Even ministers themselves seem to grow indifferent to this wide-spread and growing evil.  They hardly ever utter a word of warning from the pulpit against it.  Their members may be known by them to neglect the baptism of their children; and yet by their silence they wink at this dereliction; and when they have occasion to speak of this ordinance, many advert to it as a mere sign, as something only outward, not communicating an invisible grace, not as a seal of the new covenant, ingrafting into Christ.  No wonder when this holy sacrament is thus disparagingly spoken of, that Christian parents will neglect it practically, as a redundancy in the church,—­as a tradition coming in its last wailing cry from ages and forms departed,—­as a church rite marked obsolete, as an old ceremonial savoring of old Jewish shackles, embodying no substantial grace, and unfit for this age of railroad progression and gospel libertinism.

Will any one deny the extent of such a spirit in the church and homes of the present day?  Let him refer to church statistics, where he may receive some idea of the magnitude of this evil.  In them we can see the extent to which parents have neglected the baptism of their children.  We take from a note in the “Mercersburg Review” the following statistical items:  “The presbytery of Londonderry reports but one baptism to sixty-four communicants; the presbytery of Buffalo city, the same; the presbytery of Rochester city, one to forty-six; the presbytery of Michigan, one to seventy-seven; the presbytery of Columbus, one to thirty.  In the presbytery of New Brunswick, there are three churches which report thus:  one reports three hundred and forty-three communicants, and three baptisms; another reports three hundred and forty communicants, and two baptisms.  In Philadelphia, one church reports three hundred and three communicants, and seven baptisms; another, two hundred and eighty-seven communicants, and one baptism.”

These statistics speak volumes.  They tell us how Christian parents neglect the baptism of their children, and also how the church winks at it.  And from this neglect we can easily infer their indifference to it.  If we refer to the statistics of all other churches, we shall witness a similar neglect.  No branch of the church now is free from the imputation of such neglect.  It is now difficult indeed, to induce parents to have their children baptized, because they think it is no use!  “Let them wait,” say they, “till they grow up, and then they will know more about it!” This shows us where the parent stands, viz., in an unchurchly state, and radical to the very core.  It shows us what that influence is, which is at work upon his mind.  “He will know more about it!”—­just as if that in religion is worthless until we know all about it.  Baptism then is not worth anything until the child understands all about it!  In that parental utterance we hear the wildest shout of triumphant rationalism!