Its real value in cold climates is proven by the sustained
fondness for the Russian bath in the north of Europe. The Indians,
however, with their usual superstition attributed its good effects to
some mysterious healing power in water itself. Therefore, when the
patient was not able to undergo the usual process, or when his medical
attendant was above the vulgar and routine practice of his profession,
it was administered on the infinitesimal system. The quack muttered a
formula over a gourd filled from a neighboring spring and sprinkled it
on his patient, or washed the diseased part, or sucked out the evil
spirit and blew it into a bowl of water, and then scattered the liquid
on the fire or earth.[125-2]
The use of such "holy water" astonished the Romanist missionaries, and
they at once detected Satan parodying the Scriptures. But their
astonishment rose to horror when they discovered among various nations a
rite of baptism of appalling similarity to their own, connected with
the imposing of a name, done avowedly for the purpose of freeing from
inherent sin, believed to produce a regeneration of the spiritual
nature, nay, in more than one instance called by an indigenous word
signifying "to be born again.
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