passed
in the reigns of James the First and Charles the First, the conflicts,
civil and religious, only served, so far as they had any effect upon
the views of the Church concerning worship, to strengthen the already
strong opposition to prescribed forms of prayer and to ritualistic
observances. Accordingly, when it was proposed to substitute for the
Book of Common Order a Directory, in which there should appear no
prescribed forms for any part of public worship, the Scotch Assembly
gave a ready assent to the proposal, and, although some words of regret
at parting with an historic symbol were spoken at that time by leaders
in the Scottish Church, they were only such as it was natural to expect
should be spoken in view of the strong attachment for that symbol
fostered by its use during many years, but they were not such as
indicate that those who so spoke felt themselves called upon to
surrender any principle in laying aside the order to which they had
been so long accustomed. Indeed the hearty and cheerful adoption by
the Scottish Assembly of the strongly worded preface to the Westminster
Directory, exposing as it does so vigorously the weakness as well as
the dangers resulting from the use of a liturgy in public worship,
plainly indicates that in the judgment of the Church of that day the
use of liturgical forms was not only not helpful, but was positively
perilous, as well to the best interests of the congregation as to the
most efficient service of the minister.

Again in a third epoch of the Church's history, in the days following
the "killing time," and marked by the succession to the throne of
William of Orange, and later by the union of England and Scotland, the
Presbyterian Church of the latter country not only reasserted her
loyalty to the principles of liberty in worship which she had so long
defended, but she also succeeded in having secured to her by
legislation, freedom from the imposition of ritualistic forms.

It is at least allowable to assert that the leaders in the Scottish
Church in the days of the Westminster Assembly and at the beginning of
the eighteenth century, regarded the perfect liberty in worship allowed
by the Directory not only as scriptural, but as suitable for the
attainment of the great ends of public worship, for on no other grounds
would they have consented to its adoption in Scotland. And if
Presbyterians of to-day desire to imitate the spirit and methods of
their ancestors, it i