14 OCTOBER 1882, Page 3

The Geneva correspondent of the Times reports a most sin-

gular religious movement at Basle, upon which he might have expended a few more words. The Evangelical Protestants there, who are important, both from their position among Continental Protestants, and the energy they have always displayed upon the subject of Missions, Basle being, in fact, the centre of foreign Protestant Missionary life, would appear to have come to the conclusion that of all the Christian ordinances, Baptism is the least necessary. They are not moved, to judge from their action, by the old Anabaptist view, which rejected baptism, or the Quaker view, which questions the utility of all ordinances, or even the negative view, but simply think this particular ordinance useless. The Synod has, accordingly, by 39 votes to 32, referred to the Consistory a proposal that baptism be no longer a condition either of confirmation or of admission to the Communion, and that words in the Catechism implying such necessity be left out Heresies are endless, but this addition of one which, rejecting baptism, enforces con- firmation, deserves, if only as an odd aberration, a fuller account: