Now let us learn from the plain, easy language of the Scripture the mode as administered by John, the Lord and the apostles. In the third chapter of Matthew the inspired writer has given an account of John’s baptism, which we kindly invite you to read. Now the way to correctly understand the Scripture is to take it in its easiest, plainest, most sensible way. Do not attempt to give it some complicated, mysterious meaning, but receive it as you would any easily understood historical fact of this present time. If you should read in your county paper of a man down by one of the rivers of your adjoining county who was administering baptism to the people, and the whole neighborhood round about went out to him and were baptized of him in the river, and when he had baptized a certain individual he went up straightway out of the water, what idea would you form as to the mode of the baptism? Would you think it was a little water sprinkled on the head somewhere in a meeting-house? There is nothing in the account to convey such an idea. How unreasonable it would be for you to study to change the meaning of the plain account and mystify it because it was not congenial to your desires. Suppose you should read in your paper of two men traveling along the way. One of them had never heard of Jesus nor of the ordinance of baptism; the other talked to him of the Savior, of his death and his resurrection, and how he had authorized him to go into all the world and preach this gospel to every creature, and he that believed and was baptized, the same should be saved. And as they traveled on their way they came to a certain water, and the one said to the other, “See here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptized?” The other replied, “If thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest.” He answered, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” Then they stopped their carriage and they went down both into the water and there the one was baptized of the other, and when they came up out of the water the one went one way and the other another way, and they saw each other no more. What idea would you form as to the mode of baptism? This is all very plain to the candid heart. The other instances of baptism recorded in the New Testament do not express so clearly the mode as the two we have given, yet they can not with propriety be made to express anything contrary to immersion. The apostle Paul in his letter to the Roman brethren speaks of baptism as a burial. Rom. 6:4. This only confirms in our mind (concerning the mode) the ideas suggested by the baptism of the Savior and of the man of Ethiopia. For yet greater clearness we will present a few thoughts suggested to us by the recent writings of a brother, which we consider very conclusive.