_Mr. M._ They were not immersed without clothing, of course, promiscuously, and, therefore, I believe that they were all baptized by sprinkling or pouring, their loose upper garments allowing them to step into the water, or very near it; and John, standing there (and the apostles, also, when they administered baptism), and laying on the water with his hand, or, which is not impossible, with the long-accustomed bunches of hyssop. The Episcopal mode of administering the Lord's Supper, enables me to conceive how baptism by sprinkling could be administered rapidly. As six or more people are kneeling, the Episcopal minister gives each his portion of the bread, and repeats the formula, not to each one, but once only while his hand is passing over the six. So, I imagine, John repeated whatever form he had (and the apostles theirs) to companies, while, in rapid succession, he applied the water to them. It is impossible to account for the performance of such incredible labor as John must have undergone, unless we adopt some such supposition as this, or confess that John's baptism was, throughout, a miracle. But "the people said, John did no miracle." If the apostles sprinkled three thousand in this way, by companies, in one day, as they could easily have done, we can see how the same day there could be "added unto them about three thousand souls," even if "added" meant being baptized. That the apostles had assistance in administering baptism at this early period, is not probable. They had not yet proposed to have helpers in taking care of the poor, much less to share with them the first administration of Christian baptism. If any church were to require me to believe, before admitting me to the Lord's table, that the apostles immersed three thousand people at the day of Pentecost, after nine o'clock in the morning, in the midst of necessary labors, and at that driest season of the year, or in tanks, I could no more believe it than I could confess that the earth is flat. _Mrs. K._ But "John was baptizing in Enon, near to Salim, because there was much water there."