“Do you christen on Sunday afternoons?” Mrs. Bull asked the Vicar. “My sister is, coming up from Crouch End, and I should like to have baby done, and she can stand for her. My husband don’t care about doing it; and I haven’t got anyone else.”

Mr. and Mrs. Bull had had a large family, and every new arrival was duly brought to the Font on a Sunday afternoon. Some cried more than others, and one lusty boy who had been left till he was rather too big made a dreadful scene. It was as much as Fr. Joyce could do to hold him, and hardly a word of the service could be heard. “Since then I have always taken care to have them done before they get big,” said Mrs. Bull.

The new baby was still in long clothes, however, and presented no difficulty. So a little party gathered round the Font after Catechism. There was Mrs. Bull and her sister, the verger, three little girls who had got wind of something interesting and stayed on after Catechism, the baby, and Fr. Joyce, who looked rather tired.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” said the priest.

“A little girl, sir.”

Then a more formal question: “Hath this child been already baptised or no?” Mrs. Bull understood about this. It recalled a dreadful time when the [1/2] doctor had thought the first baby was not going to live; and the priest had been sent for in a hurry; and when he could not be found, the nurse, who belonged to the Church and knew what to do, had christened him herself. The Vicar; had explained that that was quite enough; nobody could ever be baptised twice. Being baptised was like being born; it could not happen to anyone a second time. It was the beginning of the Christian life. So far it was all simple enough: but when the service actually began, Mrs. Bull always found it difficult to follow, and full of puzzling sentences. “All men are conceived and born in sin”—“none can enter into the kingdom of God except he be regenerate and born anew”—”that he may be received into Christ’s holy Church, and be made a lively member of the same.”

Mrs. Bull’s attention began to wander to something which she really could understand. What a dear little thing baby was! And what a mercy she was sleeping so soundly!

Then someone whispered, “Stand up,” and she found herself listening again, for the priest was reading the text that every mother knows: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.” This started her on a very happy train of thought, which lasted all the time the priest was explaining what Jesus meant. Indeed, she was so much occupied with her own thoughts that she quite lost her place, and was startled when Fr. Joyce turned to her and her sister and said, “I demand therefore . . .” But the verger was used to [2/3] baptisms, and pointed to the word “Answer”: so that she was ready, when the time came, to say, “I renounce them all”: “All this I steadfastly believe”: “That is my desire”: “I will.”

Then the service suddenly became very simple and very solemn. The priest was praying for baby that “all things belonging to the Spirit may live and grow in her . . . that she may have” power and strength to have victory and to triumph.” Then he blessed the water, and said, “Name this child.” He poured the water on her forehead, and said: “Ivy Florence, I baptise thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” He made a cross on her forehead, “in token that hereafter she shall not be ashamed....” Then in a very confident voice he said: “Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is now regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ’s Church ...” “What does it mean?” thought Mrs. Bull. But the next moment: her” unspoken question was in a way answered, for she found that they were saying the Our Father, and somehow, since the baptism, baby seemed to have a new kind of share in that. Anyhow, she was thinking of baby more than of herself when she said, “Give us this day our daily bread ... Lead us not into temptation’... Deliver us from evil.”

Then the priest said that she and her sister must explain to “this child” all about her solemn vow, and a good many other things, about which Mrs. Bull did not feel very clear herself, if the truth must be told.

[4] And, finally, in rather stern tones, “Ye are to take care that this child be brought to the Bishop to be confirmed by him....” And then, rather suddenly, the service came to an end, and the verger whispered to her to go to the vestry.

This she knew was only for filling up of the register, which was a very simple matter. But somehow the conversation turned on to Mr. Bull and what he thought about Holy Baptism.

“What is your husband’s Christian name?”

“John.”

“And what is his occupation?”

“Boiler-maker.”

“What a pity he could not come to-day!”

“Well, sir, he always says he doesn’t see much sense in it. He doesn’t interfere with me, but he says it’s just a form. Well, I suppose that’s what it is, isn’t it—a kind of form?”

