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SKETCHES OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE
CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.
No. II.

WHEN the First General Assembly broke up in December 1560, it was formally "continued to the fifteenth day of January next," and all who were present promised that they would either come to Edinburgh on that day, or cause other Commissioners to be sent in their place. There is no proof, however, of any ecclesiastical meeting having been held at the time appointed. Spottiswood, indeed, says, that the Prior of St. Andrew's, who repaired to France to the Queen, immediately upon the news of her husband's death, was admonished" by the Assemblie of the Kirk, then convened at Edinburgh," not to consent to her having mass said when she came to Scotland. But the appointment of the Prior proceeded from the Convention of the Estates which met about that time, and which Spottiswood seems to have mistaken for an Assembly of the Church. And although the instruction alluded to may have been suggested by the Reformers, it could not come from them as an 66 Assemblie of the Kirk then convened;" for they did not meet in that capacity till the 26th (according to the Register,) or (according to Calderwood) the 27th of May 1561.

In the "Buik of the Universal Kirk," the proceedings of this Assembly are set down as a continuation of the First, but it may with more propriety be enumerated as the Second General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, as it seems to have met, not according to the terms of any previous continuation or adjournment, but in consequence of an urgent and alarming conjuncture. The Popish party began, about this time, to recover from the consternation into which they had been thrown by the rapid progress of the Reformation, and their hopes of regaining their former affluence and authority were greatly strengthened by the arrival of an Ambassador from France. He was instructed, among other things, to demand, "that the Bishops and Churchmen should be restored to their own places, and suf

fered to intromitt with their rents." (Calderwood's Large MS., Vol. I., p. 702.) A meeting of Parliament was approaching, and the Popish nobility, and their adherents, resorted in great numbers to Edinburgh, and cherished and avowed the most confident anticipations of success. The Reformers, roused by the boldness of their opponents, convened and adopted the most strenuous resolutions in defence of their religious liberty.

No roll of the Members of this Assembly of the Church has been preserved, but the place of meeting is stated to have been in the Tolbooth. After consultation, it was unanimously concluded, that a humble supplication, with articles of complaint and redress, should be presented to the Lords of the Secret Council. The supplication is set down in Knox's History of the Reformation. It expresses great apprehension of the re-establishment of Popery, and a firm determination to oppose it at every hazard. The Articles of complaint and redress, as given by Calderwood, (Large MS., Vol. I., 704,) were in substance as follow:

1. That idolatry, and all monuments thereof, be suppressed, and the sayers and maintainers of mass punished.

II. That provision be made for the sustenance of Superintendants, Ministers, Exhorters, and Readers; that Superintendants and Ministers be planted where they are needed; and that all who contemn or disobey them, in the exercise of their functions, be punished.

III. That the abusers and contemners of the Sacraments be punished.

IV. That no letters be issued by the Lords of Session, for the payment of tithes, without special pro-vision that the parishioners retain as much as is appointed to the Minister.

V. That neither the Lords of Session, nor any other Judges, proceed upon such precepts as may have been passed at the instance of those who have lately obtained feus

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These articles may serve to shew the state of dependence and poverty in which the Protestant teachers were still kept, and the many devices which were employed to defraud them of what was allotted to them for their maintenance. From the third article, it would appear that the religious liberty introduced by the Reformation was accompanied by a licentious profanity. The Papists were frequently called abusers of the Sacraments, by the Reformers. But as the sayers and maintainers of mass had already been denounced in the first article, it is probable that, by the contemners and abusers of the Sacraments mentioned in the third article, we are to understand those who neglected the Lord's Supper as of no effect when administered according to the Protestant form, and those who, without any vocation as Ministers, dared to go through this form in derision. This kind of impiety seems to have been but too common about this time, for, in the First Book of Discipline, a distinct head is occupied in demanding the punishment of such contemners and profaners of the Sacraments.

The Assembly seems to have adjourned till the 28th, when a meeting was again held, the Articles and Supplication produced and read, and a Committee appointed to present them. An Act of Secret Council, answering to every head of the Articles and Supplication, was granted, and letters were immediately raised upon it by sundry Ministers. No other business appears to have been transacted by this Assembly. But it may not be improper to add a few remarks upon an Act which was passed about this time by the Convention of the Estates, as it seems to have been passed at the special request of the Reformers.

