The Kirk-Session and its Duties. 201 



other seasons, and so on. Special Acts were formulated 

 to meet special evils; as that of vagrancy, when warning 

 would be given that " contraveners " who chose to 

 entertain improper people, who could not produce 

 satisfactory " testificats " would be dealt with as 

 " scandalous persons " themselves ; and such occasions 

 as penny bridals had to be legislated upon by Synod, 

 Presbytery, and Session, with a view to restrain the 

 undue jollities to which they led ; or otherwise sup- 

 press the institution altogether. 



When moral lapses of the kind with which Kirk- 

 Sessions have all along been but too familiar had to be 

 dealt with, the discipline was proportioned to the gravity 

 of the offence. A money penalty of four to six pounds 

 Scots, equal to as many shillings sterling, was the 

 current pecuniary mulct, and the "public appearances" 

 of the defaulters for rebuke might be few or many, 

 according to circumstances. For single offences that 

 bore no special aggravation once or twice was deemed 

 sufficient, if the parties " carried " themselves properly. 

 In more complicated cases the Session studied the 

 effects ; and where due tokens of penitence seemed 

 wanting, or merely in the incipient stage, they, like 

 faithful men, could only exhort the defaulters to " con- 

 tinue the profession of their repentance" in a becoming 

 spirit, they freely according them ample opportunity 

 for so doing. And the end desired was often not 

 attained very soon. Concerning a woman who was a 

 "trelapser" in a country parish in 1720, we find this 

 brief entry in the Session minute : " Compeared in 

 sacco. pro 7mo., and was rebuked ; " that is, she 

 appeared for the seventh Sunday in sackcloth. On 

 her eighth appearance she is " examined coram, and, 

 appearing to be weighted with a sense of her sin," the 

 Session " gave it as their advice that absolution should 

 be allowed her upon her next appearance. She payed 

 four lib. penalty," and was then handed over to the 

 Presbytery for final absolution. The case is an illus- 



