On Advent Sunday, our grandson Christian became a Christian. He was baptised, sleeping, in the font of our parish church. On the whiteboard in the maternity ward, the newborn’s name beneath his was Mohamed. As is usual (and, in my view, preferable) nowadays, he was christened in the middle of the communion rather than separately. As is less usual, the rite was that of the Book of Common Prayer, ‘The Ministration of Publick Baptism of Infants’. It is tougher than the modern version. The godparents, in the name of the child, had to ‘renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, and the carnal desires of the flesh’, but managed with perfect equanimity to drink champagne afterwards. My suggestion of the hymn ‘Christian, dost thou see them’ (including the line ‘Christian, up and smite them’) was rejected, but Bunyan’s original version of ‘To be a pilgrim’ was sung, including the ‘hobgoblin’. It was a happy occasion. If Christian’s pilgrimage through a dark world proves difficult, that will be nothing new, and he will be in good company.

If present trends continue, however, that company will be more select than in the past. In 1956, when I was baptised – as was John Constable 180 years earlier – in East Bergholt parish church, more than half of all live births in Britain received the same sacrament. Christian will be part of about 10 per cent. Will he find........

© The Spectator