mother, and his name shall be called in Israel, A, the son of B. Let the father rejoice in those that go forth from his loins, and let his mother be glad in the fruit of her womb, as it is written: "Thy father and mother shall rejoice, and they that begat thee shall be glad."' The father of the child then says the following grace: 'Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe! who hath sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us to enter into the covenant of our holy father, Abraham.' The congregation answer: 'As he hath entered into the law, the canopy, and the good and virtuous deeds.'"[59] CHAPTER XIII. MEZIZAH, THE FOURTH OR OBJECTIONABLE ACT OF SUCTION. Biblical and rabbinical traditions throw no light on the origin of the details of the operation as now performed. That it was anciently performed with a knife of stone is certain; an event common in its general observance, and which seems to have pervaded all nations or races, howsoever remote or scattered, that it has induced Tylor[60] to ascribe the origin of the rite to the stone age. We are told that when Moses was returning to the land of Egypt he had neglected circumcising his son, and that because of that neglect he nearly lost his son's life; his wife, Zipporah, the daughter of the Midian king and priest, Jethro, seeing the danger and knowing its cause, took her little son Gershom and circumcised him with a stone knife, and offered the foreskin to God as a peace-offering. Just where the wine was first used we are not told. Wine, however, was an emblem of thanksgiving, and, being one of the fruits of the earth, was considered an acceptable offering to God. It has since, in some form or other, either as wine or as the representative of either divine or human blood, been used in both the Catholic and Protestant Churches in their ceremonials or vicarious sacrifices, or imitations of old customs. Circumcision was by many connected with a blood sacrifice; it was so suggested by the words of Zipporah at the circumcision of Gershom: "And Zipporah, his Midianitish wife, took up a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet and said, 'Surely a _Khathan_ of blood art thou to me.'" Much speculation has followed the use of this word _Khathan_, which, in the ordinary Arabian, may mean either husband or son-in-law; it also means a newly-admitted member of a family; a similar word means "to provide a wedding feast," and one other word from the same root and branch means "to give or receive a daughter in marriage." In our own day, the _mohel_, or ministerial circumciser, makes it a practice to draw a little blood from the skin of such as are presented for the rite, but whom nature has not furnished with sufficient foreskin for the operation. The application, thrice repeated, of the blood and wine to the lips of the child, is probably used as a sign of the sealing of the compact. Wine is mentioned in connection with the High-Priest