BAPTISM AND INFANTICIDE.
[TO THE EDITOR OP TEN "SPECTATOR"] SIR,—Having copied out the registers of several rural parishes, I can bear witness to the fact that two and three hundred years ago it was a rare thing for a base-born child to live to be a year old. More recently, at least in the nineteenth century, the infant was allowed to survive. But I recall how disgusted I was in my last parish of some two thousand souls at the sanctimonious and hypocritical remarks of the old women over the fact that a babe with one parent had become a little angeL It has always passed my under- standing why in the teaching given by the Church on infant baptism the main reason for it is ignored,—namely, the attitude of the Greek and Roman world on this very subject of infanticide.—I am, Sir, &c., R. C. FAITHFULL. Glinton Rectory, Peterborough.
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