Social Life in Scotland
Chapter XI. - The Ecclesiastical

WHEN worship in the grove and upon the hill-top had ceased, and the religious rites of the rock-basin had passed away, the earlier inhabitants conducted their religious solemnities upon the shores of estuaries, by the margins of lakes, at wells, and upon river-banks. The apostle of Cumbria, St Ninian, had his cave or cell on the shores of the Solway, near which in 397 he reared the "candida casa," or church of Whithorn. His ministrations among the southern Picts were followed by those of Kentigern or St Mungo, who planted his mission on the Clyde. Palladius, consecrated in 431, laboured among the northern Picts from the isles of Orkney to the Tay. The next great apostle, St Columba, eclipsed by his ministry of untiring zeal the labours of his predecessors.

Columba began his mission in 563 by planting his headquarters at Iona, so called from the words Innis-nan Duidneach, the isle of Druids. For there the worshippers of Baal conducted a great school and possessed a principal seat. At the lapse of another century St Cuthbert began his devoted pastorate on the south-eastern border.

As the Druids had received their appellative from worshipping in the groves, so the apostles of the new faith were named Ceal de, pronounced Kilde, that is, worshippers of God. Every Christian missionary became known as a Culdee.

In the wake of the converts at Iona arose monasteries at Abernethy, Lochleven, and Dunkeld, and in the tenth century at Brechin. Lesser Culdee settlements were planted at Glasgow, Dunfermline, Dunblane, Muthill, Scone, Culross, Melrose, Abercorn, Inchcolm, Aberlady, and Coldingham; likewise in northern parts at Mortlach and Monymusk. With each monastery were connected twelve brethren, who chose a thirteenth as abbot or chief.

Unconnected with the Roman see, the Culdees sedulously pursued their unambitious labours. It was by a law of Adamnan, abbot of Iona, passed in 697, that women were freed from the services and severities of war. By the Culdees were formed shires or parishes, the words originally being of like import. Parishes, which the Culdees had indicated in the ninth, were fully constituted four centuries later. To the Culdees also was due that literary activity through which, prior to the twelfth century, ecclesiastical MSS. were preserved and illuminated. Votaries of graceful art, designers of elegantly sculptured tombs, and not destitute of science, they cast light upon an age which without then had been uninteresting and obscure.

In 825 the king of the Picts abandoned his capital at Abernethy on the Tay, choosing as his residence the promontory, then named Muckross, overlooking a bay upon the eastern shore. With the king quitted Abernethy, the college of monks, who were there sustained by his bounty, while for their use he reared a small convent, which to his new capital brought the name of Kilrymont, or church at the heather mount.

In the eighth century the Roman Bishop began to class the regular with the secular or Columban clergy, with a view to their being secured under Catholic rule. At a Council, held in Scotland during the progress of this century, the way was opened up, while at another Council held at Scone in 906 Constantine II. and Kellach the bishop pledged themselves to support the Roman Church. Not long subsequently Constantine abandoned his sceptre, after a reign of forty years, and entering the monastery of Kilrymont became its abbot.

One of the earliest features in the degeneracy of the Roman Church was manifested in a system of relic-worship, which legends were fabricated to sustain. When Constantine was abbot of Kilrymont the name of the locality was changed to St Andrews, the change of name being, as usual, justified by a legend. About the year 368 it was alleged that from Patras in Achaia proceeded on a voyage Regulus, a Greek monk, who, possessing certain bones of St Andrew the apostle, was in vision directed to carry them to an island in Western Europe. Voyaging two years, he was at length stranded in the bay opposite the cliff of Muckross, afterwards Kilrymont. There he landed, and occupying a cell to which his name was given, desired that the place of his disembarkation might be called after the apostle whose bones had preserved him in his voyage and enabled him in safety to reach the shore. Sanctioned by the royal abbot the invention was accepted, and hence St Andrew was accepted as the patron-saint of Scotland. The original influence of the monastery of Ions, was now on the, decline, the fabric had by the Danes been burned in 797, and again in 801, while in 805 the structure was dilapidated by pirates, who also slew several of the monks. Meanwhile St Andrews was recognised as a religious metropolis. And there, as a becoming shrine for the bones of St Andrew, was erected a chancelled church with a tall square tower, the latter a substitute for the round tower which had sentinelled the Culdee convent at Abernethy.

During the reign of Malcolm Canmore the simplicity of the Culdee system became absorbed in the splendour of the Catholic ritual. Secular churchmen still held office, but as they gradually departed from the scene their places were supplied by the regular clergy. As a Saxon Princess Queen Margaret was strongly inclined to the Romish worship, also to Anglican modes. Personally clad in magnificent attire, she prescribed imposing vestments for her clerks and monks, which, under her personal superintendence, were prepared by the ladies of her court. Impressing her illiterate husband with a love of devotion he kissed her favourite books, and in every religious concern was persuaded by her counsel. Attended by the king, she addressed the assembled clergy, enjoining upon them a stricter observance of Sunday, with the more frequent celebration of the Holy Communion. She particularly enjoined abstinence in Lent; she herself not only fasting in Lent but during the forty days which preceded Christmas. [See "Life of St Margaret, Queen of Scotland," by Tarot, Bishop of St Andrews, translated from the Latin by Wm. Forbes-Leith, S.J., Edin., 1884, 4to. By the sanction of Pope Innocent IV. the queen's remains were on the 18th June 1250 disinterred and, encased in a silver shrine adorned with precious stones, were placed under the high altar of the Church of the Holy Trinity at Dunfermline, which she had founded. Queen Margaret was canonized by the Pope at the special request of her remote descendant James VII.] Mainly through her instrumentality the Culdee system was broken up. When nearly a century later the Columban Church was superseded by the Roman clergy it was found that many lands which had belonged to the Church were by ecclesiastics alienated to their children. To prevent a continuance of the evil David I. insisted on that provision of the canon law which prohibited marriage to the clergy. Founding ten religious houses David planted them with churchmen noted for their intelligence. Under their encouragement and that of their successors fields were enclosed and tilled, orchards planted, and gardens ornamentally laid out. During the three centuries which followed, many of the Roman clergy were distinguished for their virtues. Under their fostering care learning was maintained, and such knowledge as the laity possessed was imparted in schools under their authority. By churchmen were founded nearly all the Universities. Fostering science they furnished the earlier architects and produced the elder scribes and record-writers. In their registers have been preserved the seeds and roots of history. They were the first husbandmen, and the original traders. They exercised an abundant hospitality. By their influence was serfdom stamped out and extinguished.

From a remote age had been claimed by the great landowners the privilege of gryth or sanctuary, that is, the right of protecting a criminal from the avenger, and of securing him shelter till the day of trial. To this description of sanctuary belonged the Cross Macduff in Fife. Instrumental in overthrowing Macbeth, Macduff received from Malcolm Caninore a right of gryth, which at a central point was denoted by a cross. During the thirteenth century, the right of sanctuary possessed by the great barons enabled them to grant in return for a nominal rent the privilege of trial in their regality court rather than in the public tribunal.

The Church claimed a right of sanctuary on higher grounds. Places of worship might not be polluted with blood, and lie who sought revenge at the altar was field guilty of sacrilege, for which no degree of penitence could atone. By an ecclesiastical decree it was ultimately ruled that every church which was consecrated and had the right of baptism and burial, should possess the privilege of sanctuary, and which it was stipulated should extend to thirty paces around the burial-ground.

In connection with Scottish abbeys, the privilege of sanctuary was made the subject of a letter which, in 1200, was addressed by William the Lion to Pope Innocent III. who returned an answer defining and restricting it. Tillie right of sanctuary was enlarged by David I., regulated by Alexander II., and by James III. and James V., considerably restrained. At Lesmahagow in Clydesdale, also at Dull in Athole, the extent of the sanctuary or gryth was denoted by a sculptured cross. Four stones, each graven with a cross, remain at the four angles of the gryth which at Torphichen surrounded the church and preceptory of the Knights Hospitallers of St John; it measures a mile on each side. The gryth of Macbrubha of Applecross extended to six miles on all sides of the church. Special rights of sanctuary were granted by Malcolm IV. to the church at Innerleithen. The sanctuary at Wedale, or Stow, was confirmed by William the Lion. Within the sanctuary of Holyrood abbey a fugitive, in 1337, might claim refuge by tolling a bell. When James V. laid out the extensive park at Holyrood, which includes Salisbury Craigs, the whole territory was embraced within the sanctuary of the abbey.

As protection from arrest within the gryth of the ancient abbey was, at the Reformation, reserved for debtors, many insolvent persons up to a recent period have, pending a settlement of their affairs, obtained shelter within the sanctuary of Holyrood. Early in time present century, the debtors sojourning in Holyrood abbey came to be familiarly known as "the abbey lairds." On a payment of two guineas, the Bailie of Holyrood, an officer appointed by the Duke of Hamilton as hereditary keeper of the abbey, granted to time debtor seeking sanctuary, letters of protection.

The clergy maintained a high prerogative. By his coronation oath the sovereign was bound to extirpate those whom they might pronounce heretical. The oath was, at the command of the Pope John XXII., accepted by David II. in 1329, and to his royal successors it was administered up to the period of the Reformation. Thereafter the Reformers adapted the oath to changed ecclesiastical conditions, taking the sovereign bound to uproot all those who professed the Romish faith. William III. rejected the persecuting clause, and at the Union in 1747 the oath was abrogated.

Both in legislating and in the administration of justice the Romish Church exercised a chief authority. On the judicial bench the clergy sat as judges or assessors, and few ventured to question decisions, in support of which might be fulminated the thunders of excommunication. At a time when the barons seldom exceeded twenty, there sat in Parliament thirteen bishops, fourteen abbots, five priors—in all, thirty-two ecclesiastics. Churchmen held provincial councils, and though at these the king was allowed a voice his representatives were two doctors of the civil law, who were bound to subserve the policy of the Church. Nominally the sovereign was executor of the Church's acts; in reality they had their sentences carried out by the prompt action of a conservator.

From the reign of David I. in the twelfth century to that of Queen Mary in the sixteenth, each monastery represented a miniature state. The abbot held a rank, regal of its kind. Clothed in the dalmatic, he was crowned with a mitre, bore a crosier as his sceptre, and made valid his acts by a seal or signet. Addressed as "My Lord," he claimed high authority since his office was specially held through "divine permission." In his progresses, he rode upon a mule sumptuously caparisoned, and attended by a considerable retinue. When he visited churches, the bells were rung on his approach. Abbots became sponsors to children of the blood-royal, and enjoyed the privilege of conferring knighthood. Children of the great barons served then as pages, and the distinction was coveted.

Under the abbot ranked the precentor or chanter, the sub-chanter, the cellarer, the sub-cellarer, and the treasurer. Next in order were the chaii berlain, the refectioner, the hospitaller, the infirmarer, and the almoner. The porter was a lay brother, and his office was usually hereditary. The porter of the monastery of Paisley founded the Renfrewshire family of Porterfield ; the door-warden of the abbey of Arbroath established the house of Durward; and the family of Usher derived its name from those who as huissier or door-keeper held office in a religious house.

The learning and religious fervour which originally characterised the dignified clergy gradually became less marked till about the middle of the fifteenth century, when Scottish ecclesiastics indulged an unblushing licence. Ignorant of theology, they were imperfectly acquainted with the very elements of knowledge. Nearly every religious house became a focus of corruption, whence issued those noxious influences, which contaminated the young and debased the old. Had not the monastic authorities wielded a power made strong by superstition, they had by an outraged populace been driven from their haunts several years before they actually fell. At length the ruling clergy took alarm. On the 27th November 1549 a "General Convention" was held at Edinburgh to determine how heresy might be restrained. Fire and faggot, it was felt, had reduced confessors to ashes, but had failed to arrest the progress of inquiry. The Convention therefore determined to remove some causes of complaint. Without attempting to conceal the degrading profligacy of their order, the members called upon their brethren to renounce concubinage, dismiss from their dwellings lewd persons and blasphemers, and to forbear wrecking the ecclesiastical endowments in gifts to their illegitimate offspring. The Convention also made provision for educating the illiterate monks, for checking itinerant traffickers in indulgences, and for restraining the grievous abuses which had crept into consistorial courts. Non-residence was a prevailing evil. Within the college attached to Elgin Cathedral were dwellings for twenty-two cantons, but in reality one hundred churchmen were retained on the bishop's staff, apart from their cures and scenes of pastoral labour. Icy the Convention residence was insisted upon and pluralities were restrained. To persons ignorant of letters, or otherwise unqualified, clerical orders were denied.

