Down to the time of the Westminster Assembly, it seems to have been the custom in Scotland for parents, at the baptism of a child, to repeat the Creed. But in the Westminster Directory the father is merely required to promise that he will bring up the child "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Nevertheless, many Kirk Sessions overlaid this requirement with regulations of their own devising. In 1615, the Kirk Session of Lasswade ordained that "no children of ignorant persons be baptised, except the father first lay one poynd of ten shillings, and a month shall be granted to learn the Lord's Prayer, Belief, and Ten Commandments, with some competent knowledge of the sacraments and catechism, which he performing, his poynd shall be returned, otherwise forfeited." In 1700 an application to the Kirk Session of Galston for the baptism of a child was refused, on the ground that the father "did not attend diets of catechising." On his promising to attend in future, and submitting to rebuke for his previous non-attendance, the child was allowed to be baptised. More than three-quarters of a century later, that is, in 1779, a man who had applied to the Kirk Session of Mauchline for the baptism of a child was subjected to a theological examination much too stiff for him; but on promising to study the knotty points propounded to him, and signing an undertaking to that effect in the minute-book, he was allowed to present the child for baptism, though the permission seems to have been regarded as a great favour. As in England, so also in Scotland, the registration of baptisms was required at a period long antecedent to the statutary obligation to register births. Old sessional records show that fees were paid, but it is a disputed question whether these were for baptism or for registration. Dunlop, in his "Parochial Law," quotes a legal opinion to the effect that "as to baptisms, what is paid on that account is for obtaining the Kirk Session's order for baptism, and recording that order." But an entry in the records of the Kirk Session of Galston, in 1640, after prescribing the fee to be paid for baptism, adds--"and there shall be no more exacted of any that come to this kirk for all time coming, except they desire the baptism registered, and in that case to satisfy the reader therefore, which is hereby declared to be other four shillings Scottish."