Now He tells us in His Gospel that Baptism is the essential means established for washing away the stain of original sin and the door by which we find admittance into His Church, which may be called the second Eden. We must all submit to a new birth, or regeneration, before we can enter the kingdom of heaven. Water is the appropriate instrument of this new birth, as it indicates the interior cleansing of the soul; and the Holy Ghost, the Giver of spiritual life, is its Author. The Church teaches that Baptism is necessary for all, for infants as well as adults, and her doctrine rests on the following grounds: Our Lord says to Nicodemus: “Amen, amen, I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”(337) These words embrace the whole human family, without regard to age or sex, as is evident from the original Greek text, for τις, which is rendered _man_ in our English translation, means any one—mankind in its broadest acceptation. The Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul, although containing only a fragmentary account of the ministry of the Apostles, plainly insinuate that the Apostles baptized children as well as grown persons. We are told, for instance, that Lydia “was baptized, and her household,”(338) by St. Paul; and that the jailer “was baptized, and all his family.”(339) The same Apostle baptized also “the household of Stephanas.”(340) Although it is not expressly stated that there were children among these baptized families, the presumption is strongly in favor of the supposition that there were. But if any doubt exists regarding the Apostolic practice of baptizing infants it is easily removed by referring to the writings of the primitive Fathers of the Church, who, as they were the immediate successors of the Apostles, ought to be the best interpreters of their doctrines and practice. St. Irenæus, a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of St. John the Evangelist, says: “Christ came to save all through Himself; all, I say, _who are born anew_ (or baptized) through Him—infants and little ones, boys and youths, and aged persons.”(341) Origen, who lived a few years later, writes: “The Church received the tradition from the Apostles, to give baptism even to infants.”(342)