1. baptism - Noun
2. baptism - Verb
The act of baptizing; the application of water to a person, as a sacrament or religious ceremony, by which he is initiated into the visible church of Christ. This is performed by immersion, sprinkling, or pouring.
Source: Webster's dictionaryDoubtless a great anguish may do the work of years, and we may come out from that baptism of fire with a soul full of new awe and new pity. George Eliot
Baptism is the door of the spiritual life and the gateway to the sacraments. Thomas Aquinas
Only what coronation is in an earthly way, baptism is in a heavenly way; God's authoritative declaration in material form of a spiritual reality. Frederick William Robertson
Oh! for this baptism of fire! when every spoken word for Jesus shall be a thunderbolt, and every prayer shall bring forth a mighty flood. Abbott Eliot Kittredge
Religion needs a baptism of horse sense. Billy Sunday
This should be agony. I should be a mass of aching muscle - broken, spent, unable to move. And, were I an older man, I surely would ... ... but I'm a man of thirty - of twenty again. The rain on my chest is a baptism - I'm born again. Frank Miller