From the Diocesan Registry.

Document No. 117.

1757. GRACE STEVENSON’S SAD CASE.

Petition to Matt. Curghey, Vicar of Lezayre.

Showeth, that your unhappy petitioner, Grace Stevenson, for her relapse into the heinous sin of fornication was justly censured to stand in penitential habit at the church door every Lord’s Day during the time of service until by her penitent behaviour and other instances of a sober life she could obtain certificate from the minister and wardens to the satisfaction of the Ordinary, after which she was to be received into the Community of the Church.

And having performed four severall Sundays’ penance at the church door during all the time of divine service before your reverence left the parish, and as the Rev. Mr. Gell [the new Vicar] is a stranger and do not know the condition and affairs of the parish as well as your reverence,

She, your poor unhappy petitioner therefore most humbly prays your Reverence to take her deplorable condition to your most tender consideration and to grant that she may be received into the community of the Church on Sunday next or as soon as your Reverence shall be pleased to appoint, and she as in duty bound shall ever pray.

At the foot of the document is a certificate from the sumner and four churchwardens that she had stood in penitential habit at the parish church door on four successive Sutidays.

Vicar General Matthias Curghey however, decreed that poor Grace Stevenson should perform yet another Sunday’s penance, after which she was to be received into the Christian community.