adopted
among other symbols the Westminster Directory for the Worship of God,
abbreviating it somewhat, but changing its instructions in no material
respect. There has been but little legislation by this Church
concerning this subject. In 1874 the General Assembly declared the
practice of a responsive service in the public worship of the sanctuary
to be without warrant in the New Testament, and to be unwise and
impolitic in view of its inevitable tendency to destroy uniformity in
the form already accepted. It further urged upon sessions of Churches
to preserve in act and spirit the simplicity indicated in the
Directory. This judgment of the American Church with regard to the
influence of a liturgy in public worship is not materially different
from that of the framers of the Directory as it is set forth in their
strongly-worded preface. In 1876 the Assembly declined to send down to
presbyteries an overture declaring that responsive readings are a
permissible part of worship in the sanctuary, although it declined at
the same time to recommend sessions to make the question a subject of
Church discipline. Six years afterwards it again refused to "prepare
and publish a Book of Forms for public and social worship and for
special occasions which shall be the authorized service-book of the
Church to be used whenever a prescribed formula may be desired;" the
reason given for such refusal, however, was the inexpediency of such a
step in view of "the liberty that belongs to each minister to avail
himself of the Calvinistic or other ancient devotional forms of the
Reformed Churches, so far as may seem to him for edification." This
explanation clearly indicates that, while the American Church is in
sympathy with the necessity on the part of ministers, of a due and
orderly discharge of all public services, yet it is unwilling to lay
itself open to the charge of even suggesting the imposition of forms
upon the Church for use on stated occasions. An optional liturgy has
not been without its advocates among the leaders in this influential
section of the Church. Such eminent and wise men as Drs. Charles and
A. A. Hodge and Dr. Ashbel Green confessed themselves as in favor of
the introduction of such forms for optional use, and Dr. Baird in his
"Eutaxia" and other writers have argued vigorously from the example of
sister churches of the continent of Europe for a return to the practice
which they regarded as historically Presbyter