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ANDREW MELVILLE

INTRODUCTORY

While Andrew Melville has other claims on the lasting honour of his countrymen than the part he took in securing for Scotland the ecclesiastical system which has been the most powerful factor in her history, it may be held as certain that where this service which filled his life is disesteemed, his biography, if read at all, will be read with only a languid interest. It will be our first endeavour, therefore, to show that such a prejudice in regard to our subject is mistaken and misleading.

Melville, and all from first to last who joined in the Scottish resistance to Episcopacy, were persuaded that the controversy in which they were engaged was one not academic merely but vital, and that, as it was settled one way or the other, so would the people be left in a position in which they would be able to develop their religious life with freedom and effect, or in one which would incalculably cripple it. That is a contention which history has amply vindicated.

The best justification of the struggle carried on during the period from Melville to the Revolution to preserve the Presbyterian system in the Church is to be found in the benefits which that system has conferred upon the country. It has penetrated the whole Christian people with a sense of their individual responsibility in connection with the principles and government of the Church; it has saved the Church from being dwarfed into a mere clerical corporation; it has laid for it a broad and strong basis by winning to it the attachment of its common members, and by exercising their intelligence, sympathy, and interest in regard to all its institutions and enterprises. It may be truly said of the Scottish people that their highest patriotism has been elicited and exercised over the religious problems of the nation; that they have shown more sensitiveness concerning their religious rights, liberties, and duties than concerning any other interest of their life; and that they have been more readily and deeply touched when the honour and efficiency of their Church was at stake than by any other cause whatever. How should an ecclesiastical system better vindicate its claim? Nothing so ennobles a people as the care of matters of high concern--such a care as Presbyterianism has laid on the Scottish people.

But it was not only the conviction of the excellence of their own economy that led the Presbyterians to maintain it at all hazards--it was also their fear of many tendencies in the rival system. They dreaded that the imposition of Episcopacy would ultimately undo the work of the Reformation, and bring the nation once more under the yoke of Rome. Here, too, history has justified them. Had it not been for the conjunction of the forces of the Scottish Presbyterians and the English Puritans during the reign of Charles the First, the designs of that monarch against the Protestantism of both kingdoms could not probably have been checked. The least that can be said with truth on this matter is, that the Protestantism of the country was gravely imperilled in his reign and in the reigns of his two immediate successors, and that the resolute attitude of Scotland counted more than any other one influence in preserving it.

Nor was it only the preservation of the freedom of the Church that was involved in the struggle. The cause of civil freedom was also at stake. 'True religion,' says a classic of the Scottish Church, 'and national liberty are like Hippocrates' twins--they weep or laugh, they live or die together. There is a great sibness between the Church and the Commonwealth. They depend one upon the other, and either is advanced by the prosperity and success of the other.' Where a people make a stand for spiritual liberty, they always by necessity advance civil freedom. Prelacy was bound up with the absolutism of the throne in the State as well as in the Church; Presbytery with the cause of free government and the sovereignty of the popular will, as declared in their laws by the chosen representatives of the nation.

But that is not the whole case for the Presbyterians. The opposing system was discredited in their mind by the policy by which it was promoted. It was a policy of coercion, of bribery, of dissimulation and artifice, of resort to every kind of influence that is intolerable to a free and high-spirited people. It was a policy that harassed the most faithful and honourable men in the Church, and preferred the most unscrupulous and obsequious to places of power. There was not one of those concerned in it, from the king downwards, who came out of the business with undamaged character. How could the Scottish Church but resist a system which it was sought to thrust upon it by such methods as these? If Melville's claims on our interest rested on no other ground than the services he rendered to the Church and to the nation in maintaining Presbyterianism in the land, that alone would make them good.

BIRTH--EDUCATION--YEARS ABROAD

'Fashioned to much honour from his cradle.'

Melville's birthplace was Baldovy, an estate in the immediate neighbourhood of Montrose, of which his father was laird. He was born on 1st August 1545--a year memorable as that of Knox's emergence to public life--the youngest of nine sons, most of whom came to fill honourable positions in the Church and commonwealth.