The reforms did not avail, for at a Provincial Council held in January 1551, it was admitted that few persons attended ordinances, and that those who came jested during service, and conducted secular business; others sported in the church porch, also in the churchyard. From the Church had religion been dissociated, nor within a corrupt atmosphere could piety be revived. In the mouth of August a catechism sanctioned by the Council, and issued in the name of the Archbishop of St Andrews, was printed in the vernacular, and forthwith circulated "among rectors, vicars, and curates," also among secular persons, though not indiscriminately. The production, calm in tone and composed in no ungraceful diction, prudently prescribed a careful observance of the moral duties. Had it appeared a century before, it might have awakened reflection. But the wound which it attempted to heal had festered and become incurable.

The downfall of the Romish Church might not much longer be postponed. In point of morals a national reproach, its existence had become an incubus on free thought and on civil progress. By his scathing wit had Sir David Lyndsay subjected to scorn the arrogance of the higher churchmen, while, less conspicuously, the Earl of Glencairn, James Wredderburn, Town Clerk of Dundee, and some others, had in unpretentious rhymes attacked the doctrines and practices of the parochial clergy. Ultimately the Roman Church succumbed to the terrible invectives which accompanied the ministrations of John Knox. In 1555 this great reformer discoursed in private at Edinburgh to the barons and other leading persons inclined to the Reformation, and succeeded in overcoming the apathy of some and in arousing the energy of others. In 1556 the Edinburgh citizens demolished the, sculptured images at St Giles' Church, and at the annual feast of St Giles cast the canonized figure of the saint into the North Loch. Popular tumults for the suppression of Romish error occurred elsewhere. In June 1559 the multitude at St Andrews unroofed and wrecked its magnificent cathedral. In the following year the Reformed doctrines were publicly acknowledged, and Romish worship disallowed.

Of the two archbishops who in 1560 held rule in Scotland, John Hamilton of St Andrews was, under the charge of treason, hanged at Stirling on the 1st April 1570; Archbishop James Beaton of Glasgow proceeded to France in July 1560, and though subsequently restored to the temporalities of his see, continued to reside in Paris till his death in 1603. Thereafter the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland was placed under English archpriests. Subsequently the Scottish Mission was ruled first by Prefects-Apostolic and afterwards by Vicars-Apostolic. On the 4th March 1878 the Scottish hierarchy was restored, and a Catholic Archbishop of St Andrews re-appointed under Papal sanction.

The catechism of Catholic doctrine, issued at St Andrews in 1551 in the name of Archbishop Hamilton of St Andrews, was composed by John Wynram, the sub-prior, who afterwards joining the Reformers became superintendent of Fife. On the 29th April 1560 Wynram was appointed, along with Knox and several others, to prepare a work "on the policy and discipline of the Kirk." The result was the production of the "Book of Discipline," which, approved by a portion of the nobility on the 20th of May, was sanctioned by the General Assembly which met at Edinburgh on the 20th of December. At that Assembly were present six ministers, with thirty-six laymen who appeared as commissioners from congregations and parish churches. To the Assembly was submitted a list of forty-three persons for appointment as readers or teachers or parish ministers. Among these were several landowners or lesser barons, one of whom, noted for his zeal, was Hugh Wallace of Carnell, representative of that illustrious hero who 260 years before had successfully asserted the civil liberties of his country. A "Confession of Faith " as a further basis of doctrine was ratified by the Estates on the 17th July 1560, while on the 27th January 1561 the "Book of Discipline" was in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh subscribed by the reforming nobles. Churchmen yielded to the inevitable. The higher clergy accepted the change in silence, and some in the humbler orders rejoiced in being emancipated from a system which had fettered and crushed them.

The Scottish Reformed Church, founded by Knox on the Genevan model, was not wholly republican. The episcopal order was dispensed with, but in its stead were appointed as overseers of the parochial clergy a body of superintendents. These, were assigned to the districts of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, St Andrews, Brechin, Dumfries, Jedburgh, and Kirkwall, and the counties of Ross and Argyle. Each superintendent was required for eight months in the year to itinerate in the work of planting churches, or to preach three days weekly to existing congregations. The superintendent of Angus, John Erskine of Dun, was an accomplished layman. Each superintendent received a money salary of 400 merks, with a stipend in victual of 144 bolls meal, 9 bolls barley, and 48 bolls of oats.

To supply with religious teachers those parishes which lacked stated pastors was devised an office similar to one which bore the same naive in the unreformed. church. George Wishart was a Catholic reader, and it was because of having in the exercise of this office preached the reformed doctrines that he was condemned. Under the reformed system a reader conducted divine service in vacant parishes, and in other parishes read publicly to the people the English Scriptures. Church service at the Reformation usually commenced at nine, but the reader entered his desk often so early as seven o'clock. Afternoon service closed at four, when the reader returned to his desk and read till six. In the morning his lessons were selected from the Old Testament, in the afternoon from the New. Several parish priests became readers. While in towns the office of reader was combined with the custodiership of the parish registers, in rural parishes the several offices of reader, schoolmaster, session-clerk, and leader of the psalmody were held by the same person. By the General Assembly of 1581 readers were declared to be no longer essential, but they continued to be employed till 1645, when the order was suppressed.

At the Reformation the reader's salary averaged forty merks; but when after a trial of two years a reader was found qualified to exhort, he was remunerated with a stipend of one hundred merks. On the 12th March 1643 the Kirksession of Newbattle, under the ministry of Mr Robert Leighton, afterwards Archbishop of Glasgow, agreed that the reader and schoolmaster, William Hamilton, should receive a salary of "tua hunder merks."

In 1567 the Church embraced 289 ministers and 715 readers; in 1750 there were 833 parochial charges. Between the endowments provided for the reformed pastors and those enjoyed by the higher clergy under the former system, the contrast is striking. The revenues of the bishopric of St Andrews in 1275 were equal to £37,000 of modern money, the stated value at the Reformation being £45,000. Eleven other bishoprics were also liberally endowed, and several abbeys and monasteries were famous for their opulence. In 1561 the rents of benefices were divided into three parts, two being retained by the Romish clergy, while the remaining third was dedicated to the support of the Reformed Church and to public uses. In reality, only a third of a third was allocated to the new teachers. The sum actually allowed was £2400 Scots, which, had all the parishes been supplied with pastors, would have provided to each incumbent a stipend not exceeding fifty merks. As minister of Edinburgh John Knox had a stipend of 400 merks, nominally £20 sterling. For the ministers of Glasgow, St Andrews, Perth, Aberdeen, Stirling, and Dundee were provided stipends varying from £12 to £15. But other parish ministers rarely possessed incomes exceeding 100 merks, that is, about £5 sterling. Certain pastors supplemented their endowments by keeping taverns. Nor were the revenues of the clergy two centuries later very materially improved. To the General Assembly of 1750 a committee of their number presented a report, shoving that while the average annual value of glebes was £4, 2s., no fewer than 704 out of 833 parish ministers had stipends under £100, there being 272 under £50. One parish minister had a stipend so low as £24.

The scholarship evinced by the parochial clergy in preparing sketches, historical and descriptive, of their respective parishes, and which were embraced in the "Statistical Account of Scotland," published in 1791-9, induced the enterprising editor, Sir John Sinclair, to interest himself in securing for the order a more satisfactory provision. With some influential coadjutors he pressed the subject on the attention of the legislature, with the result that in 1810 an Act was passed providing a grant of £10,000, so as to augment the smaller livings to a minimum of £150. An effort now in progress to provide for every parish minister a stipend of £200 has met with wide support. Under that amount in annual value are at present no fewer than 225 livings.

From the time of Queen Margaret in the eleventh century the Scottish clergy had according to their decree, worn showy and imposing vestments. Such a mode of clothing was obnoxious to the Reformers, who sedulously eschewed it. They clothed themselves in hodden grey, wore coloured neckerchiefs, and preached in gowns of blue serge. By the General Assembly of 1575 ministers' wives were prohibited from using "all kind of light and variant hues in clothing, as red, blue, yellow, and such like;" also "silk hits and hats of divers and bright colours;" also from "wearing rings, bracelets, buttons of silver, gold, and other metal."

Subsequent to his accession to the English throne James VI. sought to induce the Scottish clergy to adopt attire similar to that worn by their English brethren, and to this end obtained Parliamentary sanction. A statute was passed which provided that ministers should attend the church courts in their gowns, but the ordinance was disregarded.

Though an important step in reformation was apparently secured, when on the 19th March 1543 Parliament enacted that it should "be lawful for all men to read the Old and New Testaments in the mother tongue," the provision was practically inoperative. For while few persons could read, the majority were ignorant of the first principles of religion. Nor were copies of the Scriptures to be procured save at a cost which rendered the acquisition impracticable. Hence at the Reformation the Protestant clergy permitted a mode of instruction which in these times might be regarded as unseemly. On Sunday evenings the people were invited to witness dramatic renderings of scriptural scenes; the practice continued till 1575, when it was abandoned.

Through the intervention of the Church it was in 1579 enacted by Parliament that "all gentlemen householders and others worth 300 merks of yearly rent, and all substantial yeomen or burgesses being householders and esteemed worth £500 in lands or goods, shall have a bible and a Psalm-book in the vulgar language in their houses for the better instruction of themselves and their families in the knowledge of God, under a penalty of ten pounds." Consequent on this provision the Town Council of Edinburgh made public proclamation that "Bybillis were to be sawld in the merchant booth of Andrew Williamson, on the north side of the meill mercat." And it was by the city corporation subsequently ordained that householders should present themselves before the magistrates with Bibles in their hands, and that "for eschewing of fraud" such books that were presented should have the owner's name written upon it by the Town-Clerk.

Subsequent to the middle of the seventeenth century, the public reading of the Scriptures was generally dispensed with, while the services, including both prayers and sermons, became oppressively tedious. In 1662 the Diocesan Synod of Dunblane, under the presidentship of Bishop Leighton, resolved to discontinue the custom of "very short texts and very long sermons." The Synod also resolved to provide for "daily public prayer in churches, morning and evening, with reading of the Scriptures." During the recollection of the present writer, the reading of the Scriptures was by a portion of the rural clergy omitted in their public services.

As at the Reformation the Romish clergy were deficient in religious knowledge, it became a chief object of the Protestant ministry to familiarize with Divine truth those who engaged in the pastoral duties. Accordingly members of each Presbytery, then styled "the Exerceis," met weekly, with the view of aiding and stimulating each other in the modes of exhorting or lecturing, or conducting the other duties of a faithful pastorate. At each meeting one of the brethren was appointed to exercise, that is, interpret, another to add, that is, exhort, while all were expected to take part in confirming or censuring what the two officiating brethren had in their services expressed. In 1638 the Presbytery of St Andrews at their weekly meetings were proceeding through St John's Gospel with an exercise and addition upon every verse. When the exercise was concluded, the brethren who had conducted it were removed, while the others delivered their "censures." When any prominent faults were remarked these were noted, and the offender affectionately admonished.

To the aid of the clergy in their parochial work, also for the general instruction of the, laity, was issued shortly after the Reformation a translation of Calvin's Catechism. This was superseded by Mr John Craig's Catechism for "the conmmoune people and children," which appeared in 1581 in the Scottish vernacular. As a further exposition of Calvinistic theology appeared at Edinburgh in 1591 a translation of the Heidelberg Catechism; this continued in general use till under sanction of the General Assembly were issued in 1649 the Larger and Shorter Catechisms framed by the Westminster Assembly.

By the Scottish Reformers forms of worship were approved and utilized. The Book of Common Prayer, known as the second Prayer Book of Edward VI., was framed in 1552 under the direction of the six chaplains of Edward VI., one of whom was John Knox. [See "Genealogical Memoirs of John Knox," 1879, 8vo, pp. 83-86.] With perfect confidence in the thoroughly Protestant character of a work so prepared, the Lords of the Congregation in 1557 resolved that the book should be used "in the several kirks"—both the lessons and prayers. The Prayer Book of Geneva was substituted in 1559. This, subsequently modified by Knox and others, became known as "The Book of Common Order," or Knox's Liturgy. With reference to this book the General Assembly in 1564 ordained "that every minister, exhorter, and reader shall . . . use the Order contained therein in Prayers, Marriage, and ministration of the sacraments."

But the Book of Common Order being chiefly a compendium of Scriptural doctrine was, in the devotional department, long regarded as not wholly supplying what was needed. By successive General Assemblies had committees been appointed to effect an extension, while in reality no change was produced. At length the subject of a new Liturgy was by Charles I. proposed in 1629 to the Scottish Bishops. By the king was the subject renewed when in 1633 he was crowned at Holyrood. To gratify the royal wish a. committee was appointed, and had their report been submitted to a General Assembly, it is not improbable that there had been a satisfactory adjustment. Unhappily the king consulted Archbishop Laud, whose natural impetuosity and extreme ecclesiastical opinions wholly disqualified him for dealing with the strong susceptibilities of a people ever jealous of anglican interference. By Laud it was determined with the royal sanction that, alone with a new Liturgy, the constitution of the Scottish Church should be entirely changed. As a preparatory step he, on the 23d May 1636, issued his "Canons and Constitutions Ecclesiastical," a work adroitly intended to uproot the stems of Presbyterian government. Having indicated the royal purpose as to a new ceremonial, Laud, in the following year, promulgated his Service Book. Intensely ceremonial as was the character of its teaching, this book might have escaped hostility if it had stood alone. But as a sequel to the "Canons" it was doomed.

