In cases where instrumental delivery is absolutely necessary, the ceremony of baptism as ordinarily administered is of course impossible. But as this is deemed so important by the Catholic Church,[102] even to the sacrifice of the mother, any means of overcoming this obstacle, fatal to countless maternal lives, should be accounted, if found practicable, of the utmost importance. For this purpose, therefore, I do not hesitate to recommend intra-uterine baptism, the consecrated element being carried to the child, if too high to be reached by the hand, by a sponge and staff, or if necessary, by a syringe, as was long ago sanctioned by the theologists of the Sorbonne;[103] in the absence of a clergyman, if the case is urgent, the rite accounted so sacred being performed by the physician in attendance rather than to allow the death of the mother. I know that many of the profession, from fear of ridicule or dislike to sanction what they do not believe in, would shrink from such a duty. Is it not, however, due to humanity in every way to prevent this frequent murder? for such, by our apathy and neglect, the mother’s death in these cases becomes. Can we, as Christians, refuse _any_ aid? I am not ashamed to acknowledge that for myself, though no Catholic, I have performed this intra-uterine baptism, where delivery without mutilation was impossible. I could neither conscientiously assert the child’s death, nor allow the mother to linger till it should occur, while the friends, in the absence of a priest, whose presence it was impossible to procure for many hours, would not permit the operation. Remonstrance was useless; had I refused I should have been morally responsible for the almost inevitable death of the woman; it was, therefore, simply my duty. I shall now quote from an admirable letter I have lately received from the Catholic Bishop of Boston. The extracts are couched in so forcible language, and their spirit is so thoroughly Christian, that I need not apologize for their length, or that they recapitulate arguments I have already advanced. “The doctrine of the Catholic Church,” remarks Bishop Fitzpatrick, “her canons, her pontifical constitutions, her theologians without exception, teach, and constantly have taught, that the destruction of the human fœtus in the womb of the mother, _at any period from the first instant of conception_, is a heinous crime, equal, at least, in guilt to that of murder. We find it distinctly condemned as such even as far back as the time of Tertullian, (at the end of the second century,) who calls it _festinatio homicidii_, a hastening of murder. The Pope, Sixtus the Fifth, in a bull published in 1588, subjects those guilty of the crime to all the penalties, civil and ecclesiastical, inflicted on murderers. It is denounced and reprobated in many other canons of the church.