d that five of their number, of whom Knox was one,
should draw up a new order of service. This work, undertaken in 1554,
was duly accomplished, but when completed it failed to find acceptance
at the hands of those who had proposed it. The draft of the new book
was therefore laid aside until 1556, and was then published for the use
of the church at Geneva, of which Knox in the meantime had become the
minister.

There is in connection with this Book, and the debates and disturbances
attending its preparation, one instructive fact that should not be
forgotten. The English Prayer Book provided for responses by the
people and included the Litany, to both of which the French Reformed
Church objected, in accordance with the well-known opinions of their
great leader Calvin, who held, as did also his disciple Knox, that in
praise alone should the congregation audibly join in public worship.
Among the English refugees were some who desired the privilege of
responding in public worship according to the English fashion, and it
was the persistence in this matter of Cox, afterwards Bishop of Ely,
and of some of his co-patriots, that led to Knox's removal to Geneva,
and to the publication there of the Book of Geneva as an order for
public worship in the English congregation to which he ministered. It
is important that this should be remembered, for in speaking of the
Book of Common Order as "Knox's Liturgy," and thus giving to it a name
by which it was never known in Knox's day, an impression has prevailed,
and is still prevalent, that the book provided a form of worship
liturgical in character, with a responsive service, while the fact is
that Knox made no provision for even so much as the saying of "Amen" by
the people, their part in prayer being the silent following in their
hearts of the petitions uttered by the reader or the preacher for the
day.

The first official recognition of this book in Scotland was in 1562,
when an order of the General Assembly required that it should be
uniformly used in the administration of the Sacraments, solemnization
of marriage and burial of the dead. At this time it was still in its
Genevan form, and was called "The Form of Prayers and Ministration of
the Sacraments, etc., used in the English congregation at Geneva; and
approved by the famous and Godly-learned man, M. John Calvin." Two
years later, in 1564, a Scottish edition appeared, in which were
additional prayers with the complete cop