roused from their slumbers, and we have seen what we have seen. Should any continue the practices now so plainly prohibited that there can be no dispute, either directly or by some evasion, they must become demoralized and virtual schismatics. But we hope for better things, and trust that through the mercy of God the general impress of the Convention, if not the new canon which to many seems inadequate to the situation, may prove the beginning of the restoration of our Protestantism to more than the integrity in which it has stood since the immortal Hooker's death. And we trust further, that the broad Churchism which sought to hinder any restrictive law from being passed, will not seek to hinder all discipline under it by pronouncing such law a practical nulity.

III. RELAXATION IN THE USE OF THE BAPTISMAL OFFICE.

If any imagine this to be a new subject, or that it was "buried beyond the hope of resurrection" by the late vote respecting it, they never made a greater mistake in their lives. Do they suppose that a grievance which has been so long and steadily growing until in the mother Church and our own a hundred publications are issued in a year, from the thick volume to the newspaper article, is to be thus disposed of, or is to be disposed of at all until something is done? He is but a partial observer who does not see that the question of what is called Baptismal Regeneration is steadily taking a deeper hold of the Church. To numbers who have

been growing for above fifty years, it is an intolerable burden that they should be compelled to use words which, however different were their original meanings, are being extensively used to teach a doctrine as contrary to Scripture as transubstantiation, and which they themselves are liable to be understood as teaching, and are charged as teaching by the continued use of said words.

The advocates for relaxation have, in our judgement, in their advocacy, made several mistakes. In the first place, if the "nine Bishops" are correctly represented (which we do not admit) as saying that they have no difficulty about the office themselves, or that it is practically without fault, they state the case but weakly. True, they could say "we are fully persuaded that our formularies, in their just interpretation embody the truth of Christ." Such

is our own opinion. But the question is whether the unjust interpretation of the formulary in question, which has proved so available for the "bold innovations in doctrine" of which the Bishops complain, be not in their judgment, as well as that of the petitioners, a sufficient cause for granting their petition.

2. The petitioners to the Convention in too many instances. say, or allow themselves to be represented as saying, that they do not ask for themselves when they stand precisely upon the same ground as the present writer. Our opinion is, that by far the larger part of the petitioners ask for personal relief, and we happen to know of twenty or more of them who say that they can no longer use those words, "seeing now that this child is regenerate," though claiming to hold all that the Church intended to teach in this office, and if excluded from it for adherence to its spirit against its now absurd letter the responsibility must be on others. One of the most strenuous opponents of the petition stated that if the petitioners had asked for themselves, he would have been disposed to hear them. It is said that the five or six hundred petitions are only a sixth or fifth of the whole, but if they are weighed instead of being counted, it may appear that they very much exceed a sixth or a fifth. Certainly there are few evangelical men who will not admit that the existing state of things shows reason enough not only for the very slight installment of liberty now asked, but for a recasting (or revision if you will) of the Baptismal office in such wise, as to leave no room for any theory whatever about the effect of baptism upon the soul of an infant. Is it for me to say that I do not want a remission of this service for my own sake, but only for "weak brethren" when I see as clearly and ought to feel as deeply as they the mischief it is doing? We hope to hear no more now in this connection of "weak consciences" and "weak brethren."

3. A third mistake in some of the advocates for this measure is their want of confidence of success. They seem to have little confidence in human judgment upon divine things, as authorized and required when such judgment is properly instructed, and we may say a want of confidence in the court to which the argument is addressed. Shall an advocate assume that his cause is already prejudged against him, and announce himself as attempting to

galvanize a body already dead to its merits! With such an introduction you may plead and demonstrate as you please with the powers of logic and eloquence combined, and scatter the brains of opposition to the four winds, and (as in this case) remain argumentatively masters of the situation, but if you get anything it will be so much more than you had a right to expect.

Such are the necessities of truth in connection with this office, and of the Church, and such the power to make all this known and felt, that we confidently expect success at no distant day, and this not without evidence. For while there are those who are op posed to any change, no matter what or for what cause; and who unwarned by history in parallel cases, seem to be deprived of all power to appreciate the loss which the Church sustains in consequence of all flexibility on its human side being refused, and the greater losses which impend, I say while this is and will be the case with some it cannot be with the majority. What said Dr. De Koven upon the floor of the House (though himself in fixed adherence. to the notion of baptismal regeneration) about admitting men to the ministry (as from the beginning) who reject this doctrine and then compelling them to use words which teach it, i. e., as he supposes, and which to others seem to teach it? If we understand him he expects to vote the desired relief upon a general revision of the rubrics which he advocated. Others also, from whom on party grounds we should have least suspected it, intimated plainly that this petition should and would at no distant day be granted; some because it was just and reasonable, others because the Church had more to lose than to gain by refusing to listen to such numbers of clergy and laity representing so important an interest.

