“On the evening of a bitterly cold day in mid-winter, I walked four miles to the house of a local elder for baptism. Arriving at his house, we waited until midnight, in order that the neighbors might not disturb us, and then repaired to a stream of water a quarter of a mile away. Here we found the water, as we anticipated, frozen over, and the elder had to chop a hole in the ice large enough for the purpose of baptism. It was a scene and an occasion I shall never forget, Memory to-day brings back the emotions and sweet awe of that moment. None but God and his angels, and the few witnesses who stood on the bank with us, heard my covenant but in the solemnity of that midnight hour it seemed as though all nature was listening, and the recording angel writing our words in the book of the Lord.”
– Priscilla Mogridge Staines (1823-1899), on her baptism in England, quoted in The Witness of Women, by Janiece Johnson and Jennifer Reeder
Do you think Priscilla walked the four miles home in the bitterly cold dark while wearing wet clothes?
I hope not. I know from other accounts that they generally took clothes to change into, and have to assume they did in this case, too!
I have a missionary son again now and I love sending him things like this from Keepa. This was the first one of this mission. Thanks.
My Danish great-great grandparents were baptized under similar circumstances. They had to be baptized at night to avoid the mobs. Their life history says they walked home in frozen wet clothes!