Men and women communicated separately, the men first and the women afterwards,--a relic doubtless of the time when they were kept apart in the church. No one thought of leaving the rails until all who knelt at the same time had communicated, when the officiating minister dismissed them with these words:-- “Allez en paix; vivez en paix, Et que le Dieu de Paix vous bénisse.” Or “Que le Dieu de Paix soit avec vous.” They then retired to make room for others. In parishes where weekly collections were made at the church door for the relief of the poor, it was customary for the minister to say immediately after the final benediction: “Allez en paix; vivez en paix; Et en sortant de ce temple souvenez vous des pauvres.” All these peculiar customs, which had been handed down from Presbyterian times, are rapidly disappearing. In the days when the celebration of the Lord’s Supper was confined to stated days, it was the custom in some of the country parishes to deck out the churches for the occasion with branches of evergreens, as at Christmas. Also, on the day of the communion it was considered irregular to appear in coloured clothes. Black was universally worn, and many old people, both in town and country, but especially in the country, keep to the old custom. The practice of publishing the banns of marriage immediately after the recital of the Nicene Creed, and not after the Second Lesson, as is done in England, has been retained in Guernsey; the Act of Parliament of George II., which was supposed to change the custom of the church in this respect, and to do away with the express injunctions in the rubric, not including the Channel Islands in its provisions. In the country parishes, where the cemeteries are in the immediate vicinity of the churches, it is now--though it was not so in former days--the custom to carry the corpse into the church for the reading of the appointed Psalms and Lesson; but in Town, where the burial-grounds are, for the most part, at some considerable distance from the sacred building, this part of the service was, till of late years, entirely dispensed with. It is customary, however, for the Clergy, sometimes to the number of three or four, to attend at the house of the deceased, if invited so to do, and to head the procession to the church or cemetery. A pious custom existed formerly--which, one is sorry to say, has of late years fallen almost entirely into disuse--no man ever commenced a new work, or even began the usual routine work of the season, without making use of these words “Au nom de Dieu soit!” Wills and many other legal documents, the books in which the Acts of the Royal Court and of the States of the island are registered, as well as those used by merchants and tradesmen in their business, all commenced with this formula. In many cases it evidently took the place of the sign of the cross. All sittings of the Royal Court and of the States of the island,