Of course it is easy enough to manage this in one’s own rank of life, and we ought to have as many god-children as we can honestly interest ourselves in; but we should never undertake the office unless we mean to perform the duties; and we ought occasionally to ‘stand for’ some of our poorer neighbours’ children. As a rule they are delighted to have us, and it gives us a hold over them we could not otherwise acquire; while a boy or a girl has always a sense of obligation to behave better and do better in life if he or she has a god-parent in a higher station than his or her own, to whom they can come for advice and help by right, and from whom they receive at Christmas, at confirmation, or at any important step in life, some trifling token. Therefore I do not think god-parents can think too much of their duties, or neglect to stand for all they can manage to look after; it is something to do--something that can also do endless good, if we undertake the duties properly. When the god-parents are chosen the christening-day should be fixed, and this should be the very first day that the mother and child can go out of doors. The clergyman who performs all the family services should be asked of course, and the time selected should be about the middle of the day, and, if possible, the font should be nicely decorated with white flowers. Of course the correct thing would be to have a public service with the congregation; the church always looks dismal and horrid when empty, and, according to the rubric, the service should be public; but I should never advise this. In the first place, the mother is never quite strong enough to stand the long service; and, in the second, babies do howl so that the congregation is made miserable, and, therefore, what is really an excellent theory is a practice to be avoided. Unless the christening is postponed, a thing I cannot contemplate for one moment, a child’s first outing should be to church; there is no doubt whatever in my own mind about that. Take this for granted, and half the misery of a christening disappears; never allow it to be postponed, and it is done as a matter of course. If the god-parents selected cannot be present, they must be represented by proxy; and they should never be waited for, any more than they should be chosen for any reason save that we are fond of them, that they are related to us, or such friends that we know they would do the best they could for us were we to die and leave the children to the mercy of the world at large--as regards their mental welfare, I don’t mean their bodily. I repeat here, that no one has the smallest right to bring a child into the world for whose existence he cannot in some measure duly provide.