"[126-1] Such a rite was of immemorial
antiquity among the Cherokees, Aztecs, Mayas, and Peruvians. Had the
missionaries remembered that it was practised in Asia with all these
meanings long before it was chosen as the sign of the new covenant, they
need have invoked neither Satan nor Saint Thomas to explain its presence
in America.
As corporeal is near akin to spiritual pollution, and cleanliness to
godliness, ablution preparatory to engaging in religious acts came early
to have an emblematic as well as a real significance. The water freed
the soul from sin as it did the skin from stain. We should come to God
with clean hands and a clean heart. As Pilate washed his hands before
the multitude to indicate that he would not accept the moral
responsibility of their acts, so from a similar motive a Natchez chief,
who had been persuaded against his sense of duty not to sacrifice
himself on the pyre of his ruler, took clean water, washed his hands,
and threw it upon live coals.[126-2] When an ancient Peruvian had laid
bare his guilt by confession, he bathed himself in a neighboring river
and repeated this formula:--
"O thou River, receive the sins I have this day confessed unto the Sun,
carry them down to the sea, and let them never more appear.
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