Montrose and the district around it early showed sympathy with the Reformed Faith. George Wishart was a native of Angus, and his influence was nowhere greater than there. The family seat of John Erskine--Dun House--was in the same vicinity, and he too by his warm espousal of Protestantism strengthened its hold on the district. The Baldovy family itself had been identified with the Reformed movement from the beginning. Melville's eldest brother, Richard, who became minister of Maryton, was travelling tutor to Erskine, and the two studied together at Wittenberg under Melanchthon. The Melvilles were intimate with Wishart; and Baldovy and Dun House were the resorts of other leading spirits among the Reformers. In 1556 Knox was Erskine's guest when he was preaching in the district, and his personal influence intensified the attachment of the Melvilles to the cause to which they were already committed.

Melville's scholarly bent showed itself early. 'He was a sicklie, tender boy, and tuk pleasure in nathing sa meikle as his buik.' He began his education in the Grammar School of Montrose, which had great repute, and on leaving it he attended for two years the school in the same town, founded by Erskine of Dun, for the teaching of Greek. It was in the latter school that he learned the rudiments of Greek, in which he had afterwards few equals anywhere, and none in Scotland. In 1559 Melville entered the University of St. Andrews and joined St. Mary's College. Aristotle's Works were the only text-books used; and Melville was the only one in the University, whether student or professor, who could read them in the original. He was a favourite of the Provost of his College, John Douglas, who invited him often to his house and encouraged him in his studies, and discerned in him the promise of distinction as a scholar. 'He wad tak the boy betwix his legges at the fire in winter, and blessing him say--"My sillie fatherless and motherless chyld, it's ill to wit what God may mak of thee yet!"' Melville finished his curriculum at St. Andrews in 1564, and left with the reputation of being 'the best philosopher, poet, and Grecian of any young maister in the land.'

It was common at that time for Scottish students on leaving their own Universities to seek, at the Continental seats of learning, a more abundant education than their own country could afford. We shall see that when Melville came to be at the head in succession of our two principal Universities, he considerably modified this custom. He conformed to it, however, in his own case, and the same year in which he closed his course at St. Andrews left Scotland to prosecute his studies abroad. The next decade was his Wander-jahre. He went first of all to Paris, whose University was the most renowned in Europe. There was a truce at the time between the Catholics and the Reformers in France; a large measure of toleration was allowed by the Government, and the principal Professors were Protestants. In Paris, Melville sat at the feet of some of the most distinguished scholars of the day: he read diligently in Greek literature; acquired a knowledge of Hebrew; and at the same time studied Philosophy under Petrus Ramus, the great opponent of Aristotelianism, becoming a follower of this daring innovator, whose system he afterwards introduced in the Scottish Universities.

On the siege being raised, Melville left Poitiers for Geneva, footing it all the way in the company of a few fellow-students. If he was sickly as a child, he gathered vigour in his 'teens and grew up a manly youth. He was of short stature and great agility, high-spirited, brave, the cheeriest of companions, full of resource in emergencies, and with an artful humour by which he made his escape from many a difficult situation incident to Continental travel at the time. On the journeys from town to town on the way to Geneva he held out better than any of his comrades, stepping along with no impedimenta but his Hebrew Bible which he had slung at his side--the same Bible which he afterwards 'clanked' down on the board before the King and Council in Edinburgh,--the freshest of the company when the day's journey was ended, so that he 'wad out and sight' the towns and villages whithersoever they came while the others lay down 'lyk tired tykes.' On reaching Geneva he and one of his fellow-travellers, who was a Frenchman, presented themselves at the gates together, when they were challenged by the guard. 'The ports of Genev wer tentilie keipit, because of the troubles of France and multitud of strangers that cam. Being thairfor inquyrit what they war, the Franche man his companion answerit, "We ar puir scollars." But Mr. Andro, perceaving that they haid na will of puir folks, being alreadie owerlaid thairwith, said, "No, no, we ar nocht puir! . We haiff alsmikle as will pey for all we tak, sa lang as we tarie. We haiff letters from his acquentance to Monsieur di Beza; let us deliver those, we crave na fordar."'

