born anew." "This
interesting rite, usually solemnized with great formality, in
the presence of assembled friends and relations, is detailed
with minuteness by Sahagun and by Zuazo, both of them
eyewitnesses."

Rev. J. P. Lundy says:

"Now, as baptism of some kind has been the _universal custom_
of all religious nations and peoples for purification and
regeneration, it is not to be wondered at that it had found
its way from high Asia, the centre of the Old World's religion
and civilization, into the American continent. . . .

"American priests were found in Mexico, beyond Darien,
baptizing boys and girls a year old in the temples at the
cross, pouring the water upon them from a small
pitcher."[323:1]

The water which they used was called the "WATER OF REGENERATION."[323:2]

The Rev. Father Acosta alludes to this baptism by saying:

"The Indians had an infinite number of other ceremonies and
customs which resembled to the ancient law of Moses, and some
to those which the Moores use, and some approaching near to
the Law of the Gospel, as the baths or _Opacuna_, as they
called them; _they did wash themselves in water to cleanse
themselves from sin_."[323:3]

After speaking of "_confession which the Indians used_," he says:

"When the Inca had been confessed, he made a certain bath to
cleanse himself, in a running river, saying these words: '_I
have told my sins to the Sun_ (his god); _receive them, O thou
River, and carry them to the Sea, where they may never appear
more._'"[323:4]

He tells us that the Mexicans also had a baptism for infants, which they
performed with great ceremony.[323:5]

Baptism was also practiced in Yucatan. They administered it to children
three years old; and called it REGENERATION.[323:6]

The ancient Peruvians also baptized their children.[323:7]

History, then, records the fact that all the principal nations of
antiquity administered the rite of baptism to their children, and to
adults who were initiated into the sacred mysteries. The words
"_regenerationem et impunitatem perjuriorum suorum_"--used by the
heathen in this ceremony--prove that the doctrines as well as the
outward forms were the same. The giving of a name to the child, the
marking of him with the _cross_ as a sign of his being a soldier of
Christ, followed at fifteen years of age by his admission i