"entered until 1693." Really the first page, dated 1664, is occupied with burials. The second page records four births and two christenings. In 1680 the first two marriages are entered. In the reign of Charles II, the jealousies between the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Roman Catholics were intense, and this continued until the Revolution of 1688, when William of Orange ascended the throne. The Revolution of 1688 was signalized at Altcar by the presentation to the church of a heavy pewter flagon. It is not improbable that it was the result of a public subscription. It has engraved upon it the initials. of the churchwardens-R G (Robert Gore), RK (Robert Kenyon)-and the date. Twenty years later, in 1708, the anti-popish feeling peeps out in the register, where "bad Thorpe, ye Popish priest," is evidently regarded as a very undesirable and meddlesome person. The oldest gravestone inscriptions decipherable are the following:-E G 1671, A R 1678, J L 1680, RTE 1689, Katharine Vose 1696, Thos Sephton 1742. There is a remarkable absence of poetical inscriptions in the churchyard. Out of about four, in each of which local bards seem to have been trying their wings, I give the following, on a Gore: "The tender Husband and his wife A plan of the graveyard given in the parish book incorrectly states that the last church was built in 1742, the date over the porch having been misread. It was built in 1746, and in 1747 the Bishop of Chester (Bishop Peploe) came to consecrate, and the parish accounts inform us that one shilling was spent upon repairing the roads, so that the bishop's carriage might reach the church in safety. A new font, of sandstone, was then provided, with the initials of the churchwardens inscribed, and the date, 1747. In the ecclesiastical period, when whitewash was supposed to improve the appearance of chiselled stone, this font was not forgotten. The churchwardens in 1747, up to Easter of that year, were James Watkinson and Thomas Aspinwall. What is possibly the font of the still older church lies alongside the one of 1747, in the churchyard. It is a round sandstone cup, without carving or date. There is an old superstition that the first child baptized in a new font is sure to die early.35 The Rev. Baring Gould tells a story in connection with the new church of Dalton, in Yorkshire. A blacksmith had seven daughters, and a son was born a few days before the consecration of the new church. He came to ask Mr. Gould to baptize the boy in the old font. "Why, Joseph," said I, "if you will only wait till Thursday, the boy can be baptized " in the new font, at the opening of the new church." "Thank you, sir," said the blacksmith, with a wriggle, "but you see it's a lad, and we should be very sorry if he were to dee; na, if 't had been a lass instead, why then you were welcome, for "'twouldn't ha' mattered a ha'penny. Lasses are ower many, and lads ower few wi' us." 66 66 Mr. Gomme believes this to be a superstitious relic of the time of the ancient hearth cult. When a tent or building was erected, it was thought necessary for the safety of the building to offer a "foundation sacrifice." At the bottom of the hole to receive the chief tent-pole a slave was placed, to be crushed by the descending pole. He quotes 36 35 Gomme's Folklore Relics of Early Village Life, p. 36. the partly Norman church of Brownsover, in Warwickshire, which stands upon the site of an early British settlement. Not very long ago it was found necessary to lower the original foundations, and two skeletons, with Danish skulls, were found in spaces cut out of the solid clay, and covered with carpenters' benches, which must have been designedly placed there before the church was built. "Christian priests had often to compromise "between Christian doctrines and pagan customs, "to obtain a hearing for their new and civilizing "creeds." To the mind of primitive man every locality was the home of, and was protected by, its special deities, and every building or temple was consecrated by slaying some animal to appease the spirit of the place. An old legend connected with Clegg Hall, Lancashire, seems to point to this superstition. It is recorded that a pious monk, wishing to lay two ghosts that haunted the place, came to a parley with them, when they demanded, as a condition of future quiet, a body and a soul. The cunning monk substituted the body of a cock and the sole of a shoe. From this ancient belief in the necessity for a "foundation sacrifice," we have, no doubt, derived the superstition that the first child baptized in a new church is almost sure to be called away at an early age. As we look at the two fonts in the churchyard and the one in the church, we wonder whether the superstition had root here, and, if so, what were the names of parents who ran the risk, and whether the children were lads or lasses. A silver chalice and paten were presented to the church consecrated in 1747, by Jane Plumbe, widow, of Downholland. In 1730, John Plumbe, Esq., of Downholland, had given £10 to the church of Halsall, to buy "a silver flaggon and patten." An ancestor of Colonel Tempest, of Tong Hall, |