In Geneva Melville received a warm welcome from Beza, who reigned there in place of Calvin, and through his influence he at once obtained an appointment to the chair of Humanity in the College. During his residence in that city, which lasted for five years, he had the opportunity of mingling with many of the first scholars of the age, and of the leaders of the Reformed movement in Europe. After the massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572, Geneva was filled with Protestant refugees from every Continental country. Never probably before or since has there been found within one city such an assemblage of masters of intellect and learning, or such a cloud of distinguished witnesses for truth and liberty. In Geneva, Melville, like Knox, received much of his invigoration for the work that awaited him on his return to his native land.

His residence there was made still more agreeable by the hospitality of a relative, Henry Scrymgeour, brother of his foster-mother. Scrymgeour had left Scotland in early life to study law on the Continent, and after acting as tutor and secretary to several noble families in France and Italy, he had come to Geneva, and been appointed to the chair of Civil Law in the College. He had 'atteined to grait ritches, conquesit a prettie room within a lig to Geneva, and biggit thairon a trim house called "The Vilet."' In 'the vilet,' where Scrymgeour and his wife and daughter composed the household, Melville was always a welcome guest.

During Melville's ten years' absence on the Continent he had little correspondence with his friends at home, and towards the end, as they had heard nothing of him since he had left Poitiers, they began to fear that he had perished like so many others in the civil wars in France. A countryman, however, who had come to Geneva to see Henry Scrymgeour in order to invite him in the name of well-known friends of learning in Scotland to become a teacher in one of the Universities, brought back news of Melville's welfare and reputation, when his relations immediately wrote and urged him to return to his own country, and bestow his services as a scholar in raising the low-fallen repute of Scottish education. With great regret, and bearing with him a letter of commendation from Beza, in which this distinguished friend used these words--'the graittest token of affection the Kirk of Genev could schaw to Scotland is that they had suffered thamselves to be spuiled of Mr. Andro Melville, wherby the Kirk of Scotland might be inritched'--he left the city where, like Knox before him, he spent his happiest days. He arrived in Edinburgh in the beginning of July 1574.

SERVICES TO SCOTTISH EDUCATION--PRINCIPALSHIP OF GLASGOW AND ST. ANDREWS

'He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one; ... Ever witness for him Those twins of learning that he raised in you.'

It was in the interests of education, and for the purpose of reviving Scottish learning, that Melville had been induced to come back to his native land, and it will be convenient to devote a chapter to this subject before we consider the graver, more crucial interests in which he was destined to take a decisive part. He had not been many days in the country when Regent Morton offered him an appointment as Court Chaplain, with the ulterior view of attaching him to his patron's ecclesiastical policy. Whether having this suspicion or no, Melville declined the post. He had returned to Scotland for educational work, and he determined to wait for an opening in one of the Universities. Meanwhile he wished a little repose with the friends from whom he had been so long separated; and he went to Baldovy, where he was received with much affection. It was at this time that the attachment between him and his nephew was formed and consecrated by a kind of sacramental act on the part of the father of the latter--'I was resigned ower be my father hailelie into him to veak upon him as his sone and servant, and, as my father said to him, to be a pladge of his love. And surlie his service was easie, nocht to me onlie, bot even to the fremdest man that ever served him.'

Melville needed a stout heart for the task that lay before him in Glasgow. The University, which had never been prosperous, being always starved in its revenues and undermanned, had declined so far that its gates had to be closed for lack of students; so that when he entered on the Principalship he actually constituted the whole Senatus in his own person. He began by training a number of young men as regents, the course of study embracing classics, mathematics, and mental and moral philosophy, in each of which he carried his class as far as the highest standards of any University in Europe; and in addition to these labours he taught all the theological classes. When the regents were qualified he specialised their subjects--a great reform on the old system, under which the students passed through the entire curriculum under the same teacher.

In 1580 Melville was translated to the Principalship of St. Mary's College, St. Andrews. Mainly through his own exertions a new constitution for the University had just been framed and sanctioned by Parliament, in accordance with which that College was to be henceforth set apart for theological education. The reforms made at this time in St. Andrews went on the same lines as those effected in Glasgow.

