vocate a prescribed liturgy for at least certain parts
of public worship; others, who desire a liturgy, but who are content to
leave to congregations or to ministers freedom to use it or to
disregard it; still others are loyal to the spirit of the age which
produced the Westminster Directory, while they are at the same time
willing to revise that work, which was found so serviceable to the
Church for so long a period, and so to render it more suitable to the
demands of our own age.

If a judgment may be formed from the movements that have just been
reviewed, it is probable that at least for some time to come, the
Presbyterian Church will continue to walk in the paths that have become
familiar through long usage. The age, it is true, is past when
dictation on this matter, either favoring or condemning a liturgy,
would be suffered; and, therefore, it is to be expected that
congregations will exercise liberty in the matter. Yet, so far as the
general sentiment of the Church is concerned, a sentiment that will
doubtless from time to time find expression in official declarations,
it appears evident that the preponderating feeling is still strongly in
favor of a voluntary worship, unrestricted even by suggested forms.

Conclusion.

"A constant form is a certain way to bring the soul to a cold,
insensible, formal worship."--BAXTER.

Chapter X.

Conclusion.

The foregoing brief review of public worship within those influential
sections of the Presbyterian Church whose attitude on this question has
been examined, affords a sufficient ground for the assertion that those
bodies have shown, until recently, a uniform and steadily growing
suspicion of a liturgical service, even in its most modified form.

The Book of Common Order, the first official service book adopted by
the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland for the regulation of
its worship, marked a distinct advance towards a freer form and greater
liberty on the part of the minister in conducting Divine service. As
compared not only with the English Prayer Book of the time, which was
used in Reformed parishes in Scotland, but even with Calvin's order of
worship, which had been so generally adopted by the Reformed Churches
on the Continent, this Book of Common Order was characterized by a
spirit of larger liberty in worship and less reliance upon forms either
suggested or imposed.

In the period of struggle through which the Church of Scotland