44 Communion Tokens. 



ana inscription, " Josepli Sayer, Rector of Newbury." The 

 parish records of HENLEY-ON-THAMES, Oxfordsliire, in 1659, 

 refer to tokens being used, and speak of them as " Communion 

 halfpence." In the Church Register of St. Peter Mancroft, 

 NORWICH, we have an interesting list of entries, extending from 

 1632 to 1696, showing the use of tokens, giving at the same time 

 details of their manufacture and cost, and information as to how 

 by means of tokens the Communion dues were collected. The 

 temptation to farm out the Communion dues at Easter and other 

 such Sacrament seasons did not come to Presbyterian as it did 

 to Episcopalian clergymen.^ The Presbyterian Church never had 

 Communion dues and "never sold her sacraments." Of this 

 assertion the following extract from the ABERDEEN Kirk- 

 Session Records of date March 22, 1618, is a corroboration rather 

 than a contradiction, for this was the period of the prelatic 

 usurpation : — " The Sessioun . . . thinks it expedient for the 

 better help of the poore that tua of the magistratis stand at the 

 end of ewerie tabill in both the kirkis the tyme of the ministra- 

 tioun of the holie communioun and demand of ewerie communicant 

 at thair rysing from the tabill, sume almes to the poore according 

 to the forme obserwit in reformit congregationes in the south 

 pairtis of this realme." It was in Scotland that the Communion 

 token practice struck deepest root. Any change that commended 

 itself to our conservative forefathers of the Reformation times 

 must alread}- have had some antiquity about it ere it could have 

 secured their sanction. We can easily believe that in the matter 

 of the Church Token they adopted " a custom already hallowed 

 bv primitive usage " rather than "an innovation of their own." 

 The first General Assembly of the Church of the Reformation in 

 Scotland met on 20th December, 1560. More than seven months 

 earlier, or on 2nd May, we have the first mention of Communion 

 Tokens or "tickets" in the Kirk-Session Records of ST. 

 ANDREWS. There "Walter Adie is delatat with thir wordis 

 Willie Mayne will ye give me ane techet." That is to say, Walter 

 Adie is sessioned for contemptuously refusing a ticket proffered 

 to him by William Mayne, one of the elders. That the token or 



4. Vide the trial, in 1634, of John Richardson, who farmed the 

 tithes and oblations of the Chapelrie of St. Margaret's, in 

 Durham. (" Acts of the High Commission Court within the 

 Diocese of Durham." Surtees Society, pp. 82-100.) 



