A DESERT PLACE by W.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 22, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 49.

"A DESERT PLACE."

By W.

MANY persons, anxious to find some excuse for sprinkling instead of baptism, have argued that it was impossible that Philip could have found enough water to immerse the eunuch, because the record says that the way which they went "is desert." Such persons must have a difficulty with the narrative which forms the basis of the present lesson; for the record says that Jesus departed "into a desert place apart," and that "when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals;" and yet it says that "he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass," before he fed them.

The answer to the objection concerning the eunuch's baptism is, as we see in the latter instance, that "a desert place" does not necessarily mean a place where there is no water and no vegetation. It applies to any uninhabited, solitary place. It may be a sandy, barren waste, or it may be a place where there is vegetation. Even in the great Sahara Desert, which is to most minds a synonym for everything barren, there are oases where there are springs of water, and where vegetation flourishes.

Even supposing that "the way that goeth down from Jerusalem to Gaza," which Philip and the eunuch traveled, was a sandy desert like the Sahara, we must allow that the two travelers came across a fertile place where there was water enough for immersion, for that the "baptism" means immersion, and that only, is admitted by the best scholars, even though they practice sprinkling instead. When God commands that a certain thing shall be done, and especially when his word says that it was done, it is hardly worth while for men to argue that it cannot be done.