allied in the
state; and thus it was that a strong party favoring absolute liberty in
matters of worship arose in the Scottish Church.

The restoration of Charles the Second in 1660 brought with it the
disavowal on his part of the Covenant to which he had subscribed, and
the open rejection of the Presbyterian principles to which he had been
so readily loyal in the day of his distress. Episcopacy was restored
as the form of Church government for Scotland, and bishops were
consecrated; but it was left to time and the gradual power of imitation
to secure the introduction of a ritual into the worship of the Church.
Charles the Second and his minion, Sharp, did not deem it wise to
undertake a work in which Charles the First and Laud had so signally
failed, the work of imposing a ritual of worship upon the Scottish
Church; Episcopal government had been imposed, Episcopal worship it was
hoped would follow. In both of his aims, however, though sought by
such different methods, Charles was doomed to disappointment. As
impotent as was the royal command, though backed by every form of
deprivation of right and of cruel persecution, to secure the acceptance
by Scotland of an Episcopal Church, so impotent was the service,
conducted by royal hirelings and conforming curates, to inspire the
people with any love for formal worship. It was, further, in
comparatively few of the Churches of Scotland that any attempt was made
to introduce the service of the English Prayer Book. In the now
Episcopal Churches of the land, a form of worship which gave a place to
the Lord's Prayer, the Gloria Patri, the Apostles' Creed, and the
Decalogue, was regarded as satisfactory. Public worship, therefore, at
this time may be said to have been simply a return to the method
suggested, but not required, in the time of Knox; but even these
historic Scottish forms, by reason of their association with an
enforced Episcopacy, became increasingly distasteful to that large body
of the Scots who refused to conform to the Church by law established,
and who, as a result, were driven to the moors and the hill-sides,
there to worship God as conscience prompted.

The Protesters, the party to which the majority of the Covenanters
belonged, had always been opposed to anything savoring of ritual in
worship. But their opposition was intensified and deepened during the
twenty-eight years of the "killing time," as they saw the worship of
the party from which their p