INFANT BAPTISM.
Reading edition
Many suppose that the practice of infant baptism is derived from a Hebrew rite; but the oriental Christians, by whom baptism was first adopted, confined that ceremony to adults. It seems probable that the modern usage was introduced into the western church, in imitation of the lustration of the Romans; a ceremony performed, according to Macrobius, on the ninth day after birth with males, and on the eighth with females.[32]