The priest shall also have oil hallowed, separately, for children, and for sick men; and solemnly anoint the sick in their beds.  Some sick men are full of vain fears, so as not to consent to the being anointed.  Now we will tell you how God’s Apostle Jacob hath instructed us in this point; he thus speaks to the faithful:  “If any of you be afflicted, let him pray for himself with an even mind, and praise his Lord.  If any be sick among you, let him fetch the mass priests of the congregation, and let them sing over him, and pray for him, and anoint him with oil in the Name of the Lord.  And the prayer of faith shall heal the sick; and the Lord shall raise him up:  and if he be in sins they shall be forgiven him.  Confess your sins among yourselves, pray for yourselves among yourselves, that ye be healed.”  Thus spake Jacob the Apostle concerning the unction of the sick.  But the sick man, before his anointing, shall with inward heart confess his sins to the priest, if he hath any for which he hath not made satisfaction, according to what the Apostle before taught:  and he must not be anointed, unless he request it, and make his confession.  If he were before sinful and careless, let him then confess, and repent, and do alms before his death, that he may not be adjudged to hell, but obtain the Divine mercy.

Such is Johnson’s version of the 32d canon of Elfric, in which he has preserved closely Elfric’s translation, or rather paraphrase, of the passage in St. James.  The name James was not then in use, the Latin Jacobus was rendered Jacob.—­Johnson’s English Canons, A.D. 957, 32.