son in the parish use and read the same." The same order is repeated in the first Book of Discipline :-" In the great towns we think it expedient that every day there be either Sermon or Common Prayer, with some exercise of reading the Scriptures." It is clear, too, that Knox individually continued to use a liturgical service in the worship of God. He entertained, it is true, certain objections to the English service-book, as it stood in the reign of Edward VI. and therefore employed the influence which he justly possessed over his brethren, to introduce in place of it, the Liturgy used at Geneva; and which, in consequence, has been frequently called by his name, as well as by the title of the "Old Scottish Liturgy." We are informed by Spotswood, that he had set forms of prayer read in his house every day, and Richard Bannatyne, his secretary or amanuensis, tells us in his journal, that his master continued to the last to conduct his private devotions according to the ritual of the Church, and that a few hours before he expired, he repeated aloud the Lord's Prayer and the Belief. "The Tuysday after this, the said Mr. Knox was stricken with a grit host (severe cough), whairwith he being so feebled, caused him upon the 13 day of November (1572), lieve his ordinarie reading of the Bible; for ilk day he red a certane chapter in both the Old Testament and New, with certane psalms, whilk psalms he passed through everie moneth once."

At this period, indeed, there was no aversion to a Liturgy among either Ministers or people in Scotland. It was not till afterwards, when prayer became a vehicle of sedition, or an instrument for inflaming party spirit, that the manifold advantages of extemporaneous devotion were perceived and fully appreciated. From the resolutions of the Lords of the Congregation, it is perfectly clear that the antipathy to set forms of prayer, which, at a subsequent period, was so strongly felt in Scotland, had at the commencement of the Reformation, no existence among the learned or the unlearned.

From 1560 to the year 1572, the affairs of the Scottish Church remained in the precarious and unprecedented condition which we have attempted to describe; exhibiting a prelacy with limited powers, and except in one or two instances, without canonical consecration, or indeed any orders whatever; and possessing a stated form of prayer, which, however, every Minister was at liberty to neglect. The Popish hierarchy, retained in general, during this period, their titles, and even a large part of their revenues, but without the liberty of exercising their religion in public

At length, in the year 1572, an assembly of the Church was held at Leith, who delegated six of their brethren to hold a conference with an equal number of Deputies appointed by the Regent's Council, and to treat, reason, and conclude, concerning the settlement of the polity of the Church. After divers meetings and long deliberations, as Spotswood expresses it, they came to an agreement, which was in effect, "that the old polity should be revived and take place, only with some little alterations which seemed necessary from the change of religion;" that they who were to have the office and power should also have the names and titles of Archbishops and Bishops; that the old division of

the dioceses should be restored, the patrimony of the Church properly applied, and every Bishop have spiritual jurisdiction in his own diocese. In a word, if we except the neglected article of the consecration of Bishops, which still continued to be overlooked, every other part of the constitution now adopted, seems to have been regulated by the principles of true and primitive episcopacy.

Much controversy has been maintained between the Presbyterians and Episcopalians, both with regard to the authority of the Leith Assembly, and also as to the precise import of the conclusions in which their deliberations ended. We cannot enter into the arguments which are employed on the one side or the other: nor do we think it neces→ sary, because the arrangements made at Leith were acted upon throughout the whole kingdom, and sanctioned by the acts of several successive assemblies.

Matters being so far restored to the primitive model of ecclesiastical regimen, there was some reason to hope that the spirit of reformation, which had sent forth its light and its truth over the greater part of the kingdom, would have been permitted quietly to work out its beneficial effects. But the course of events was soon to be otherwise directed. In the year 1574, Mr. Andrew Melvil, the father of presbyterianism in Scotland, made his appearance on the stage; and this personage, though possessed of talents very inferior to those of Knox, and altogether a stranger to the courage and honesty which shed no small lustre over the dark character of his predecessor, had address enough to recommend his views of Church government to some of the leading men of the day; and ultimately to introduce, on the ruins of episcopacy, the scheme of ecclesiastical rule which exists in that country at the present day.

The first step taken in pursuance of this object, appeared in a protest made, at the suggestion of Melvil, by Mr. Durie, one of the Ministers of Edinburgh, in the Assembly held in the year 1575, stating "that the trial of the Bishops (that is the review of their official conduct during the previous year) might not prejudge the opinions and reasons which he and other brethren had to propose, against the office and name of a Bishop." Melvil followed up his plan of attack with great pertinacity, deriving all along much countenance and aid from the instructions of the celebrated Theodore Beza, who was now at the head of the Geneva school: and at length, after several disappointments, his endeavours were crowned with success, for at an Assembly held in Dundee, 1580, his party carried with them a majority of the brethren in favour of an Act, by which the episcopal form of government was again put down, or at least suspended. This resolution was expressed as follows:-" Forasmuch as the office of a Bishop, as it is now used within this realm, hath no sure warrant, authority, nor good ground out of the word of God, but is brought in by the folly and corruption of man's invention, to the great overthrow of the true Kirk of God; therefore the whole Assembly in one voice, findeth and declareth the said pretended office, used and termed as aforesaid, unlawful in itself, and ordaineth that all persons who brook, or hereafter shall brook the

said office, be charged forthwith to desist, quit, and leave off the same, and sick-like to desist and cease from preaching, ministering the sacraments, or any way using the office of pastors, till they receive admission anew from the General Assembly, under pain of excommunication"

It was not, however, till 1592, that James, who was now on the throne of Scotland, could be prevailed upon to sanction the new ecclesiastical discipline: and even then, so far was it from being established on a firm or permanent basis that, in the short space of five years after, the King obtained the consent of the Kirk Commissioners to an Act, importing "that such Pastors and Ministers as his Majesty should provide to the place, dignity, and title of a Bishop, or other Prelate at any time, should have a voice in Parliament as freely as any ecclesiastical Prelate had in times past."