The introduction of the Service Book in St Giles' Church on Sunday, the 23d July 1637, was attended with memorable consequences. As the Dean of Edinburgh had from the book read only a few sentences, a woman who sat near listening to the strange words, momentarily persuaded herself that mass was being offered. Hastily standing up, she threw towards the Dean's pulpit or reading-desk the small folding stool on which she had been seated, and lustily called out, " Will ye say mass at my vera lug." Confusion followed, and the bishops and clergy retired. [Who threw the stool is a question not decisively settled. The prevailing belief is that the thrower was Jenny Geddes, an herb-woman, but Wodrow, in his "Analecta," maintains that the tradition of his time gave the credit to Mrs Mean, wife of John Mean, a pious merchant, who, as a vigorous upholder of Presbytery, had been exposed to persecution. (See "Chambers's Domestic Annals," vol. i. 545; ii. 103.) In the National Museum at Edinburgh is preserved a folding camp-stool, with the date 1565 cut in the frame, which the donor, James Watson, writer in Dulls, described as that which in St Giles' Church had knocked out the Service Book.]

Next day the Privy Council met, and framed a vehement manifesto. But no overt repression of public sentiment might be safely ventured upon. The country was aroused, and committees or "'fables " met daily iii the capital. On the 1st March 1638 the National Covenant was solemnly renewed in the Greyfriars' Church, many of the adherents subscribing their names significantly with their blood. Laud, with the ling, meditated revenge, but the power of the throne might not cope with the nation hi arms. On the 22d September 1638 the Service Book was recalled.

Ecclesiastical formalism and arbitrary government invoked in their resistance a warm co-operation on the part of the earnest and patriotic sections of two nations which had heretofore viewed each other with jealousy and aversion. When the Assembly of Divines, at which the Scottish Church was represented, was sitting at Westminster, the celebrated Samuel Rutherford, in a letter to a correspondent, dated 25th May 1644, remarked that he and his Scottish colleagues had that day offered to the Assembly "a part of a Directory for Worship, to shoulder out the service-book." In 1645 the Directory agreed upon by the Westminster Divines was sanctioned by the General Assembly, and confirmed by Parliament.

Upon the struggle followed a decisive result. Hitherto morning and evening exercises had been conducted daily by the minister or reader in the churches of the principal towns, while on these occasions prayers were read from the Book of Common Order. But the introduction of the Service Book had created a prejudice against all Liturgical Forms. Where the daily services were continued, the Book of Common Order was unopened, save by those who loved ritual and cherished it. At the Restoration its use was revived in connection with episcopal forms. But when Presbytery was re-established at the Revolution, the daily service in the 'Ton Church of Edinburgh, and in other congregations, became known as "the preaching." At Edinburgh "daily preaching" or devotional exercises continued till about the middle of the eighteenth century, when, owing to a paucity in the attendance, they were discontinued.

A. solitary attempt made in the eighteenth century to introduce into the Scottish Church the Book of Common Prayer has hitherto escaped notice. Among the episcopal clergy who retained their livings subsequent to the Revolution was Mr James Gordon, minister of Banchory-Devenick. By his Bishop he had, for asserting extreme opinions and indulging intemperate language, been temporarily deprived; he remained among the Presbyterians, probably in the hope of reviving the English ritual. The Kirksession Register of Banchory-Devenick, under the 27th July 1712, has this entry: "Given out of the public money for the incident charges of sixty-two service books which were distribut amongst the parochiners in order to setting up the English Liturgy iu this church, £3, 5s. 6d." From subsequent entries during the same year it appears that two hundred copies of the English Book of Common Prayer were distributed among "such of the parocliiners as were capable to make use of them."

In 1857 Dr Robert Lee, one of the deans of the Chapel Royal, began to introduce in the services of Old Greyfriars' Church, of which he was minister, a liturgical form of worship. He read prayers from an "Order of Public Worship," which lie had prepared and printed, and of which copies were distributed in the pews. At the instance of some recalcitrant brethren his procedure was impugned in the local Presbytery, and on an appeal the use of printed forms of prayer in public worship was by the General Assembly of May 1859 emphatically disallowed. Yet the Assembly of 1858 had issued as aids to devotion a collection of "Prayers for Social and Family Worship," and as this work, admirably adapted for its purpose, has met with growing acceptance, it may reasonably be hoped that by a future General Assembly will be provided some Liturgies or Forms of Prayer suited for congregational use.

Vocal music was earnestly promoted by the reformers. The Roman Church sung chants in Latin, a language unintelligible to the laity. To induce singing in the vernacular the reformers established, under sanction of Parliament, "sang-schools" for "the instruction of youth in the art of music." These magistrates were required "to erect and set up" in the several towns. Instructors were lacking. In the Chapel-Royal a staff of musicians was maintained up to the period of the Revolution, but these were often sinecurists, and all were imperfectly recompensed. Fourteen in number their united salaries in 1623 did not exceed £67 sterling.

During the covenanting struggles, Psalm singing was by those in hiding indulged sparingly. At the commencement of the eighteenth century an interest in sacred music considerably revived, and in 1713 the General Assembly recommended to Presbyteries "to use their endeavours to have such schoolmasters chosen as are capable of teaching the common tunes;" further that schoolmasters not only pray with their scholars but also sing part of a psalm with them, at least once a day. Yet congregational singing was, during the progress of the eighteenth century, performed roughly. The music ordinarily lacked melody. Precentors or leaders of the Psalmody long continued to be much underpaid. Within the last forty years the precentor of Dunino, in Fife, was content to earn a fee of 101 d. by travelling each Sunday a distance of eight miles.

At a period when Psalm-books were few, and the majority of every congregation were unable to read, the precentor repeated each line before singing it. In May 17146 this practice was disapproved by the General Assembly, which enacted that "the praises of God be sung without the intermission of reading each line." Schoolmasters were at the same time enjoined "to instruct the youth in singing common tunes." In some parishes of Ayrshire, where the earlier Presbyterian modes obtained a firm root, the practice of "reading the line " was continued till the present century.

Subsequent to the Reformation was used in devotional singing "John Knox's Psalter," in which the metrical Psalms are set to music in the harmony of four parts. There was substituted in 1564 the version of Sternhold and Hopkins, slightly modified. This was, however, disapproved by James VI., who believed that he could prepare a version considerably more euphonious. His purpose of preparing a new metrical version was announced in his "Poetical Exercises" in 1601, also in many subsequent letters. But James's ambition to have his words combined in public devotion with those of the poet-king of Israel was not justified by any qualification of learning or of genius. After his death in 1625 thirty-one metrical renderings from his pen were found among his papers, but none of these was suited to congregational use.

What James left unaccomplished a poet-statesman actively took up. On the 28tli December 1627 Sir William Alexander obtained a royal letter from Charles I., authorising him to issue as "The Psalmes of David, translated by King James," a metrical translation he had prepared, with the exclusive privilege of issuing it for the period of twenty-one years. Further, as the alleged production of his "late most deere and royall father of blessed memorie," Charles commended the Psalm-book to the English bishops, to be sanctioned by them for use in the Churclics,of England and Ireland ; also to Archbishop Spotswood of St Andrews, that he might sanction it in Scotland. The fiction as to the authorship, patent as it was, received no serious contradiction. The English bishops simply ignored the royal request, while the General Assembly, also the Scottish Convention of Burghs, protested strongly. From a new edition Sir William eliminated certain phrases which, as borrowed from the heathen poets, time General Assembly had condemned; but the opposition continued. Nor was more successful a further issue in 1636, accompanied with musical notation, and which in form and character of type was intended as an accompaniment to the Service Book. It did not escape remark that what Laud had disapproved in connection with the English Church lie was not unwilling to obtrude upon the Scottish Establishment.

In 1647 the General Assembly commissioned several brethren to examine the paraphrase of the Psalms transmitted by the Westminster Assembly, and to collate the same, with the versions of Sir William Mure of Rowallan, and Mr Zachary Boyd at Glasgow, two contemporary poets; also with Sternliold's translation then in use. After advising with Presbyteries, the Assembly's Committee sanctioned the version of Francis Rous, already approved by the Westminster Assembly; the last thirty Psalms being revised by the earnest and zealous John Nevay, minister of Loudoun. Rous's version, adopted by the Church in 1649, was in the following year published with music. Early in the present century the General Assembly approved an overture suggesting a new translation of the Psalms, and with a view to the object appointed a Committee. By this Committee were consulted several eminent persons. In reply to a letter requesting his aid, Sir Walter Scott respectfully declined, and expressed a belief that "the beauties of Hebrew poetry are not very capable of being transferred into the language and poetical dress of any other nation, except in the shape of prose translation." From Thomas Campbell, Thomas Moore, and Dean Milman were also received letters of declinature. In 1822 the project was abandoned. By a, Psalmody Committee, appointed by the General Assembly of 1862, was issued in 1868 the "Tune Book " now in congregational use.

The earliest Scottish hymnal in connection with the reformed Scottish Church is the, "Compendious B-Buik of Godlie Psalmes and Spirituall Sangis," issued in 1578 by the brothers John and Robert Wedderburn. Partly founded on the hymns of the Protestant Church of Germany, the Wedderburn collection largely consists of parodies or adaptations of secular ballads, of which the tunes were popular. Several of the compositions are direct satires on the Romish Church. Though not sanctioned by the General Assembly or used by congregations, the Wedderburn hymns were long acceptable to the common people.

In 1706 the General Assembly recommended to the several Presbyteries to endeavour "to promote the use of the scriptural sons in private families;" also to facilitate the Assembly's work in preparing these songs for general acceptance. They further recommended Presbyteries "to buy up the printed copies of the songs and compare them with the originals and make further amendments thereon." By the General Assembly of 1708, the subject was referred to their Commission, with powers to collate "the printed version, with Presbyterial suggestions, and thereafter "to conclude and establish, publish and emit," a version for public use. What was the result of that movement does not appear; but in 1742 an overture was presented to the Assembly "about turning passages of the Scripture into metre," on which it was agreed to refer the subject to the Commission. Three years later [The collection of Paraphrases issued in 1715 contained nineteen compositions by Dr Isaac Watts ; three by Dr Robert Blair, author of "The Grave;" three by the Rev. William Robertson of Greyfriars, father of the historian ; and one by the Rev. Thomas Tindall, minister of Stirling.] a tractate entitled "'Translations and Paraphrases of several Passages of Sacred Scripture," was by the General Assembly submitted to Presbyteries. In 1701 the collection was by the Assembly recommended to private families, and thirty years later, sixty-seven Paraphrases and five Hymns were issued for the use of congregations.

Against the introduction into the Psalmody of metrical compositions by modern writers, some of the elder clergy emphatically protested. The proposal was innovating; it savoured of a Prelatic leaning, and the elegant verse of uninspired men might induce a deviation from the truth itself. So reasoned the isolated or the feeble. But opposition to the reception of tIle Church Paraphrases was not confined to the clergy. When the Paraphrases were first sung in the parish church of Corstorphine, a considerable portion of the parishioners renounced their connection with the Established Church, and formed in the district a new congregation in connection with the Associate Synod.

In the parish church of Mauchline, Ayrshire, Paraphrases were first sung in 1805, or about a quarter of a century after being generally in use. For the purpose of increasing the number of Paraphrases, the General Assembly of 1827 appointed a Committee to make a proper selection; but action was indefinitely postponed. Hymn-books, specially sanctioned by their chief courts, are now in use by nearly every communion of Scottish worshippers.

To Scottish reformers instrumental music in connection with public worship was especially obnoxious. The reason is obvious. It was in the Romish Church used in the cathedrals and principal churches. Though much inferior to those now in use, the church organs in pre-Reformation times were constructed carefully and at considerable cost. For "a pair of organs" to the Chapel Royal of Stirling in 1537, also for a set of organs to the King's Chapel at Holyrood in 1542, William Calderwood received £66 Scots. Church organists were liberally recompensed. At the Reformation every place of worship which contained an organ was assailed by the populace. The organs were broken up, and the materials sold for behoof of the poor. The organs of the chapels royal were for a time preserved, but the Earl of liar, as Captain of Stirling Castle, had the organ of its chapel-royal pulled down, under the apprehension that its music night induce the young ling to prefer the Rornish worship. His procedure was on the 28th August 1571 approved by Parliament. Within the chapel-royal at Stirling a new organ was built not long afterwards, but it was in Divine service rarely used.

The strong prejudice against the use in public worship of instrumental music was intensified when in 16 17 James VI. have orders to repair the organ in the chapel-royal at Holyrood, and at the same time affix to the seats of the choristers carved figures of the apostles. Thus with the revival of instrumental music became associated in the popular mind the worship of images and the restoration of the mass. So keen was the excitement that the bishops gave counsel that the reconstruction both of the organ and of the stalls should be delayed.