Before Melville's time the study of Greek never went beyond the rudiments: Hebrew and other Oriental languages were not taught at all; and in philosophy Aristotle held exclusive possession of the ground. His reforms applied particularly to these branches of learning: Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac were taught according to the best methods of the age; and the Platonic Philosophy was introduced. M'Crie, who always speaks with authority on such a subject, describes the reformed curriculum as the most liberal and enlightened plan of study in any University, whether at home or abroad.

Melville continued in the Principalship of St. Mary's for upwards of a quarter of a century--from the close of 1580 to 1606, when he was summoned by the King to London, never to return to his native land.

In St. Andrews and Glasgow he had not only teaching duties, he presided over the government of the University as well; and the same resolute respect for law, which set him so stoutly against the King's tyranny in the realm, made him a determined upholder of order in the University. He was at once a fearless subject and a born ruler of men. When he entered on his office in St. Andrews, some of the professors, chafed by the reforms which he introduced, became insubordinate, but soon succumbed to his authority; and more than once in Glasgow he quelled riots among the students at the risk of his life. On one occasion, when his friends urged him to condone an offence of a student of noble family from fear of revenge, he answered, 'Giff they wald haiff forgiffness let them crave it humblie and they sall haiff it; but or that preparative pass, that we dar nocht correct our scholars for fear of bangstars and clanned gentlemen, they sall haiff all the blud of my body first.'

In St. Andrews he was for some time Rector of the University as well as Principal of St. Mary's, and in his exercise of civil authority in that capacity he did more for public order than all the magistrates of the burgh. At one time the inhabitants were greatly plagued by a bad neighbour, the Laird of Dairsie, who had once been Provost, and who resented his ejection from that office. On more than one occasion associates of his, Balfour of Burley and others, had entered the city during the night and committed gross outrages. One day the report reached St. Andrews that Dairsie and his friends were approaching in force to make an assault on the citizens. The magistrates were panic-stricken; but on the report reaching the Rector's ears, he immediately summoned the whole University together and organised a party of resistance, placed himself at its head, bearing in his hand a white spear , and by his prompt action made the invaders glad to decamp.

During Melville's rectorship quarrels sometimes occurred between town and gown, and in these he always showed himself jealous in regard to the rights of the University. He had once a serious rupture with the magistrates, on account of their unjust administration and their rejection of eminent ministers whom he had commended for charges in the city. Preaching in his own pulpit in the College of St. Mary's, he spoke with such vehemence of their misdoings that he raised the town against him. Forthwith placards were affixed to the College gates threatening the Rector with dire revenge. Nothing daunted, Melville continued to fulminate against the authorities--'with ane heroicall spreit, the mair they stirit and bostit the mair he strak with that twa-eagit sword, sa that a day he movit the Provest, with sear rubbing of the ga of his conscience, to ryse out of his seatt in the middes of the sermont, and with some muttering of words to goe to the dure, out-throw the middes of the peiple.' Melville, instead of giving way to the irate magistrate, had him brought before the Presbytery, when he expressed his regret for disturbing the public worship, and craved forgiveness; and so peace was restored.

Such were Melville's services to education and learning. Through all the stormy controversies into which he was plunged he never forsook his first love, but continued his work in our Universities up to the close of his career in Scotland.

THE 'DINGING DOWN' OF THE BISHOPS--MELVILLE AND MORTON

'Who never looks on man Fearful and wan, But firmly trusts in God.'

HENRY VAUGHAN.

We must go back to the year of Melville's return home, 1574, in order that we may review the supreme labours of his life. It was a time of confusion: Knox was dead, and the Church needed a leader to shape its discipline and policy in order to conserve the fruits of the Reformer's work. Two years before Melville's return, viz. in 1572, the electroplate Episcopacy--the Tulchan Bishops--had been imposed on the Church by the Regent Morton. Up to this time the constitution of the Church had been purely Presbyterian. There was no office superior to that of the minister of a congregation. The Superintendents were only ministers, or elders appointed provisionally by the General Assembly, to whom such presbyterial functions were delegated as the exigencies of the Church required. They had no pretensions to the rank or functions of the Anglican bishops; they had no peculiar ordination, and no authority save such as they held at the pleasure of the Assembly.

