58 Communion Tokens. 



the tokens that were used by the Scottish Covenanters. At their 

 great Communion festivals, whether in the T.othians or on the 

 Irongray Hills or under the dark-hrowed sentinel at the head of 

 the Irvine valley, the Covenanters made use of small metal 

 tokens. This one can easily believe. In days 



" When saintly men, who served the Lord, 

 In safety could not dwell : 

 When Tyranny was on the throne. 

 And Freedom in the cell," 



— (Joseph Swan, Dutnfrief:, "The Enterkin.") 



if it was difficult to find a printing press to strike off the necessarv 

 paper tickets, or inconvenient to write them out, it W'as an easy 

 matter to get a blacksmith or other craftsman to strike or mould 

 any number of small metal tokens. Three thousand Covenanters 

 took Sacrament on Skeoch Hill at the Communion Stones in 

 Irongray, where stands to-day a granite obelisk of commemora- 

 tion. If each communicant had a metal token such as those 

 figured on the last page of Mr Brook's work, one wonders where 

 the thousands have disappeared to ! Five varieties, and five only, 

 of these Covenanter tokens were known to Mr Brook, but when 

 his work was written there were at least six. Indeed until the 

 destruction of the Kilmarnock collection (on November 26th, 

 1909), a sixth existed, for there the writer saw a round token 

 larger than the five little oblongs referred to above. It bore an 

 inscription similar to those which ran — "I am / ye bred = of / 

 lyfe " "I am = the / vine" "I am— the / way" "Give / me 

 = thy / hart" " holi / nes-to = the / lord." The Kilmarnock 

 variety was stated to have been found in the neighbourhood of 

 Loudon Castle or Loudon Hill — which, the writer cannot be 

 sure. What matters it, for it too is gone! Almost equal to 

 these in interest is the DRON PARISH metal 

 bearing the initials of Alexander Pitcairne and 

 the date 1688. He is spoken of as "one of the 

 most powerful and remarkable men of his time." 

 Admitted to the parish of Dron in IB56, his 

 sympathies and influence were strongly on the 

 DR.OM. side of the Covenanters. In consequence of this 



he was deprived in 1662 by Acts both of the 

 Parlij'jiient and of the Privy Council. Being a man of outstand- 



