On the day set apart for baptism, the chosen catechumens met in the church at noon to undergo a final examination (Fig. 177); at midnight they again assembled there, the paschal taper and the water were consecrated, and the officiating priest asked the catechumens if they renounced the _devil_, the _world_, and its _pomps_. They made answer, Yes. The priest then required of them a profession of Christian faith, carefully prepared beforehand, after which they underwent a short examination on the articles of the Creed. When these preliminaries were completed the deacon presented to the priest the catechumens stripped of their clothing, but covered with a veil. Each then stepped into a large vessel of water and was dipped thrice (Fig. 178); at each immersion the bishop invoked one of the persons of the Holy Trinity, a custom that prevailed till the sixth century in the Western Church, and till the eighth in that of the East. After the immersion the assisting deacon anointed the catechumen’s forehead with holy oil, and the priest put on him the _chrismal_, a flowing white robe which he wore for eight days. Thus clad, and holding lighted tapers, the new Christians went in procession from the place of baptism to the basilica. Before mass they received the sacrament of confirmation; they were then given a mixture of honey and milk, a symbol of their entrance into the promised land, that is to say, into the highway of Gospel privileges. Whatever the age of the newly baptized might be, they were termed children (_pueri_, _infantes_). [Illustration: Fig. 177.--Exorcism of a catechumen by four of the clergy, who are applying the cross to him to drive the devil out of his body, prior to his baptism.--From a bas-relief of the Fourth or Fifth Century, found at Pérouse. Paciaudi, “De Sacris Christianorum Balneis:” Venitiis, 1750, 4to.] Baptism by sprinkling, as practised now, was not unknown to the primitive church, but it was only adopted in urgent cases, when immersion might be dangerous to the catechumen, or when it was expedient to baptize many at one time. In the ninth century baptism by sprinkling had become customary, and it soon became the only method in use. [Illustration: Fig. 178.--Baptism of the Saxons conquered by Charlemagne.--Miniature in Manuscript No. 9,066 in the Burgundian Library, Brussels (Fifteenth Century).]