Excepting the altar, the font is the most ancient and revered liturgical furnishing extant.

Deriving from the Latin fons meaning "spring of water," it refers to the basin from which the faithful are baptized.

Like altars, fonts are fashioned of some earthy substance such as stone or wood, but are often octagonal in shape (referring to the "eight day" i.e., the perfection of God's creation of us in Christ.)

Modern fonts are more frequently waist-height, thus facilitating the sprinkling of the water upon the head of the baptizand.

However, in the early Church, as Scripture attests, the newly baptized were not sprinkled with a handful of still water from a diminutive, albeit elegant, font such as ours, but were brought to "living waters" such as the River Jordan, and fully immersed.

The symbolism, of course, was meant to be indicative of the passage through waters of sin and death and into the new life of Christ, that awaited the newly baptized.

This dual character, of dying and cleansing, is still part and parcel of the baptismal liturgies we celebrate today.

However, while the symbolism has remained the same, the symbol itself has undergone significant revision and transformation.

As the faithful moved from wilderness-worship to becoming more building-bound, the need arose for baptisms to take place, in the church, where the community gathered – after all, you can't always be traipsing down to the river every time you win another convert, especially if, as in the early church, they were coming to the church in droves!

It was this movement, toward having more permanence in the community's place of worship, that heralded the genesis of the font becoming a regular fixture within the church.

Living waters gave way to still waters, but dunking was still all the rage; in fact, early baptismal fonts were, in size and dimension, the virtual "hot tubs" of the first three centuries.

These large pools, were the faithful would received the sacrament of initiation, were of central importance to the community, often occupying a place at the centre of the narthex.

It should be noted, at this point, that in the early church the majority of baptisms were of adult professing the faith.

The church felt it crucial that would be baptizands understand and be able to profess the faith they were receiving.

It was not until the late fourth century that this view began to be seriously challenged.

St. Augustine of Hippo, perhaps the earliest theological heavyweight to advocate infant baptism, suggested that infant baptism was permissible because the faith that was needed to enter into the baptismal covenant was supplied by the community.

This notion of the fides aliena (literally, "the faith belonging to another") made it possible for infants to be baptized since the community who would nurture the child in their life in Christ was professing the faith for the child and through the child.

Whether or not one opts for infant or adult baptism, it should be noted that faith is only one side of the baptismal coin.

For the sacrament of baptism is as much a movement of grace as it is a profession of faith.

In dying to our sin and giving ourselves over to new life in Christ we place our lives in God's hands; and while one may make the argument that faith can be borrowed or lent, with grace, the mysterious gift of God's steadfast love for us which we are sealed in baptism, there can be no barter.