But the question was a new one in the House and the vote coming immediately after the decisive one against ritualism seemed to be a rebound from what had been done apparently in the opposite direction, we say apparently, for an active member of the old majority began the opposition by warning the Convention that it was in danger of being turned over, bound hand and foot, to the Low Church party—a false alarm of course, as nothing whatever had been done in the special interest of said party.

That the debate made a great impression, none who heard it will deny. There was but a single speech in the negative which

attempted a formal argument of the question upon its merits, that was by an able and learned man who had written and published elaborately upon the subject, and we presume it embraced the substance of what opponents had to offer. And although the sub. ject was not exhausted-certainly not on one side—as will hereaf ter appear, or the cause of the petitioners surrendered, what we ask now is that the case be studied as it stands upon the recordthat the argument be weighed in the scales of Scripture and human justice, and judgment rendered upon its merits.

It will then appear whether the decision was either fair, or wise, or right. Not to mention vestries and lay communicants of the Church, that petition contains the names of between five and six hundred of the clergy, including not a few than whom the Church has none who know more of it, are more devoted to it, and who have done more for it. It was little indeed which they asked, and time will show whether it was kind or expedient to throw their petition back in their faces, refusing even to refer it to the Dioceses for further consideration. Under the lights now being concentrated upon this question it can have no ultimate settlement for the peace of the Church or its Scriptural character (without such elaborate explanations as can no longer practically meet the difficulty), except in recasting this office for the baptism of infants in such form as to give no ground for theories about the spiritual or moral effects of baptism upon the soul of an infant; for all these theories are without any support from Scripture-even by the most attenuated thread of inference, and are but a mass of speculation. The opinions of the Fathers upon this subject are as worthless as those of Bellarmine or of Dr. Pusey. Their errors as interpreters of Scripture-for which in comparison with ourselves their advantages were less than their disadvantages have often led the Church astray. They were sometimes right and sometimes wrong. Such is the testimony of the men who have studied them most extensively and who are most enti tled to our confidence. It was an incautious remark of one of the debaters that "we all believe in Baptismal regeneration in some sense." We believe in it in no sense whatever, and deny its being aught in either the Bible or the Prayer Book; and we further doubt whether the author of this remark believes in anything

which in justness of speech could be called by that name. It is one of the heir-looms of patristic and medieval theology which has descended to plague the Church, and its abandonment will be the necessary condition of final peace. If the controversy sleep it will only be to awake refreshed. The period at which it shall be settled will depend upon the intelligence and enlarged charity for honest opinions entertained on both sides, as well as upon the firmness and perseverance of disputants for the truth unswerved by popularity, immobile legislators, or human authority.

So far as Revelation informs us-and we have no other knowledge the regeneration of the human soul, its new birth unto righteousness is by the spirit of God through the truth, and it is not in remorseless systematizers to keep that truth always in obscurity by theories about baptism. We feel ashamed to spend so much time about speculations upon the effects of an outward rite, which may or may not be performed according to the will of a second party, upon the soul of an unconscious infant. They are but "beggarly elements" when taken in connection with the dreadful fact, which no man disputes, that so many baptized in infancy are living and dying in sin under the hands of their appointed teachers.

But amidst abounding error in so many directions, there are signs, notwithstanding, of the advancement of sound doctrine in this and that it will be more rapid in the future than in the past. This is certainly true of the Lord's supper. A leading and honored member of the High Church school said in the late Convention, and apparently as the result of his examination of all that the ritualist party had put forth upon the subject-that he rejected all notions of any presence of Christ in, with, by, through, over or under the elements of the communion, or other presence whatsoever localized by virtue of the consecration of these elements by the priest. From the turn which things are now taking with respect to this sacrament, we are encouraged to believe that in no very long time not only Romanism but Lutheranism will be extruded from the church.

Error touching the "real presence" has been pressed by Scripture and reason until it takes refuge in transcendentalism or in a presence which nobody denies. But it puts a far lesser strain upon