Again and again we find in the pages of the Kirk Session Records reflections of the history of the time. Thus on December 5, 1641, "Intimation maid of collect the nixt Lord's day for ane pure honest woman, spous to umquhile James Freeman. He was slain in Ireland, and quarteret, as is allegit, for mainteining the Scottis Covenant." On February 29, 1622, "Earnest exhortations maid to the pepill anent ye contributions to the Kirk of God in France. Collect this day efter the sermon threttie pund, 8s. 2d.;" and on March 3, "Qtribut this day at ye kirk door to the Kirk of France 3 punds, 11s. 10d." On August 28, 1646, a collection was made in the parish church of Auchterhouse for the people of Cullen, who had suffered much from the burning of their town by the Marquis of Montrose on his march northward; and in 1746 the Falkirk beadle begged the Kirk Session to lend him five shillings because of harsh treatment he had endured at the hands of Prince Charlie's soldiers on their retreat from England. Among the miscellanea of church finance as concerning expenditure the following should, undoubtedly, have place. The stool of repentance--imposing and certainly not cheap--deserves some prominence. "Given to Andrew Stone, wricht, 22s., and 2s. to his man, for mending and repairing the stoole of repentance;" and "David Nimmo, wricht in Lintoun, compeirit, and desyrit payment for making and repairing the stoole for repentance. The minister and elders herewith advysit; deliverit to him, out of the box, aucht pounds, and sax shillings to his sonne, and twentie s. to James Paterson, mason," are two suggestive items. Alexander Sherrie receives six shillings on April 19, 1635, "to buy poudder with to shett the dowes in the kirk, becaus they filet the seitts." At Cullen Parish Church, in the session records for 1703, the treasurer writes:--"For a calf's skinn to be a cover to ye Kirke bible, 7s. For dressing ye skinn bought to cover ye Kirke bible, and alm'd leither to fasten ye cover to ye brods, and for sowing thereof, 10s. For keepers to ye clasps, brass nails putting on ye stoods, and gluing loose leaves, 14s." Dr Russell, writing in his "Reminiscences of Yarrow," about his father's pastorate in the Vale of Ettrick, says, "At the first Martinmas of my father's incumbency, Robin (Robert Hogg, the father of the Ettrick Shepherd) came to him and said, 'Sir, Mr Potts (the predecessor of Dr Russell's father) used always to allow me five shillings of the collections in the kirk at this time, for gathering the bawbees, in order to buy a pair of shoon!' But to his disappointment, my father replied that he could not take it on him to make this application of the public money." The beadle, however, sometimes got the price of a pair of shoes; and in one book, in 1615, we have "_Nota_ (a word scarcely ever used) That in all the gatherings for the poor there is the price of ane pint of ale, that collect which is set doun in the