THOMPSON Memorial Dimensions of Baptism 315
will find and know Christ in their midst was answered through the one
baptized him/herself.
We must turn from Edwards to another source to complete our survey of
dimensions of baptismal memory in earlier Baptist life, the hymns sung by
Baptist communities. In song, earlier Baptists placed in the context of bap-tism two further dimensions of Christian memory: affect and the work of
the Holy Spirit.^44 Like religion itself, memory is impossible apart from
affective associations.^45 We need to make a distinction, however, for affec-
tion is not a simple emotional attraction and nothing more. This would
relegate the affections to feeling alone. Don Saliers cautions against this,
noting that the Christian affections name an enduring orientation to life;
life characterized by gratitude, awe, joy, hope, repentant sorrow, love of
God and neighbor. Through the affections, Christians remember and sounderstand God and the world.^46 'In coming to have the affections',
Saliers notes,'.. .we are reminded of who God is... The world and all the
things in it are perceived and remembered in a certain way.'^47
On the other hand, Baptists in America share in the revivalist traditions
of the Great Awakenings. These certainly included an element of strong
emotion. This element has been made perhaps far too centrally important
in the drama of conversion. Yet we ought not to exclude the emotional
aspect simply because it is often over-emphasized. Edmund Blair Bolles
notes that were there no emotional association at all there would be noth-
ing to make that which is remembered memorable. He adds, though, that
memory is more complicated than simple emotional memory.^48 Thus we
are brought back to Saliers' proper emphasis upon affect.
Hymns allow us to see baptism as the point at which emotional associa-
tion toward Christ melded into orientation to the world through affections- Were we not constrained by space in this essay, we could study as well the
previously mentioned memorial dimensions as well. Indeed, it is in the hymnody that
we find explicit memorial language connected to baptism by Baptists. 'While through
the watery grave we go, Thee to remembrance may it bring...'; S. Caldwell and
A. Gordon (eds.) The Service of Song for Baptist Churches (Boston, MA: Lincoln and
Gould, 1872), hymn 818, p. 548. - Wilken, Remembering, pp. 165-66, states that there can be no religious life at
all without affections. - Saliers, 'Liturgy', pp. 179-82, and his, 'Religious Affections and the Grammar
of Prayer', in R. Bell (ed.), The Grammar of the Heart: New Essays in Moral Philoso-
phy and Theology (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), pp. 188-205 (191-92). - Saliers, 'Affections', p. 194.
- Bolles, Remembering, pp. 23-28, 38.