332 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



There is but one church where I ever faw facred rites, or 

 fomething like baptifm, conferred upon alles ; it is, I think, 

 at Rome on St Andrew's or St Patrick's day. It fhould be 

 St Balaam's, if he was in the Roman kalendar as high as he is, 

 in the Abyflinian. In that church (it is I think on Monte 

 Cavallo) all forts of anes, about and within Rome, are gather- 

 ed together, and fhowers of holy water and bl'eilings rained, 

 by a prieft upon them. What is the formula I do not know; 

 although it is a joke put upon Grangers, efpecially of one 

 nation, to aflemble them there ; or whether the two church- 

 es of Rome and Abyflinia differ fo much in this as in other 

 points of discipline, I am not informed ; but the rationality 

 and decency of fuch a ceremony being the fame in all 

 churches, the fervice performed at the time fhould be the 

 fame likewife.. 



I will not then have any fcruple to fay, that this whole ac- 

 count of Alvarez is a grofs fiction ; that no baptifm, or any 

 thing like baptifm, is meant by the ceremony ; that a man is 

 no more baptifed by keeping the anniverfary of our Saviour's, 

 baptifm, than he is crucified by keeping his crucifixion. The 

 commemoration of our Saviour's baptifm on the epiphany, . 

 and the bieffmg the waters that day, is an old obfervance of 

 the eaftern church, formerly performed in public in Fgyptas . 

 now in Ethiopia. Since that of Alexandria fell into the hands . 

 of Mahometans, the fear of infult and profanation has obliged 

 them to confine this ceremony, and all other proceflions, 

 within the walls of their churches, in each of which there 

 is conflantly a place devoted to this ufe. Thofc that cannot: 

 attend the ceremony of afperfion in the church, efpecially 

 fick or infirm people, have the water fent to them, and a 

 Urge contribution is made for the patriarch, or biihop ; yet 



4 nobody 



