Dorothy Page Part 7

"I guess," said the brother, "that the Greek word translated 'in' there on the margin is the word 'en'. Let's see your Greek Testament, Mr.

Sterling." He examined it and found that the original word was "en."

"It is 'en' and it means 'in', and the right reading of that pa.s.sage is 'ye shall be baptized in the Holy Ghost'. Here, look at this. In this Revised Version it reads just that way. If you had read it that way at first in your King James' Version of the Bible it might have saved you all this argument."

"You must remember, Mr. Sterling," said Dorothy, "that I did not bring this pa.s.sage up to prove immersion, but you brought it up to prove pouring. You spoke very positively about it, but I think you found that if it represented the coming down of water it was like a cloudburst more than anything else."

Sterling was compelled to admit to himself that the Pentecostal baptism was more a picture of immersion than of pouring. He turned the conversation now into another line.

"Even granting," he said, "that immersion is the baptism practiced in New Testament times, it has never seemed to me to be such a prodigiously important matter."

"Oh, Mr. Sterling," said Dorothy with some impatience, "I can't understand such a remark. What do you mean by the word important? If Christ was immersed and commanded it of his followers; if the early Christians were all immersed, and immersion, as Paul indicates, was selected as an outward picture of the spiritual baptism that takes place in conversion, then how can you say it is not important?"

"The fact is, Miss Dorothy, I have never made an exhaustive study of the matter of baptism. I never thought Christ laid any stress upon form, but rather upon the condition of the heart."

"If it is simply a matter of the heart, why baptize at all? Maybe the whole matter is unimportant," said Dorothy. "Would your church like to give up baptism altogether?"

"By no means."

"Would your church accept any kind of baptism except sprinkling or pouring?"

"No, I am sure it would not."

The matter had reached a puzzling stage for Sterling. The question stared him in the face as to whether he had been Scripturally baptized.

In infancy he had been sprinkled, but he had to confess to himself that the Bible teaching seemed to lean towards immersion. In fact, in the recent investigation and discussions he had hardly been able to see anything else but immersion.

He did not return to his office that afternoon, but spent the time at his home searching through the Bible. The discussions at the Page's had filled his mind with pa.s.sages about immersion, but upon later reflection he felt sure that the trend of Scripture pointed strongly to sprinkling and pouring, and with this thought in mind he turned to his Bible study.

CHAPTER VI.

ONE POINT GAINED.

In their discussion on the next morning Dorothy remarked: "Mr. Sterling, let me tell you what I did. I looked up the pa.s.sages that had the word 'baptize' in them and in each case I put the word 'sprinkle' in the place of the word 'baptize' and it surely made curious reading."

"Good for you, daughter," said Mr. Page. "That was an ingenious procedure. Let us have the pa.s.sages to see how they sound. It ought to be a perfectly fair method, because if baptize means to sprinkle then you ought to be able everywhere to put the word 'sprinkle' for the word 'baptize' and it would read all right. That's a fine idea, and now for the pa.s.sages."

Dorothy began with the account of Christ's baptism: "'Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be sprinkled of him'."

"That sounds all right," said Sterling.

"Here is the next one," said Dorothy: "'I have a sprinkling to be sprinkled with and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!' Just imagine Christ speaking of his sufferings in that way, Mr. Sterling. His sufferings were not a sprinkling. But here is another: 'And John also was sprinkling at Aenon near Salem because there was much water there.'

"Again: 'John truly sprinkled with water, but ye shall be sprinkled with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.'"

"That doesn't sound natural," said the father, "to be sprinkled with the Holy Ghost. That would have been a rather light affair."

"Mr. Sterling," said Dorothy, "you remember you said the baptism on the day of Pentecost was by pouring. Suppose you put the word 'pour' in this pa.s.sage and read it, 'John truly poured with water, but ye shall be poured with the Holy Ghost not many days hence'. You could not speak of anybody being poured. You could speak of water or the Spirit being poured, but not of a person being poured. It would not be proper to say you shall be poured with anything. Something could be poured upon you, but you could not be poured with something. That is another reason why the baptism of the Spirit at Pentecost could not have had reference to pouring, because from this pa.s.sage, you see, it would not make sense to put the word 'pour' in it. And besides, Mr. Sterling, I think you are uncertain whether baptism is by pouring or sprinkling."

