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possible. No elaborate form of faith was then exacted from believers in order to baptism. All that Paul would require was what our own missionaries asked from Krishnu, the first Hindoo whom they baptised, a profession of dependence on Christ, and submission to Him in all things." It is all that ought ever to be required; and · intelligent children of tender age may then be welcomed to baptism as freely as the more advanced. The one condition is that they be believers; and that we know was fulfilled by the family of Stephanas, by the household of the Philippian gaoler, and in every Scripture instance the clear particulars of which we posssss. "Adult baptism" therefore is a phrase which we may well abandon; "believers' baptism" is a truth which we hold to be firmly established, and for which we must earnestly contend.

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Four years have elapsed since the conversion of Stephanas and his family; and we wonder how they have prospered, and what their standing in the Church may be. Corinth is a wicked city, full of temptations; and the Corinthian Christians are of a very mingled character for good and evil. But what we hear is highly to their honour. 66 They have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints.' "Addicted" here means "appointed" or "devoted;" they have set themselves, unasked and unrewarded, with a free and generous consecration, to the service of the Church. And "the ministry of the saints" does not imply any express ecclesiastical office, but a general exercise of benevolence, as opportunity should arise. Their house stood open to all who needed hospitality. The sons acted as almoners to the poor, or exerted themselves to find employment for the needy; the daughters nursed the sick, and clothed the naked; the father took a leading part in the Church's business, and was entrusted with its weightiest commissions. At this very time Stephanas had been on a visit of Christian kindness to Paul at Ephesus, and with him two others, Fortunatus and Achaicus, possibly his sons, more probably, if they belonged to him at all, his servants. They had gone with supplies for his bodily wants, and with cheerful and refreshing sympathies. Acknowledge the value of such a family, says the Apostle. All honourable, and all useful; free from the party spirit and the laxity of moral judgment which infected some of their brethren; a sample of other households, like-minded, at Corinth and elsewhere-submit yourselves willingly to such leaders, and count them worthy of all honour. "Ye know the house of Stephanas." I too know them, and esteem them as my helpers and fellow-labourers!

Is there not something delightfully natural (to use that word in its better sense) in this union of an entire family in Christ and in His Church? It is true that, under the Gospel, religion is a distinctly personal matter, and that a descent from Abraham himself is no guarantee of salvation; it is true that, in some sad instances, "the

The

*

father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father." But that prophecy does not lay down a law. There is no stern necessity in the divine counsels for disunion and division. Acts and the Epistles are full of happy illustrations of the contrary,* like our present one. Do not let us make up our minds to a division in any family. Some exceptions, have you said to yourself, there must be among my children; some taken, and others left, according to the mysterious working of the Spirit's call? Why must there be? Why not rather regard it as a startling thing if but one seem to be left out? Thousands of united households still sit down side by side at the Lord's Table in our English churches. Let us not only offer the earnest prayer, but cherish also the good hope, that it may be so with our own. And if these pages fall under the eye of some wife or husband, some son or daughter, who still stands aloof, let me ask, will you mar the beauty of a complete Christian household, as yours might be? Will you be the Absalom of your family? Will you not rather be its Ruth, and say with her, "Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God"?

Let there be no misunderstanding, however, at this point. The religious tie which bound the household of Stephanas together was not an ecclesiastical form, but a spiritual reality. They were not united in the Church because they had a pious father, or because sponsors had stood sureties for them in their infancy. Faith in their case had gone before baptism, and faith had been proved by works. We first invite the younger members of our households, not to the baptistery or the communion table, but to a living devotion to Christ. That is real religion; to fight your own way into the kingdom, and to plant your own foot on the glorious foundation-stone of our everlasting hopes.

And then, what an enduring bond we have! The house of Stephanas is long ago broken up. The children followed their father to the grave, and were presently borne thither themselves. Even the reunited group at Bethany must have been sundered at last. Here we part; the sons emigrate, the daughters are married; new relationships are formed, and new homes follow; then, like the cables of a ship, snapping one after another, the old ties are broken by death; even the wedded vow is at last exhausted. Does the spiritual bond survive those changes and that catastrophe ? Will it hold-the anchor which we have cast within the very veil? Surely it will. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ?" asks the Apostle. Ay, and if we be all His, who shall separate us from each other's love? My lost ones are gone to be with Him, and I too go to be with Him in my turn; we cannot then be far apart. We cannot but be reunited; some get home a little earlier in the day, and some a little later, but before nightfall we are all in our Father's house.

