American Indians;[1] and, of course, among all Christian nations.
Thus a lustration or purification ceremony is practically universal. Here we find an explanation of the mysterious ease with which infant baptism, though not directly commanded in the New Testament, became a sacrament of the early church. It was a practice already in vogue. And there is every probability that in ancient Britain, just as in ancient Germany and Scandinavia, infant baptism was practised as a ceremony long before the arrival of the Christian missionaries. Not only so, but it is quite possible that the ceremony may have taken place at these very wells and springs which still retain the reputation of sanctity.
It is generally admitted nowadays that well-worship was practised in Britain before the advent of Christianity. In support of this belief in the antiquity of our British well-worship, Mr. Gomme and other authorities on the subject have drawn attention to the quaintly-named saints who preside over these little wayside springs. We have, it is true, many wells dedicated to St. Mary, to St. John, to St. Peter, and so on, who are genuine saints of the Church. But who is St. Hawthorne, who runs a well in the Wrekin in Shropshire, for the cure of skins? Who are St. Gover, of Kensington Gardens and Llanover House in Monmouthshire; St. Pirian; St. Keyne; and the others? The only reasonable answer is, that these are the modern or mediaeval equivalents of the ancient British water-spirits who tenanted the wells of the country. Partly, therefore, because these "saints" seem to be old gods with new faces, and partly because there are historical records which leave practically no doubt on the subject, it is now held that, after the coming of the Christian religion, the priests of the new cult, having made many
- ↑ List compiled from Ploss, l.c., i. 257 et seq., and Crooke, W., Things Indian. London, 1906.