Side by side, however, with the Presbyterian ministry there still existed the old Roman Hierarchy, who had been allowed to retain their titles, the greater part of their revenues, and their seats in Parliament. The prelates had no place within the Church, their status being only civil and legal; and when any of them joined the Church they entered it on the same footing as the common ministry.

This was far from being a satisfactory or safe state of things. It had elements, indeed, which obviously threatened the integrity of the Presbyterian order; and it is little wonder that the Church was impatient of its continuance and eager to end it, to clear the Roman Hierarchy off the ground, and secure for its own economy a chance of developing itself without the entanglements that were inevitable to the existing compromise.

Morton, who was the chief supporter of the scheme, was notoriously avaricious--'wounderfully giffen to gather gear.' He hoped to enrich himself by it, and succeeded in doing so; but he had other motives. He wished--and this was always the main Governmental reason for the preference of Episcopacy--to keep the clergy under his control; and he sought also to please Elizabeth, on whom he was dependent for the stability of his own position, by bringing the Scottish Church into some degree of conformity with the Anglican.

The Assembly, while accepting the compromise had done what it could to safeguard its own constitution by putting it on record that it had assented to the continuance of the bishops only in their civil capacity, and in order to give a legal claim on the benefices to those who held them, and that it allowed the bishops no superiority within the Church over the ordinary ministers, or, at any rate, over the superintendents.

There is no doubt that it was only the hope, on the part of the Church, that she would secure a portion at least of her patrimony by it that reconciled her to this scheme. The ministers had little heart in the business, and the best of them did not conceal their dislike of the arrangement and their fear of the evils to which it would lead. It is easier to blame the Church for what she did than to say what she ought to have done. It would have been a more heroic, and probably a safer course, to refuse the compromise and at once to bring on the struggle with the Government which she had to face in the end. If Melville had been on the ground at the time, there is little doubt that one man at least would have had both the wisdom to recommend that course and the courage to pursue it.

The Tulchan system had only been in operation for two years when he came back from the Continent; but that was long enough to realise the Church's fears and to make her restive. The ministers who accepted the bishoprics became troublers of the Church, took advantage of their titular superiority over their brethren to push for a position of greater authority, and were more and more evidently the pliant tools of the Court. The Church, moreover, gained nothing in the way of a better provision for the ministry--the nobles seized the benefices and kept them.

On encountering the growing dissatisfaction of the ministers with his project, the Regent threatened the freedom of the Assembly, and put forward a claim on behalf of the Crown to supreme authority within the Church. There lay the crux of the situation, the great central issue in the controversy that was being thrust upon the Scottish people, that was to rend the nation for many a day, and that is not yet finally settled--Was the Church to be free to shape her own course and do her work in her own fashion, or was she to be subject to the civil government? Was the Church to be essentially the Church of Christ in Scotland, or was she to be the religious department, so to speak, of the Civil Service?

The first Assembly in which Melville sat met in Edinburgh in March 1575. Parliament had just appointed a committee to frame a more satisfactory polity for the Church, and the Assembly nominated some of its members as assessors to confer with it and report the proposals that might be made. At the same time it appointed a committee of its own, composed of its most competent and trusted men, to draft a constitution for its approval. This committee was reappointed from year to year; the result of its labours being the 'Second Book of Discipline,' which was laid before the Assembly and adopted by it at its meeting in the Magdalene Chapel, Edinburgh, in April 1578.