“Yes, it is a form; but it is not just an empty form. Did you notice how, after the baptism, I said, “This child is regenerate’? That means that the child has now begun its spiritual life, just as it began its natural life when it was born. But you must let me come round one evening and talk to you both about it. Let me see: we must get this register finished. What is your address?”

Next Fr. Joyce produced a brightly-coloured card, and wrote the child’s name out in full with the date of her baptism, and pointed out that there were still two empty spaces waiting for the dates of Confirmation and First Communion. And [4/5] when these dates were filled up, still one more space for a priest’s signature to show that it was
all right.

About half-past eight on Tuesday evening Fr. Joyce knocked at 16, Clarendon Street, and was lucky enough to find both Mr. and Mrs. Bull at home. He did not talk about the weather, but asked after the children by name, and then said: “Now perhaps we can finish that talk we started on Sunday afternoon.... Oh, don’t go, Mr. Bull; I came at this time on purpose to find you in.”

Mr. Bull had only made as though he were going because he thought mother and the parson wanted to have a religious talk, and that he would be in the way. He would have made a move in just the same way if the doctor had come, but he was quite willing to stay if he was wanted: and Fr. Joyce really seemed to have something to

“I want to explain to you about Baptism,” he said: “people do seem to have such queer ideas about it. Someone told me the other day that she thought it was ‘unlucky’ not to have children christened! It is really very simple. When Jesus Christ came into the world he found there was something wrong with the whole human race. They were thoroughly selfish. And because they were selfish, they became greedy, unkind, and quarrelsome: they turned against God, and lived for themselves. No one knows exactly why this happened; but it is certainly true: human nature has a terrible lot of selfishness in it.”

[6] “Yes, you’re right,” muttered Mr. Bull: “the working man never gets a chance.”

“I don’t think any of us would have a chance, if it weren’t for the mercy of God. Human nature has a lot of good in it, of course, but there’s a lot of bad as well. And the clearest sign of that is that’ we actually put Jesus Christ to death. And he was hot the only one. We’re a cruel, selfish race, Mr. Bull: and we seem to do a lot of cruel, selfish things by nature somehow or other. It seems born in us, doesn’t it?”

“It does that,” said Mr. Bull. “I gave young Jack a proper hiding last week for ill-treating a cat.” But Mr. Bull’s eyes gleamed as though he had enjoyed giving that hiding quite as much as Jack had enjoyed torturing the cat.

“Of course Jesus Christ himself is the great exception. He was born of a Virgin, and there was no sin in him. But the rest of us have sin fairly bred in us.

“And if we can see that for ourselves, we may be sure that God sees it far more clearly. Children are born innocent—of course they are—but there’s a deal of mischief which God must see lying hid in every baby: and as it grows up, sure enough the mischief shows itself.

“Well, it is not enough for Jesus Christ to have shown us a good example: what we want is a new nature. And it is because he offers us this that we call him our Saviour. Now the Gospel tells us that he himself spoke of Baptism as a new Birth, and said that we could not enter [6/7] the Kingdom of Heaven without it. In Baptism he gives us a share in his own wonderful sinless human life: we are joined on to him; and unless we deliberately turn against him, we always have him within us to help us to get rid of our selfishness, and serve God and our fellows.

“And more than that. We become members of a great world-wide family of men and women who are pledged to renounce sin and believe the truth, and do the right. That was what you undertook for baby, you remember, Mrs. Bull; but she will not be alone in the struggle: she will be a member of the Society of Unselfish Workers—what he call ‘the Church.’”

“It is a sort of Union, you mean?” put in Mr. Bull.

“Yes; or an International, if you like. The
Church is a bigger thing than the Church of England.”

“Well, christening doesn’t seem to have done Jack much good.”

“You must give God time, Mr. Bull. If Jack goes on saying his prayers and going to Communion, God will make a saint of him yet: in the next world, if not in this. But you must not forget that there are two more spaces to be filled up on his Baptism Card. Baptism is not really complete until we have been confirmed. Goodnight, Mr. Bull.”

“Good-night, sir. Perhaps you’ll be seeing me round at your place one Sunday night.”

“Perhaps. Good-night.”