"Give us another pa.s.sage," said the father; "they are quite interesting."

Dorothy continued: "'And they went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch and he sprinkled him."

"Let us have another pa.s.sage," said the father.

Dorothy continued: "'Therefore we are buried with him by sprinkling into death.'"

"Oh, my," said Mr. Page, bursting into a laugh, "where did you ever see anyone buried by sprinkling a few drops of earth upon him? Say, Friend Sterling, how did this idea of sprinkling get into so many churches? It certainly does not seem to have a single leg to stand upon."

"I can give you some pa.s.sages where the word sprinkle would sound natural; for example this pa.s.sage: 'Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel unto every creature, and he that believeth and is sprinkled shall be saved.' That sounds just as natural as if it read 'he that believeth and is immersed shall be saved'."

"Maybe so," said Mr. Page, "but it sounds just a little limp to me.

Besides, you could hardly put the word 'pour' in that pa.s.sage. If you want to make a real point you must give some pa.s.sage where the word 'sprinkle' would sound natural and the word 'immerse' would seem out of place."

"Yes," spoke up Dorothy. "Can you give us such a pa.s.sage, Mr. Sterling?"

"I have such a pa.s.sage and it will show that immersion could not have been the mode of baptism."

"Out with it," said Mr. Page.

"It is the words spoken to Saul. It reads: 'Arise and be baptized.' Now that baptism could not have been an immersion. Saul was evidently seated and he was told to arise or to stand up. What was he to stand up for? To be sprinkled, of course. You would not ask a man who was seated to stand up to be immersed."

"He would have to stand up before he could be immersed," said Dorothy.

"Why could it not read, 'Arise and be immersed'? Maybe they went off to be immersed. And notice the first part of the verse. It reads: 'Now why tarriest thou? Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.' Those first words 'why tarriest thou' explain the other part. In the first place, he had to arise; that is, to get up in order that he might go off to some place where he could be immersed. In the next place, he tells him not to tarry, not to wait, but to arise and be baptized."

"Good for you, daughter. It does look as if you were telling him not to delay his baptism, but to get up and attend to it."

There was a lull in the conversation for a moment, and then the father asked: "What kind of baptism did they have in the churches just after the apostles died? Don't we find anything in history about the kind of baptism that was practiced?"

Dorothy spoke up promptly: "I was reading in the library yesterday in some of the encyclopedias about baptism and I copied something about that very point you mentioned. Let me get it."

She hurried to her room, brought the book and read as follows: "'Not less than sixty of the ancient baptisteries are found in Italy alone, of which seven belong to the fourth century, four to the fifth, eleven to the sixth and fourteen probably to the seventh.' Then after describing these baptizing pools found in these ancient church buildings the writer continues: 'Now baptisteries such as described above are found in all parts of ancient Christendom, and their presence makes it impossible to doubt the form of baptism in the patristric and medieval churches. Such structures were plainly intended for immersion. Their size and form and arrangement entirely preclude the idea of their use for sprinkling or pouring.'"

"That is a great point. What were those baptizing pools doing there in the churches if they were not for immersion? If the churches in the fourth century baptized by immersion, it surely must have been because that mode had been handed down to them from the beginning."

"There is one argument against immersion that I have not mentioned,"

said Sterling.

"Exactly," said the father with a smile. "You are going now to bring out your Imperial Guards. You've been holding them back for the last a.s.sault, I suppose. All right, trot them out, Sterling."

"Oh, father, what awful figures you use about these Bible matters."

"That's right, daughter, call me down. I will jump the traces every now and then, and I beg pardon. And now, Sterling, what is that argument against immersion that you have not mentioned?"

"It is this: Immersion cannot be right, for it would make infant baptism impossible."

"Infant baptism," exclaimed Dorothy with a very puzzled look. "You don't mean that you baptize infants?"