baptism (1). More than three thousand Franks were baptized at the same season in the same manner: nor did sprinkling appear in France till more than two hundred and fifty years after the baptism of Clovis; and then it was invented not as a mode of administering baptism in ordinary, but as a private relief in a case of necessity. The other opinion of the coldness of the climate operating toward the disuse of immersion is equally groundless. Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, led all the first French historians into the error of believing that Clovis was baptized at Easter: but later historians have corrected this mistake, by remarking that Avitus, a contemporary writer, better informed than Hincmar, who lived in the time of Charlemagne, three hundred and fifty years after the event, Avitus, who was intimate with Clovis, and who wrote to compliment him on his baptism, expressly declares, he was baptized the night preceding Christmas-Day (2). Audofledis, the sister of Clovis, was baptized at the same time by trine immersion, and no change of the mode of administration was made on account either of her sex, or her rank, or her health, which probably was doubtful, for she died soon after, or the season of the year (3.) The baptism of this king was an event of so much consequence, that it made a principal article in the history of his life: it was recorded in an epitaph on his tomb, and the baptistery is there called a font: a full proof therefore that font at that time signified a spacious bath (4). This at the church of Notre Dame, and that at the Vatican were original fonts. The fonts of missionaries make a class divisible into three fonts of choice; fonts of necessity; and fonts of fancy. So for distinction sake they may at present be named.

In the close of the seventh century some English and Irish monks went over to the Netherlands to convert the inhabitants of that country to catholicism. An accident at sea obliged them to land on an island which was called Fosteland, and which others name Helgoland or Heiligland. Here they found the inhabitants were

(1) Hist. Literaire De La France. Tom. iii. Clovis i. s. i.

(2) Aviti Episcop. Viennensis Epist. ad Clodoveum. De suscepta ab co Christi fide, atque baptismo.

(3) Remigii Rhemorum Episc. Epist. ad Cloveum.

(4) Hist. Literaire, ut sup.

idolaters, and among other superstitions they held a certain fountain, or pit at a spring head, in profound veneration, so that when they fetched water from it, they observed a solemn silence. One of the missionaries determined by a publick action to break the charm and undeceive the solemn votaries of the fountain god. For this purpose he baptized three converts in the font in the name of the trinity, and the experiment succeeded among the common people (5). Rathbod, king of the Frieslanders, was offended, and persecuted them so that they fled. A few years after they returned to the charge, and one of them, Wulfran, then bishop of Sens, succeeded so far as to engage Rathbod himself to agree to be baptized. The day appointed for the ceremony came, and the people with the priests proceeded with the royal convert to the font. When the service had been performed so far that the king had set one foot into the water, he stopped short, and with a stern dignity becoming his rank solemnly adjured the bishop in the name of Almighty God to inform him, whether his departed ancestors, the ancient nobility and kings of Friesland, were in that celestial region, which had been promised him on condition he were baptized, or in that infernal gulf which he had been describing as the future abode of the unbaptized? Wulfran replied: Excellent prince, be not deceived: God hath a certain number of his elect. Your predecessors, former princes of the Frisians, dying unbaptized, are undoubtedly damned; but henceforth whosoever believeth and is baptized, shall be happy with Christ forever in heaven. O, if that be the case, exclaimed Rathbod, withdrawing his foot from the font, I cannot consent to give up the company of my noble predecessors in exchange for that of a few poor people in your celestial region; or rather, I cannot admit your novel positions, but I prefer the ancient and universal opinions of my own nation (6). Having so said, he retired, refusing, says the historian, to be dipped in the font of regeneration; fonte regenerationis noluit mergi. By choice, therefore, sometimes missionaries baptized by immersion in open waters, and par

(5) Alcuin. apud Sur. Tom. vi. Nov. 7.

(6) Haec audiens Dux incredulus (nam ad fontem processerat, ut ferunt) a fonte pedem retraxit, dicens, &c.-.--Baron. Ann. 697--719. Ex. Jona. apud Sur. die 20. Martii. Tom. ii.

ticularly at well, or spring-heads, where the god of the strean was honoured by the Pagans. They thought it was an act of heroism, a carrying of the war into the very heart of the enemy's country.

