In some countries the rite was practiced as a talisman against evil spirits. The Mexicans never approached their altars without sprinkling them with blood drawn from their own bodies, as the Jews sprinkled the walls and door-posts of their temples with blood under the requisition of the Levitical code. This mode of fancied purification by sprinkling either with water or blood we find recognized, and apparently sanctioned, in the Christian bible, both in the Old and New Testaments. Ezekiel says, "I will sprinkle clean water on you." (Ezek. xxxvi. 25.) Peter uses the phrase, "The sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter i. 2.) And Paul makes use of the expression, "The blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel" (Heb. xii. 24), which we regard as an indirect sanction of the senseless heathen idea of effecting spiritual purification by drops of blood. (See Potter's Antiquities and Herbert's Travels.) BAPTISM BY FIRE. Baptism by fire was a form or mode of application which seems to have been introduced from the belief that it was productive of a higher degree of purification. There were several ways of using fire in the baptismal rite. In some cases the candidate for immortality ran through blazing streams of fire--a custom which was called "the baptism of fire." M. de Humboldt, in his "Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of America," informs us it prevailed in India, Chaldea and Syria, and throughout eastern Asia. It appears to have been gotten up as a substitute for sun-worship, as this luminary was believed to be constituted of fire, though in reality there never was any such thing as sun or solar worship. Christian writers represent the ancient Persians as has having been addicted to solar worship. But Firdausi, Cudworth and other authors declare that neither they nor any other nation ever worshiped the sun, but merely an imaginary Deity supposed to reside in the sun. Heathen nations have been charged with many things of which they were not guilty; though it is true that in the spirit of Christ's exhortation, "Whosoever loseth his life for my sake shall find it," some of the candidates for the fiery ordeal voluntarily sacrificed their lives in the operation, under the persuasion that it was necessary to purify the soul, and would enable them to ascend to higher posts or planes of enjoyment in the celestial world. And some of them were taught that sins not expurgated by fire, or some other efficaciously renovating process in this life, would be punished by fire in the life to come. Here we will mention that there is a seeming recognition of this ancient heathen rite in both departments of the Christian's bible. Isaiah says, "When thou walkest through fire thou shalt not be burned." (lxiii. 2.) And the Baptist John recognizes three modes of baptism: "I indeed baptize you with water, but he that cometh after me shall baptize you with fire and the Holy Ghost." (Matt. iii. 11). And Paul teaches the