Bertha and Her Baptism Part 18

He had been sitting, somewhat out of sight, at the foot of the bedstead; but, it was evident, from several signs, that his feelings were deeply moved.

The pastor took his arm, and, bidding the wife an affectionate but hasty adieu, he went with him to the sitting-room below.

"I need no arguments," said the husband, "to satisfy me, further, that you are right. You have a system of religion which, I see, is good for everything, and for everybody, and for all times, and places, and circ.u.mstances. Sir, I have been sceptical; but I must confess that a religion which can come into a family, like mine, and do what it has done, through you, sir, to mine, and to me, must be from G.o.d. Sir, I shall always respect our pastor for his consistency with his principles, and for many other reasons; but I prefer principles like yours, which can go to the sick and dying, and to little children whose mother----"

Here he began to weep. The pastor said, "To take a mother from a young family of children, like yours, Mr. Peirce, is just the thing which we should prevent, could we have the ordering of affairs."

"I feel," said Mr. P., "that G.o.d's hand is upon me. Pa.s.sages from the Bible, which I learned at sea, from love to my mother, come to me now.

She put a Bible in a box, and covered it up with a dozen pairs of woollen hose, knit with her own hands. I have been saying to myself, in the chamber, 'Behold, he cometh with clouds.' It is growing dark over my dwelling; G.o.d is descending upon us in a cloud. 'Behold, he taketh away, who can hinder him? Who will say unto him, what doest thou.' O, you never lost a wife, my dear sir, nor looked on a motherless family, as I begin to do. G.o.d help me, for I shall lose my reason."

"No, my dear sir," said the pastor; "think what has just taken place up stairs. You now seem to say, as Manoah did, 'We shall surely die;' but his wife said, 'If the Lord were pleased to kill us,--he would not have showed us all these things.' G.o.d has bestowed on your children, through their believing mother, his covenant, to be their G.o.d.--You are a Notary Public, I believe, sir."

"I am," said Mr. Peirce.

"Then," said the pastor, "you know the importance of seals."

"O, yes," said Mr. P. "A gentleman, last week, came near losing the sale of a large property, situate in one of the Middle States, because he had had some papers executed, here, before a court not having a seal. I told him, beforehand, that he was wrong; but he wished to know of what possible use a seal could be, when the judge and the clerk used printed forms, and the blanks were filled under their own hands. The papers came back, and he had to do his business over again, and before a court having a seal."

"But he was perfectly honest, at first, I presume," said the pastor, "only the form was defective."

_Mr. P._ Yes, sir; but the form, in such a case, is the warranty. You know that the power to have and use a seal is one of the things specially conveyed by a legislature.

"G.o.d has seals," said the pastor. "One is baptism. It used to be circ.u.mcision. But, as the old royal seal is broken at the coronation of a new king, G.o.d appointed a new seal, baptism, to mark the new dispensation; as he also changed the Sabbath of creation in honor of his Son's reign, and removed the memorial of his deeds of greatest renown, the Pa.s.sover, for one that signifies still greater deeds, the Lord's Supper. Thus G.o.d has his seals. He attaches great importance to them. He binds himself by them. Your wife, being a child of G.o.d, it is his arrangement, from the beginning, to enter into covenant with her in behalf of her children. He stands, now, in a special relation to them, and has placed the beautiful seal of Heaven upon his promise to that dear sick mother, 'I will be a G.o.d to thee and to thy seed after thee.'"

"Is it necessary that the father should be left out?" said Mr. P., covering his face with his handkerchief. "They are mine, and G.o.d holds me responsible for them. I am to be left alone with them in the world.

Is there not mercy for me, too? O, I had such a gleam of hope in the chamber! As I saw the water descending from your hand upon those dear heads, I thought, How much like a divine act such baptism is,--something from G.o.d. I always thought of baptism as a cross, to which I must submit; now I see that it is a token of love, bestowed upon me. So I thought of those words: 'I am found of them that sought me not.' G.o.d seems to have come to me in that baptism. I was expecting that, if I ever became a Christian, I must, in token of my submission, be buried in the waters of baptism. I would be willing to be, still, if necessary; but that gentle baptism, coming to me and mine, seems like G.o.d being beforehand with me, doing something with me and for me. It made me think of Christ inviting himself into the house of Zaccheus, to save his soul.

I always felt that I must obtain religion wholly of myself; now I feel that G.o.d has begun the work in me. I am sustained and borne on. That baptism was the most powerful appeal that ever reached my heart. It seems to me, in its connection with the gospel, like a beautiful symphony of instrumental music in an anthem, which strives to interpret the words. It proved an overture to me, indeed, in the best sense. But, my dear sir, how near we came to losing all this which my wife has enjoyed."

The door opened, and little Lucy came in with two plates and two silver knives, and that great red apple which her mother had received a few days before. "Mother sends her love to you, sir, and begs that you and father will eat this."

They looked at the apple for a few moments, when the husband said, "I do not feel like eating it. Do oblige me by taking it home with you."

The pastor took it home with him, placed it on his mantel-piece in his study, where, for several days, it gave such an odor as to attract the notice of every one that came in. The hand that sent it to him, in less than a week had finished its work on earth. The apple then became a hallowed thing. There it remained till it wilted, grew soft, and finally turned nearly black.

A little, unceremonious visitant to his father's study would often climb into the chair near the shelf, and express his wonder, and repeat his questions, at the seeming mystery,--first, of not eating the apple, and suffering it to be wasted; and then, of letting it remain when it ought to be thrown away. It was not long, however, before the apple was buried in a pot of earth. In due time green shoots appeared. And when the pastor saw them, he said with himself, "The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee."

How it grew in the pastor's study, a little sacramental emblem of hallowed scenes, and of infinitely precious truths,--how a place was selected, and afterwards prepared, for it, near a garden-wall which separates the wife's little garden from her grave,--and how the husband came alone, one Sabbath, and joined the church, receiving the seal of baptism from the same hand that sprinkled the water upon the heads of his wife and children,--I cannot tell you now, nor, after so long detention, would you be willing at present to hear.

THE END.