"'The holy Prior talked to us only of his ancestry, of his good parts, of the influence with the Father Provincial; of the love which the principal ladies and the wives of the richest merchants manifested to him, of his beautiful voice, of his consummate skill in music. In fact, that we might not doubt him in this particular, he took the guitar and sung a sonnet which he had composed to a certain _Amaryllis_. This was a new scandal to our newly arrived _religious_, which afflicted some of them to see such libertinage in a prelate, who ought, on the contrary, to have set an example of penance and self-mortification, and should shine like a mirror in his conduct and words.... In the Prior's cell of the Convent of Vera Cruz' (concluded this character sketch) 'we listened to a melodious voice, accompanied with a harmonious instrument, we saw treasures and riches, we ate exquisite confectioneries, we breathed amber and musk, with which he had perfumed his syrups and conserves. O, that delicious Prior!' exclaims our English monk, the humor of the situation overcoming his horror of the scandalous behavior of the ecclesiastic." "And now," said the Minister, producing some leaves of sermon-like script, "may I call your attention, my friends, to the striking analogies found in the religious usages and belief of the Aztec,--correspondent with those of the Christian,--some of which I have considered in this little paper? "One of the most extraordinary coincidences with Christian rites may, I think, be traced in their ceremony of naming their children,--the Aztec baptism. An account of this rite, preserved by Sahagan, is thus put into English: "'When everything,' says the chronicler, 'necessary for the baptism had been made ready, all the relations of the child were assembled, and the midwife, who was the person that performed the rite of baptism. After a solemn invocation, the head and lips of the infant were touched with water, and a name was given it; while the goddess Cioacoatl, who presided over childbirth, was implored that "the sin which was given to this child before the beginning of the world might not visit the child, but that, cleansed by these waters, it might live and be born anew." This,' continues the narrator, 'is the exact formula used: "O my child! take and receive the water of the Lord of the world, which is our life, and is given for the increasing and renewing of our body. It is to wash and purify. I pray that these heavenly drops may enter into your body and dwell there, that they may destroy and remove from you all the sin which was given to you at the beginning of the world.