It was in the next Assembly, held in August of the same year, that the first blow was struck at the Tulchan Episcopate. This was done by a resolution brought forward by John Durie, one of the ministers of Edinburgh; but there is little doubt that it originated with Melville, who, although he had been home scarcely a year, had taken his place as the leader of his brethren, and by his teaching and personal influence had 'wakened up their spreits' to oppose the designs of the Court against the constitution of the Church. Durie's resolution raised the question of the scripturalness and lawfulness of the office of a bishop. In supporting it Melville made a powerful speech, in which he urged the abolition of the bishoprics and the restoration of the original Presbyterian order of the Church as the only satisfactory settlement of her affairs. The House resolved there and then to appoint an advisory committee to consider and report on the question, which committee reported against the office. No further step was taken at this time, the bishops being left as they were. At the next Assembly, however, held in April 1576, the committee's finding was adopted, and so far applied that all bishops who held their office 'at large' were required to allocate themselves to particular congregations.

The Assembly's decision was practically unanimous; its members were at one in wishing an end to the Tulchan scheme, and the people were of the same mind as the ministers. Against the ministers and people stood the Regent, the nobility, and all the clergy whose interests were threatened. Morton would fain have arrested the Assembly's action, but dared not; he could not afford at the time to drive the ministers into opposition, a powerful party of the nobles being hostile to his regency, and the combination would have shattered his government. His policy, therefore, was to manage the ministers for the accomplishment of his ends, and to attach as many of them as possible, and especially as many of the leaders as possible, to the Court. From the moment when he first met Melville he had the sagacity to perceive that this was the strongest man he would have to deal with: he accordingly did his utmost to secure Melville's support for the Government scheme. He offered him, as we have said, a Court Chaplaincy, and he would have made him Archbishop of St. Andrews on the death of Douglas. When he found him incorruptible by his favours, he tried to intimidate him. Calling him one day into his presence, he broke out in violent denunciation of those ministers who were disturbing the peace of the realm by their 'owersie' dreams and setting up of the Genevan discipline; and on Melville turning the attack against himself and his government Morton flew into a rage--'Ther will never be quyetnes in this countrey till halff ? dissone of yow be hangit or banished the countrey!' 'Tushe! sir,' retorted Melville, 'threaten your courtiers in that fashion. It is the same to me whether I rot in the air or in the ground. The earth is the Lord's: my fatherland is wherever well-doing is. I haiff bein ready to giff my lyff whar it was nocht halff sa weill wared, at the pleasour of my God. I leived out of your countrey ten yeirs as weill as in it. Yet God be glorified, it will nocht ly in your power to hang nor exyll His treuthe!' Sometimes, as here, words show a valour as great as doughtiest deeds of battle: they give the man who has uttered them a place for ever in the book of honour; they pass into the storehouse of our most cherished legends; and as often as crises occur in our history which make a severe demand upon our virtue, they are recalled to stir the moral pulse of the nation and brace it to its duty. No man in Scottish history has left his country a richer legacy of this kind than Melville.

Having failed with Melville, Morton found a ready tool to his hand in another minister of the Church, Patrick Adamson of Paisley. He was a man of some learning and eloquence and of great personal ambition, bent on climbing to a high place in the Church, and unscrupulous in his choice of means. At first he was a pronounced opponent of the new Church scheme, and often denounced it from the pulpit. His clever satire on the Tulchan bishops has never been forgotten--'There are three sorts of bishops: my Lord Bishop--he is in the Roman Church; my Lord's Bishop , who while my Lord gets the benefice, serves for nothing but to make his title good; and the Lord's Bishop, who is the true minister of the Gospel.'

For some time Adamson cultivated an intimacy with Melville, who, however, never trusted him. Melville, ever shrewd in discerning character--'he had a wounderfull sagacitie in smelling out of men's naturalls and dispositions'--early saw that Adamson would prove a better servant of the Court than of the Church.

When the Assembly met in the autumn of 1576 it was reported that Adamson had been presented by Morton to the See of St. Andrews, and the question was put to him in open court whether he meant to accept it, when he declared he was in the hands of his brethren, and would act in the matter as they desired. The Assembly vetoed the appointment. Adamson, however, in violation alike of the Assembly's Act and of his own promise, entered on the See. The contempt his conduct awakened was universal, and was freely expressed even within the Regent's Court. One of the officers of the household, who had frequently heard Adamson come over the phrase, 'The prophet would mean this,' in his expositions of Scripture, remarked, on hearing that he had assumed the bishopric, 'For als aft as it was repeated by Mr. Patrick, "the prophet would mean this," I understood never what the profit means until now.' But to Adamson, who 'had his reward,' the titular primacy of Scotland was of more consequence than the respect of his countrymen: he retained his place in defiance of the Church, and was for many a day a troubler of its peace.

