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round the neck, with a large white coif on their heads. These descended the steps one at a time, and placed themselves before the priest, who stood immersed to above the knee in the water, in this representative of the Jordan, enveloped in a large black gown. The minister pronounced in English, before the young woman, also immersed in the water, the words, " I baptize thee in the name," &c. &c.; and, as soon as he had uttered these words, plunged the poor young woman entirely into the water. After some splashing, she was quickly lifted up again, and immediately taken away to be dried and dressed. Some of them, choked by the water, set up a shriek in the very act of being ducked by this Vice St. John. Not so a young man, who was baptized in the same style; of the age, perhaps, of about twenty-five,

black-bearded, with none of his clothes off but his coat, trowsers, waistcoat, and shoes, he entered as he was into the cistern; and, as one accustomed to swim across a river, underwent the ceremony as if it were a mere wash. The witty Butler, in his burlesque poem of " Hudibras," in which he banters all the sects, says, to raise a laugh at the Baptists, that their creed is

"An ignis-fatuus that bewitches

And leads men into pools and ditches,

To make them dip themselves, and sound
For Christendom in dirty pound,

To dive like wild-fowl for salvation,
And fish to catch regeneration."

For myself, I can only say that it was terribly hot in this crowded little chapel, being the first of June; and that the heat, more than anything else, convinced me

RR

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ITALIAN EXILE IN ENGLAND.

that the Baptists have special good reason on their side in the summer. I was told, however, that many members of the sect, not liking the ceremony either in summer or winter, neglect receiving baptism altogether; which, with these sectaries, is not a sacrament, or an essential right, but merely an explicit declaration (made at the age when a man knows what he is doing) that he enters into the communion of Christians. From the book of Dr. Evans it appears that some of the Baptists, in order to be more consistent, and to follow the Gospel with the utmost possible exactness, instead of celebrating baptism in the artificial Jordan, go to the banks of a real and actual river, and there dip themselves with all the precision imaginable.

QUAKER S.

Mr. Fry--Fowell Buxton-Quaker Ladies-Dinner-tableIndian "Kings"-Mrs. Fry-Discourtesy of George IV.— Parliamentary Justice--Domestic Habits of Quakers — Prison Preaching- Female Convicts -Benevolence.

THE banker, Fry, a rich Quaker of London, and a man extremely courteous to all the foreigners who have recommendations to him, the first day I made his acquaintance, invited me to dine with him at his brother-in-law's, Mr. Buxton, the member of Parliament, and told me to ask for him, in order that he might present me to our host. At six o'clock precisely, I give a

sonorous knock at the door of Mr. Buxton's house; the servant, thinking me one of the guests, opens the door, and shows me the way to the dining-room, and I, believing it so arranged by Mr. Fry, enter with all confidence and intrepidity; when, behold! I find myself in the midst of a great number of guests at table, with no Mr. Fry to be seen. Such a mishap might disconcert anybody, and especially one who spoke English rather ill, and yet ought by rights to justify, by the finest phrases of the Galateo, his extemporaneous appearance among unknown and astonished individuals. But what would not his surprise have been at finding himself, as I did, in the midst of the smoke of the viands, and several blazing candles, in the presence of a number of ladies, uniformly dressed, after the fashion of nuns,

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