The fact has been referred to already that at the great passover, in the days of Hezekiah, to which the remnant of the ten tribes were invited by the king, “a multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet did they eat the passover otherwise than it was written,” not being “cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary;” that, thereupon, a plague was sent among them; but at the intercession of the king, the Lord healed the people. (2 Chron. xxx, 17-20.) In the law, it appears that, at the entreaty of certain persons, who, at the regular time of the passover, were defiled by a dead body, provision was made for a second passover, to be kept a month later, by such as, by reason of defilement, or absence at a great distance, could not keep it at the appointed time. (Num. ix, 6-11.) These facts illustrate the statement of John respecting a certain occasion when the “passover was nigh at hand; and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves.”—John xi, 55. The self-washings could all be performed by the people at home. But, in the later period of Jewish history, the ashes were kept at Jerusalem, and the sprinkling of the unclean usually performed there by the priests alone. Hence, the coming of these Jews to Jerusalem for purifying before the feast. It is thus evident that at all the annual feasts, the preparatory purifying of the people must have been a very conspicuous feature of the occasion, a fact of no little significance, as bearing upon the observances in the Eleusinian mysteries, already referred to. We have shown the name of _baptism_ to have been used to designate both the Levitical rite of sprinkling with the water of separation and the ritual purifyings invented by the scribes. With the growth of ritualistic zeal, the occasions for the latter observances were multiplied. The earliest allusion to them, in the life of our Savior, appears in connection with his first miracle, wrought in Cana of Galilee at the marriage feast. “There were set there six water pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece.”—John ii, 6. That this provision for the purposes of ritual purifying upon such an occasion was absolutely necessary, in obedience to the traditions of the scribes, will presently appear.