Chapter XV
The return of Gerhardt brought forward the child question in all its bearings. He could not help considering it from the standpoint of a grandparent, particularly since it was a human being possessed of a soul. He wondered if it had been baptized. Then he inquired.
"No, not yet," said his wife, who had not forgotten this duty, but had been uncertain whether the little one would be welcome in the faith.
"No, of course not," sneered Gerhardt, whose opinion of his wife's religious devotion was not any too great. "Such carelessness! Such irreligion! That is a fine thing."
He thought it over a few moments, and felt that this evil should be corrected at once.
"It should be baptized," he said. "Why don't she take it and have it baptized?"
Mrs. Gerhardt reminded him that some one
