“In Popish churches the first thing that we are struck with is a vessel of what is called _holy water_, into which those who enter dip their fingers, and then mark their foreheads with the sign of the cross. This holy water, there can be no doubt, came from the _lustral water_ of the pagans, as, indeed, learned Catholics allow. This water was also placed at the entrance of the heathen temples, and those who entered were sprinkled with it.”[133] CONYERS MIDDLETON attests the pagan origin of holy water: “The next thing that will of course strike one’s imagination is their use of holy water; for nobody ever goes in or out of a church but is either sprinkled by the priest, who attends for that purpose on solemn days, or else serves himself with it from a vessel, usually of marble, placed just at the door, not unlike to one of our baptismal fonts. Now, this ceremony is so notoriously and directly transmitted to them from paganism, that their own writers make not the least scruple to own it. The Jesuit la Cerda, in his notes on a passage of Virgil, where this practice is mentioned, says: ‘Hence was derived the custom of Holy Church to provide purifying or holy water at the entrance of their Churches.’ ‘_Aquaminarium_ or _Amula_,’ says the learned Montfaucon, ‘was a vase of holy water, placed by the Heathen at the entrance of their Temples to sprinkle themselves with.’ The same vessel was by the Greeks called περιῤῥαντήριον; two of which, the one of gold, the other of silver, were given by Crœsus to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi; and the custom of sprinkling themselves was so necessary a part of all their religious offices, that the method of excommunication seems to have been by prohibiting to offenders the approach and use of the holy water-pot. The very composition of this holy water was the same also among the Heathens, as it is now among the Papists, being nothing more than a mixture of salt with common water; and the form of the sprinkling brush, called by the ancients _aspersorium_ or _aspergillum_ (which is much the same with what the priests now make use of), may be seen in bas-reliefs, or ancient coins, wherever the insignia, or emblems of the Pagan priesthood, are described, of which it is generally one.