174 THE LIGHT OF DAT 



shock our religious sensibilities ; they make atheists 

 and scoffers. 



In a city near me there is a large cemetery, in a 

 neglected corner of which is a multitude of children's 

 graves which have the appearance of being outcasts, 

 reprobates ; and so they are. These children were 

 not baptized, therefore they cannot be buried in con- 

 secrated ground ; their blameless little souls are in 

 hell, and their bodies are huddled together here in 

 this neglected corner. This is a glimpse of the 

 beauty of the Catholic creed. The Jewish cabalists 

 used to believe that the utterance of certain magical 

 words engraved upon the seal of Solomon would trans- 

 form a man into a brute, or a brute into a man. The 

 Catholics ascribe the same magical power to water 

 in the hands of a priest. When the service is read 

 and the unconscious infant is baptized, at that mo- 

 ment a miraculous change is wrought in its nature, 

 and Eome says with true Christian charity, "Let 

 him be accursed " who believes it not. The mere 

 knowledge of such things is hurtful. And it re- 

 quires rare Christian forbearance to read the An- 

 dover creed and not fall from the grace of brotherly 

 love. Is it not easy to see what short work Jesus 

 would have made of these creedmongers, he who was 

 the friend of publicans and sinners, the rebuker of 

 formalists, the contemner of lip service, who laid all 

 the emphasis upon the condition of the heart and the 

 attitude of the spirit, who said to the chief priest of 

 the popular religion of his time, " The publicans and 

 harlots go into the kingdom of heaven before you " ? 



