The Caeremoniale Episcoporum prescribes that infants, except in danger of death, should not be baptised during the eight preceding days, that they may be reserved for holy-Saturday.  The beginning of the baptismal service and the exorcisms are performed privately in the sacristy by the parish-priest, while the prophecies are read in church[133].  After the font has been blessed, the catechumens wearing a long white dress, and accompanied by their respective godfathers and godmothers, approach the font, and in turn ascend.  In answer to the questions of the Cardinal (who is now vested in a white, and not a purple, cope,) having renounced Satan and all his works and pomps, they profess their belief in the articles of Christian faith, and their desire of baptism[134]:  then assisted by their sponsors they are baptised by infusion in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; they are anointed with chrism, receive a white garment, with a charge to bear it unspotted before the tribunal of Christ, and in fine a lighted taper, that “when the Lord shall come to the nuptials, they may meet him in the heavenly court unto life everlasting”.

[Sidenote:  Litanies and confirmation.]

The litanies are sung, while the procession returns to the church, where the newly-baptised are confirmed in a side-chapel, and exhorted to perseverance in virtue, by the Cardinal[135]; the litanies are then continued, but cease while all kneeling venerate the heads of SS.  Peter and Paul shewn from above the high altar; the procession afterwards returns to the tribune, where the mass of the day is sung, and orders are conferred by the Cardinal-Vicar.

[Sidenote:  Mass and ordination.]

The orders of priests and deacons are often mentioned in the N. Testament:  and the church, as S. Thomas observes, instituted the inferior orders.  Subdeacons are mentioned by Pope Cornelius and S. Cyprian in the 3rd century, as well as acolythes, exorcists, and lectors.  S. Augustine and S. Gregory Nazianzen speak of ostiarii; and the clerical tonsure is mentioned by S. Isidore at the beginning of the 5th century, as a rite established before his time.  Orders are conferred by the laying on of hands and prayer, as the scripture teaches, and also by the delivery of the instruments belonging to each order:  appropriate exhortations addressed to the candidates for the different orders are interspersed with the prayers prescribed in the pontifical. (On their antiquity the reader may consult Morinus de Ordinationibus, Martene de Antiquis Eccl.  Ritibus, T. 2. etc.) The tonsure is given after the Kyrie eleison of the mass, the 4 minor orders after the Gloria in excelsis; subdeacons are ordained before the epistle, which one of them repeats; deacons after the epistle and finally priests after the first part of the tract.  These last, after the imposition of hands, receive their peculiar vestments, viz. the stole hanging down in front, and the chasuble: