The almost omniscient eyes of the Kirk Sessions kept watch, moreover, on the behaviour of the congregation while at the services. The Kirk Session of Ayr summoned Andrew Garvine before it and reproved him in 1606, because he was late at kirk; and at Saltoun, in 1641, a fine of 6s. 8d. was decreed against everyone who ventured to "take snuff in tyme of divine service"; at Perth the Session's officer was instructed "to have his red staff in the kirk on Sabbath days, therewith to wauken sleepers, and to remove greeting bairns forth of the kirk." The congregation was divided according to the sexes, the men (most ungallantly) being allowed to occupy forms, while the women sat upon the floor; and any departure from this arrangement was gravely censured. The dress of the women also occupied the attention of the Sessions, their habit of wearing their plaids about their heads being especially condemned. At St. Andrews, the beadle was commanded to go about the kirk during the service "with ane long rod to tak down their plaidis" from the women's heads; while the authorities at Monifieth took very extreme measures, ordering the expenditure of five shillings in tar "to put upon the women that held plaids about their heads." Women condemned to do public penance upon the penitence-stool were deprived of their plaids before ascending that ecclesiastical pillory. The instruction which the people were to receive was also regulated by the Kirk Sessions. Before the morning service, and between that and the afternoon service, the children were publicly to recite their catechism, both for their own edification and that of the people present. So it was ordained at Stow in 1656, and at Dunfermline in 1652, on the ground that it was "usit in uthyre kirks." But the passages of Scripture to be treated by the preachers were also settled by the same authorities; the custom being, apparently, for the minister to go systematically through some complete book of the Bible. The Kirk Session of the "Kirk of the Canongait," Edinburgh, desired the minister, who had just entered upon the Book of Isaiah, "to begyne the Actes of the Apostles," after completing the first chapter of the prophet; and Mr George Gladstanes, at St. Andrews, was requested to take up the Second Book of Samuel. The length of the sermon was fixed also by the Session, as is illustrated by a resolution passed at Elgin, to the effect that Mr David Philips do "turn his glass when he preaches, and that the whole be finished within an hour."