SUBJECT AND ACT OF BAPTISM SETTLED While reading the proof sheets of the Declaration and Address, Alexander Campbell had a conversation on the principles set forth therein with a Mr. Riddle, of the Presbyterian Church, whom he accidentally met. When the proposition that “nothing should be required as a matter of faith or duty for which a ‘Thus saith the Lord’ could not be produced either in express terms or by approved precedent,” was introduced, Mr. Riddle very promptly replied that the words, however plausible in appearance, were not sound; for if that were followed it would be necessary to abandon infant baptism. To which he replied, “Why, sir, is there in the Scriptures no express precept nor precedent for infant baptism?” “Not one, sir,” was the prompt reply. This reply startled and mortified Mr. Campbell, and shortly afterward he mentioned the suggested difficulty to his father, who replied, “We make our appeal to the law and the testimony. Whatever is not found therein must of course be abandoned.” Not willing to remain in uncertainty on the subject, he procured all the books and tracts he could favorable to the practice. On reading them he was disgusted with the assumptions and fallacious reasonings to sustain the practice, and threw them aside with the faint hope of finding something more convincing in the Greek New Testament. “This, however, only made the matter worse, and upon again entering into a conversation with his father on the subject he found him entirely willing to admit that there were neither ‘express terms’ nor ‘precedent’ to authorize the practice. ‘But,’ said he, ‘as for those who are already members of the church and participants of the Lord’s Supper, I can see no propriety, even if the scriptural evidence for infant baptism be found deficient, in their unchurching or paganizing themselves, or in putting off Christ, merely for the sake of making a new profession; thus going out of the church merely for the sake of coming in again.’”