that the clerk's office by no means ceased to exist after the
Reformation changes. I shall refer later on to the survival of the
collection of money for the holy loaf and to its transference to
other uses.

The clerk, therefore, appears to have continued to hold his office
shorn of some of his former duties. He witnessed all the changes of that
changeful time, the spoliation of his church, the selling of numerous
altar cloths, vestments, banners, plate, and other costly furniture,
and, moreover, took his part in the destruction of altars and the
desecration of the sanctuary. In the accounts for the year 1559 of the
Church of St. Lawrence, Reading, appear the items:

"Itm--for taking-downe the awlters and laying the stones, vs.

"To Loryman (the clerk) for carrying out the rubbish x d[4]."

[Footnote 4: Rev. C. Kerry's _History of S. Lawrence's Church, Reading_,
p. 25.]

Indeed, the clerk can claim a more perfect continuity of office than the
rector or vicar. There was a time when the incumbents were forced to
leave their cure and give place to an intruding minister appointed by
the Cromwellian Parliament. But the clerk remained on to chant his
"Amen" to the long-winded prayers of some black-gowned Puritan. That is
a very realistic scene sketched by Sir Walter Besant when he describes
the old clerk, an ancient man and rheumatic, hobbling slowly through the
village, key in hand, to the church door. It was towards the end of the
Puritan regime. After ringing the bell and preparing the church for the
service, he goes into the vestry, where stood an ancient black oak