“Your grandchild?” inquired the minister.
“Yes,” said Gerhardt, “her father is not here.”
“So,” replied the minister, looking at him curiously.
Gerhardt was not to be disturbed in his purpose. He explained that he and his wife would bring her. The minister, realizing the probable difficulty, did not question him further.
“The church cannot refuse to baptize her so long as you, as grandparent, are willing to stand sponsor for her,” he said.
Gerhardt came away, hurt by the shadow of disgrace in which he felt himself involved, but satisfied that he had done his duty. Now he would take the child and have it baptized, and when that was over his present responsibility would cease.
When it came to the hour of the baptism, however, he found that another influence was working to guide him into greater interest and responsibility. The stern religion with which he was enraptured, its insistence upon a higher law, was there, and he heard again the precepts which had helped to bind him to his own children.
“Is it your intention to educate this child in the knowledge and love of the gospel?” asked the black-gowned minister, as they stood before him in the silent little church whither they had brought the infant; he was reading from the form provided for such occasions. Gerhardt answered “Yes,” and Mrs. Gerhardt added her affirmative.
“Do you engage to use all necessary care and diligence, by prayerful instruction, admonition, example, and discipline that this child may renounce and avoid everything that is evil and that she may keep God’s will and commandments as declared in His sacred word?”
A thought flashed through Gerhardt’s mind as the words were uttered of how it had fared with his own children. They, too, had been thus sponsored. They too, had heard his solemn pledge to care for their spiritual welfare. He was silent.