A STRANGE PRACTICE by F. A. B.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · June 17, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 25

A STRANGE PRACTICE.

By F. A. B.

BY F. A. B.

About fifty years ago, there was a baptism in Northern New York which occasioned, at the time, much comment, from the fact that the candidates, although converted under the labors of a Congregationalist clergyman, insisted that he should immerse them. After preaching a sermon in the morning against immersion and in favor of sprinkling, the minister stepped into deep water, and dipped his wayward (?) converts. During the ordinance, a young Baptist minister, who witnessed it from the bank, penned the following lines:—

“’Tis very strange, we frankly own, That those who preach immersion down, Will, after all the things they say, Consent to tread that frantic way, And from the pulpit straight repair To practice what they censure there. But, rather than lose a wandering sheep, Whom all their reasoning cannot keep, To please the man (and not his God), They will immerse him in the flood. Pray be consistent, condescender, Thy own good name due service render; Don’t make thy reputation bleed By ridiculing thine own creed. Pray consider (do n’t despise, What one sincerely would advise) Before thou dost this work begin, What’s not of faith must be of sin; And how can willing souls that view What urgent duty bids them do, Receive from such reluctant hands, A work that full belief demands?”