Sometimes he
has been charged with omissions--as if he were writing a history of his own
times--whereas he has been only, and he fears, most imperfectly, relating
his immediate personal experience.
I was born in the Presbyterian Church, baptized in the Roman Catholic
Church, educated in the Church of England in America and married into the
Church of the Disciples. The Roman Catholic baptism happened in this way:
It was my second summer; my parents were sojourning in the household of a
devout Catholic family; my nurse was a fond, affectionate Irish Catholic;
the little life was almost despaired of, so one sunny day, to rescue me
from that form of theologic controversy known as infant damnation, the baby
carriage was trundled round the corner to Saint Matthew's Church--it was in
the national capital--and the baby brow was touched with holy water out of
a font blessed of the Virgin Mary. Surely I have never felt or been the
worse for it.
Whilst I was yet too young to understand I witnessed an old-fashioned
baptism of the countryside. A person who had borne a very bad character in
the neighborhood was being immersed. Some one, more humorous than reverent,
standing near me, said as the man came to the surface, "There go his sins,
men and brethren, there go his sins"; and having but poor eyesight I
thought I saw them passing down the stream never to trouble him, or
anybody, more. I can see them still floating, floating down the stream, out
and away from the sight of men.
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