divisions be, which might arise about this subject, compared, on the one hand, with the salvation, and on the other with the perdition of the Corinthians? Instead of thanking God in this manner, he would have baptized every Corinthian who would have permitted him; and, like a Romish missionary, have compelled crowds and hosts to the streams and to the rivers in the neighbourhood, that they might receive the ordinance at his hands. With still less propriety could he say, if baptism were the means of regeneration, especially if it insured or proved it, that Christ sent him not to baptize, but to preach the gospel. Christ, as He himself hath told us, sent St. Paul to the Gentiles and to the Corinthians, as well as other Gentiles, _to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God_. In other words, Christ sent St. Paul to the Gentiles to accomplish their regeneration. But if baptism be the means of regeneration, or be accompanied by it, then Christ actually sent him to baptize, in direct contradiction to the passage just now quoted. From both these passages it is evident that baptism neither insures nor proves regeneration, unless we believe that the gratitude of the most zealous apostle rose in intensity in proportion as he failed in accomplishing the design of his mission.'" _Mrs. John Roscoe_ (addressing her husband).--"I think you must now give up the point; for who can fairly stand against such plain and powerful arguments?" _Mr. Roscoe._--"But the doctrine is no less dangerous than anti-scriptural; and when we reflect on the tendency which the human mind discovers to derive consolation from any source of relief, however vague or imaginary, we cannot evince too much ardour in exploding the fatal delusion. In this country there are multitudes of baptized persons who discover, at no period of their life, any other proofs that they have been regenerated than what the parish register supplies. If these persons, who have grown up in a state of ignorance of Christianity, corrupt in morals and in manners, are told by their clergyman that when they were baptized they were made inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, will they not easily lull the disquietude of their consciences to sleep, and flatter themselves with the hope of final salvation, even while they continue the servants, if not the slaves of sin? Will they, if warned to flee from the wrath to come, apprehend any danger, seeing they are taught to believe that they are already the children of God? O fatal delusion! a delusion no less dangerous to the morals than it is to the final happiness of man, because it leads him to ascribe the origin of his religious character to a ceremonial act performed on him at a period when he knew it not, rather than to his repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; and teaches him that he may become a glorified spirit in another world, even though he lives and he is a sceptic or a blasphemer. Thus a little cold water