The perversion of the ordinance into sprinkling, and that in infancy, takes away the divinely ordained object-lesson; and in the case of the infant must of necessity substitute mere ceremonialism for experience, for the child of unaccountable years can have had no experience of believing and repenting, which are the necessary conditions to fulfil the meaning of baptism. The change in the ordinance, like most of the changes that came about in the days of the "falling away" from the primitive faith and practice, was by gradual process. Dean Stanley, in his "Christian Institutions," page 24, says that it is not till the third century that "we find one case of the baptism of infants." Of the change from immersion to sprinkling, he says: "What is the justification of this almost universal departure from the primitive usage? There may have been many reasons, some bad, some good. One, no doubt, was the superstitious feeling already mentioned which regarded baptism as a charm, indispensable to salvation, and which insisted on imparting it to every human being who could be touched with water, however unconscious." The common practice as late as the twelfth century is thus described by a Roman Catholic cardinal of that time, named Pullus: "Whilst the candidate for baptism in water is immersed, the death of Christ is suggested; whilst immersed and covered with water, the burial of Christ is shown forth; whilst he is raised from the waters, the resurrection of Christ is proclaimed."--_Patrol. Lat., Vol. CXXX, p. 315 (Baptist Encyclopedia, art. "Baptism")._ Dean Stanley, of Westminster, one of the first scholars of the Church of England, wrote: