On the return to the church, should the Blessed Sacrament have been consumed, the light was to be extinguished and the bell silenced, so that the people might understand, and not, in this case, kneel as the priest passed along. Lyndwood adds that the people should be told to follow the Sacrament with “bowed head, devotion of heart, and uplifted hands.” They were to be taught also to use a set form of prayer as the priest passed along, such as the following: “Hail! Light of the world, Word of the Father, true Victim, Living Flesh, true God and true Man. Hail flesh of Christ, which has suffered for me! Oh, flesh of Christ, let Thy blood wash my soul!” The great canonist says that he himself on these occasions was accustomed to make use of the well-known “_Ave verum Corpus, natum ex Maria Virgine_,” etc. [Illustration: HEARSE AND PALL, FIFTEENTH CENTURY. CANTORS AT LECTERN] The bell and light, or lights, for the visitation of the sick, were to be found by the parish, and the churchwardens’ accounts consistently record expenses to procure and maintain these lights. In some places, apparently, the people found two such lanterns instead of the one which the law obliged them to furnish. In the Archdeacon’s visitations, also, there were set inquiries to see that the parish did its duty in this matter. In one such examination there are references to the necessary “cyphus pro infirmis,” which is stated to be good, bad, or wanting altogether. What this may have been is not quite clear; but probably it was the dish in which the priest purified his fingers, after having communicated the sick person. Myrc gives a rhyming summary of what a priest should know about visiting the sick. He is to go fast when called; he is to take a clean surplice and a stole, “and pul thy hod over thy syght;” in case of death being imminent, he is not to make the sick man confess all his sins, but merely charge him to ask God’s mercy with humble heart. If the sick man cannot speak, but shows by signs that he wishes for the Sacraments--“Nertheless thou schalt hym Soyle, and give hym hosul and holy oyle.” The bishops watched carefully to see that no laxity should creep into the mode of giving the Viaticum to the sick. Bishop Grandisson, in 1335, issued a special mandate to the priests of his diocese on the matter, as he had heard that some carelessness had been noticed. He reminds them that the Provincial Constitutions were clear in their prescriptions that all were to wear a surplice and stole, unless the weather were bad, and then these might be carried and put on before the room of the sick man was entered. They must always have the light borne before them, however, and the bell was to be rung to call the attention of the people generally to the passing of the Sacrament, and thus enable them to make their adoration.