_Mr. Roscoe._--"Why, suppose such an attested copy could not be obtained, then we could have no substantial proof of our regeneration. We may be the children of God, and we may be inheritors of the kingdom of heaven; but if the officiating minister neglect to record the fact of our baptism, or if the register-book should be lost or burnt, it will be impossible for us to prove it, even though the Spirit itself bear witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. To what a dilemma, then, may a son of God be reduced! He may be in the possession of every moral evidence of his filial relation to his heavenly Father--he may love him, fear him, and glorify him; he may have put off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and may have put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness: but not being able to establish the fact of his baptism by the production of a genuine copy of its insertion in the parish register, he is not able to prove the fact of his regeneration. 'A situation this of doubt, suspense, and anxiety, with regard to our eternal welfare, to which it is reasonable to believe that, with such a revelation of his will as Christianity professes to be, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort would not expose his humble creatures.'"[13] [13] Dr. Mant. _Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"I am satisfied that it does not invariably nor necessarily take place at baptism; but then, when does it take place?" _Mr. Roscoe._--"It does not uniformly take place at any particular age, but precisely at that period in the life of man which the Spirit of God determines. Some, I have no doubt, are regenerated by the Holy Spirit in the days of infancy, and grow up into life under the influence of the holy principles which were implanted in their soul when they had no consciousness of it. I have a book at hand, from which I will read you a passage that is quite to the point:--'God has wisely given to the female sex a peculiar tenderness of address, and an easy and insinuating manner, which is admirably adapted to the great end for which he intended it, that of conveying knowledge to children, and making tender impressions on their minds; and there is hardly any view in which the importance of the sex more evidently appears.'