More resolute than his royal father, Charles I. in 1631 issued an edict commanding the erection of an organ in every cathedral and principal church. The edict was disobeyed, while the General Assembly of 1638 subsequently ruled that any further attempt to thrust on the Church instruments of music should be strongly resisted.

For fifty years the question as to instrumental music had quietly slumbered, when in 1687 James VII., in the course of adapting the Abbey Church of Holy-rood for the practice of Catholic worship, introduced in the edifice a large and magnificent organ. After his abdication it was by a mob of Edinburgh apprentices torn to pieces and burned.

The erection at Holyrood of a costly organ ostensibly in connection with the Roman Church served to confirm the popular belief that instrumental music was a device and appliance of the Papacy. So universal was the persuasion that even the clergy of the episcopal communion performed their sacred offices without the music of the organ. When one hundred and twenty years had elapsed since the last of the Stewart kings had associated instrumental music with Romish ceremonies, Dr William Ritchie, minister of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Glasgow, ventured with the approval of his congregation to use an organ in the ordinary services. The instrument was played in St Andrew's church on Sunday, the 23d August 1807, when a sensation followed which may not adequately be described. The Presbytery was assembled, and at their bar appeared the Lord Provost leading a deputation of influential citizens, who had come to protest against the alleged innovation. In their protest "the Presbytery joined, passing; a deliverance that the use of organs in the public worship of God is contrary to the law of the land, and to the law and constitution of our Established Church." Thus was the newly erected organ put to silence; but its framework remained in St Andrew's Church till it actually fell to pieces.

At length the baldness of Presbyterian worship began to be generally admitted, and persons in every district were found to interest themselves in the improvement of the Psalmody. In 1829 the congregation of the Relief Church at Roxburgh Place, Edinburgh, with the approval of their minister, Mr John Johnston, had an organ built in their place of worship. There was a loud clamour, and by the Relief Presbytery Mr Johnston was called upon to desist or submit to deprivation. With his people he in self-defence severed his connection with the Synod. The next effort was made in December 1845, when a congregation of Independents at Edinburgh, under the ministry of Dr Lindsay Alexander, began to use an organ in their place of worship. From the constitution of the Independent Church the ruling of a congregation is supreme in its devotional concerns. In reality no opposition was attempted.

For a decided chancre in public sentiment there was a slow preparation. At length, in the spring of 1863, Dr Robert Lee, who had already been reproached as an innovator, while worthily attempting to amend the Church's services in the devotional department, ventured a step further by introducing a harmonium into his place of worship. Even at the brief lapse of twenty years the intrepidity of the course taken may not readily be estimated, for while nearly all the elder clergy continued to associate instrumental music with Popery, or a Romanizing ritual, there floated about a rumour that the minister of Old Grey friars church was a Jesuit in disguise, while the prediction was hazarded that he would yet become openly unfaithful in like fashion as two centuries before had proved that apostate to Presbytery, James Sharp of St Andrews. Confident in his cause, Dr Lee defended his procedure in an historical narrative, which might not be questioned as to its facts, or refuted in its conclusions. And exercising powers of debate of a rare order, he overcame in discussion all who grappled with his arguments. If instrumental music was longer to be withheld as an accompaniment in worship to the melody of the voice, the course was only to be justified by considerations of expediency. Therefore the General Assembly of 1864 wisely determined that "such innovations should be put down only when they interfered with the peace of the Church and the harmony of congregations." By this resolution, Dr Lee felt that his cause was won. At the cost of £450, readily contributed by his church members, an organ was erected for the use of his congregation. For the first time it was used on the, morning of Sunday, the 22d April 1865, and the chords then vibrated awakened a wide response. In the Free Church the introduction of instrumental music has considerably lingered, mainly owing to an opposition, keen and uncompromising, under the leadership of the late Dr James Tegg; yet a resolution of the General Assembly of 1883, similar to that passed in the Assembly of the Established Church in 1864, will induce an improvement in congregational melody similar to that which is now to be remarked wherever musical instruments are used in Divine worship. In the Free Church opposition to the use of the organ in sacred worship has all but ceased.

In resisting the prostrations of Romish worshippers, Scottish Reformers fell into an opposite extreme. At their instance the people were not only permitted, but encouraged to enter places of worship wearing their hats, and throughout the service from its commencement to its close to eschew kneeling or other attitude of reverence. For many years subsequent to the Reformation, Scottish Presbyterians sat iii church covered except at prayer, when hats or bonnets were drawn aside or taken off. During the entire service, the congregation remained seated. The extreme length to which the clergy expatiated in prayer might excuse the arrangement, but did not entirely justify it. When the pious Leighton became Bishop of Dunblane, he endeavoured to effect a change. Under his direction, the Diocesan Synod, on the 11th October 1664, "recommended ministers to exhort their auditores that in tyme of Divine service they behave themselves in a most decent and humble manner, but especiallie that in tyme of prayer they be exhorted either to kneel or stand."

Early in the eighteenth century the practice of standing at prayer became common; it was universally continued till within the last ten or fifteen years, when Scottish worshippers began to kneel or reverently to bend forward upon the pew-desks. In rural congregations, standing at prayer is continued, while in some places of worship in which has been adopted the modern system, a few persons conspicuously persist in adhering to the not ancient usage of their ancestors. In some country parishes, and occasionally in city churches, do persons of the humbler order enter their pews and become seated before uncovering. Within the last seventy years one or more parish ministers of Edinburgh walked from the vestry to the pulpit wearing their hats.

Devotional reverences were prohibited only in connection with congregational worship. From the period of the Reformation onward till the seventeenth century the Moderator of the General Assembly constituted the court by praying upon his knees. And in performing household worship, the act of kneeling was deemed an indispensable accompaniment.

To persons of rank or substance, or in positions of authority, an expression of reverence, even from the pulpit, was not deemed inappropriate. For a century subsequent to the Reformation, the clergy bowed from the pulpit towards the pews of the principal landowners, who, if present, were expected to acknowledge the compliment. To the English Puritans this practice was obnoxious; hence a resolution by the General Assembly of 1645, in these words: "That ministers bowing in the pulpit, though a lawful custom in this Kirk, be hereafter laid aside, for the satisfaction of the desires of the reverend divines in the Synod of England, and for uniformity with that Kirk."

In the islands and uplands the period for commencing divine service was regulated less by any strict adhesion to a fixed hour, than by the consideration whether the more notable parishioners had assembled or were approaching. In a note to the "Heart of Midlothian," it is related by Sir Walter Scott that in a parish in the Isle of Bute, on occasion of the church bell falling out of order, the parish beadle ascended the steeple, and, while imitating the bell-sounds with his voice, interjected at intervals for guidance as to commencing the service, an intimation that the two principal landowners were at hand. Thus

"Bellum, Bellellum,
Bernera and Knockdow's coming!"

To his parish church every considerable landowner added an aisle, which served to accommodate at worship his family and domestics. But the laird was not expected to continue a listener during the entire service, so with his seat was connected a retiring room, where lie might lounge or read. Each aisle opened into the church by a gallery, and was approached by an external stair-case, while the under portion of the structure constituted the family burial-place. Those landowners who did not construct special aisles erected four-sided pews in the area of the church; in these they worshipped in life, while underneath then in the soil their remains were deposited. Also in the area of the church, pews were reared by Kirksessions, and leased to sitters for rents, which were applied in administering to the poor. Ordinary hearers bore with them to church small stools on which they sat at worship. Church stools and rude forms were in the church passages occupied by the poor till the commencement of the present century. When new churches were built, the whole area was seated and apportioned among the heritors according to their valued rental.

By the Romish Church, the solemnities of religious worship were blended with secular enjoyment. Thus, in the reign of William the Lion, the observance of Sunday was ordained to commence on Saturday at noon, and to Continue till the morning of Monday, while the interval was to be employed in sports and pastimes as well as in the practice of devotion. When religion and recreation were associated, it was evident that under the ascendency of the one the other would succumb. Towards the period of the Reformation, Sunday was chiefly to be remarked for marketing and merry-making, while in the evening at six o'clock ordinary secular pursuits might be lawfully resumed.

By the Reformers the secularizing of the Sabbath was especially condemned, and they laboured diligently to overcome it. On the 19th July 1562, the General Assembly by a resolution entreated Queen Mary to check "all vices not punishable by the laws of the realm," among which was "the breach of the Sabbath." But as the petition was unheeded, the General Assembly of August 1575 ruled that "the kirk has power to cognosce and decern upon (among other offences) "violation of the Sabbath, not prejudging the punishment of the civil magistrate." Sabbath observance, with regular attendance on ordinances, was now strictly enforced, the neglect being made punishable by high censures. At length, on the entreaty of the Assembly, the neglect of church attendance was made penal by statute. In the year 1600, Parliament enacted that those who absented themselves from worship should be amerced in penal-tics according to a scale. Thus an absenting earl was mulct in one thousand pounds; a lord in one thousand merks; a baron in three hundred merks, and a yeoman in forty pounds. Burgesses were ordained to pay such fines as might be imposed by their several corporations. The statutory law which prescribed, under high penalties, regular attendance on ordinances, was afterwards grossly perverted. It had been framed at the instance of the Presbyterian clergy against profane persons; but when episcopacy was thrust upon the Church, it was used as an engine to crush those who were conscientiously opposed to ritualistic forms and a new ecclesiastical government. The perverted application took origin with an edict of James VI., which, on the 10th June 1624, enjoined all loyal subjects " to hear the word preached, and to participate of the sacraments . . . . in their own paroche." The decree was renewed by Charles I., and the penalties so rigidly enforced that in 1630 the more earnest section of the clergy surrendered their livings, and cast themselves on the bounty of their flocks. Within their several parishes they assembled their adherents for Sunday service in the fields, or on the hill-sides, preaching from tents. These tents were not cloth-covered enclosures, suspended on poles as those now in use, but consisted of a movable pulpit, with a projecting top, in which the preacher was in his ministrations protected from rain and wind, also from the sun's rays. Worshippers stood or leant upon the sward, or were seated on boulders, or on small mounds.

These out-of-door assemblages were styled conventicles, as a term of reproach. But the stigma, like that of Christian applied in derision to the early converts to the faith of the gospel, proved a memorial of religious earnestness. There were occasional triumphs. The public repudiation of the Service Book in 1637, followed by the subscribing of the National Covenant in February 1638, and the resolutions of the celebrated General Assembly which met at Glasgow in November of the same year, proved at the time the bulwarks of liberty. These bulwarks were strongly fortified when in 1643 the "Solemn League and Covenant," as a declaration of faith and bond of common defence, was accepted by many earnest persons both in England and Scotland.

With the event of the Restoration oppressive measures were renewed, for Charles II., who bad himself subscribed the Covenant and experienced hospitality and help from the Presbyterians, proceeded on his recall to oppress and persecute then. Restoring episcopacy, he sent as unprovided wanderers from their homes the lawful successors of those who had established the Church at the Reformation; he renewed the royal proclamations against conventicles, and charging those who frequented them with sedition, made them liable to fine or imprisonment. A Court of High Commission was established at the instance of the primate, Mr James Sharp, who, prior to accepting the archbishopric of St Andrews, was a rigorous Presbyterian. In order effectually to crush those with whom he had formerly co-operated, the primate constituted the new court according to his own model. Of the forty-four commissioners five could act in concert with a bishop. Governed by no rules and unrestrained by any special forms, the members were commissioned " to do and execute what they shall find necessary for his majesty's service," and from their judgments there was no appeal. No indictments were framed; no witnesses were examined; nor were defences tolerated. The Act of Fines being renewed on the king's authority, penalties were exacted from all whom the Treasurer or the King's Advocate might name. Among the persecuted were all who preached without a bishop's license, and all who attended religious services elsewhere than in the parish church. The High Commission Court lasted two years; it might have subsisted longer had the bishops been less violent.

One of the High Commissioners, James Hamilton, Bishop of Galloway, had, as minister of Cambusnethan, been a rigid Covenanter. He now persecuted keenly his Presbyterian brethren. On the 26th October 1664 his Diocesan Synod issued the following minute: "By divers ministers present it was represented that many of their parishioners did wilfully absent themselves from the preaching of the word and other divine ordinances, and did refuse to bring their children to the church to be baptized by them, but either keeped them unbaptizecl or took them to outed ministers of their own principles to be baptized privately by them. Therefore the Synod resolved that such persons, after admonition and warning, be cited before the court of High Commission." As to "the common people," the Synod considered that the "honourable judicatoric of High Commission" should not be troubled with them, and further that as "lenity hath rather encouraged them to go on in contempt, his Majesty's Secret Councell" be requested "to send a party of souldiers to quarter upon such obstinate persons in every parish untill they pay twentie shillings Scots for every ten days' absence from the church."

