264 The Faith of Our Fathers child should die a spiritual death, the true mother, the Catholic [275] Church, cries out: Keep the child, provided its spiritual life is saved, even at your hands. Let it be clothed with the robe of innocence even by a stranger. Let it be nursed at the breasts even of a step-mother. Better it should live without me than perish before my face. I will still be its mother, though it know me not. Ah! my Baptist friend, you think that Baptism is not necessary for your child's salvation. The old Church teaches the contrary. You admit that you may be wrong, and it is a question of life and death. Take the safe side. Give your child the benefit of the doubt. Let it be baptized. Baptism washes away original sin, and also actual sins from the adult who may have contracted them. The cleansing efficacy of Baptism was clearly foreshadowed by the prophet Ezechiel in these words: "I will pour upon you clean water, and you shall be cleansed from all your filthiness. And I will give you a new heart and will put a new spirit within you."346 When the Jews asked St. Peter what they should do to be saved the Apostle replied: "Repent, and let everyone of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins."347 And Ananias said to Saul, after his conversion: "Rise up and be baptized, and wash away thy sins."348 "We were by nature," says St. Paul, "children of wrath," but by our regeneration, or new birth in Baptism, we become Christians and children of God. "For, ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ."349 We are adopted into [276] the same family with Jesus Christ. What He is by nature we are by grace — children of God, and consequently brethren of Christ. Ezech. xxxvi. 25, 26. 349 Gal. iii. 26, 27.