"Miss Dorothy," said Mr. Sterling, "I think you could join my church, and I think you ought to do so, even though you do not believe these two doctrines."
"Daughter, if you won't join the Presbyterian church, I don't know which way you will look."
"But why, Miss Dorothy, can you not join my church?"
"Because I feel it would be wrong for me to join your church believing as I do about these matters."
"Wrong for you to join that church, daughter? I can't see where any wrong would be involved in your joining any decent church."
"Don't you think, father, that it would be wrong for me to join a church that teaches that infants ought to be baptized and that sprinkling is baptism, when the Bible seems so clearly to me to teach that infants ought not to be baptized and that only immersion is baptism? What about my baptism? I would have to be sprinkled if I joined your church, would I not, Mr. Sterling?"
"I think you ought to be sprinkled," he replied.
"Do you think I ought to be sprinkled when I think the New Testament teaches so clearly that immersion is baptism?"
"But, Miss Dorothy, will you set your judgment up against the judgment of the learned divines and scholars of the churches?"
"I do not set myself up against them, but Dr. Moreland said that each one of us must study our Bible and go where it led us; and besides, Mr. Sterling, I have considered all your arguments for sprinkling and all Dr. Vincent's arguments for infant baptism, and I take for granted that you have brought out the strongest passages on that side, and yet in the face of them it seems to me that none of the passages point to sprinkling and infant baptism, while many passages point clearly to the baptism only of believers and to immersion as the only baptism. I must not put away my judgment and go directly against that to follow the judgment of another, must I? Suppose I should join your church, believing that your church was doing wrong in putting something else in the place of Bible baptism; think how uncomfortable I would feel. I would either have to keep silent about what I believed or else I would be constantly engaged in argument with the members."