the ceremony being performed in a river.

The officiating Brahman priest, who was called Gooroo, or
Pastor,[318:1] rubbed mud on the candidate, _and then plunged him three
times into the water_. During the process the priest said:

"O Supreme Lord, this man is impure, like the mud of this
stream; but as water cleanses him from this dirt, _do thou
free him from his sin_."[318:2]

Rivers, as sources of fertility and purification, were at an early date
invested with a sacred character. Every great river was supposed to be
permeated with the divine essence, and its waters held to cleanse from
all moral guilt and contamination. And as the Ganges was the most
majestic, so it soon became the holiest and most revered of all rivers.
No sin too heinous to be removed, no character too black to be washed
clean by its waters. Hence the countless temples, with flights of steps,
lining its banks; hence the array of priests, called "Sons of the
Ganges," sitting on the edge of its streams, ready to aid the ablutions
of conscience-stricken bathers, and stamp them as white-washed when they
emerge from its waters. Hence also the constant traffic carried on in
transporting Ganges water in small bottles to all parts of the
country.[318:3]

The ceremony of baptism was a practice of the followers of _Zoroaster_,
both for infants and adults.

M. Beausobre tells us that:

"The ancient _Persians_ carried their infants to the temple a
few days after they were born, and presented them to the
priest before the sun, and before the fire, which was his
symbol. _Then the priest took the child and baptized it for
the purification of the soul._ Sometimes he plunged it into a
great vase full of water: it was in the same ceremony that the
father gave a name to the child."[318:4]

The learned Dr. Hyde also tells us that infants were brought to the
temples and baptized by the priests, sometimes by sprinkling and
sometimes by immersion, plunging the child into a large vase filled with
water. This was to them a regeneration, or a purification of their
souls. A name was at the same time imposed upon the child, as indicated
by the parents.[318:5]

The rite of baptism was also administered to adults in the _Mithraic_
mysteries during initiation. The foreheads of the initiated being marked
at the same time with the "_sacred sign_," which was none other than the
sign of the CROSS.[319:1] The Christian Fathe