chapter on burial is significant. In place of the long office of the
Catholic Church we have simply this statement:--"The corpse is
reverently brought to the grave, accompanied with the Congregation,
without any further ceremonies: which being buried, the Minister (if he
be present and required) goeth to the Church, if it be not far off, and
maketh some comfortable exhortation to the people, touching death and
resurrection." This (with the exception of the bracketed words) was
taken over from the Book of Geneva. The Westminster Directory which
superseded the Book of Common Order also enjoins interment "without any
ceremony," such being stigmatized as "no way beneficial to the dead and
many ways hurtful to the living." Civil honours may, however, be
rendered.

Revs. G. W. Sprott and Thomas Leishman, in the introduction to their
edition of the Book of Common Order, and of the Westminster Directory
published in 1868, collected a valuable series of notices as to the
actual usage of the former book for the period (1564-1645) during which
it was enjoined by ecclesiastical law. Where ministers were not
available suitable persons (often old priests, sometimes schoolmasters)
were selected as readers. Good contemporary accounts of Scottish worship
are those of W. Cowper (1568-1619), bishop of Galloway, in his _Seven
Days' Conference between a Catholic Christian and a Catholic Roman_
(_c._ 1615), and Alexander Henderson in _The Government and Order of the
Church of Scotland_ (1641). There was doubtless a good deal of variety
at different times and in different localities. Early in the 17th
century under the twofold influence of the Dutch Church, with which the
Scottish clergy were in close connexion, and of James I.'s endeavours to
"justle out" a liturgy which gave the liberty of "conceiving" prayers,
ministers began in prayer to read less and extemporize more.

Turning again to the legislative history, in 1567 the prayers were done
into Gaelic; in 1579 parliament ordered all gentlemen and yeomen holding
property of a certain value to possess copies. The assembly of 1601
declined to alter any of the existing prayers but expressed a
willingness to admit new ones. Between 1606 and 1618 various attempts
were made under English and Episcopal influence, by assemblies
afterwards declared unlawful, to set aside the "Book of Common Order."
The efforts of James I., Charles I. and Archbishop Laud proved
fruitless; in 1637 the reading of