Ritual washing

“ It is manifestly suggested by the cleansing qualities of water, and has exercised an important function in the development of certain moral ideas and ideals. Bathing in running water to cleanse the stains of the body led on to, and combined with, the concept of cleansing the stains of the soul. But even thus the dominant suggestion of life declares itself, as is specially obvious in the case of Christian baptism, where the washing with water symbolises not only the cleansing of the soul, but the new birth, the higher life of the spirit. ”

“ Even in performing their necessary purifications, which require that a man should wash in a particular way before his prayers, they avoid water, and make use of sand. Many attempts were made by us to discover the reason why they kept themselves in such a dirty state; but to all our inquiries we obtained nearly the same answers: “God never intended that man should injure his health, if he could avoid it: water having been given to man to drink, and cook with, it does not agree with the skin of a Tuarick, who always falls sick after much washing.” ”

“ And you can really keep yourself cleaner with a tumbler of hot water and a rough towel and rubbing, than with a whole apparatus of bath and soap and sponge, without rubbing. It is quite nonsense to say that anybody need be dirty. Patients have been kept as clean by these means on a long voyage, when a basin full of water could not be afforded, and when they could not be moved out of their berths, as if all the appurtenances of home had been at hand.
Washing, however, with a large quantity of water has quite other effects than those of mere cleanliness. ”

“ What a sight the Son of God girded! “After that He poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded” (John xiii:5) . It was a great symbolical action. He who stooped so low to wash the feet of His sinful creatures is the same who declared in the Old Testament “Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities” (Isaiah xliii:24) . The washing typifies the service our beloved Lord renders to His saints in cleansing them from defilement; it is “the washing of water by the Word.” ”

“ The bath with water from the well or from the fountain, the bodily and ritual bath, does not take the place of the essential inner purification, and it is better to eat with hands soiled with sweat than to repel a hungry brother with hands washed in three waters. Filth issues from the body, disappears into the vaults and enriches orchards and fields. But there are many finely dressed gentlemen so full to the throat with another sort of filth that the stench of it comes out with the words from their mouths, vainly washed and rinsed. ”

“ Paragraph 17 — Some have the custom to wash their mouth in the morning because of the mucus which is in the mouth.
סעיף י"ז — יש נוהגין לרחוץ פיהם שחרית, מפני הרירים שבתוך הפה.
Paragraph 18 — The following things require washing the hands in water [after them] : One who rises from bed, goes out of the bathroom, or of the bath house, one who cuts his nails, takes off his shoes, touches his feet, or washes his head, some say: also one who goes among the dead, or touched the dead, one who cleanses his clothes of lice, has sexual intercourse, touches a louse, or touches his body with his hand. ”

“ The body which is to wear the clean clothing should be washed every day. It may not be possible to take a tub bath or a swim in the river or lake, but one can bathe all over with a bucket of water and a cloth and soap. It pays, for one feels so fresh; and, then, the waste of the body is removed by the washing, and the pores of the skin are kept in good condition. When our skin is in good condition, we do not feel the cold as much as do those who do not bathe frequently.
Do you remember that we said our clothing must help to save some of the body heat? That is how clothing protects. ”

“ But it is to be feared there are not wanting instances in which persons do not bathe the entire person once a month, or once a year even! When the residual parts of the perspiration are not removed by washing or bathing, they at last obstruct the pores and irritate the skin. It is apparently for this reason that, in the Eastern and warmer countries, where perspiration is very copious, ablution and bathing have assumed the rank and importance of religious observances. ”

“ For as they who wash clothes do not pass over some of the dirt and cleanse the rest, but clear the whole cloth from all its stains, from one end to the other, that the cloak by being uniformly brightened from washing may be throughout equal to its own standard of cleanness, in like manner, since the life of man was defiled by sin, in its beginning, end, and all its intermediate states, there needed an abstergent force to penetrate the whole, and not to mend some one part by cleansing, while it left another unattended to. ”

“ But there are great advantages in the Saturday's tub and plenty of soaping, and in friction of the skin. Not babies only, but men and women require daily washing. The body the source of defilement of the air.
The entire want of privacy in the bedrooms, the constant drive of the mother's occupations, make it a matter of difficulty when she can wash herself. [As a matter of fact, most women do not wash at all.] The Missioners should show the utmost sympathy—should, without giving offence, draw her out by careful questions, asking what plan the women would recommend rather than what they do. ”

“ Considerable attention was devoted to the care of the body. Washing and bathing were, of course, very common. Scenes from the bath are often represented on monuments; especially we often find in sculpture or painting representations of Aphrodite, or some beautiful mortal, stooping down while a maid pours water over her back from a jar. In the vase picture represented in Fig. 85, next to which a scene from the toilet is depicted, one woman is pouring water into a basin, while another has disrobed, and is arranging her hair before a mirror. ”

“ There is sometimes a combination of natural and supernatural conceptions: while the violent expulsive process is going on the household utensils are vigorously washed by the women; washing, known to cleanse from mere physical dirt, here also takes on, from its association with the men's ceremony of expulsion, a supernatural potency—it removes the injurious mana of the hostile spirits. ”

“ It is important that parts that are covered should be kept cleaner than parts exposed to the air, as dirt is more apt to fester in dark places; besides, parts exposed to the air have the advantage of the air's sweetening properties; air acts as a bath, and purifies the skin amazingly.
It is desirable to commence a complete system of washing early in life, as it then becomes a second nature, and cannot afterwards be dispensed with. One accustomed to the luxury of his morning ablution, if anything prevented him from taking it, would feel most uncomfortable ”

