Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/114

Rh the figure was living. But I was astonished at that delicate girl's ability to stand in expectation so long and so immovably.

And now the young minister ascended from the font, and all seemed to be over. Was it possible that they had forgotten that lovely young girl, or was she really, after all, not a living creature but a statue, a church-angel? An old man came forward and addressed the congregation. He was the young girl's father; he had been her teacher, had initiated her into the life and doctrines of religion, and prepared her for baptism. He wished to have permission himself to administer the sacrament of baptism to his beloved child. He descended into the font. The statue now moved from the church wall; the young girl came forward alone with a light step, and full of trust, as a child to its beloved father, and gave herself up into his hands. It was beautiful and really affecting to see the aged and the young standing here before the eye of heaven, the father dedicating the daughter, the daughter giving herself up to her father's guidance and, through it, to a holy life; and it would have been yet more beautiful if it had taken place with the blue heavens above, and green trees around them instead of a white-arched roof and walls.

“Rejoice! rejoice!” again sang the choir in a glad song of praise, over the young girl now consecrated by baptism; and father and daughter reascended from the font.

The greater portion of the assembly, among which were a great number of children, beheld the whole affair as a spectacle, and made a dreadful noise when they went out of the church, notwithstanding the admonitions of the ministers to silence. And even by the rivers and in the silence of the woods, the rite of baptism would be disturbed by curious and self-elected spectators.

I shall now go out and refresh myself by a quiet ramble into the country with my Quaker friend, the