*

See, or instance, John xi. 5; Acts x. 24, 44, 48; xvi. 15, 31–34; xviii. 8; Ephes. vi. 1; Philemon 1-2; 2 John 1-4.

"As for my friends, they are not lost;
The several vessels of Thy fleet,

Though parted now, by tempest tossed,

Shall safely in the haven meet."

And as parent draws to child, and brother to sister, in that world of higher life and service, and the broken families of earth are brought again together, the blessing of heaven rests upon the unfading union, and they "know the house of Stephanas, that they are the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they addicted themselves," like true Christians," to the ministry of the saints."

ALICK'S DOUBT.

THE deacon was stropping his razor, and, becoming entirely absorbed in the operation, accompanied it with sundry contortions of the mouth, which moved Alick to irreverent laughter. The deacon looked up from his work, and Miss Martha, lifting her eyes from the big Bible on her knees, sent a glance of severe reproof at the young man.

His father sighed a little, as he looked after him.

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"Pears to me, Marthy," said he, mildly, " 'tain't hardly judicious in ye to rile the boy up so. He has a good deal to try him, Alick has; 'tain't in natur' fer him to take the yoke without some kickin'. Mebbe I don't feel right, but I ain't nowaways burdened about him. Alick has his doubts, but he's not an infidel and an unbeliever." "You make "He's in the wiles of the adversary of souls," said Miss Martha, stiffly; " and I, for one, shall not hold my peace and see him dragged down to perdition. What business has a young man to doubt who has been instructed in the law and the ordinances, and taught the saving truths of the gospel ever since he was a baby?

"I couldn't help it, father," said | Alick, still laughing. such funny mouths over your razor. I always wanted to laugh when I was a little boy."

"Yer welcome to laugh," said the deacon, heartily. "Taint of'en I've heerd ye laugh latterly.”

"Silence is better than ungodly mirth on the sabbath day," said Miss Martha, sternly; "but if you set your son such an example of worldliness as to shave on a Sunday morning, it's no wonder he's an infidel and an unbeliever."

"Shoh! Now, Marthy, you know I never make a practice on't; but, bein' I was up the heft of the night with that poor sick critter, I don't reckon the Lord'll count it wuss'n pullin' an ox out o' the ditch."

Miss Martha made no reply, and Alick, whose face had clouded darkly at her words, stepped through the low window and strolled listlessly down the garden.

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"Wall," said the deacon, trying his razor on his thumb, 'pears to me that's the very kind of folks to hev doubts. Ye see they sort o' take things for granted, and slip along easy, till bym-by somebody asks 'em how they know they're on the right track, and it fetches 'em up all of a heap. "Tain't as if a man had a good rough wrastle of it 'long at first and made sure of his footin'. Oh, I know how it goes with a young man. I've had my doubts myself."

The deacon braced himself firmly

before the glass, which was a trifle | fools"-began Miss Martha, when too low for him, and grasped his the deacon touched up Jerry in a venerable nose in his thumb and way that brought his sister's teeth finger, which gave a peculiar tone together with a sudden snap and to his voice, and made Miss Martha literally shut her mouth for the time. look up at him, as she said,"He's got the Word of the Lord. He has no right to question that." "Yes," ejaculated the deacon, between the cautious sweeps of his razor, "he's got the Word of the Lord, and he's got the Lord of the Word, and so hev I; and I can risk Him to take care of Alick."

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With which parting shot she retired to put on her Sunday gear. The church bells rang pleasantly, just far enough away to blend the three tones into one musical rhythm. Alick brought the staid old horse to the door, carefully rubbed a fleck of mud from the harness with a maple leaf, and stood there patting Jerry's neck, until his father came down the steps, in his creaking boots, followed briskly by Miss Martha, her hymnbook folded in her white handkerchief. She looked disapprovingly at Alick, as she said,

"So you mean to forsake the sanctuary of the Lord ? "

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"No," said Alick. “I like the sanctuary of the Lord very well; but I object to being preached at before a congregation of people.”

The deacon gave a twitch to his uncomfortable collar.