By the Privy Council the desire of Bishop Hamilton and his clergy was promptly satisfied. Into Galloway was despatched Sir James Turner, another renegade from Presbyterian doctrine, and who had exercised his military skill, derived from his experiences in the Thirty Years' War, by crushing the Covenanters of the west. Turner fulfilled his commission with terrible severity. By his coarse and brutal soldiers he scoured the south-western counties, assailing and mocking the peasantry at their devotions, and plundering them of their substance. Nor would he withdraw his troops or allay his exactions till each of his victims had subscribed a bond in these words: "I have been most civilie, discreetly, and gently delt with in the matter of my fines for my bygane faults." Further, each victim was bound to promise, under a penalty, that he would not be absent from the parish church "two Lord's days together, nor attend conventicles or contribute for the supply of any conventicle preachers."

For relief from Turner and his troops, appeals were urged on every side. By certain parishioners of Girthon it was represented to the Diocesan Synod that even while "they walked according to the law," they had been fined "for alleged disobedience." At length the people, to the number of three thousand, arose in arms, and succeeded in making captive their oppressor.

The cruelties which Turner enacted in Galloway were, in Ayrshire and other counties, notably carried out by John Graham of Claverhouse. This man, popularly remembered as "the bluidy Clavers," was naturally chivalrous and the reverse of implacable. But in the service of a despot he became cruel, being resolved at all hazards to crush those who resisted an authority, which he associated with the divine. In 1685 he at his own door shot dead John Brown, the pious crofter of Priesthill, who persisted in attending conventicles. A month later he, in attempting by his dragoons to disperse a body of Presbyterians celebrating the communion, met an unexpected resistance, and was discomfited at Drumclog. But three weeks afterwards lie gratified his revenge by slaughtering in their flight those Covenanters who were seeking to escape from the disaster at Bothwell Bridge. On the 8th May 1685, James VII. had decreed that all who attended "field-conventicles shall be punished with death and confiscation." This was Graham's warrant, and it satisfied him.

With the restoration of Presbytery in 1690, under the government of the Revolution, it would have been pleasant to record that the "outed" ministers reinstated in their livings had, through persecution, become forbearing. A different picture is to be presented. They refused to tolerate any other sect. On the 29th November 1705 the Presbytery of Lanark called upon a magistrate at Douglas "to repress the conventicles of Quakers" held in that place. Towards their deprived episcopal brethren, at whose hands they had in many instances suffered wrong, they cherished a deep resentment. their instrumentality was passed in 1695 a Parliamentary enactment, whereby church ordinances such as baptism and marriage performed by the Episcopal clergy were declared to be irregular. Mr James Greenshields, a native of Scotland, ordained, after his deprivation, by Bishop Ramsay of Ross, opened in 1709 a place of worship at Edinburgh. Charged by the Presbytery of Edinburgh as officiating within their bounds without warrant, he pleaded that lie was not amenable to their authority. His plea was rejected, and he was ordered to desist from preaching under the pain of imprisonment. As he persisted he was, at the Presbytery's instance, seized by the magistrates, and thrown into prison. By the Court of Session he was refused redress ; but on appeal the House of Lords reversed the judgment. Mr Greenshields was now liberated after enduring personal restraint for seven months. Against the remonstrances of the General Assembly was passed in 1712 the Act of Tolerration. Herein it was provided that it was " free and lawful for all those of the Episcopal communion in Scotland to meet and assemble for the exercise of divine worship to be performed after their own manner by pastors ordained by a Protestant bishop . . . and to use in their congregations the Liturgy of the Church of England . . . without any let, hindrance or disturbance whatsoever." But the Act of Toleration maintained an important reserve. All the tolerated clergy behoved to take the oaths of allegiance and abjuration; also in conducting devine service, to pray for the Queen and the Princess Sophia. By this provision was left open to Presbyterian ministers a wide avenue of attack, for it was abundantly certain that no Episcopal clergyman would venture to renounce his allegiance to the House of Stewart. Of Mr Henry Chrystie, deprived of the living of Kinross in 1659 for refusing to pray for William and Mary, and actually praying for King James, and who was now a non-jurant bishop, it was reported that he exercised his ministry "within his house at Kinross," an offence for which, by the Circuit Court held at Stirling on the 23d May 1709, he was ordered to remove from the parish. On the same occasion were the deprived ministers of Stirling, St Ninians, and Baldernock ordained to desist from exercising their ministry, until they had sworn allegiance to Queen Angie, while the Sheriff Depute of Stirlingshire was menaced with deprivation if he further omitted to shut up the meeting-houses of the non-jurant clergy.

After a time the animosity of Presbyterian ministers towards their deprived and suffering brethren considerably subsided, but the race they had started was keenly followed up. The Jacobite rising of 1713 was held by members of the English government to have been materially abetted by the non-jurant clergy. Accordingly, Mr Secretary Stanhope, in May 1716, conveyed to the Lords of Justiciary a royal mandate, whereby they were enjoined "to shut up meeting-houses where neither His Majesty nor the royal family were prayed for." To this command the Lords made answer that "while ready to give all dutiful complyance with His Majesty's commands," their forms did not "allow such summar procedure till after tryel." But repressive measures followed promptly. On the 28th June 1716, twenty non-jurant clergymen were by the Justiciary Court prohibited, under a heavy penalty, from exercising their functions, and by the same judicatory, in June 1717, were other twenty non-jurors in like manner put to silence.

On the suppression of the rebellion of 1745-6, the Episcopal clergy were subjected to a new attack. In his devastating progress after the battle of Culloden, the Duke of Cumberland burned their chapels, while by a statute passed in 1746 it was provided that after the 1st September "every person exercising the function of a pastor or minister in any Episcopal meeting-house in Scotland, without registering his letters of orders, and taking all the oaths required by law, and praying for His Majesty King George and the royal family by name, shall for the first offence suffer six months' imprisonment, and for the second be transported to some one of His Majesty's plantations for life." It was further provided that every house in which four persons, besides the usual occupants, assembled for worship, was to be held a meeting house, [In the memoir of the Rev. John Skinner, episcopal minister at Longside, the well-known poet, it is recorded that to avoid this statutory restriction at a time when its violation would have been perilous, the reverend gentleman assembled his congregation outside his cottage, while he conducted service at a window or the open door.] and that no orders should be registered but such as were given by bishops of the Established Churches of England or Ireland. By the same Act laymen were enjoined, under heavy penalties and disabilities, to act as informants, and to cease from attending the unqualified.

When in 1690 Presbyterian ministers were reinstated in their parochial cures, tent-preaching was no longer a necessity. While it prevailed, a practice arose which even the altered ecclesiastical condition did not wholly supersede. For when the communion was dispensed on the hill-side by popular preachers, persons gathered on the occasion from vast distances. And these gatherings were continued long after the Revolution. To suit the requirements of those who met, preaching tents were erected in the churchyard, or in the vicinity of the church. Not infrequently the sacred ordinance was administered in the fields. When the pious Thomas Boston was minister of Ettrick from 1707 to 1732, it is recorded that on one occasion 777 persons communicated, of whom all save 103 who formed the parochial roll, had assembled from the neighbouring parishes.'On the occasion of the revival at Cambuslang in 1742, about 30,000 persons joined in celebrating the communion. And in the summer of 1788, 1400 persons communicated in the churchyard of Mauchline, though the communion roll of the parish embraced only 400 names. In 1787 Dr John Burgess, minister of Kirkmichael, in Dumfriesshire, informed the Presbytery that he had "for many years dispensed the Sacrament of the Supper in the open fields." And at the celebration of his ministerial, jubilee in 1883, Dr James Chrystal, minister of Auchinleck (a district associated with covenanting struggles), remarked that at the commencement of his ministry, tent services at the season of Communion were common. He added that the ministers of neighbouring parishes closed their churches in order to assist in the work of preaching to the great audiences which usually assembled.

Long before its final abandonment, sacramental tent-preaching had proved positively mischievous. In the rural districts each occasion was anticipated by the young as a time of special merry-making, and was, as it came round, associated with scenes not only utterly irreverent, but altogether degrading. On this subject we are indebted to Professor Walker's MS. Referring to "Manse Life at Dundonald in 1780," the Professor proceeds:—"Our grand Saturnalia was the Sacrament, or annual administration of the holy Communion. It was an occasion of high excitement to every person in the parish, above all to the villagers, who had then the rare importance of receiving visitors and exercising hospitality. Even the village itself by the concourse of strangers, the bustle of old and young in holiday attire, the display of three or four hucksters' stalls with ginger-bread and sugarplums, round which we stood and gazed with delight and desire, and the happy flutter of the girls when they were treated by their sweethearts, rose for the time to something like the dignity of a town. The children, who had often envied those of Irvine its fairs, now felt that their hour of consequence was conic, and each believed himself an object of that envy which he had felt. But far beyond all in the enjoyment of these delicious emotions were the children of the manse, which was as much the focus of excitement to the village as that was to the parish; our visitors being superior both in numbers and in rank. We had the clergy, the prime movers of the whole, the landed gentry, and several persons from a distance of extraordinary religious pretensions, which they thought entitled them to fill the intervals of devotion with participation in good cheer and social relaxation. Our pleasures therefore were as various as they were great. We had much better than usual, including pastry and other festal luxuries ; we had the exclusive privilege of riding the horses of our visitors to water, and of receiving from some of them a Halfpenny to be expended at the hucksters' `stands,' and at these as well as at play round 'the tents' in the churchyard, which being a novelty, was of course an attraction, we had the flattering perception that our condescension in still continuing to mingle with the little villagers was fully recognized by them. There was but one drawback to our bliss. We sometimes received hints of the serious and sacred nature of the occasion; and we had to sit quiet under sermons of unusual length. Subject, however, as our gaiety was to these interruptions, and checked as it was at times by a doubt whether it was right to be so very happy, the secular prevailed, I fear, upon the whole over the spiritual emotions of our hearts, during those festive days."

Professor Walker adds : "From the tent, a portable wooden pulpit, sheltered from the weather, and set up in the churchyard, preacher after preacher, mostly incumbents of contiguous churches, addressed a miscellaneous audience, seated on the memorial slabs, or reclining on the graveyard. In that noblest of temples roofed by the blue vault of heaven, and enclosed by the hills and forests in their summer glory, orators of real power found their opportunity to stir to their highest pitch the religious emotions of the people's hearts. The eagerness therefore with which crowds flocked from other parishes to these periodic festivals of devotion is not to be attributed solely to such feelings as readers of Burns's `Holy Fair' (wherein such a scene is described with matchless humour, but with little reverence), might suppose to have been chiefly operative in causing the customary assemblage of so vast a concourse."

Some years before the publication of Burns's effective satire, sacramental gatherings were condemned by the Church courts, and discountenanced by individual ministers. Referring to an Act which, on the subject, had been put forth by the local Presbytery, the session-clerk of Buittle, Kirkcudbrightshire, has in his register the following entry: "January 14, 1750. The Lord's Supper was celebrate in our kirk for the first time in that manner, viz., most part by our selves and with only one assistant minister." On the working of the new system, the Buittle session-clerk continued to make an annual report. On Sunday, the 22d March 1752, he writes: "Our Communion Day, in which there was much satisfaction." These entries follow: "Sunday, 14th July 1754. We had the Communion with remarkable evidences of our Lord's gracious favour in and about the whole work." "25th July 1762. All the work was most wonderfully countenanced, and was in several respects more satisfying than in former years. We had the like good report of the sacraments administered this summer in most neighbouring congregations." "Sunday, the 2d July 171.5. Our Communion Day, a merciful day both of spiritual and temporal favours; and in particular a plentiful warm welcome rain, after a long much-felt threatening drought."

Among the practices of the Romish Church which Scottish Reformers specially condemned, was the frequent observance of fasts and festivals. At Iona the monks fasted each Wednesday and Friday, except at the period intervening between Easter and Whitsunday ; but this abstinence was intended for those only who served in religion. By instituting festival days the Romish Church led the common people to consume nearly half the year worse than idly. In correcting a great abuse, the Reformers were not personally blameless. In 1578 the General Assembly appointed a fast to continue for eight days. But abstinence from labour was chiefly associated with the season of Communion. When this sacred ordinance was in 1560 celebrated by John Knox, in St Giles Church, the services were continued daily from Monday till Saturday. And these services implied fasting of a most exhaustive sort, since they usually commenced with daybreak, and were continued till the evening. In the parish register of the Canonaatc, we are informed that on the 5th May 1566, "the Communion was administered anis at four houris in the morning, the uthair at nyne."

