263 thereby risking their own souls, as well as the souls of their innocent offspring. How different was the practice of the early Christians, who, as St. Augustine testifies, hastened with their new-born babes to the baptismal font that they might not be deprived of the grace of regeneration. If an infant is sick, no expense is spared that its life may be preserved. The physician is called in, medicine is given to it, and the mother will spend sleepless nights watching every movement [274] of the infant; she will sacrifice her repose, her health; nay, she will expose even her own life that the life of her offspring may be saved. And yet the supernatural happiness of the child is too often imperiled without remorse by the criminal postponement of Baptism. But if they are to be censured who are slow in having their children baptized, what are we to think of that large body of professing Christians who, on principle, deny Baptism to little ones till they come to the age of discretion? What are we to think of those who set their private opinions above Scripture, the early Fathers of the Church and the universal practice of Christendom? We may smile indeed at a theological opinion, no matter how novel or erroneous it may be, so long as it does not involve any dangerous consequences. But when it is given in a case of life and death, how terrible is the responsibility of those who propagate doctrines so erroneous ! The opposite practice of the Catholic and the Baptist churches, in their treatment of the newborn infant, may be well compared to the conduct of the true and the false mother who both claimed the child at the tribunal of Solomon. The king exclaimed: "Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other." The pretended mother consented, saying: Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it. "But the woman whose child was alive, said to the king (for her bowels were moved upon her child): I beseech thee, my lord, give her the child alive, and do not kill it." While the Baptist church is willing that the