XXIV.  Therefore since you have heard these words, come forward to it, and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed Ps. xxxiv. 5. through missing the Grace.  Receive then the Enlightenment in due season, that darkness pursue you not, and catch you, and sever you from the Illumining.  The night cometh when no man can work John xii. 35. after our departure hence.  The one is the voice of David, the other of the True Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Ib. i. 4.  And consider how Solomon reproves you who are too idle or lethargic, saying, How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard, Prov. vi. 9. and when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?  You rely upon this or that, and “pretend pretences in sins;” Ps. cxli. 4. am waiting for Epiphany; I prefer Easter; I will wait for Pentecost. The Festivals of Easter and Pentecost were set apart as early as the Second Century for the solemn administration of Holy Baptism; and S. Siricius Bishop of Rome about the time of S. Gregory of Nazianzus, states that all the Churches agreed in keeping these exclusively.  But this is a mistake (though Van Espen says (II., c. i., tit. 2, c. 4) that S. Siricius acknowledges the existence of the different custom, but condemns it, and gives reference to ad. Himerum Tarraconensem, c. 2), for there is evidence that in many Churches the Epiphany also was thus observed, and in some Christmas also.  But Tertullian (De Bapt.) says that no time is unsuitable.  In the Western Church, however, Papal decrees, Conciliar Canons, and Imperial Capitularies from the VIth to the XIIIth. Centuries abound, limiting the administration, except in cases of sickness, to the two seasons of Easter and Pentecost, on the Vigils of which it is still provided for in the Missals.  No doubt it was felt to be a very useful limitation, when most persons who were presented for Baptism were adults, and required preparation.  When this ceased to be the case the rule gradually became obsolete, and has long ceased to be observed.  It is better to be baptized with Christ, to rise with Christ on the Day of His Resurrection, Matt. xxiv. 50. to honour the Manifestation of the Spirit.  And what then?  The end will come suddenly in a day for which thou lookest not, and in an hour that thou art not aware of; and then you will have for a companion lack of grace; and you will be famished in the midst of all those riches of goodness, though you ought to reap the opposite fruit from the opposite course, a harvest by diligence, and refreshment from the font, like the thirsty hart Ps. xlii. 1. that runs in haste to the spring, and quenches the labour of his race by water; and not to be in Ishmael’s case, dried up for want of water, Gen. xix. 15. sqq. or as the fable has it, punished by thirst in the midst of a spring. The allusion is to the well known story of Tantalus, whose punishment in hell was said to be that, being tormented with hunger and thirst, he was condemned to stand for ever in water up to his lips, but to be unable to drink, and to have a tree laden with luscious fruit within easy reach, but to be unable to gather of it.  It is a sad thing to let the market day go by and then to seek for work.  It is a sad thing to let the Manna pass and then to long for food.  It is a sad thing to take a counsel too late, and to become sensible of the loss only when it is impossible to repair it; that is, after our departure hence, and the bitter closing of the acts of each man’s life, and the punishment of sinners, and the glory of the purified.  Therefore do not delay in coming to grace, but hasten, lest the robber outstrip you, lest the adulterer pass you by, lest the insatiate be satisfied before you, lest the murderer seize the blessing first, or the publican or the fornicator, or any of these violent ones who take the Kingdom of heaven by force. Matt. xi. 12.  For it suffers violence willingly, and is tyrannized over through goodness.