I am thankful today that I've had a chance to read some many wonderful writers over the last few months. So many of the books I've been reading are just terrific. Here's a passage from Davies that I read last night. Darcourt, BTW, is the priest, and Al and his wife are very soon expecting, but it would be impossible to give you the full context for this:

. . . she and Al were quick to say that they did not believe that a few words mumbled by a parson over their child could make any difference to his future life.


Darcourt forbre to tell them that he thought they were wrong, and silly in their wrongness. He had reservations about many of the things which he, as a clergyman, was expected to believe and endorse publicly, but about the virtues of baptism he had no doubt. Its solely Christian implications apart, it was the acceptance of a new life into a society that thereby declared that it had a place for that new life; it was an assertion of an attitude towad life that was expressed in the Creed which was a part of the service in a form archaic and compressed but full of noble implication. The parents and godparents might think they did not believe that Creed, as they recited it, but it was plain to Darcourtthat they were living in a society which had its roots in that Creed; if there had been no Creed, and no cause for the formulation of that Creed, vast portions of civilization would never have come into being, and those who smiled at the Creed or disegarded it altogether nevertheless stood firmly on its foundation . . .