Collections at Churches. The collections which are still made at all churches in Scotland—either at the church-doors before the service, or in the church after it—were, till a comparatively recent period, the principal fund for the support of the poor. The proceeds of these collections were originally under the control of the kirk-session, and remain so under certain restrictions. By a proclamation of the Privy-council in 1693, it was ordered that one-half of the sums so collected, and of dues received by the kirk-session, be paid over into the general fund for the support of the poor. The other half has generally been applied for the relief of sudden or temporary distress. The kirk-session may be called upon by any single heritor to account for its management of this remaining half. By the Poor-law Amendment Act, 1845, it is enacted that in all parishes in which it has been agreed that an assessment shall be levied for the relief of the poor, all moneys arising from the ordinary church collections shall in future belong to, and be at the disposal of, the kirk-session; provided, however, that they shall be applied to no purposes other than those to which they were, in whole or in part, legally applicable before the date of the act. A power is reserved to the heritors to examine the accounts of the kirk-session, and to inquire into the manner in which the collections are applied; and the session-clerk is enjoined to report annually as to the application of the moneys, to the Board of Supervision. The collections made at Dissenting meeting-houses, under which denomination Episcopal chapels are included, are entirely at the disposal of the congregations, and do not form part of the poor's funds. The making of a collection is properly the province of the minister and elders; but when they neglect the duty the heritors have been in use to perform it. See Black's Parochial Ecclesiastical Law of Scotland (1888), p. 145.
In England there are no regular collections at churches as in Scotland. The alms collected in chapels, as well as in parish churches, during the reading of the offertory, are declared by the rubric to be at the disposal of the incumbent and churchwardens of the parish, and not of the minister or proprietor of the chapel. If the minister and churchwardens disagree as to the distribution of the alms, they shall be disposed of as the ordinary shall appoint.