At the Reformation, and long subsequently, the Communion was observed as a week-day service, and in this manner dissociated from that superstitious reverence with which in Roniish times the ordinance had been accompanied. Instead of the six days' services which existed at the Reformation, the sacramental days were afterwards reduced to four. In 1643 the Communion services at St Andrews were held on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Where Sunday was afterwards appropriated as the day of Communion, the previous Saturday was reserved for a preparatory service. The sacramental Fast-day was introduced by the Protesters. For the Thanksgiving Monday is claimed a special origin. In 1630, when the people were deeply agitated by the arbitrary measures of the court, the celebration of the communion in the church of Shotts was attended by a remarkable demonstration. In conducting service, the parish minister, Mr John Home, had been so especially fervent that at the close, the people lingered about refusing to go home. Next morning they assembled in the church, when Mr Home again preached and succeeded in lulling the prevailing emotion. A thanksgiving service was instituted thereafter.

So long as tent-preaching prevailed a sacramental occasion was attended by the ministrations of ten or twelve ministers. Four usually officiated on the Fast-day, two in church and two out of doors. On Saturday two ministers preached, and the services of Sunday and Monday were supplied by four or six.

In rural parishes the Communion week-day services continue as in former times. But in towns and populous places there is an increasing desire to dispense with extra services. By some Kirksessions the Fast-day has been abolished. On Fast-days the bulk of the population make holiday, and even those who regularly attend the Sunday services demur to surrender a fitting opportunity of renewing old friendships and of re-awakening gentle memories.

In Romish times few persons communicated. The cup was denied to the laity, and the bread used in the ordinance was described so as to inspire awe and fear. The Reformers desired to present in the ordinance the character of a social though sacred feast. They used the elements freely. When Knox in 1560 administered the ordinance in St Giles' church, there were used by the partakers eight and a half gallons of claret. In 1573 and 1574 the congregation of St Giles consumed in the celebration "ane puncheone" of wine, that is, eighty-four gallons. This would imply a large communion-roll, and it was understood that every adult, not under censure, was bound to present himself "at the Lord's 'fable," not only to make public profession of his Christian hope, but to signify a renunciation of Popery. According to the parish register so many as 1200 persons communicated in August 1566 in the Abbey Church of Holy-rood. In royal burgles the elements were supplied to the Kirksession out of the burgh funds, while in rural parishes a special allowance was made by the heritors to the minister under the name of "communion-element money." In reality the cost of the bread and wine used at the communion table was a very small item of the expense incurred by the incumbent. He had to provide entertainment at his house not only for his elders and clerical assistants, but likewise for those parishioners whose homes were distant, also for notable strangers. When early in the eighteenth century crowds at the communion season flocked to the ministrations of Mr Boston at Ettrick, a farmer in the parish, to relieve the minister of an insupportable burden, offered to make the needful provision. On one occasion he cooked three lambs and baked a vast store of oaten and wheaten bread, besides providing thirty beds in the way of lodgment. In certain districts the communion elements were somewhat costly. The sacramental bread in western counties consisted of a friable cake baked with fine flour and butter, and seasoned with carraways and orange-peel. Shortbread is used in a considerable district of Galloway.

In pre-Reformation times those admitted. to the eucharist received tokens in counters of lead. With these the Reformers dispensed, substituting "cairts" or cards. After a time were adopted metallic tokens square or oval, having inscribed the name of the parish on one side, and on the other a scriptural text, or the figure of a chalice.

In the eucharist the Romish priest administered the sacramental wafers to the recipients kneeling, an attitude obviously implying homage or worship. In communicating, Scottish Reformers chose a sitting attitude ; the partakers sitting together at the same table. To the rubric inserted in the Prayer Book of Edward VI. prescribing that communicants should receive the Lord's Supper in a kneeling posture, John Knox, as one of the king's chaplains, offered a keen opposition, and as a compromise his colleagues inserted the declaration that "the sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natural substances, and may not be adored."

Though abundantly aware that the act of kneeling at the Communion table was by his Scottish subjects associated with Popery, James VI., with an infatuation which impelled him and his descendants to dynastic ruin, determined that this method of receiving the sacramental elements should be adopted and prevail. As a preliminary measure, he, on the 4th March 1614, issued a manifesto expressing his royal will that the Communion in all parish churches should be observed on the following Easter. The injunction was unheeded. James's purpose, remained unshaken. Experiencing from the Presbyterians It loyal reception during his state visit in 1617, he invited the leading members of the Church, also the nobility and judges, to celebrate the Communion, kneeling, within the Chapel Royal of Holyrood. Some obeyed, but Pishop Cowper, as Dean of the Chapel, communicated sitting; he yielded subsequently.

James would not be overborne. Already, in 1612, his Parliament had decreed that the calling of a General Assembly was his sole prerogative. No free Assembly had met for fifteen years, yet the semblance of ecclesiastical approval became essential to his purpose. So at his bidding a body of ministers net at Perth in August 1618, and styling themselves a General Assembly, passed "five articles" of procedure. Four of these were innocuous, but along with them was the injunction that the Lord's Supper should be accepted kneeling. The "Articles of Perth" were in 1621 ratified by Parliament.

While making strong trial of his prerogative, Charles I. enjoined that on Easter Sunday, 1627, the Communion should---the partakers kneeling—be celebrated at Edinburgh. The celebration ensued, but, save by seven persons, kneeling was omitted. Charles was fierce, and vowed a terrible revenge. The Edinburgh ministers, willing to propitiate the royal favour, diffidently approached the throne, begging that in order to allay popular discontent, the kneeling ordinance might be relaxed. Obstinacy is a chief characteristic of the oppressor. Charles sentenced the clergy for their temerity to appear before the Archbishop of St Andrews to be reproved by him according to his pleasure. No further censure ensued, but another result obtained widely. People dreaded to celebrate an ordinance which, observed in the customary manner, implied persecution. In many parishes the Communion was suspended till the administrative change, which, in 1637, followed the public rejection of the Service Book. By the General Assembly of 1633, the convocation at Perth which had sanctioned "the articles" was declared illegal, and its acts null and inoperative. In the matter of kneeling those brethren who favoured anglican modes were relieved and satisfied. On the 21st October 1638, the collegiate ministers of St Andrews, Alexander Gladstanes, son of the archbishop, and George Wishart, afterwards Bishop of Edinburgh, administered the Communion "in the old session form."

During the Commonwealth the communion was irregularly observed. In 1653 an ex-Provost of St Andrews complained to the Kirksession of the parish that the Lord's Supper had not been celebrated for three years, whereupon the lay members "seriously recommended to the ministers to consider how this might be remedied." Yet three years further elapsed ere the ordinance was resumed. Writing in 1655, Nicol the diarist remarks that the Communion was then administered at Edinburgh after an interval of five years. During the troubled times which followed, the observance was partial and intermittent. In 1701 a more frequent celebration was enjoined by the General Assembly, and by that judicatory in 1711 it was suggested that Presbyteries should arrange so that the ordinance might be dispensed in their parishes "through the several months of the year." In the highlands and islands a reluctance to partake of the Lord's Supper is bound up with the popular superstitions. At a recent date it was found by a Committee of the General Assembly that, in some insular parishes, the Communion was dispensed at intervals of from five to fourteen years.

One of the few usages of the Romish Church retained by Scottish Reformers was the mode of summoning congregations to worship by tinkling a bell. But bell-chimes, as savouring of Popery, were rejected. According to Martine of Clermont, the many, fair, great, and excellent bells of St Andrews cathedral were, at the Reformation, placed "aboard of a ship to be transported and sold." And the great "Mary bell" of St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, was, in June 1560, taken down and melted for conversion into cannon. The small parish bells were preserved.

When there was no steeple or belfry, parishioners were summoned to worship by a hand-bell. In 1622 the congregation of St Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, were convened in this manner; the beadle going about the parish each Sunday morning, sounding a hand-bell.' Iii seeking to anglicize the Church by a high ritual, Charles T. gave orders that bells of power and weight should be furnished to the great churches. On the 8th December 1629, he informed the Earl of Mar, Lord High Treasurer, that he had appointed Sir Henry Bruce, Master of Artillery, "to deliver unto Maister James Hanna [minister of the church at Holyrood] two broken cannons in the castle of Edinburgh, for providing a peall of bells for the church of Halierood-House." During the eighteenth century and subsequently, the exclusive privilege of summoning the lieges to worship was asserted and guarded by the Established Church.

The early history of Scottish bell-ringing is not uninstructive. The bell, a symbol in Israeltish worship, was in their religious rites used by other eastern nations. In Egypt the feast of Osiris was opened by the ringing of bells. The earliest British bells are of iron, the symbol being unknown in the age of bronze.

In forming the primitive hand-bell, the ancient craftsman shaped a thin plate of hammered iron into a form which resembled the Greek cross; thereafter lending the sides together in box-like fashion, he connected them by rivets. The clapper was added by a contrivance which, securing it in its place also served the purpose of a handle.

By Christian missionaries bells were used in summoning the brethren to meals, and the converts to devotion. About the Seventh century the iron bell was dipped in molten bronze, and so coated with that metal. A century later, monks cast bronze bells for their several monasteries. '.These bore handles of an oval form, adorned with lacertine forms. Five centuries later the primitive iron bell was, as a sacred treasure, encased in a silver shrine richly decorated. Those families who by accident or by donative became possessed of an enshrined iron bell were held to be the favoured of fortune. The ancient bell of
St Fillan, now preserved in the National Museum, rested till near the close of the eighteenth century in a churchyard at the loch, or holy pool of Strathfillan, and it was held that so long as it there remained, sick persons bathing in the loch would experience cure. Lunatics were believed to be restored to reason when, after being bathed in the loch, they were for a night detained in the churchyard, with St Fillan's bell bound upon their heads.

Reared apart from, but in the immediate vicinity of the monastery, the early belfry or bell-tower was ascended in the interior by movable ladders. From the top hand-bells were rung by the monks to summon the acolytes to prayer ; also to arouse the neighbours to a common defence against hostile inroads. In Ireland there are seventy-six of these bell-towers; two which remain in Scotland were connected with the Culdee monasteries of Abernethy and Brechin. All these towers were reared about the ninth century. Each was pierced by a narrow door, approached by a ladder, about two yards from the ground, the lower portion becoming a safe store-house in circumstances of danger. Church bells of bell-metal, such as that now in use, were in the twelfth century first placed in the towers of churches.

The earlier churches were eaves by the sea-board. Next in order was the oratory of wattles, supported by stakes and buttresses of undressed timber. So constructed was the original monastery at Iona, which embraced a chapel, a refectory, and a kitchen. In wattled huts the monks lived in the vicinity, and the entire establishment was enclosed by a ditch and rampart. St Oran's Chapel at Iona, reared by the followers of St Columba, was probably the earliest of our stone-built churches. The early stone churches were reared without mortar. Even in the eleventh century, the principal places of worship were of imperfect construction. The Chapel Royal of Stirling, erected in 1120, was covered with thatch. As the revenues of parish churches were, prior to the Reformation, generally in the hands of monks, funds for repairing the fabrics were seldom forthcoming. By the Privy Council in 1563, it was ordained that "all parish kirks within this realm, which are decayed and fallen down, be repaired and upbigged," and further that "they be sufficiently mended in windows, thick, and other necessaries." It was also enacted that henceforth repairs should be executed by the parishioners and the parson, two-thirds of the cost being defrayed by the former, and one-third. by the latter. The enactment as to the contribution by "parsons" had reference to a privilege possessed by ecclesiastics of taking timber from the neighbouring forests, and of claiming tithes of the natural produce. At the date of the statute these rights were continued.

As the Privy Council orders of 1563 provided only for repairs, the Court of Session held in 1627 that a new church could not be erected, save by an Act of Parliament. And it was found by the Court in 1628 that "where there is a kirk and a quire [choir], the parson or his tacksman ought to uphold the quire, and the parish the kirk; but where there is no quire, that the parson ought to uphold the third part of the kirk." Till in 1690 it was settled that the repair and re-erection of churches devolved upon the heritors, nearly every rural place of worship remained in neglect and disrepair. On the 21st January 1676, the Presbytery of Lanark remarked, in inspecting the church of Symington, that there were no glass in the windows, no pulpit, and no reader's seat, or preceptor's desk. On the 28th October 1660, the Kirksession of Inverurie ordained that "ilk plough in the parishe bring a load of heather for reparation of the kirk, againe Wednesday at night next, the last of this month." The parishioners of Ettrick were, on the 25th October 1697, enjoined by the Kirk-session to "bring in heather, thack, and divots, lime and deals, and what necessaries are fit for the repair of the kirk and manse."

The majority of parish churches were long and narrow, acid, possessing small windows only in the front wail, were imperfectly lightened. When applying in 1787 for a new church, Dr John Burgess, minister of Kirkmichael, reported to the Presbytery of Lochmaben that the area of the church was "from end to end only an ell wide." The humorous Dr John Muir of Glasgow, who in his early pastorate had ministered at Lecropt, Perthshire, was wont jocularly to remark that he had preached several years in a trance, alluding to the extreme narrowness of his rural church. At the celebration of his jubilee in 1883, Dr Chrystal of Auchinleck stated, as an incident in connection with his early ministry, that in consequence of the limited space in the old church, he had been ordained upon a low platform erected in the churchyard.