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"Don't forget to look in on Judy," he called out, looking back at Alick, with a funny twinkle in his kind old eyes. "She dotes on Sunday reading, and Cato's gone to preachin'."

Alick could only nod his head; but he sat on the grass under the maples until the carriage jolted round a turn in the road.

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"'Aunt Martha 'll be pretty thoroughly settled and grounded by the time she gets to church, if father drives in that fashion. Blessed old soul, there's no humbug about him." And Alick's face grew grave again.

The busy little ants ran in and out, building their shapely walls for a passing foot to crush; bright midges danced up and down in the sunshine, alive for a summer day; a spider swung down her dainty stairway, and a bird swooped from the branches and struck it out of existence. The miracles of life and growth, the mystery of death too, were all around him. The whole universe was full of questions for which there seemed no answer.

Could he believe that anywhere there was an infinite Intelligence, in whose plan every one of those shining atoms had a place? Was he too in the same grasp, held to his ordained place, shut up in proscribed limits, compelled to fulfil his part? Was he no more than the spider, that his toiling and planning should be swept away? Did his loving, his longing, his human ambitions matter nothing to this awful Omnipotence? The very thought was bitterness. Whatever ruled, God or fate, Alick felt only the power that was too great for him, the strength that was more than his; and with all the force of his nature he rebelled against it.

Meantime the deacon and Miss man needs to be well settled and Martha bounced along over the grounded, and learn to crucify his stony road in silence, the deacon carnal affections, before he's fit for groaning inwardly over his dear such a responsible office." boy, his blundering old conscience burdening him with the blame of everything that had happened.

"I'spose it's a judgment on me for the sins of my youth. I used to be a dretful unbeliever," thought the old man, who couldn't quite see how the Lord was going to forgive him out and out, without taking some kind of revenge. It did seem like a judgment that Alick, the pride of his eyes, should be suddenly stricken down in the midst of his university studies and sent home an invalid; and, worst of all, so unsettled, so bitter, so full of doubts, that the elder had thought it necessary to point a sermon at him, with the best of intentions but the very worst results.

“If his mother could only have been spared," thought the deacon, and straightway dropped into a fit of abstraction, as he reviewed the past and lived over again the years when he struck out from the dead level of his life, on a New England farm, for one of strange adventure in the wilds of Texas. He remembered the home-coming, when he brought back to his old homestead his fair young wife, and the two faithful servants, Judy and Cato, who followed the fortunes of their dear mistress to the dreary north, and a few years later wept bitter tears above her grave. Then Miss Martha's reign began, and the deacon smiled grimly, remembering the horror with which she saw little Alick kiss and fondle his old black nurse.

He drew out his red silk handkerchief and blew his nose vigorously, and at that moment became conscious of Miss Martha's voice.

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"Silas is a good man," said the deacon; a better man than I be. Though, as to bein' puffed up, I'm sure it's made me feel humble to think of bein' chosen to minister before the Lord."

The deacon landed Miss Martha at the steps, fastened his horse in the shade, and walked up the aisle, as he had done for twenty years, just at the last stroke of the bell.

When the bells were silent Alick's musing came suddenly to an end, and he rose from the grass and sauntered down the green lane towards Judy's whitewashed cabin. The little house was buried to the eaves in tall clumps of lilac and syringa, and just within the door Judy was sitting, her Bible on her knees, and her great silver-bowed spectacles carefully set upon her clean Sunday turban. Snap lay at her feet, dreaming uneasily, and keeping one eye in range of the little walk, with its border of grass pinks, as if expecting a visitor. He lifted his head suddenly as Alick came down the lane. "Lie still there," said Judy, sharply. "You've no call to be friskin' about on a Sunday." Then, as Alick came nearer, she added, in a different tone: "Jes wonder of Miss Marthy's been aggravatin' that blessed boy agin. She'd ought t'be shut up in a mill-stun an' throwed into the sea, like them old Jews."

But Alick's face was so serene that Judy's brightened in sympathy. "How is ye this blessed mornin', honey?"

"All right, auntie. me but laziness."

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"Don't tell me," said Judy. "Yer jes' growin', honey-growin' -thought for his part Silas in yer bones. Ye'll fotch roun' all Pettigrew was too young for a right dreckly. I'se gwine to bile deacon, and I think so too. Aye some bitters nex' week."

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