text: It used to be that people would put off baptism until the last possible moment. For example, Constantine the Great was baptized on his deathbed. As Edward Gibbon said in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, "The sacrament of baptism was supposed to contain a full and absolute expiation of sin; and the soul was instantly restored to its original purity, and entitled to the promise of eternal salvation. Among the proselytes of Christianity, there were many who judged it imprudent to precipitate a salutary rite, which could not be repeated; to throw away an inestimable privilege, which could never be recovered."