Colonial Days in Old New York by Alice Morse Earle

As soon as the little American baby was born in New Netherland, he was taken to the church by his Dutch papa, and with due array of sponsors was christened by the domine from the _doop-becken_, or dipping-bowl, in the Dutch Reformed Church. New Yorkers had a beautiful silver _doop-becken_ in 1695, and the church on the corner of Thirty-Eighth Street and Madison Avenue has it still. It was made in Amsterdam from silver coin and ornaments brought by the good folk of the Garden Street Church as offerings. For it Domine Henricus Selyns, "of nimble faculty," then minister of that church, and formerly of Breuckelen, and the first poet of Brooklyn, wrote these pious and graceful verses, which were inscribed on the bowl:

"Op't blote water stelt geen hoot / 'Twas beter noyt gebooren. / Maer, ziet iets meerder in de Dorp / Zo' gaet nien noÿt verlooren. / Hoe Christús met sÿn dierbaer Bloedt / Mÿ reÿniglt van myn Zonden. / En door syn Geest mÿ leven doet / En wast mÿn Vuÿle Wonden."