In the first of the articles drawn up by this Assembly, it was required that idolatry, and all the monuments thereof, should be suppressed.

It would appear that the Articles were presented to the Convention of the Estates, as well as to the Lords of the Secret Council. But whether it was in consequence of this, or of some separate requisition from the leading Reformers, it is certain that the Convention did issue orders for destroying all places and monuments of idolatry throughout the kingdom. The execution of these orders was committed to the most active and popular among the Reformers. The Earls of Arran, Argyle, and Glencairn, were directed to purify the west country; the northern districts were entrusted to the zeal of the Lord James; and the other parts of the country were assigned to men upon whose alacrity equal dependence could be placed. Calderwood (Large MS., Vol. I., p. 708,) in describing the operations of the Reformers in the west, says, They burnt Paisley, where the Bastard Bishop narrowly escaped; and demolished Failford, Kilwinning, and part of Crossraguel." Now, all these were places of idolatry; but from the life of the Bishop being put in peril, the work of purification, or demolition, seems to have been gone about in a very unwarrantable way. In an order given by Lord James, on a similar occasion, to some of the Reformers in the north, they are desired to pass to the church of Dunkeld, and cast down the images, and all monuments of idolatry; but they are strictly charged to take care not to injure the stability and comfort of the building. (See Statistical Account, Vol. xx., p. 221.) Indeed it is quite plain, that the intentions and the orders of the Reformers extended merely to places and monuments of idolatry, that is, to religious houses, and images in churches. That their intentions and orders were exceeded-that religious houses were wantonly demolished, and that not merely the images, but the churches, were in some instances destroyed-cannot be denied. Yet the lamentations which have been uttered upon this head have been by far too loud. Baillie, in his Historical Vindication, (p. 40,) distinctly asserts, that "in all the land, not more than three or four churches were cast down, the rest being peaceably purged." As to the

"bibliothecks which were destroyed, the volumes of the Fathers, and the registers of the church, which were gathered in heaps and consumed," the mischief has been greatly exaggerated. To hear the account of Archbishop Spottiswood, one might fancy that every Abbey in Scotland had a library as extensive and valuable as the famous and deplored collection at Alexandria, and that the Scottish Reformers were as fatally furious in their enmity to learning as the Caliph Omar had been. "Omne ignotum pro magnifico." But if we may judge of what was lost by what has been spared, our literary regret may be very much alleviated. In England, no such destruction of religious houses took place; and Leland, who visited many of them, has given catalogues (Collectanea, Vol. iv.) of the libraries belonging to them. They seldom contained more than forty or fifty volumes, and these generally consisted of copies of the Gospels, and other portions of scripture, with postils or glosses, extracts from the Fathers, and legends of the Saints. There is no reason to suppose that the libraries of religious houses in Scotland were more ample or valuable than those of England. In an inventory of the effects belonging to the cathedral church of Glasgow, which is preserved in the Chartulary of that See, scarcely any books are mentioned but such as were necessary to the different Priests and Chaplains who officiated in it. In the church of St. Mary and St. Michael, at Stirling, there were only copies of the Gospels, Epistles, and Psalms, with a few Missals, Breviaries, and Processionals, (See the App. to Birrell's Diary.) Nor do the libraries of individuals seem to have been richly furnished. Willock, one of the earliest and most learned preachers among the Reformers, in a sermon which he delivered at Ayr, some time in 1559, had alleged Irenæus, Chrysostom, Hilarius, Origen, and Tertullian, as all condemning the service of the mass. Quintin Kennedy, Abbot of Crossraguel, in speaking of this sermon, charges Willock with having alleged these

