend like the cultivated fields of different proprietors, whose green and flowering hedges, instead of stone walls, mingle all into one landscape. "And the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever." "And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places." "And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children." Such, I believe, is sure to be the manner of the church's prosperity, and therefore the children who are to be the subjects of these inestimable blessings must be said, in some sense, to _belong_ to the church, they being the objects of special regard with the church and with God. Br. A. agrees with me in all this, I presume. _Mr. A._ Entirely; or, rather, you agree with me. "Now, Br. A.," said an earnest man of the company,--who, however, immediately checked himself, and bowed to Mr. R., and said, "I dare say, Mr. Chairman, that Br. R. was going to put the very question which I intended to ask." _Mr. R._ Proceed, Br. S. I owe an apology for speaking so much. _Mr. S._ Will Br. A., Mr. Chairman, please to tell us why he feels obliged to call these children "_members_ of the church?" For, we all know, that, notwithstanding all these glorious things, which are spoken of them, to which Br. A. has also referred, not one baptized child of a true believer can be, really, a member of the church, in regular standing, till he, like the unbaptized heathen convert, has repented of his sins and believed on the Lord Jesus. All the promises and privileges appertaining to his relationship as a child of a believer, promote, and make more certain, his repentance and faith; and therefore, if asked, "What profit, then, hath circumcision, and its substitute, infant baptism?" we can reply, "Much every way;" but it never stood, and never can stand, in the place of justification by free grace through the personal exercise of faith in the Redeemer. _Mr. C._ But I wish to ask, in the name of Br. A., and for my own sake, what objection there is to retaining the name, _member_, in this connection? _Mr S._ My answer is, it is the occasion of great stumbling to those who reject infant baptism, and are confirmed in rejecting it, by misapprehending the views and feelings of many who use the term in an objectionable sense.