Paul, it will be remembered, found a number of men at Ephesus who claimed to have been baptized unto John's baptism, but when Paul questioned them as to the Holy Ghost, they had not heard even that there was such a Spirit. So doubting the validity of their baptism he rebaptized them; after which, "when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied."[A] [Footnote A: Acts xix:1-6.] The same apostle, also, in writing to Timothy, exhorts him to stir up the gift of God which was in him, and which he had received by putting on of his (Paul's) hands, alluding, no doubt, to the time that Paul bestowed the Holy Ghost upon him by the laying on of hands.[A] [Footnote A: II Tim. i:6.] That this practice of laying on hands for the bestowal or baptism of the Holy Ghost continued in the primitive Christian Church for a long time--at least for three centuries--is evident from the following testimony: _6. Testimony of the Early Church to the Manner of Spirit Baptism:_ Of the rites and ceremonies of the third century Mosheim says: "The effect of baptism was supposed to be the remission of sins: And it was believed that the bishop, by the imposition of hands and by prayer conferred those gifts of the Holy Spirit which were necessary for living a holy life." [Footnote A: Mosheim's Church History (Murdock), Vol. I, p. 189.] In a note on the foregoing question, Murdock, the most accurate translator of Dr. Mosheim's great work on church history, says: This may be placed beyond all controversy by many passages from the fathers of this century. And as it will conduce much to an understanding of the theology of the ancients, which differed in many respects from ours, I will adduce a single passage from Cyprian. It is in his epistle. No. 73, p. 131: "It is manifest where and by whom the remission of sin conferred in baptism is administered. They who are presented to the rulers of the church, obtain by our prayers and imposition of hands the Holy Ghost."[A] [Footnote A: Mosheim's Church History, Vol. I, p. 189.] In another passage Cyprian writes: "Our practice is that those who have been baptized into the Church should be presented, that by prayer and imposition of hands they may receive the Holy Ghost." While Augustine, in the fourth century, says: "We still do what the apostles did when they laid their hands on the Samaritans and caled down the Holy Ghost upon them."[A] [Footnote A: Laying on hands was employed in the Church for other purposes than imparting the Holy Ghost. It was the manner of administering to the sick, (Mark xvi:18; Acts xxviii:8); and also of conferring authority or priesthood on men. (See Acts vi:5, 6; viii: 17; xiii:3); but as we here are only dealing with the ordinance as it relates to a means of imparting the Holy Ghost, I do not stop to discuss the other purposes for which it was employed.]