Episcopacy once more obtained the ascendancy; but still the Bishops were mere priests, and the spiritual powers attached to their office extremely limited. The accession of James to the English throne, forms the era of a better system; and soon led to the establishment of a hierarchy in the north, from which all Churchmen in that country usually date the beginning of the Scottish Episcopal Church, as a regular ecclesiastical body, constituted according to the example of the purest antiquity. In 1606, the temporal estate of Bishops was restored by Act of Parliament, and four years after, the spiritual power was again renewed by the consecration at London of three Bishops, who had been already promoted to the Sees of Glasgow, Brechin and Galloway. These three Prelates, on their return home, conveyed the episcopal authority, which they had now received in a canonical way, to all their titular brethren north of the Tweed: and then, after fifty years of confusion, and a multiplicity of attempts to improve, or to set aside the system adopted in 1560, there was an Episcopal Church once more established in Scotland, and the regular apostolical succession revived. So little opposition was shewn to this re-establishment of the Church, that at an Assembly which was held in 1616, it was ordained, that "the Acts of Assembly should be collected and put in order to serve for Canons of Discipline, that children should be carefully catechised and confirmed by the Bishop, or in his absence, by such as were employed in the visitation of Churches; and that a Liturgy or Book of Common Prayer should be formed for public use."

The compilation of a Liturgy was reserved for the zeal and piety of the first Charles; who, finding that the Scottish Bishops, from a feeling of jealousy, would not receive without alterations the Common Prayer of the English Church, gave his commands that they should prepare a book of service for their own use; to be submitted from time to time to the revision of Archbishop Laud, and of the Bishops of London and Norwich. The first Liturgy of Edward the Sixth was made the basis of the new Scottish Liturgy, particularly in the Eucharistical part of the service; and this good work being completed, was, together with a collection of Canons, ratified by his Majesty, and authorized by Royal proclamation.

The fate of this book is well known. An attempt to introduce it was made in the High Church of Edinburgh; but no sooner had the Dean, who was appointed to read it, appeared in his surplice, and begun the service, than a multitude of the meaner sort of people, most of them women, with clapping of hands, clamour and outcries, raised such a hideous noise, that not a word could be distinctly heard, and then a shower of stones and sticks was directed against the clergyman's head. The Bishop ascended the pulpit to remonstrate with the insurgents, when Jenny Geddes, of famous memory, darted a species of stool at his person, to the imminent hazard of his life; whilst the mob, who had taken their place outside the Church, continued to batter the doors and windows with the most ungovernable fury, exclaiming, "A Pope! A Pope! Antichrist! Pull him down! Stone him! Stone him!" The pious defenders of the faith, and the assault itself, were spoken of by the popular preachers in their pulpits, "as the most heroic spirits that ever God inspired and raised up in this last age of the world, and as the happy mouths and heads which he had honoured with the commencement of such a blessed work!"

These, however, were but the beginning of sorrows. Things were now fast hastening to that dreadful crisis which overthrew at once kingly and episcopal power all over the island. Disaffection to Church and State had already assumed so strongly the character of rebellion that, immediately after a packed Assembly at Glasgow had voted down the Bishops, they agreed to raise an army to oppose the Sovereign. The poor prelates were, of course, treated with little mercy. The greater number fled into England, under assurance from the tumultuary reformers in the north, that if they dared to return home, they "should be used as accursed, and even given over to the devil, and out of Christ's body, as ethnics and publicans, and that all who harboured them should be prosecuted to excommunication likewise."

(To be continued.)

ROMAN CATHOLIC CHAPELS AND SCHOOLS.

Ir is our intention to furnish our readers, from time to time, with documents relating to the principles and condition of the Roman Catholic Church in these Islands and on the Continent. Authentic statements and declarations, issued by themselves, cannot be represented by Roman Catholics as an unfair ground on which to build our opinion of the present effects and future consequences of their proceedings. To these manifestoes alone, or to such as these, we shall therefore refer in the course of our remarks on this momentous subject. To avowed principles and acknowledged facts, we shall in this, as in every other case, studiously endeavour to confine ourselves. Though our arguments Y

VOL. I. NO, I.

may fail to produce conviction, or our admonition to make proselytes to that which we believe, and shall firmly assert as truth, we will never, knowingly, subject ourselves to a just imputation of sinning against charity and justice.

With these views, we cannot do better, perhaps, than begin with

A Statement of Roman Catholic Chapels and Schools, in England and Wales, collected from Keating's Laity's Directory for 1824; published with the Authority of the Vicar Apostolic in England.