4. To signalize this native corruption of man and the remedy, the ordinances concerning the defilement of _nidda_ and its cleansing were appointed. In them the new born infant was regarded as the product of overflowing corruption, and as a fountain of defilement to the mother, who thus became unclean, until purified with the water of separation. 5. The child was identified with the mother in this uncleanness (1) as being its cause in her; (2) as being subject to her touch, which was defiling to the clean; and (3) as being bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, born of her body. 6. In accordance with the doctrine of man’s native defilement, above illustrated, it was characteristic of the law that it recognized none as clean, unless purged by water of sprinkling. The infants at Sinai were so purified and admitted to the covenant, as well as their parents. So it was with the daughters of Midian; and no other principle was known to the law,—no other practice tolerated by it. “The man” (the person) “that shall be unclean, and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation, because he hath defiled the sanctuary of the Lord: the water of separation hath not been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean.”—Num. xix, 20. 7. It is a very remarkable fact, that while we have in the Scriptures but one single example specifically mentioned of the purifying of an infant from this ritual defilement of birth, that example occurs in the person of Him respecting whom the angel said to Mary, “That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”—Luke i, 35. In the same gospel in which is this record, we read, respecting Mary, in the common version, that “when the days of _her_ purification, according to the law of Moses, were accomplished, they brought Jesus to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.”—Ib. ii, 22. But it is agreed by critical editors that this is a corrupted reading, which is wholly without authority from any respectable manuscript. Instead of “the days (_autēs_) _of her_ purification,” it should read (_autōn_), “the days _of their_ purification;” that is, of both mother and child. Beside all the other authorities, the three oldest manuscripts, Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Alexandrinus, unite in this reading. How the mothers were purified, we have seen; and, from these facts, we know the children to have shared with them in the baptism. SECTION XIX.—_The Baptism of the Levites._