THE subject of religious ordinances is frequently referred to by those who are interested in Christian Science, adversely or otherwise, and the neophyte is often called upon to give a reason for his changed views concerning Baptism and the Communion. With respect to the former, we find it first mentioned in the Bible as the distinguishing feature of John the Baptist's ministry. There is a tradition that his father, Zacharias the high priest, was slain at the altar (Luke, 11: 51), because of his refusal to give up his child in obedience to Herod's cruel edict which condemned to death all the infants in Judaea in order to kill the child Jesus. John was, however, hidden by his mother, it is said, in the desert, where he lived the life of an ascetic up to the time of his public ministry, which was cut short by his violent death for daring to rebuke Herod's immorality.
John had every reason to know the utter powerlessness of rite and ceremonial to save from sin and suffering, and so had thousands of his countrymen who offered their sacrifices and listened to the reading of the law and the prophets, but who could find no remedy for their sicknesses, and lived in constant dread of what might befall them or their children from the bloodthirsty tyrants who ruled the nation. Some of these needy ones came readily to listen to John as he preached in the wilderness, calling to them, "prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."
We thus find the son of a high priest leading the people away from the observances of the church of his father, and of theirs, while preaching the doctrine of repentance from sin, and with no rite save the symbolic water baptism which, he told his converts, must give place to the baptism of the Holy Ghost. To this prophet came Jesus, "To be baptized of him," but John saw that a material rite was not for such as he. He, however, yielded to what seemed the demand of the hour, obedience to which brings a blessing to all those who follow their highest sense of truth. At the close of the simple ceremony "the heavens were opened" and Jesus was divinely impelled, was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness, where, like Moses and Elijah, he learned in his forty days' fast and vigil that man lives in and by God, Spirit, alone. Thus baptized of the Holy Ghost, he went forth to heal the sick and the sinful, to raise the dead, and to prove that this baptism gives man dominion over all the forces of nature, as well as over all evil.