At the Assembly held in April 1578 a second blow was struck at the bishops: it was enacted that they should cease to be styled by lordly names, and that no more bishops should be elected. Two years later, at the Dundee Assembly of 1580, the Church took the final step against the Tulchan system by abolishing the Episcopate and requiring all bishops to demit their office and give in their submission to the provincial synods. The resolutions of the Assembly were carried without a single dissenting voice, and within a year the bishops with only five exceptions had surrendered their sees.

During the six years Melville had been the leader of the Assembly great results had been reached. The Church had gradually withdrawn from the Tulchan compromise, and had at the same time elaborated a constitution for itself on the basis of pure Presbytery. Mention has already been made of the adoption of this constitution--the Second Book of Discipline--in 1578. It is not necessary to describe it, as it is seen in its living embodiment in all the Presbyterian churches of Scotland to-day; though there is one important part of it which was never carried out, namely, the allocation of the patrimony of the Church to the purposes of religion, education, the maintenance of the poor, and the undertaking of public works for the common good. It enunciates the principle of the two jurisdictions--'the two swords'--which has played so important a part in Scottish history, and it protects the rights of the people in the election of their ministers. One significant difference between the Second Book of Discipline and the First may be mentioned--the abolition of the office of Superintendent. This office had been used as a handle by those who wished to introduce an order in the Church above the ministry; it thus lent itself as an inlet to Episcopacy, and so it was resolved to put an end to it.

The unanimity of the Assembly in the adoption of the 'Discipline,' and in all the steps towards the deposition of the bishops, was remarkable. The House never once divided. In all its counsels and labours Melville had the principal share, and it was mainly by his learning, by his energy, by his mastery in debate, by his unyielding attitude to the Court, that they issued as they did in the re-establishment of the Church on its original Presbyterian and popular basis.

James Melville has left us some charming pictures of the Assemblies of that period and of the private intercourse of its members. 'It was a maist pleasand and comfortable thing to be present at these Assemblies, thair was sic frequencie and reverence; with halines in zeall at the doctrine quhilk soundit mightelie, and the Sessiones at everie meiting, whar, efter ernest prayer, maters war gravlie and cleirlie proponit; overtures maid be the wysest; douttes reasonit and discussit be the lernedest and maist quik; and, finalie, all withe a voice concluding upon maters resolved and cleirit, and referring things intricat and uncleired to farder advysment.'

In the inmost circle of Melville's friends were such men as Arbuthnot, Principal of Aberdeen, and Smeton, his own successor as Principal of Glasgow--both, like himself, eminent in learning; David Ferguson, minister of Dunfermline, the patriarch of the Assembly, and one of the six original members of the Reformed Church; and the four ministers of Edinburgh--all notable men--John Durie, James Lawson, James Balfour, and Walter Balcanquhal. At Assembly times he and his nephew met these brethren daily, for the most part, at John Durie's table. The group contained the very flower and chivalry of the Church. At their meals they discussed the incidents of the day's sittings, and their conversation was enlivened with many a pleasantry--it was always Melville's 'form' at table to 'interlase' discourse on serious subjects with 'merry interludes.' When the company rose from table they held lengthened devotional exercises: in the reading of Scripture each in his turn made his observations on the passage; and we can well believe the estimate of some of those who were present, that had everything been taken down they could not have wished a fuller and better commentary than fell at these times from this company of ripe and ready interpreters of the Word. When the exercises were over, the brethren entered into deliberation on the causes to be brought before the Assembly, and came to an understanding as to the course they would pursue in dealing with them. Those who would come to the secret of the noble part so often played by the ministers of the Scottish Church in crucial periods of its history, will fail to find it where they leave out of account the inward correspondence which these men, by such fellowship, sought to maintain with one another and with the Master of Assemblies.

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