Fathers from a belief that their works were not to be found in Scotland, and that he might avail himself of their authority, without fear of question or contradiction. But the charge, how disingenuous soever it may have been, may serve to shew that theological books were not at that time common in the country. Kennedy, indeed, in his letter to the Archbishop of Glasgow, (see Keith's App. p. 193,) says, that he had by him "all the Doctoris Willock had allegeit, and diverse uthors." But Kennedy was one of the most learned and wealthy among the Popish Clergy, and it is probable that few of his cotemporaries were so well furnished with books. A catalogue of the library belonging to one of the Bishops has come down to us: And these desultory notices of the state of theological learning, (which have been brought forward, not to palliate the excesses of the Reformers, but merely to mitigate the exaggerations of their enemies,) may be concluded with a copy of it. Robert Maxwell was Bishop of Orkney in 1526, and probably for some time afterwards. His see certainly was not one of the richest; but from his adding to the cathedral, and entertaining King James V. in his progress through the Scottish Isles, he seems to have been wealthy and munificent. He was of the ancient family of Nether Pollock, and as he had been Rector of Tarbolton, and Provost of the Collegiate Church of Dumbarton, before he was promoted to the Bishopric of Orkney, his library was probably as well furnished as those of many other Bishops at the time. The following extract is taken from an inventory of his effects:

"The names of ye bukis.” “Item ane prent pontificall, ane small text of ane pontificall; item, ane auld written pontificall; item, Seculinorum Scriptura; Cathena Aurea Sancti Thomæ ; item, Psalterium cum Commento Edwardi Episcopi ; Biblia in pergameno scripta; ane Inglisse buke of Goweir *; ane Inglisse buke of ye Histories of Saintis liffis and stories of ye Bible; item ye Cornakillis t."

• This may have been "The Confessio Amantis," by Gower, a favourite work with Henry VIII.

+ Probably some extracts from the Chronicles of Scotland.

Walks in Edinburgh,

BY DICK PEPPERMINT.

Walk I.

"Now Morn, her rosy steps in th' eastern clime Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl."-Milton.

THERE's something glorious in a summer's morn,

When the great Sun, even like a potent god,

Remounts his throne; the brilliant stars are shorn

Of beams, as he ascends his heavenly road,

The Moon turns pale, like Beauty in decay,

Serenely fading in life's radiant May.

And, lo, the beautiful and opening flowers Shake the big dew-drops from their night-bent heads, To meet the breeze that, whispering through the bowers,

Comes to salute them on their grassy beds

Like children waking on the mother's breast,

To share the purest kiss that e'er was kiss'd!

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And, hark! the birds are stirring in the tree;

The deep-toned mavis makes the woods rejoice;

The linnet trills his gentler minstrelsy; The wood-dove wakes his sad pathetic

voice;

And to the air the buoyant lark is given, As if a messenger from earth to heaven.

And, lo, the cot sends forth its curling smoke;

The early hind already is astir, And she with whom he bears the nuptial yoke

So light and sweet-fondly he kisses her,

Kisses his lovely sleeping babes--and then Bids God protect them till he come again.

And, hark! the shepherd's voice is on the hill,

The milk-maid's song within the willow'd vale;

The wild-bee's hum, along the flowerbank'd rill,

Is heard amid the pauses of the gale, And insects, dancing in the sunny ray, Tell us of lives that quickly pass away!

VOL. XV.

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I wander'd through each lane, and street, and square,

But all was silent-nothing there ap pear'd,

Away such nonsense! Here's a handsome door,

I'll go and read the name,-an Advo cate!

Save drowsy watchmen, with a stupid Ha, man of many words! thy noise is

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A brooch, a ring, each a delightful word! They speak to me of promis'd days of bliss;

The ring that I may put on hand ador'd, That in its pressure is so sweet to press;

The brooch that I may fix upon the breast

That loves me dearly, and that I love best.

Ay, woman's hand is the endearing pledge Of all that Heav'n hath promis'd man below;

And who with such a treasure e'er would grudge

To meet the buffetings of care and woe, The blast of calumny, the scorn of pride, And all this wicked world can send beside?

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Another handsome door-a W. S.!

O Heaven forgive me! I have done much wrong;

An Advocate's an angel, I confess,

Compar'd with this man, any of the throng

Of his vile tribe, who, like a spider, roll Their webs o'er many a human fly-poor soul!

I hate all things that mind me of this hive

Of wasps, that sip the sweets they have no right to; Especially the wretch who plucks alive Poor geese, and makes them such a

devilish fright too; For though it may the housewife's store increase,

They stalk about, the very ghosts of geese.

Sleep on, for Heaven's sake! perchance, thou dreamest

Of heavy fees, those very serious evils; Then dream, for Heaven's sake! not what thou schemest,

But let it be of fire-eyed gaping devils, And spectred clients starting from the grave

To bid thee crave God's mercy-Godsake crave!

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