s reasonable that they should study the example of
the men of the second Reformation. There is good ground for claiming
that in no period of the Church's history did it give evidence of a
deeper spiritual life and a more aggressive energy than in the age in
which those heroic spirits lived. The leaders in that day also, such
men as Henderson, Gillespie, Rutherford and Baillie, understood the
spirit of Presbyterianism and the need of the Church quite as fully as
did any leaders of either an earlier or a later day. It is not to be
forgotten that, in an age that produced men whose names must never be
omitted when the roll of Scotland's greatest sons is called, the
Presbyterian Church stood firmly for absolute liberty in worship from
prescribed forms.

It should, therefore, be considered by those who would have the Church
return to the bondage of forms or even to their optional use, that they
are advocating not a return to the practice of any former period in
which the Church was free to exercise its own desire in this matter,
but rather that they are urging her to a course that will be wholly
antagonistic to the spirit of Presbyterianism as indicated by the trend
of its practice during a stirring and eventful history of three hundred
years. The spirit of Presbyterian worship has been consistently and
persistently non-liturgical and anti-ritualistic, and to advocate the
adoption of liturgy and ritual to-day is to depart completely from that
historic attitude.

A few words on the subject of liturgies in general may not
inappropriately close this sketch of the history of Presbyterian
worship since the Reformation.

It is now generally acknowledged that the introduction of liturgies
into the worship of the Christian Church was not earlier than the
latter part of the fourth century. Not until the presbyter had become
a priest, and worship had degenerated into a function, did liturgies
find a place in Christian service. Even the earliest Oriental
liturgies were sacramentaries, the Christian sacrifice being the
central object around which the entire service gathered. So long as
the life of the Church was strong, and in its strength found delight in
a freedom of approach to God, so long the Apostolic practice was
followed and worship was unrestricted and simple.

During the middle ages, as religion became ever more formal and less
spiritual, as the priesthood deteriorated intellectually and
spiritually, liturgies flour