“The _symbols_ of the same worship have been to some extent explained by persons writing at a time when they were still a living though fast expiring language. Of such writers the most valuable is Plutarch, who in his curious treatise _De Iside et Osiride_, has given the meaning of several of these symbols, and, as it would appear, upon very good authority. According to him, Isis sometimes signifies the Moon, in which sense she is denoted by a Crescent: sometimes the Earth as fecundated by the waters of the Nile. For this reason water, as the seed of Osiris, was carried in a vase in the processions in honor of this goddess.”[76] JAMES BONWICK, F.R.G.S., says: “The baptism of Egypt is known by the hieroglyphic terms of ‘waters of purification.’ In Egypt, as in Peru, the water so used in immersion absolutely cleansed the soul, and the person was said to be _regenerated_. The water itself was holy, and the place was known, as afterwards by the Eastern Christians, by the name of _holy bath_. The early Christians called it being ‘brought anew into the world.’ The ancients always gave a new name at baptism, which custom was afterwards followed by moderns. The Mithraic font for the baptism of ancient Persians is regarded as of Egyptian origin. Augustine may, then, well say that ‘in many sacrilegious rites of idols, persons are reported to be baptized.’”[77] The Sacred Nile. Pagan water-worship everywhere was closely associated with sacred rivers. HARDWICK speaks of the Nile as follows: “As the Nile, for instance, was a sacred river and as such was invoked in the Egyptian hymns among the foremost of the national gods, whatever bore directly on the culture of the soil, and the succession of the crops in every district of the Nile valley, was enforced among the duties claimed from husbandmen by that divinity. To brush its sacred surface with the balance bucket at a forbidden time was a crime equal in atrocity to that of reviling the face of a king or of a father.”[78] Water-Worship in India. Sir MONIER-WILLIAMS describes water-worship in India as follows: