Probably, kneeling at the Holy Communion was received with little favour, for we find that the first introduction of this practice on the 12th of October, 1662, was thought worthy of a note in a journal kept by a parish clerk and schoolmaster of that day--Pierre Le Roy--who wisely abstained from any comment on the event. To this day appliances for kneeling are rare in many pews, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century most of the congregation remained seated during the singing of the metrical psalms, as is the practice in the Presbyterian churches in Scotland and on the Continent. Baptismal fonts are of recent introduction, the order to put them up in all the parish churches having been given by the Bishop of Winchester (Dr. C. R. Sumner) on the occasion of his primary visitation to this portion of his diocese in September, 1829, he being the first Prelate of that See who had deigned to inspect the state of the churches in the islands since the time that they were placed under the care of an Anglican Bishop by Queen Elizabeth. Before fonts were provided, the rite of baptism was administered at the altar, the minister, standing within the rail, receiving the water at the proper moment from the clerk, who poured it into his hand from a silver ewer. In the absence of periodical visits from a Bishop, the rite of confirmation had, of course, become a dead letter. It was administered in 1818, for the first time since the Reformation, by Dr. Fisher, Bishop of Salisbury, who had been deputed to consecrate two newly-erected churches by the then Bishop of Winchester, who was too old and infirm to undertake the duty himself. Before that time--and indeed for some considerable time later--it was customary to give notice from the pulpit, previously to the quarterly celebration of the Holy Communion, that young persons desirous of communicating for the first time should attend in the vestry on a certain day. This notice was, of course, given in the parish churches in French--the language of the great majority of the people of that time--and the word used for “vestry,” and which we have so translated, was “Consistoire.” No doubt, under the Presbyterian discipline, the examination of catechumens took place before the Consistory, composed of the minister and elders of the church. Till a comparatively recent period the Holy Communion was only administered quarterly, and at the great festivals of Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide and Michaelmas. A preparatory sermon was generally preached at an evening service held on the day before the communion, and on this occasion a metrical version of the Decalogue was usually sung instead of a psalm or hymn. This was a practice borrowed from the French Reformed Church, as was also that of singing the 100th Psalm while the non-communicants were leaving the church, some portions of the 103rd Psalm while the communion was being administered, and, just before the final benediction, the Song of Simeon, “Nunc Dimittis.”