“ The daily ablutions of an infant are no more natural or necessary, than would be the process of taking Ablutions. a fish out of water every day, and covering it with dirt, in order to make it thrive more vigorously thereafter in its native element. “Cleanliness is next to godliness;” but washing should be only for the purpose of keeping the body clean, and this can be effected without scrubbing the whole surface daily. ”

“ Were every person, for example, after visiting the sick, handling a dead body, or touching any thing that might convey infection, to wash before he went into company, or sat down to meat, he would run less hazard either of catching the infection himself, or of communicating it to others.
Frequent washing not only removes the filth and sordes which adhere to the skin, but likewise promotes 104the perspiration, braces the body, and enlivens the spirits. How refreshed, how cheerful, and agreeable does one feel on being shaved, washed, and shifted ”

“ For since we are wont by washing in water to render our body clean when it is soiled by dirt or mud, we therefore apply it also in the sacramental action, and display the spiritual brightness by that which is subject to our senses. ”

“ But were it accepted as decisive, the whole weight of its authority is against, instead of being in favor of the proposed amendment. A laver, and especially a Greek laver, is no instrument of bathing. Perhaps the arutaina, the dipper, might be so called. But the water and the washing, each are instrumental causes of the cleansing, 329the salvation ”

“ Washing our garments to keep them sweet is cleanly, but it is the opposite to real cleanliness to hide dirt in them. Through giving way to hiding dirt in our garments a spirit which would conceal that which is disagreeable is strengthened. ”

“ Cleanliness is an attribute of civilization. We find it amusing to read that three or four hundred years ago bathing for pleasure was unknown, that when soap was first invented it was used only for washing clothes, and that even so late as the Seventeenth Century an author compiling a book of rules for the gentleman of that day advises him to wash his hands every day and his face almost as often! In the monasteries bathing was permitted only to invalids and the very old. Perfume was used copiously, and filth and squalor abounded. ”

“ We, however, pray to the Lord: we do not surrender Him; nay, we ought even to set ourselves in opposition to the example of His surrenderer, and not, on that account, wash our hands. Unless any defilement contracted in human intercourse be a conscientious cause for washing them, they are otherwise clean enough, which together with our whole body we once washed in Christ. ”

“ A large mosque generally consists of porticoes surrounded a square open court, containing a fountain or tank in the center. Here every Mussulman washes his hands and feet before he goes to prayers. They sometimes would here bathe their whole bodies in former times! It is not at all surprising that washing of feet should have become a part of the religious ceremonies in countries like Egypt, where washing is quite as necessary to existence, as eating and drinking, even. I wish they had pure water enough to wash themselves a dozen times a day. ”

“ The refectorian was to be blamed if the lavatory was not kept clean, or if grit or dirt was allowed to collect in the washing-trough. He had to keep in the [Pg 79] lavatory a supply of sand and a whetstone for the brethren to use in scouring and sharpening their knives. When the abbot was present at meals, he had to see that the ewer and basin with clean towels were prepared for him to wash his hands. On Maundy Thursday the tables were to be set with clean white cloths, and a caritas, or extra glass of wine, was to be given to all the community. ”

“ I know of no country, in ancient or modern times, where habits of drunkenness have co-existed with the bath. Misery and cold drive men to the gin-shop. If they had the bath, not the washing-tub, but the sociable hâmam, to repair to, this, the great cause of drunkenness, would be removed; and if this habit of cleanliness were general, restraints would be imposed on such habits by the feelings of self-respect engendered. The poor of England have never had an opportunity of knowing the comfort which is derived on a cold day from the warmth imparted by such an atmosphere. ”

“ The washing is done by sousing the clothes in water, and beating them on large, smooth stones. It is certainly an alarming sight to housewives to see garments swinging over the dobey's head and descending again and again with no small force on the washingstone. ”

“ The washing is merely a necessary ceremony, and is similar to our custom of going washed and clean to church; it is a purifying of the shell, or the outward man, prayers are a purifying of the kernel or inward man ”

“ The prescribed ablutions of the Jews and Mohammedans have not only a spiritual but a hygienic value. “The washing of the body not only whitens the outside of the sepulchre, but purifies the internal organs, and renews the spiritual man as well.... ”

“ But there is a good deal to be said against washing, at least one's face, when crossing Gobi. The dry, scorching winds burn and blister the skin, and washing makes things worse, and besides you are sometimes short of water ”

“ The discomfort of these loathsome creatures is excessive, and one gets away from them as far as possible. Not having had a washing day for some days, I made one to-day, and myself turned washerwoman. The one idea of natives with respect to clothes washing, is to pile on the soap agony, and leave your garments as stiff as a board, and almost as uncomfortable to wear. I entrusted a pair of white flannel trowsers, and a white flannel coat to one of the boys to wash, but I tremble to think what the result will be. ”

“ When the Rabbi of Nazareth reproached him for such conduct, he replied; "Who ought to wash, the clean or the unclean? Moses knew this people when he made washing a law for them. Does uncleanness come from within or without? It is not the dust of the street that soils a man, but the evil thoughts of his heart. Is it unseemly to eat honest bread with dusty hands? Is it not more unseemly to take away your brother's bread with clean hands?" ”

“ There are not only the washing of the sacred fakirs, who cover themselves with wood ashes as their only clothing, and the general bathing of the pilgrims, who are not all in the cleanest of clothes—several, moreover, on the occasion in question being seen bathing with skin diseases upon them—but the ashes of deceased relatives brought from the different homes of the pilgrims, and the hair of widows who have been shorn, are also thrown into the water. ”

“ Washing the whole body and particularly the privates is an absolute necessity in hot countries; and it is perhaps for this reason that the religious founders of the Jews, the Mohammedans, the Fire-Worshippers, the Heathen in India, etc., have commanded the observation of this practice. ”