deity. The earth is the mother of all, and "as at birth the new being
emerges from the mother, so it was supposed that emergence from a
terrestrial cleft was equivalent to a new birth" (Inman's "Ancient
Faiths," vol. i., p. 415; ed. 1868). Hence the custom of squeezing
through a hole in a rock, or passing through a perforated stone, or
between and under stones set up for the purpose; a natural cleft in a
rock or in the earth was considered as specially holy, and to some of
these long pilgrimages are still made in Eastern lands. On emerging from
the hole, the devotee is re-born, and the sins of the past are no longer
counted against him.

CONFIRMATION was also a rite employed by the ancient Persians.
"Afterwards, in the fifteenth year of his age, when he begins to put on
the tunic, the sudra and the girdle, that he may enter upon religion,
and is engaged upon the articles of belief, the priest bestows upon him
confirmation, that he may from that time be admitted into the number of
the faithful, and may be looked upon as a believer himself" (Dr. Hyde on
"Religion of the Ancient Persians," tr. by Dr. Giles in "Christian
Records," pp. 129, 130).

LORD'S SUPPER.--Bread and wine appear to have been a regular offering to
the Sun-god, whose beams ripen the corn and the grape, and who may
indeed, by a figure, be said to be transubstantiated thus for the food
of man. The Persians offered bread and wine to Mithra; the people of
Thibet and Tartary did the same. Cakes were made for the Queen of
heaven, kneaded of dough, and were offered up to her with incense and
drink-libations (Jer. vii. 18, and xliv. 19). Ishtar was worshipped with
cakes, or buns, made out of the finest flour, mingled with honey, and
the ancient Greeks offered the same: this bread seems to have been
sometimes only offered to the deity, sometimes also eaten by the