The pretence for this "unction" of dying men is professedly taken from a command of James in regard to the visitation of the sick; but when the passage in question is fairly quoted it will be seen that such a practice could never have arisen from the apostolic direction--that it must have come from an entirely different source. "Is any sick among you?" says James (v 14,15), "let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall RAISE HIM UP." Now, it is evident that this prayer and anointing were intended for the recovery of the sick. Apostolic men, for the laying of the foundations of the Christian Church, were, by their great King and Head, invested with miraculous powers--powers which were intended only for a time, and were destined, as the apostles themselves declared, while exercising them, to "vanish away" (1 Cor 13:8). These powers were every day exercised by the "elders of the Church," when James wrote his epistle, and that for healing the bodies of men, even as our Lord Himself did. The "extreme unction" of Rome, as the very expression itself declares, is not intended for any such purpose. It is not intended for healing the sick, or "raising them up"; for it is not on any account to be administered till all hope of recovery is gone, and death is visibly at the very doors. As the object of this anointing is the very opposite of the Scriptural anointing, it must have come from a quite different quarter. That quarter is the very same from which the Papacy has imported so much heathenism, as we have seen already, into its own foul bosom. From the Chaldean Mysteries, extreme unction has obviously come. Among the many names of the Babylonian god was the name "Beel-samen," "Lord of Heaven," which is the name of the sun, but also of course of the sun-god. But Beel-samen also properly signifies "Lord of Oil," and was evidently intended as a synonym of the Divine name, "The Messiah." In Herodotus we find a statement made which this name alone can fully explain. There an individual is represented as having dreamt that the sun had anointed her father. That the sun should anoint any one is certainly not an idea that could naturally have presented itself; but when the name "Beel-samen," "Lord of Heaven," is seen also to signify "Lord of Oil," it is easy to see how that idea would be suggested. This also accounts for the fact that the body of the Babylonian Belus was represented as having been preserved in his sepulchre in Babylon till the time of Xerxes, floating in oil (CLERICUS, Philosoph. Orient.). And for the same reason, no doubt, it was that at Rome the "statue of Saturn" was "made hollow, and filled with oil" (SMITH'S Classical Dictionary).