Dorothy PageHatcher, Eldridge B. (Eldridge Burwell)
Religion
Dorothy Page
Hatcher, Eldridge B. (Eldridge Burwell)
Christian fiction
All of these things were a revelation to Mr. Sterling. As to Dorothy,
her mind had been made up many days ago, and her path of duty was as
clear as a sunbeam to her, and it led straight to the Baptist church.
Mr. Sterling had within him a storm of thoughts that he could not still.
His efforts to win Dorothy for his faith and his church seemed to have
utterly failed, and she appeared to be drifting further and further away
from him. He was tortured by the thought that he might lose her.
Besides, there was the chaos in which his mind had been left by the
recent discussions and disclosures. The evidence in favor of immersion
as the Bible mode of baptism, and the violation of Scripture teaching in
the case of infant baptism, as well as the Bible teaching regarding
church government, stared him in the face. It rose above all his ties of
kindred and church and above all arguments that he could summon to his
aid in favor of his position, but he dared not let anyone suspect his
state of mind.
He was eager to follow the matter still further, though he felt as if he
were moving towards a precipice. It may to some thoughtless ones seem a
trifling matter for one to abandon a position as to doctrinal matters
and accept other truths. Men are constantly altering their opinions: but
for a Presbyterian elder--especially one filled with an ambition for
high usefulness in his church, whose ancestors on his father's and
mother's side have been of his faith--for him to come out before his
church and before the public and acknowledge that he was wrong, to give
up his doctrines and his church and his prospects and his large circle
of kindred and friends and link himself with an obscure and almost
despised band of people meant a crisis, and he did not even permit
himself to consider it. He merely tried to regard the restlessness in
his mind as transient and to think that soon he would settle into his
former composure and confidence. That night as he sat in his room he
remembered having seen in the afternoon paper the statement that Dr. R.
L. Boardman, one of the most learned professors in the Princeton
Theological Seminary, a leading Presbyterian institution, was to lecture
that evening in the adjoining town about ten miles distant. In a moment
Sterling decided on his plan. He determined upon a desperate attempt.
Next morning by telephone he gained Dorothy's consent to a conversation
with Dr. Boardman in case he could persuade him to come over for that
purpose. Before nine o'clock the next morning Sterling had reached the
Doctor by telephone and made an engagement to meet him, and in less than
an hour his automobile had whirled him to the next town, and there
Sterling told the Doctor of his friend who was seeking to know her duty
as to church membership, and he besought him to return with him and in
the evening to visit with him his friends at the Page home and to set
the young lady right on the matter of sprinkling and infant baptism and
church membership.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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