a child will probably understand a ghost in a white sheet, and will go to bed in terror after saying the Catechism which thus recognises ghosts--nor from everlasting death. The prayer is of the simplest, but the translation of it of the hardest. "And this I trust he will do of his mercy and goodness, through our Lord Jesus Christ; And therefore I say Amen, so be it." Why should the child trust God's mercy and goodness to protect him? There would be no dangers, ghostly and bodily, no ghostly enemy, and no everlasting death, unless God had invented them all, and the person who places us in the midst of dangers is scarcely the one to whom to turn for deliverance from them. Mercy and goodness would not have surrounded us with such dangers; mercy and goodness would not have encompassed us with such foes; mercy and goodness would have created beings whose glad lives would have been one long hymn of praise to the Creator, and would have ever blessed him that he had called them into existence. The child is now to be led further into the Christian mysteries, and is to be instructed in the doctrine of the sacraments, curious double-natured things of which we have to believe in what we don't see, and see that which we are not to believe in. "How many sacraments hath Christ ordained in his Church?" "Two only as generally necessary to salvation, that is to say, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord." "Generally necessary"; the word "generally" is explained by commentators as "universally," so that the phrase should run, "universally necessary to salvation." The theory of the Church being that all are by nature the children of wrath, and that "_none_ are regenerate," except they be born of water and of the Holy Ghost, it follows that baptism is universally necessary to salvation; and since Jesus has said, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you" (John vi. 53), it equally follows that the Lord's Supper is universally necessary to salvation. Seeing that the vast majority of mankind are not baptized Christians at all, and that of baptized Christians the majority never eat the Lord's supper, the heirs of salvation will be extremely limited in number, and will not be inconveniently crowded in the many mansions above. "What meanest thou by this word _sacrament?_ I mean an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us, ordained by Christ himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and as a pledge to assure us thereof." If this be a true definition of a sacrament, no such thing as a sacrament can fairly be said to be in existence. What is the inward and spiritual grace given unto the baby in baptism? If it be given, it must be seen in its effects, or else it is a gift of nothing at all. A baby after baptism is exactly the same as it was before; cries as much, kicks as much, fidgets as much; clearly it has received no inward and spiritual sanctifying grace; it behaves as