Religious Studies teacher speaks at Inner Wheel Club

Feb 21 2008

HAMILTON Inner Wheel Club welcomed Loudon Melrose as guest speaker at their latest meeting.

Loudon, who lives in Hamilton, is a former minister at Gourock and principal teacher of religious studies at Hamilton College.

In his talk about communion tokens, Loudon explained that the system of tokens was originally created by the Roman Catholic Church.

However, their use lapsed until they were again taken up by the reformist churches at the time of Calvin and Luther.

Tokens were much valued, individually numbered and used by the church to indicate that members of the congregation had sufficient knowledge of the bible to be allowed by the Kirk Session to take communion. After communion, tokens would be returned to the church so that the member’s attendance could be recorded.

Tokens were manufactured manually from tin, lead and leather, with some ministers making their own presses.

It was the Free Church who started to mass-produce these tokens.

The use of tokens was phased out around 1880, to be replaced by communion cards.

Emigrant Scots often took their tokens with them and they have become valuable collectors’ items, both in this country and abroad.

The largest collection is held in St Andrews University.

Past president Moira Condie proposed the vote of thanks.