arch of
this 'fatall' year, we should have witnessed a scene which might have
been taken as an augury of good to the Church, rather than of evil. It
was a day set apart for humiliation and the renewal of the Covenant, and
no day had been seen like it, since the Reformation, in the spiritual
fervour which was evoked. The exhortations of the preacher drew forth
such sighs and sobs and weeping, that the House was turned into a
Bochim; and when those present were asked to signify their entrance into
a new covenant with God, the congregation rose _en masse_ and held up
their hands. Similar scenes took place in the Synods and Presbyteries to
which the movement extended. 'I am certaine,' says James Melville, 'by
the experience found in my selff and maney others present in these
meittinges, that the Assemblies of the saintes in Scotland wes nevir
more beautiful and gloriouse by the manifold and mightie graces of the
presence of the Holy Spirit.'

This devotional diet of the Assembly was held as the prelude to a work
of reformation in religion and morals on which the Church had set its
heart, and which, beginning with the ministry, was to be sought also in
the Parliament, in the Court, in the seats of justice, in every
household, in all ranks and classes, from the King to the meanest of his
subjects, to those who were in the highways and hedges, to the 'pypers,
fidlers, songsters, sorners, peasants, and beggars.' It was an
exhaustive programme; and the ministers gave undeniable proofs of their
sincerity by setting themselves to put their own house in order, and
drawing up ordinances for sifting their own ranks and 'rypping' out
their own ways. The scheme, as it applied to others, was too much of the
nature of a magisterial inquisition for sin to do credit to its
promoters' wisdom, if the ends they sought did honour to their hearts.
No doubt, the condition of the country was such as to distress every
good citizen and to make any remedy welcome. There was clamant need for
reform in every department of the State. The administration of justice
was, by its corruption and its ineffectiveness in the punishment of
crime, a disgrace to the country. These were matters of public scandal,
calling clearly for public agitation and reform; but in matters of
private and domestic life the ministers should have been content with
exhortation and example as their means of reformation. A moral police
proved then as intolerable and ineffectual as it