By fonts of necessity are meant such convenient places to baptize in as missionaries made use of when they had not time or ability to erect regular chapels for artificial baths. The old chroniclers of this country say, the first missionaries from Rome baptized the AngloSaxons in rivers; and John Fox observes, that "Whereas Austin baptized then in rivers, it followeth, there was then no use of fonts: " but this is not quite accurate, for the monks calied those parts of the rivers, in which they administered baptism, fonts. It is also remarkable, that Paulinus, chaplain of the Queen of Northumberland, when he had prevailed on Edwin, her consort, to profess the religion of the queen, hastily ran up a wooden booth at York, which he called St. Peter's church, and in which he catechized and baptized the king and many of the nobility. Edwin after his conversion began to build of stone a cathedral on the spot, the walls of which were erected round about the wooden building, that being left standing in the centre, probably for a baptistery for the use of persons of rank, who might not choose to expose themselves undressed before a gazing multitude (7.) The same Paulinus baptized openly in the river Swale, "for, (says Bede), they could not build oratories or baptisteries there in the infancy of the church." Edwin afterward enclosed several springs by the road side in the north, and set there large basons of brass to wash or to bath in for the accommodation of travellers, and most likely by advice of the monks for the purpose of baptizing. Pope Gregory says, Austin baptized more than ten thousand persons on a ChristmasDay.(8) Allowing this saint his usual privilege of affirming the thing that is not, in regard to the number of persons baptized, it is very credible he spoke truth in respect to the day, for he had no interest to serve, but rather the contrary, for his interest in Italy was to set a gloss on Eastern baptism: and the baptism of Clovis on the same day renders his testimony highly probable. (7) Bedæ Hist. Eccles. Lib. ii Cap. xiv.

(8) Gregor. i. Epist. Lib. vii. Ep. xxx. Eulogio. Episc. Alexandrinu

If so, this is an additional proof that dipping was not exchanged for sprinkling on account of coldness of climate. It seems, then, Paulinus baptized in a river because he had no baptismal chapels: and he baptized king Edwin and his court in a temporary wooden oratory, because he had not any such baptistery as the wealth and elegance of the Greeks and Romans had erected. In the 12th century, Otho, bishop of Bamberg, baptized his converts in Pomerania in bathing tubs let into the ground, and surrounded with posts, ropes from post to post, and curtains hanging on the ropes (9). Within the curtains the people undressed, were baptized, and afterward dressed again. Many of these also were used for baptism in the depth of winter, and the baths and tents were warmed by stoves.

Among fonts of necessity such are to be placed as were allowed to be used in private houses in cases of necessity. In a statute of Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, it is ordered, that if a child should be baptized at home by a layman in case of necessity, the remaining water should be either cast into a fire, or carried to the church and poured into the baptistery: and the vessel in which the child had been baptized should be either burned, or appropriated to the use of the church (1). Canonists expound this statute by observing, that a true and proper baptism was trine immersion, by a priest, with orderly ceremonies, and nothing else: that, however, as baptism was essential to salvation, the church in her great clemency for infants allowed in case of danger of immediate death and consequent damnation, a priest, or a layman, or any body to baptize by pouring, or, even by sprinkling, yea, by touching a toe or a finger of the babe with water: that for these purposes a bathing tub was to be prepared, and water if possible to dip, or if that could not be, to use a part for sprinkling, on condition that the remaining water and the utensil were disposed of as above and they add that the use to which the church applied such a vessel, was that of washing in it surplices and altar clothes, and other ecclesiastical linen (2). Such a bathing-tub, or wash-trough is the pelvis of an

(9) B. Ottonis vita apud Canisii Lection. antiq.

(1) De Baptismo, et ejus effectu.

(2) Lyndwood Provinciale. Oxoniæ 1679. Lib. iii, tit. xxiv. pag. 242.

cient ritualists, and it is with great inattention that the word is rendered bason, and with greater still that an argument for sprinkling is drawn from it (3). Dr. Johnson observes, that the Saxon word Bar, bat, hath given rise to a great number of words in many langua ges (4). Elfric in his Glossary translates it by the Latin word linter, and he places it first in his list of names of ships and their accompaniments, for ba with the Saxons, like linter with the Latins signified a little boat made of a tree hollowed or scooped out like a tray or trough. Such were the first boats of most nations. It was, therefore, with great propriety that the word bat was put, in after-times, both for a wherry and a trough, for at first both were one and the same thing. Hence came the Saxon word Bæ, baeth, a bath, with its compounds and derivatives, as Stanbaeth, a stone bath, Baethan to wash, to bathe, and hence, most likely, came the modern English word bason; a word to this day so vague that it is necessary to describe a size by an affix, as hand-bason, rock-bason, sea-bason, and so on. Dr. Johnson says, basin is the true spelling according to etymology, not bason: but this is probable only to such as derive the word from French or Italian. Elegant mod'ern writers retain the old spelling, and it seems far more probable, as the word is of Saxon origin, that it was derived from bat-stone: as bat-stone, base-stone: bason. A bat-stone was a base-stone, or a concave or hollowed stone, the hole in which served as a socket to receive the foot of an upright pillar. However it were, all such vessels were fonts of necessity, and it is credible, various kinds and different sizes were used as exigences required.

By fancy-fonts are intended such as were erected and decorated with a variety of ornaments, merely to serve the temporary purpose of one baptism. These are put into the class of missionary-fonts, because they do not imply a stated administrator: and because they were set up in places where baptism was not ordinarily adminis tered. It is at royal or noble christenings that these make their appearance. In these a baptizer was ap

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(3) R. Hospiniani De Orig. Templorum. Lib. ii.

gine Baptisterii.

(4) Dictionary under the word Bat.