Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/263

Rh a drunken man injure a pregnant woman so as to produce miscarriage, he shall do penance half a year. Midwives also shall absent themselves eight days from church, and in the interim be purified by prayers.

The mode of baptizing is as follows:—When a child is born, a priest is immediately sent for, who, standing before the door of the child-bearing woman's dwelling, repeats certain prayers, and gives the child its name. Afterwards, generally on the fortieth day, if the child happen to be ill, he is brought into the church and baptized, and is dipped three times entirely into the water, otherwise they would not consider him baptized. He is then sprinkled with the chrism, which is consecrated in the holy week, and lastly he is sprinkled with myrrh, according to their account.

The baptismal water is consecrated for each separate child, and is always poured away after the baptism outside the door of the church. Children are always baptized in the church, unless the distance be too great, or the cold injurious to the child: they never use warm water, except for sickly children.

Sponsors are adopted at the choice of the parents; and while the priest precedes them with certain words, they spit upon the ground for every time that they renounce the devil. The priest also cuts off some hairs from the child's head, and mixes them with wax, and lays them up in a certain spot in the church. They use neither salt nor saliva in the mixture.