The practice of interring within the walls of churches, common before the Reformation, was not thereafter abandoned. Mr William Birnie, who in 1597 was admitted minister of Lanark, and afterwards became Dean of the Chapel Royal, issued a publication entitled "The Blame of Kirk Burial, tending to persuade to Cemeterial Civilitie," in which he strongly deprecated intramural interment. The General Assembly also inhibited it. Yet the practice was insisted upon, landowners and others burying their (lead under their pews. On the 2d March 1626, James Lindsay of Pelstane, being censured by the Presbytery of Lanark "for burying his child within the kirk of Carluke," pledged himself "to build ane yle for his awn buryall."

*When at the Reformation cathedrals and monasteries were partially dilapidated, a portion of the precincts was converted into a burial place for the poor. Within the ruins were accumulated rubbish of every sort. Till lately a manure heap occupied the fine western doorway of Paisley Abbey. Thirty years ago the ruin of Lindores Abbey was used as a farm store. Within the cloisters of the abbeys of Elgin and Arbroath wild birds build their nests. The cathedrals of St Mungo and St Giles were happily not unroofed, yet the window-mullions were wrenched out, the columns defaced, and the cornices shattered. The, tombs of venerable churchmen were also thrown down, and ancient stone coffins broken open, rifled, and exposed upon the surface. The stalls of prebendaries and choristers were torn down and burned. With the progress of time iconoclastic violence gained strength. During the seventeenth century memorial stones or paintings placed in churches were, as "images," ruthlessly wrecked. In 1640, the Kirksession of Aberdeen enjoined that a portrait of Reid of Pitfoddels be removed from the vestry as "smelling of Popery." The Synod of Perth in 1649 condemned to destruction a sculptured cross standing in the churchyard of Dunblane. And about the same time, the Presbytery of Irvine, at a special meeting at Kilmarnock, commanded the Lord Boyd to remove from the parish church a sculptured effigy which lie had reared in memory of his predecessor. In November 1649 Lady Clllander was, by the Kirksession of Dal ety, ordered to "take down some images of stained glass," these being described as "idolatrous and superstitious."

Parish manses were originally built and kept in repair by the incumbents, while the estimated value of the structures was, by their successors, made payable to their heirs. But in 1649 it was ruled that a dwelling for every parish minister should be provided by the heritors; the cost not being under 500 merles, or more than a thousand. Manses were ordinarily constructed at the lowest statutory cost. Those reared in the seventeenth century were composed of clay and turf, held together by bands of timber. The manse of Inverary is in 1723 thus described;

"In the principal house there are these rooms: a hall, a laigh chamber floored within the said hall, a cellar within the said chamber, and another cellar in the east end of the house. A chamber upstairs in the west end of the house, and a closet, with a hanging chamber therein; a chamber upstairs in the east end of the house above the cellar; and a wardrobe above the hall, and a little room betwixt the wardrobe and the last chamber."

From Professor Walker's MS. "Life of a Manse Household in 1780," we obtain the following:-

"The manses built in the end of the seventeenth or beginning of the eighteenth century were very much alike. They were long and narrow. From the smallness of the windows they were badly lighted, and their four upper apartments were so inartificially arranged as to leave no space for passages; they had therefore to serve as passages to each other. Dundonald manse was one of the oldest and one of the worst. It was roofed with thatch, which covering had by age been discoloured to blackness, while the mortar with which the walls were rough cast had acquired a hue of dingy brown. Of the same appearance was the byre or cow-house, the stable, and the outhouses collectively. These formed two blocks projecting at right angles from each extremity of the house, and being connected with a low wall, in which was a double-leaved gate, too crazy ever to be shut, enclosed a small front court, if one could dignify it with such a name. To keep this free from intrusive vegetable growths no exertion was ever made, no one having ever felt this to be desirable. Docks and nettles flourished without molestation in every corner, exhibiting peculiar exuberance along an open sewer, called the glaur-hole, which received, but nowhere carried off, the liquid refuse of the kitchen."

"Such," proceeds Professor Walker, "was the exterior of my father's manse at Dundonald. On entering the house a transverse passage, with a clay floor, full of irregularities, led to the kitchen, similarly floored, in one en<l, and to a low--roofed bedroom in the other, the cellar and dairy occupying the intermediate space. Above stairs was a dining room in the centre, at one end a tolerable bedroom, and two small ones at the other. As the family multiplied, portions of the confined space between the rafters and the tie-beams were enclosed to form two diminutive apartments. The interior furnishing of the several rooms was of time simplest character, consisting either of deal boards, or of dark furze hung on the unplastered walls. When the cloth had rotted off in one apartment, a heroic innovation was made by papering it. But the paper being applied to a wall of unhewn stone, it, in its unplastered roughness, showed a surface as surgy as the sea in a storm. I wish I could add that the discomforts of such a dwelling were relieved by the nicety with which it was kept. But, alas, brooms and brushes were rarely used, and some corners never felt their presence."

With physical surroundings so utterly inadequate, the Scottish minister of the seventeenth century derived his social status solely from the dignity of his office. And as his attenuated revenues precluded the possibility of his making any provision for a family, lie might not expect to secure a helpmate who, by education and training, could share his pursuits, and appreciate his conversation. At length, consequent on an Act of the General Assembly of the 23d May 1743 was legalized by Parliamentary statute a Fund for behoof of the widows and children of the parochial clergy, also of the University professors. At or shortly after admission it was provided that every minister or professor should select one of four annual rates to be compensated by a proportionate provision to widows or children. The original rates were £2, 12s. 6d.; £3, 18s. 9d.; £5, 5s.; and 6, 11s. 3d.; while the relative annuities to widows were £10, £15, £20, and £25. Consequent on some changes the annuities have latterly been increased to £26, £34, £42, and £50, secured by annual rates of £3, 3s., £4, 14s. 6d.; £6, 6s.; and £7, 17s. 6d.

When a contributor dies, being a widower, his child or children are entitled, irrespective of age, and if more than one equally among them, to a provision of £100, £150, £200, or £250. If a contributor dies, leaving a widow, who survives him for so short a time as not to become entitled to an annuity, a provision to the children is payable, if one or more of them is under sixteen years of age, but not otherwise, and the amount is the same as if the contributor had been a widower at the time of his death. The permanent trustees of the Fund are the ministers of the Presbytery and professors of the University of Edinburgh; there are also elected members. The Fund was devised by Dr Alexander Webster, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, who was assisted in his calculations by the Rev. Dr Robert Wallace and Professor Colin Maclaurin.

During the first four centuries of the Christian Church, opulent and pious persons who founded and endowed churches were content that these should bear their names, while they were assigned seats in the choir as more honourable than in the nave. They were also allowed burial within the walls—a privilege which was extended to their descendants. When in the fifth century the Church was beginning to depart from its original purity, founders were allowed to nominate pastors to the churches they had endowed, and in the following century what had been by bishops conceded as a privilege, was asserted as a right. By a section of the Scottish Reformers, lay-nomination to benefices was associated with Romish error, and it is accordingly set forth in the First Book of Discipline, issued in 1560, that "it appertaineth to the people and to every several congregation to elect their minister." But the First Book of Discipline was not ratified by Parliament, and it soon became evident that if the privilege of nominating to church livings was not reserved to lay patrons, the small portion of money reserved from the rents of the Church lauds for support of the reformed clergy would be totally withheld. Accordingly, in an address to Queen Mary in 1565, the Reformers intimated that they had no desire that patrons should be deprived of their ancient privileges, while in 1567, when the Reformed Church was legally established, the rights' of the "laic patronages" were reserved to the "just and ancient patrones." Between the 25th December 1567, when the "Register of Crown Presentations begins, and the 5th December 1571, are recorded 220 presentations, of which 107 are to benefices having cure of souls. In 1594 forty royal presentations are recorded. Yet so long as the Presbyterian system enjoyed an immunity from monarchical interference, the action of lay patrons and the trial of presentees by Presbyteries, also provided by statute, worked considerably in unison. This course essentially differed when, in their efforts to place the Church under prelatic rule, James and Charles appointed to benefices those only who became pledged to support their wishes.

In 1649 patrons were deprived, but their privileges were recovered at the Restoration. And on the 10th July 1663, Parliament ruled that under pain of being; denounced rebels, all ministers who had entered on their livings during the past fourteen years should seek presentations from patrons, and collation from the bishops. Declining obedience, the more earnest portion of the clergy, to the number of 350, abandoned or were deprived of their charges. After the Revolution, the right of appointing to vacant cures was conferred on the heritors and elders. But this arrangement was brief, for shortly after the Toleration Act had in 1712 been placed on the statute book, an Act restoring church patronage in Scotland was hastily passed through the House of Commons, and notwithstanding the remonstrances of the General Assembly, was confirmed by the House of Peers. In approaching the Upper House by memorial, the delegates of the General Assembly addressed "the Most Honourable the Peers of Great Britain," thereby ignoring the Bishops; their memorial was rejected till the usual preamble of "the Lords Spiritual and Temporal" was substituted.

In some degree the Church had invited reprisals by suggesting the unwarrantable oppression of the non-jurant clergy, while it was felt that by owing their offices to the favour of the Crown or of the aristocracy, individual ministers were less likely to induce popular discontent. But the consequences were grievously injurious. The exercise full and mire-strained of lay patronage (luring the eighteenth century, while it failed in checking intolerance, induced that ministerial languor and doctrinal defection which obtained a wide prevalence. Iii their discourses, omitting any emphatic exposition of cardinal truth, the majority of the clergy covertly preached the doctrines of Socinus. The wide circulation of a wort, by a Puritan soldier of the Commonwealth, entitled "The Marrow of Modern Divinity," in which the doctrine of free grace was emphatically set forth, excited on the part of the secularizing clergy a desire for its repression. By the General Assembly of 1720 its doctrines were condemned, the people being invited to reject its teaching. Under the leadership of Mr Thomas Boston of Ettrick, the Assembly's deliverance was impugned, and though he and eleven adherents were censured by a subsequent Assembly, the agitation availed in promoting evangelical light in an age which had otherwise been in darkness.

While the embers of the Marrow Controversy were still warm, the General Assembly of 1730 determined that reasons of dissent "against the determinations of Church judicatures" should be unrecorded, implying a desire to stifle all complaints in regard to the settlement of ministers. The resolution was denounced by Mr Ebenezer Erskine of Stirling in a discourse which, in 1732, he preached before the Synod of Perth and Stirling. Sentenced to rebuke, the judgment was confirmed by the General Assembly. Erskine with three adhering brethren having refused to retract, was by the Commission of Assembly in 1733 suspended from the ministry. The four seceding brethren founded, on the 5th December, the Associate Presbytery, while, in a published "Testimony," they set forth that in adopting this course, they regarded the question of the popular election of ministers as subordinate to the public assertion of evangelical. truth. By the General Assembly of 1734 the brethren were invited to return to their parishes, but they declined, and were in 1737 joined by four other ministers who seceded from the Establishment.

In endeavouring to shale off secular trammels the Associate Church unhappily proceeded in a course, which more than bordered upon fanaticism. They prohibited their members from entering a parish church under high censures. In July 1741, inviting to Scotland Mr George Whitefield to prosecute an evangelistic tour, they entreated him to accept the Solemn League and Covenant; but as he refused to abandon the Church of England, of which he was a minister, they openly renounced his fellowship. Appointing a fast to be observed on the 4th August 1742 they, at a meeting field on the 15th of the preceding July, declared that a chief reason for so doing was " because the Lord Bath, in His righteous displeasure, left this Church and land to give such an open discovery of their apostacy from Him, in the fond reception that Mr George Whitefield bath met with." In the same "Testimony " they characterize the religious revival at Cambuslang "as awful work upon the bodies and spirits of mein, induced by the energy of Satan." Distressed by the recent invention of fanners for winnowing corn, they described the appliance as interfering as a wind-producer with the Divine prerogative. In a manifesto, issued in 1743, the brethren denounced the Christmas holidays by quaintly complaining that "countenance was given to the observation of holy days, by the vacation of our most considerable courts of justice in the latter end of December." They also declared, that "the penal statutes against witches" had been repealed, "contrary to the express law of God; by which a holy God may be provoked, to permit Satan to tempt and seduce others to the same wicked and dangerous snares."

Such sentiments, while inducing ridicule on the part of some, excited in others a vehement indignation. In 1781 an Aberdeenshire landowner stipulated in his leases that his tenants would forfeit their holdings, if they took into their service or harboured "seceders," whom he classed with "thieves and vagabonds."

