y was
to be commenced. The 23d day of July, 1637, was that on which the perilous
attempt was to be made. In the cathedral church of St. Giles, the Dean of
Edinburgh, attired in his surplice, began to read the service of the day.
At that moment, an old woman, named Jenny Geddes, unable longer to
restrain her indignation, exclaimed, "Villain, dost thou say mass at my
lug!" and seizing the stool on which she had been sitting, threw it at the
Dean's head. Instantly all was uproar and confusion. Threatened or
assailed on all sides, the Dean, terrified by this sudden outburst of
popular fury, tore himself out of their hands and fled, glad to escape,
though with the loss of his priestly vestments. In vain did the magistracy
interfere. It was impossible to restore sufficient quiet to allow the
service to be resumed; and the defeated prelatic party were compelled to
abandon the Liturgy, thus dashed out of their trembling grasp by a woman's
hand.

Such was the state of affairs in both church and kingdom, when George
Gillespie first appeared in public life. He had already refused to receive
ordination at the hands of a bishop; he had marked well the pernicious
effects of their conduct on the most sacred interests of the community;
and his strong and active intellect was directed to the prosecution of
such studies as might the better enable him to assail the wrong and defend
the right. His residence in the household of the Earl of Cassilis, while
it furnished the means of continuing his learned researches, was not
likely to change their direction; for the Earl was one of those
high-hearted and independent noblemen, who could not brook prelatic
insolence, even when supported by the Sovereign's favour. The first
production from the pen of Gillespie, the fruit, doubtless, of his
previous studies, was a work entitled "A Dispute against the English
Popish Ceremonies obtruded upon the Church of Scotland." Its publication
was remarkably well timed, being in the summer of 1637, at the very time
when the whole kingdom was in a state of intense excitement, in the
immediate expectation that the Liturgy would be forced upon the Church.
Nothing could have been more suited to the emergency. It encountered every
kind of argument employed by the prelatic party; and, as the defenders of
the ceremonies argued that they were either necessary, or expedient, or
lawful, or indifferent, so Gillespie divided his work into four parts,
arguing against their