OCR Text |
Show OEEEMONY OF BAPTISM. 147 A stream of living water, twelve feet wide, fresh from the mountains, runs along between the sidewalk and the road-the Temple Block. Seeing a crowd assembled, I approached the spot, and found twelve persons, some of whom had already undergone the ceremony of baptism, and others patiently awaiting. The first immersion I saw was of a lady about 18 years of age. The priest who officiated, was standing up to his waist in the stream, with his coat off, and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The lady was handed in, and I noticed the shock on her system which a sudden plunge into cold freezing water must naturally have produced. The baptizer placing one hand on her back, the other on her head, repeated the following words: " I am commissioned by Jesus Christ to baptize you, in the name of the Father, and Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." He then pushed her over on her back, allowing the water to cover her. She struggled to get out of the water, but her husband remarked that the whole of her head had not been submerged, and insisted that "his wife should be properly baptized." She was consequently dipped effectually a second time, and the poor woman finally made her escape, almost frozen. The next subject was an old lady of seventy-five years. She tottered into the stream by the aid of her crutch, and underwent the same ceremony. Query: would persons submit to those extraordinary tests if they did not possess faith? The third person was a young man of about twenty years, with a calm, placid countenance. He underwent the operation without flinching. < His face was the impersonation of faith and purity. I should have liked to have painted him as a study for a "St. John." They |