Anti-Baptism Prejudices.
By Editor
If any one doubts that this is a world of mixed good and evil he should take the N. Y. Independent to be convinced. No paper in the country, professing the Christian faith, can say things more entirely subversive of genuine Christianity than the Independent. Yet in many things it seems to have a keen sense of justice and right, and often deals with both friends and foes in a manner worthy of its name. Lately it has had considerable to say on the subject of baptism, of course opposing what it holds to be the exclusiveness of immersionists. But the following is a very nice reproof of those who complain of immersers for “making too much of immersion,” and who are themselves building the barrier between Christians. We have seen many such as are here described;— “Baptist churches make a difference between immersion and sprinkling; but in the principles of other churches no such difference exists. The two ceremonies stand on a level. Each one is regarded as true baptism. Neither one is regarded as baptism to the exclusion of the other. Therefore, the ministers of other churches should be just as willing to immerse candidates as to sprinkle them. A minister’s refusal to administer immersion springs, often we fear, not from a true comprehension of the principles of his church; but simply from a bigoted aversion to the ceremony because it is used in a sister church. One may make too much of immersion by an obstinate refusal to practice it, as well as by rejecting everything else. If a minister will show that he is above all narrowness in regard to ceremonies, let him be as willing to administer immersion as he is to give aspersion or affusion.”