defining the
ideals and moulding the temper and culture of the prevailing majority
of the Scottish people, it has been one of the great formative
influences in the national development.

It was on this memorable document that the estates were now to sit
in judgment. In the case of the Confession of Faith they had been
practically unanimous; but that had been a mere statement of abstract
doctrines which involved no question of worldly interests, and might
be subscribed with a light heart and with any degree of spiritual
conviction. With the _Book of Discipline_ it was very different. The
fundamental question that had to be answered in that book was the
question of the "sustentation" of the new Church. The answer given was
the most natural in the world: the reformed Church had an indisputable
right to the entire inheritance of the Church it had displaced. There
were, however, two formidable difficulties in the way of this claim.
Without manifest injustice the ancient clergy could not be deprived
wholesale of their means of subsistence. The second difficulty was also
formidable. Of late years a considerable amount of Church property had
passed into the hands of the nobles, barons, and gentry. Would these
persons now be willing to lay their possessions at the feet of the
ministers from whom they professed to have received the true Gospel?
The proceedings of the convention left no doubt as to the answer.
As in the preceding August, the assembly was a crowded one, but on
this occasion there was no such unanimous action. "Some approved it,"
says Knox, "and willed the same have been set forth by law. Others,
perceiving their carnal liberty and worldly commodity somewhat to
be impaired thereby, grudged, insomuch that the name of _Book of
Discipline_ became odious unto them. Everything that repugned to their
corrupt affections was termed in their mocking 'devout imaginations.'"

After long and heated debates, no definite conclusion was reached. A
large number of the nobles and barons, however, signed the _Book_ as
being "good and conformable to God's Word in all points"; but they
signed it with a qualification that did them credit. The old clergy
should be allowed to retain their livings on condition of their
maintaining Protestant ministers in their respective districts. The
denunciations of Knox have given an evil name to this convention of the
estates, yet the act of spoliation to which he would have had them put
their hands