passing kind, for years to come, concerning the substantial truth and
certainty of the ecclesiastical Trinity.

When the period arrived for taking my Bachelors degree, it was
requisite again to sign the 39 Articles, and I now found myself
embarrassed by the question of Infant Baptism. One of the articles
contains the following words, "The baptism of young children is in any
wise to be retained, as most agreeable to the institution of Christ."
I was unable to conceal from myself that I did not believe this
sentence; and I was on the point of refusing to take my degree. I
overcame my scruples by considering, 1. That concerning this doctrine
I had no active _dis_-belief, on which I would take any practical
step, as I felt myself too young to make any counterdeclaration: 2.
That it had no possible practical meaning to me, since I could not
be called on to baptize, nor to give a child for baptism. Thus I
persuaded myself. Yet I had not an easy conscience, nor can I now
defend my compromise; for I believe that my repugnance to Infant
Baptism was really intense, and my conviction that it is unapostolic
as strong then as now. The topic of my "youth" was irrelevant; for,
if I was not too young to subscribe, I was not too young to refuse
subscription. The argument that the article was "unpractical" to me,
goes to prove, that if I were ordered by a despot to qualify myself
for a place in the Church by solemnly renouncing the first book of
Euclid as false, I might do so without any loss of moral dignity.
Altogether, this humiliating affair showed me what a trap for the
conscience these subscriptions are: how comfortably they are passed
while the intellect is torpid or immature, or where the conscience is
callous, but how they undermine truthfulness in the active thinker,
and torture the sensitiveness of the tenderminded. As long as they
are maintained, in Church or University, these institutions exert a