On such occasions the following collect was in use: "Lord God Omnipotent ... we invoke Thee, and, as suppliants, exhort Thy majesty, that in this judgment and test Thou wilt order to be of no avail all the wiles of diabolical fraud and ingenuity, the incantations either of men or of women; also the properties of herbs; so that to all those standing around, it may be apparent that Thou art just and lovest justice, and that there is none who may resist Thy majesty. And so, O Lord, Ruler of the heavens and the earth, Creator of the waters, King of Thy whole creation, in Thy holy name and strength, we bless these ploughshares, that they may render a true judgment; so that, if it be so that that man is innocent of the charge in this matter which we are discussing and treating of amongst us, who walks over them with naked feet; Thou, O omnipotent God, as Thou didst deliver the three youths from the fiery furnace, and Susanna from the false charge, and Daniel from the den of lions--so that Thou mayest see fit, by Thy potent strength, to preserve the feet of the innocent safe and uninjured. If, moreover, that man be guilty in the aforesaid matter; and, the Devil persuading, shall have dared to tempt Thy power, and shall walk over them; do Thou, who art just and a Judge, make a manifest burn to appear on his feet, to Thy honour and praise and glory; to the constancy and confidence in Thy name, moreover, of us Thy servants; to the confusion and repentance of their sins of the perfidious and blind; so that, against their will, they may perceive, what willingly they would not--that Thou, living and reigning from ages to ages, art the judge of the living and the dead. Amen." THE JUDGMENT OF THE BOILING WATER When the ordeal was by boiling water, the priest first performed mass and then descended to the place of trial, bearing a cross and a book of the gospels. After he had chanted a litany, he exorcized and blessed the water, which was to be boiled. He then stripped the accused of his clothes and arrayed him in ecclesiastical vestment of the kind worn by an exorcist or a deacon; sprinkled some of the water over him, caused him to drink of it, and gave him the cross and the gospels to kiss. The priest having said, "I have given to thee this water for a sign to-day," wood was laid under the cauldron, which might be of iron, of brass, of lead or of clay. As the water grew warmer, prayers were recited by the priest, and it continued to be heated until it lowed to boiling. The accused then said the Lord's Prayer, and signed himself with the sign of the cross; and the cauldron having been quickly set down beside the fire, the judge held suspended in the water a stone, which the accused, in the name of God, had to draw forth at the depth of his wrist or his elbow, according as the ordeal was single or triple. On the third day his hand was inspected, and his innocence or guilt determined. THE JUDGMENT OF COLD WATER