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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: baptism was valid--and to have rendered it null, the blunder of the priest
should have fallen upon the first syllable of each noun--and not, as in
your case, upon the last.
My father delighted in subtleties of this kind, and listen'd with infinite
attention.
Gastripheres, for example, continued Kysarcius, baptizes a child of John
Stradling's in Gomine gatris, &c. &c. instead of in Nomine patris, &c.--Is
this a baptism? No--say the ablest canonists; in as much as the radix of
each word is hereby torn up, and the sense and meaning of them removed and
changed quite to another object; for Gomine does not signify a name, nor
gatris a father.--What do they signify? said my uncle Toby.--Nothing at
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