While parishes could expect some items pulpits, communion tables,
pews, silver or pewter vessels to be in use for decades, others surplices,
cloths, and books wore out more rapidly and had to be cleaned, mended, or
replaced.78 Wine and bread, of course, were consumed and thus had to be re-
plenished regularly. Even the seemingly permanent fixtures were subject to the
hazards of theft, fire, and natural disaster. In Westmoreland County in 1715,
Robert Alworthy, charged with stealing the pulpit cloth from a Washington
Parish church, was asked:   Doe you know whether the afores d Velvett which
is now made into breeches be the same which was made use of in the afores d
Church[?]  The churchwardens of Nottoway Parish (Isle of Wight) in 1746
offered a Ł10 reward for the return of communion and pulpit cloths,   made
plain, of very fine Purple in Grain Broad Cloth,  stolen from the   Anglican
Chappel.  Ware Parish was also victimized in 1752; in addition to a surplice
and gown, it lost table and pulpit cloths made of   crimson Velvet, double lac d
with Gold.  On the night of 5 December 1768, a burglar or burglars removed
a damask communion cloth and napkin, a surplice, and a silver cup from a
Charles Parish church. Someone robbed the Mother Church of Southwark
Parish of a red velvet communion cloth, a surplice, a table cloth, and three
prayer books in 1772, and a slave was accused but acquitted the next year of
  entering the lower Church in Nottoway Parish &Stealing . . . a Surplis of
the value of Twenty Shillings.  79 These accounts provide additional evidence
of the careful and tasteful provisions made for public worship, as well as the
value of such items which made them attractive to thieves.
Vandalism rather than theft appears the basis for the 1731 prosecution of
Dudley Digges and his accomplices charged with breaking the window of a
church in St. James Northam Parish   and doing other illegal things there. 
Several   Ill Disposed persons  put one or more horses in one of Accomack
Parish s churches in 1708. Two years later persons similarly identified were
charged with carrying   sundry household stuff   into an Accomack church.80
Arson was suspected in the burning of a church in St. Mark s Parish in 1732.81
As in Overwharton Parish, fire destroyed a nearly completed church building
in St. Patrick s Parish in 1762.82
Worship thus was an expensive proposition. St. Peter s Parish expended
14,260 lbs. of tobacco in 1708 for   Plate and Ornaments.  83 To furnish two
new chapels, Bristol Parish in 1726 expended 4,000 lbs. for books and another
8,000 lbs. a year later for ornaments.84 Kingston Parish in 1751 set aside 10,000
lbs. for ornaments and books ordered from England.85 In 1760 and 1770 Eliza-
.
68 parishes