Bertha and Her Baptism

By the Author of AGNES AND THE LITTLE KEY; or , BEREAVED PARENTS INSTRUCTED AND COMFORTED.
BOSTON: S.K. WHIPPLE AND COMPANY, 161 Washington Street. 1857.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by S.K. WHIPPLE & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. STEREOTYPED BY HOBART & ROBBINS, New England Type and Stereotype Foundry, BOSTON.
This book, and that which is also named in the title-page, were written at the same time, and as one book; but they were afterward separated, as more properly constituting two volumes, the part which was the original of the present volume now being greatly enlarged. Thus the two books grew in the author's mind together, from one and the same root,—the death of a little child.
Page

Probabilities of an Ordinance for Children.
'Tis aye a solemn thing to me To look upon a babe that sleeps, Wearing in its spirit-deeps The unrevealed mystery Of its Adam's taint and woe.—Miss Barrett. Heaven lies about us in our infancy.—Wordsworth.
It is generally believed that, of those who have gone to heaven from this world, by far the larger part have been infants and young children. Born here, they were by one man's disobedience made sinners; born of the Spirit, at their early translation to heaven, they hold an important place in the plan of salvation by Christ. Very beautiful, as well as sublime, is the thought of so large a contribution, to the heavenly world, of human beings in the dawn of their existence, enhancing, as we may suppose, the happiness of heaven by such large admixture of exotic, youthful nature, and illustrating, by their redemption from a helpless state of sin and misery, the unsearchable riches of wisdom and grace.
Has God done anything, in this world, to mark his regard for that class of the human race constituting, thus far, the greater part of the redeemed? We naturally look for something reminding the world of his interest in these subsidiaries of his kingdom. Has he confined his notice to those that are full-grown, and who have, thus far, the larger part of them, withheld from him the fruit of his vineyard? God has a church on earth, with ordinances, symbols, covenant signs: among them is there not some sign, symbol, or ordinance, recognizing those who, more than any other of the race, have, till now, been swelling the numbers of that church in heaven?