any time committed against either God, your neighbour, or yourself; bethink you how often you have offended against each, and ponder well the circumstances which added to the guilt on each of those occasions; diligently inquire whether you committed the same, forewarned of your conscience and your pastor, both protesting, but, alas! in vain. Consider next how foolish and ungrateful you have been in sinning against infinite power and mercy : this being done, humbly acknowledge your unworthiness, and suppliantly beseech of God that He will, for the infinite merits of His only-begotten Son, pardon your past transgressions. Next, the divine aid having been implored, resolutely determine to resist a repetition of the same; and that you may more properly and effectually perform all this, I advise that you should call in the assistance of some intimate friend, and that you entreat him, by his long friendship and for the love of God, both to call to your recollection, by making friendly mention of those misdeeds and omissions of duty he has at any time ob

served in you, and also, distinctly to name to you a catalogue of all your vices; and that he would further study to promote in you piety, as well by his own devout and seasonable converse, as by frequently reading to you portions of Holy Writ, and of other books which either lovingly treat of your former sins, or skilfully teach the nature of repentance, or discourse of the four last things, namely, death and judgment, heaven and hell."

as,

for instance,

To the foregoing forms, to be used in visiting the sick, may be added others suited to cases of rarer occurrence, such where any one has been mortally wounded in a duel, or by self violence, or by any accidents, or who by child-bearing or child-birth is in danger.

forms of ad

public Order

the Sick are

I would that forms of address answering The general the foregoing descriptions should be prepared, dress in the not because I think them preferable or to be for Visiting compared with the prescribed Order of Visiting the Sick, or because I find anything in latter to be despised; for, to the best of

the

my

most excelCurate is at

lent, but the

liberty to add others in his visitations.

Fifth Rule.

The Curate should pre

pare questions to be

the sick. The

judgment, they are to be preferred to any I have as yet seen, nor do I believe that they could be easily equalled, and much blame, in my opinion, attaches to those who would depart from that order; but since the Rubric gives the Minister the liberty of varying his discourse, and since all persons, especially the sick, are pleased with variety, and, lastly, because these addresses go more home to any one in proportion as they are adapted to his case and condition, it is very convenient that the Curate should, in visiting the sick, at the same time please and be successful in his errand to accomplish this, therefore, his instructions should be conveyed in divers forms of address.

The Curate should also prepare questions to be addressed to the sick who happen to be reduced to extremities; for he will not unaddressed to frequently be obliged to do this with respect to the sick whose faith, whether it be real and their repentance sincere, he cannot, as far as is desirable, discover, without the aid of many interrogations: Neither is it dissonant to the

reason for

this given.

nation of the

means of

tions not

the appoint

Church, nor

the practice

appointments of our Church to examine, by The examimeans of questioning, into the faith and peni- sick by tence of the sick; for the Church has required such questhat the Curate should interrogate the sick as contrary to to each article of faith, and question him ments of the strictly as to his repentance; nor, further, is opposed to it opposed to the practice of former times; of former for, according to such practice, the sick person who languishes at the point of death ought to be interrogated respecting various duties. And there exists to this day a form appointed by Archbishop Anselm, which it seemeth good to subjoin.

times.

Quest. Do you rejoice, Brother, that you A form of die in the Christian faith?

Quest. Do you confess that you have not led so good a life as you ought to have done? Ans.

Yes.

Quest. Do you confess that you have lived so ill as to deserve eternal punishment?

questions taken from Anselm.

Quest. Does your inclination lead you to amend, if a longer life be granted you?

Ans. It does.

Quest. Do you believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born of the blessed Virgin Mary?

Ans. I do.

Quest. Do you believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for you?

Ans. I do.

Quest. Do you believe that you cannot be saved but through His merits?

Ans. Yes. Which being done, let the sick person say, Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.

There is another and larger form of interrogation for the Visitation of the Sick in a little work written by Archbishop Laud, entitled "A Summary of Devotions," and for the benefit of those who possess not that book, I have thought it desirable to append the form I speak of here.

(1.) Have you considered that no pain or