In order to exclude Jacobites and Roman Catholics [Dr Somerville has recorded disapprovingly that the measures for liberating Roman Catholics from the severe restrictions and penalties instituted by Government in 1779 met with a warm support, not only from individual members of the Church of Scotland, but from the leaders of that party, which had been distinguished for antipapistical zeal. "My Own Life and Times," by Thomas Somerville, D.D., pp. 190-7.] from burghal administration, a statute was passed in 1745, whereby an oath was imposed on those who sought to become burgesses. By this oath burgesses became bound to profess and uphold "the true religion presently professed within the realm," meaningthe Protestant faith. But to a section of the Associates it occurred that the acceptance of the oath crave sanction to the Established Church. Hence arose a bitter controversy which, after two years, resulted in a separation. By the section condemning the oath was constituted the General Associate, by the others the Associate Synod; they were otherwise known as Burghers and Antiburghers. A second separation ensued, when subsequently was agitated the question as to whether that part of the "Testimony" of 1736 should be maintained or rescinded, wherein the toleration of Episcopal worship in Scotland was denounced as sinful. To the new separatists was assigned on the one side the name of the Constitutional Associate Presbytery, and on the other that of the Original Burghers' Presbytery. Popularly they were known as the New and the Old Light Burghers. After being alienated and opposed to an extent that members of the one denomination would by their presence give no sanction to the ordinances of the other, the two bodies at length. came amicably together. In 1820 they were reunited under the designation of the United Secession Church.

A forced settlement at Inverkeithing in 1752 gave origin to the Relief Church—the name signifying relief from the burden of patronage. Consequent on asserting in the General Assembly a former refusal to assist in inducting at Inverkeithing an obnoxious presentee, Thomas Gillespie, minister of Carnock, was deposed summarily. In 1758 he was joined by Thomas Boston, minister of Jedburgh; and in 1761 by a. congregation at Colinsburgh; thereafter by several other "societies" or congregations. Cherishing liberal sentiments, the members maintained the principle of free communion—that is, of joining at the Lord's Supper with members of other churches. By the union in 1847 of the Relief with the Secession Church, was constituted the United Presbyterian Church.

These several secessions and changes, inconsiderable at the outset, extended under the exercise of a highhanded patronage. For by a forced settlement public sentiment was outraged almost every second or third year. These settlements were usually effected under a military escort, which by their bayonets and fire-locks guarded Presbyteries in obtruding into the sacred office pastors obnoxious to the flocks. Writing about sixty years ago, Lord Cockburn relates in his "Memorials" how that he knew of a cabinet minister who refused to promote a clergyman from a second to a first charge, on account of what he deemed "the presumption of the parishioners" in venturing to request that this might be done. And when, in 1841, a congregation in Fife applied to a noble earl, patron of the parish, to appoint as colleague and successor to the aged incumbent the ministerial assistant by whose services they were edified, they were informed by his lordship's chamberlain that he could not advise his constituent to accede to "any popular representation." Under such circumstances, congregations from time to time seceded from the Establishment, so that when the Relief and United Secession came together in 1847, as the United Presbyterian Synod, these jointly possessed no fewer than 497 churches.

For many years "the call" or address by the parishioners to the presentee, inviting him to accept the sacred office, had become a more formality, since there existed no right to call any other, and induction on the patron's gift was a necessary sequence. At length after other efforts to obtain relief had failed, the General Assembly of 1834, on the motion of Lord Moncreiff, agreed by a majority of 184 to 139 to pass the celebrated "Veto" law. This law or resolution provided that "the solemn dissent of a majority of male heads of families, members of the vacant congregation, and in full communion with the church, shall be deemed sufficient ground for the rejection of a presentee." Not long afterwards the presentee to the vacant parish of Auchterarder, Perthshire, received to his call only two signatures, while nearly all who under the Veto law were entitled to object, signified their dissent. But at the instance of the patron and his presentee, the Court of Session held that the vreto law was illegal, and therefore ordered the local Presbytery to proceed with the induction. On an appeal this judgment was, in August 1842, affirmed by the House of Lords. Thereupon on the 17th November a convocation of ministers who adhered to the policy of the Church was held at Edinburgh. No fewer than 465 ministers were present, and the deliberations continued for an entire week. The result was not made known till the, 18th May 1843, when the next General Assembly was held in St Andrew's Church. After constituting the court, Dr David Welsh, the retiring Moderator, declared by a solemn protest that ecclesiastical action was restrained by the recent adverse decision, and laid on the table a "Claim of Right," approved by the former Assembly. Bowing to the Lord High Commissioner, he now retired from the building, followed by those of the brethren present who had in the preceding November resolved to secede from the Establishment. Proceeding to a large hall at Canon-mills, the brethren there constituted the first General Assembly of the Free Church, and elected Dr Thomas Chalmers as Moderator. Of 1203 ministers, including those of quoad sacra churches, 474 surrendered their livings, a sacrifice to principle without any parallel in modern history.

Liberally supported by friends and adherents, the Free Church yet encountered much inconvenience owing to the refusal by certain landowners of sites for their places of worship. But this system of repression was soon discontinued.

In connection with the Establishment, the Earl of Aberdeen passed through the legislature "a declaratory Act," intended to give greater scope to objecting parishioners; but after a full trial the statute was found promotive of the difficulties which it sought to overcome. One result was inevitable, that if the Established Church was longer to be maintained, lay patronage must cease. On the 7th August 1874 the royal assent was given to a measure repealing the Act of 1712, and vesting the right of electing and appointing ministers to vacant churches in the several congregations.

Amidst these divisions and conflicts the Scottish people have adhered strongly to the doctrines and principles which prevailed at the Reformation. The bulk of the nation being Presbyterian, the Church of Scotland may be defined as consisting of three sections of clergy, severally denoted by those who receive stipend under the authority of the State; those who are supported by a general sustentation fund, and those who derive support from congregational contributions. Of the two latter sections are many who, upholding the voluntary principle, are opposed to religious endowments. On the other hand, members of the Established and no inconsiderable portion of the members of the Free Church, strongly maintain that the endowment of a settled ministry in connection with a faith approved by four-fifths of the population is a State duty and national obligation. On such points difference of sentiment may only interfere with common concord, when the advocates of one mode of thinking seek to thrust their views obtrusively upon the other. Happily in the midst of existing differences there prevails a general harmony, and a growing desire for mutual co-operation.

The ascendency of the Presbyterians in 1638 was not unattended by feelings bitter and resentful towards those who had opposed them. The Solemn League and Covenant, ratified in 1643 by the Parliaments of both kingdoms, provided that Presbytery be maintained in England, Ireland, and Scotland, and that Popery and Prelacy be extirpated. Though this provision was of brief continuance the idea of Presbyterian uniformity was stoutly maintained by the Covenanters, more especially by that section of which Richard Cameron was the leader. In 1690 the Cameronians objected to the Revolution settlement on the ground that it did not embrace the polity of the Covenant. By the Convention a compromise was effected, when nearly a thousand men connected with the sect formed themselves into a regiment "to recover and establish the work of Reformation, . . . in opposition to Popery, Prelacy, and arbitrary power." But the establishment of the Cameronian Regiment did not wholly supplant the sect of which they were a portion. "Hill men," as they were popularly called, were to be found everywhere in the south-western counties. With views considerably modified, they formed themselves into the Reformed Presbyterian Church, a body which in 1860 numbered 45 congregations; there are now not more than seven.

A body of persons, somewhat resembling the earlier Hill-men, continue to exist in Sutherland and Caithness, and other northern comities. By the minister of Golspie described as "illiterate, fanatical, and disorderly," they form a parochial oligarchy, asserting authority over minister and people. Sitting together in a pew close by the pulpit, they each on entering assume a dark cowl, which they wear during service. By motions of the head and low ejaculations they approve or censure the preacher's words. When they specially commend, they with their heels or staves knock gently upon the floor. In the times of tent-preaching, they made choice of ministers who were at the Communion season to conduct the out-of-door services, of which they took the control and regulation.

The Caithness "men" engaged in what was termed Friday fellowship—that is, they met each Friday to hear each other discourse on moral and religious themes. Generally self-educated, their discourses were rhapsodical and fragmentary. Austere and censorious, they dealt harshly with the failings of others, but were more than lenient towards their own. By some "men" was claimed the gift of prophecy. Early in the century, John Grant, a member of the brotherhood, renounced his office in the eldership on account of secular advertisements being attached to the parish church; he ultimately retired from ordinances, and discoursed to his domestics. When attending the General Assembly of the Free Church, which in August 1845 was held at Inverness, Dr Alexander Beith of Stirling found that "the men" were indifferent to the business of the church in its financial interests, but largely pervaded by the idea of " the big sacrament," and of "holy services."

When the office of "Reader" had ceased, and the Scriptures were no longer read in church at morning and evening services, the General Assembly prescribed that Scripture-reading and prayer should be conducted in every household. In 1641 the Assembly instructed ministers and elders "to take care that the worship of God be performed in families; and in 1647 a directory for family worship was prescribed. In May 1651 the Synod of Perth and Stirling instructed the Presbytery of Auchterarder to "take order" that every householder should " practice family exercise by ane qualified man, or else do it himself." Deliverances of similar purport continued to be issued by the ecclesiastical courts. To some dwellings was attached a small closet or oratory, in which members of the household could retire for devotion, and by some families were preserved written covenants of spiritual dedication, which were renewed yearly after the Communion.

During the eighteenth century every Scottish yeoman closed the day's activities by a service of devotion. At eight or half-past eight, assembled in the kitchen the members of the family, along with the hinds and maid-servants. Before the gudeman was placed on a table near the hearth the family Bible, a large edition of the sacred volume. A psalm was sung, all joining in the melody. Next was read a portion of Scripture, and thereafter all knelt down reverently as the gudeman expressed an earnest and comprehensive prayer. In the words of Robert Burns:

Family worship continues, but among those engaged in husbandry, and in peasants' cottages, it is less common than at a former period.

During Romish times, Sunday was regarded less as a day of worship than as the weekly holiday. Few attended worship, but many engaged in marketing in the churchyard, and in sports on the village-green. Proceeding to an opposite extreme, the Reformers observed the sacred day with a rigid austerity. Attendance on morning and evening lessons, also on protracted mid-day services, was strongly insisted upon, and the neglect made punishable with high censures. To children were on Sunday prohibited every domestic pastime.

As a supposed help towards the introduction of an Anglican ceremonial, James VI. sought to repress the prevailing morosity. In 1618 he issued a manifesto authorizing Sunday games, among which as "lawful to be observed" he specified archery, football, and Morris-dances. The error which it was intended to surmount, the royal mandate increased and strengthened, while as it was also extended to the Puritans of England, "the Book of Sports," as the king's proclamation was called, was by order of the Long Parliament in 1643 publicly burned at Cheap-side. Sunday was associated with especial gloom during the days of the Covenant. Even in the eighteenth century, when doctrinal defection prevailed widely, those who had otherwise forsaken the old paths clung to a cheerless Sunday. On Sunday morning each window-blind remained undrawn ; and save in proceeding to church, few walked forth beyond the bounds of the adjacent paddock. Persons found upon Sunday discoursing in the highway were classed with the profane, and styled "Sabbath-breakers." In those times any proposal to open parks or ornamental enclosures on the day of rest would have awakened alarm as a presage of apostacy.

Yet religious education lagged. By persons of mature years were read such works as Flavel's "Spiritual husbandry," Guthrie's "Great Interest," Halyburton's "Great Concern," Boston's "Fourfold State," and Rutherford's "Letters;" but the only provision for the religious training of the young was embraced in the "Shorter Catechism" of the Westminster Assembly. This compendium, suited only for the experienced adult, was urged upon the memory of the young; it was taught in the schoolroom, used in the nursery and at the hearth, and by ministers made the subject of instruction at "diets of catechising." Prior to 1782, Sunday Schools were unknown, and the earlier teachers were denounced as practising innovations, and interfering with the functions of the clergy. In 1799 Sunday Schools were condemned by the General Assembly, and against those who conducted them the procurator of the Church was enjoined to proceed punitively under the authority of an old Act of Parliament devised against "malignants." During the same period the anathemas of all the Churches were directed against missions; also against laymen who ventured to exhort or preach. During the last sixty years no section of the Scottish Church has failed in missionary zeal.

One of the most hopeful features of our own times is a steadily increasing Christian liberality. Prosecutions for heresy are rare, and earnest interpreters of Scripture are practically unrestrained by the fetters of confessions or creeds. In all the Churches, considerate persons labour to discover the points on which they are agreed rather than those about which they differ. While ministers of different denominations freely exchange pulpits, and assist each other on all fitting occasions, the bulk of the people do not hesitate to approve.

Episcopacy which, associated with arbitrary government, was formerly distasteful, no longer wears a repellent garb, and those who affectionately cherish the memories of Archbishop Leighton, Parson Skinner, and Dean Ramsay, may not unfavourably regard a branch of the Christian Church in which they severally laboured. From the extinct fires of ecclesiastical strife have at length germinated the seeds of a growing concord and increasing amity.

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